Chapter 605: Black Rock

The angel lady stared at the black ore for several seconds before finally answering.

"That is the Fog of Chaos, or rather, the only form of it that can be considered truly stable. What you are holding is an extreme concentration of the Fog compressed until it has taken on a permanent solid state."

Grey’s brows rose as he turned the fist-sized chunk over in his hand, suddenly understanding why even his Resonant Sense seemed to slide around the thing. The Fog of Chaos already had an irritating habit of fucking with practically everything it touched, and apparently enough of it squeezed together became a rock the Genesis System itself refused to explain. Somehow, that made perfect sense by Genesis Games standards.

"There is another reason you were rewarded with it," the angel lady continued. "Much like a Dominus Class weapon becomes practically indispensable for certain paths through the First Arc, this material is one of the very few things capable of carrying you through the end of the Third Arc. For the paths you have begun considering, it may become outright necessary."

Grey blinked, then started laughing.

"What the fuck was all that Kronos shit for, then? You spent ten minutes acting like I needed to fistfight the father of the Titans, and meanwhile the game handed me the cheat codes. I didn’t even have to do anything that crazy. Just eighth place was enough."

The angel lady sounded genuinely aggrieved when she answered. "Possessing it and being capable of using it are entirely different matters, Grey. If you attempt to forge that material without violet Cyber Cores, you will achieve nothing except destroying it, and even with the proper Cores, the Chaos will begin destabilizing the moment you alter its structure."

Grey’s smile weakened slightly as she explained that even the greatest mech technicians would lose almost the entire piece throughout the crafting process.

By the time a technician finished breaking it down, stabilizing the escaping Chaos, reforming its Faces, and correcting the inevitable failures, something the size of Grey’s fist might become no more than a sliver. Then they would still need a blueprint worthy of using something so valuable, otherwise they had just spent a cosmic fortune making an exceptionally expensive piece of shit.

Grey’s lips pursed. "I’ve heard of blue Cyber Cores, those are what I need once I start messing around seriously with Command Class and higher. What the hell is violet?"

"Violet Cyber Cores and violet credits begin seeing regular use around the Sovereign and Apex Classes."

Grey’s lip twitched.

The angel lady had gone through an entire explanation of Ascendant and Paragon earlier without mentioning either of those names. If Paragon was already the point where someone’s existence naturally altered reality and qualified as the beginning of true Godhood, then Sovereign and Apex were apparently sitting somewhere beyond even that. Grey wasn’t sure whether that meant stronger Gods, something beyond Gods, or another category of bullshit she would refuse to explain until he threatened her with a toilet again.

"Fantastic," Grey said with a chuckle. "How expensive?"

The angel lady cleared her through and the answer made things worse.

Blue credits were already valued at roughly a thousand normal credits each, even though practically nobody bothered converting them directly. Violet credits were on another level entirely, with a single one colloquially valued at around one hundred thousand blue credits, assuming anyone stupid enough to make that trade could actually find someone willing to accept it.

Grey did the math.

One violet credit was worth roughly one hundred million normal credits.

"This game has a really impressive way of making me feel poor."

Grey tossed the black ore upward and caught it again, then began spinning it across one finger while his thoughts wandered. The obvious path involved eventually reaching whatever ridiculous economic sphere used violet credits, finding violet Cyber Cores, developing a blueprint that wouldn’t waste the material, then becoming skilled enough to forge it without watching ninety-nine percent of his reward evaporate into the air.

That sounded like a lot of work. Grey didn’t like work.

His gaze suddenly flashed.

He held up his opposite index finger and a tiny red-gold flame appeared over the tip, bobbing happily while Grey stared between it and the black ore.

"I bet you could refine this thing early, huh?"

Prometheus changed shape. The tiny flame stretched until something resembling a wild, toothy grin appeared within it.

Grey’s own grin slowly matched.

"Hehehehe..."

Prometheus began crackling, and somehow the pops coming from the little flame sounded suspiciously like laughter.

The angel lady felt a headache coming.

If Prometheus Phase IV truly restored the ability to steal and manipulate things that should belong exclusively to Gods, Grey had a feeling it might let him skip half the bullshit involved in using this material.

More importantly, if he could forge a weapon containing concentrated Chaos, suddenly finding some tiny fragment of Kronos protecting the inheritance he needed didn’t sound nearly as impossible.

He didn’t need to kill Kronos. He just needed enough power to fuck up whatever sliver was standing between him and his prize.

"I’ve got this."

Grey put the ore away, raised both hands, then slammed them down onto the steel-topped worktable hard enough that the entire floor shook. He wasn’t going to begin with Prometheus’ Vessel after all, even though Prometheus technically only needed a Command Class Vessel while his second quest requirement demanded a Dominus Class mech.

That comparison was misleading as hell.

Grey already knew what the Mechanical Jaw Spirit wanted, while figuring out a true Vessel for Prometheus meant designing something nobody had ever taught him how to make.

In all likelihood, creating that Command Class Vessel would be a million times harder than following a perfected lineage blueprint all the way into the Dominus Class.

So he would start with the easy one.

Grey sank into his Cyber Space and summoned the blueprints he had copied from the Tome of the Mechanical Jaw Lineage before leaving it with the gnomes. Pages rushed past him one after another, first the jaws he had already studied, then the higher-Class designs he had never possessed enough skill, materials, or time to seriously consider.

Command Class blueprints passed.

Then he reached Dominus and Grey slowed down.

There were several choices, each taking the Mechanical Jaw Lineage in a slightly different direction, but one design made him stop almost immediately. He studied its structure for several moments, his grin returning as he imagined what the Mechanical Jaw Spirit could become once it finally had a Vessel truly worthy of it.

Grey pressed his hand onto the blueprint.

"It’ll be you, then."