Prior to the speech, he copied the Converter he had seen at the competition. Indeed, one of the [Crafter] skills, [Craft], could copy any existing item; if given the correct materials, of course. Therefore, Astor opted for a bigger Converter. But it didn't stop here. He also needed to make sure the mana expelled by the product wouldn’t infect the surroundings. And that’s when he thought about the red spice.
A simple conjecture came upon his mind: the spice possibly had the ability to copy his cloak’s effect. Therefore, he thought about duplicating its effect on the item, to reduce the mana by one every time it went through. He tested it out, and it surprisingly worked as he thought: sprinkle it on the cloak then on the needed item.
The Converter, shaped like a tube, was then completed: an item made to transform anything into near-nothingness.
After the demonstration, Leander explained the plan, “We will act as small groups, approaching the black hole with precaution.”
And without further ado, the troops got into motion.
At the edge of the street inhabiting the black hole, were enclosures. It delimited the possible area of damage by taking in account some calculations. The black hole’s area of effect was expanding at the rate of one meter per hour. However, after recalculations, it turned out the expansion was exponential rather than linear. At this rate, the Helper was right, the whole world could possibly get engulfed altogether.
The black hole nested in the middle of it all, obviously. Ground, air, light, dust, everything had warped into it, and it was ever-expanding.
To approach it was delicate, until now only one person had come back intact from its proximity: Hyakinth. He did his duty as an [Appraiser] and appraised it. Nothing of value was gotten out of it. For it did the impossible: it absorbed a blue screen.
Hyakinth had kept the secret, only revealing it to a few; Astor included.
No skills will save them.
The troops were in place, forming four lines around the circle of doom. Astor, Bel and Cayn were on the bench, sitting above buildings where they could observe and perhaps intervene.
Attached all together, the troops advanced. Leading them were four brave [Guards], each at the front of each line. The four held Converters, made by Astor and his party.
Slow. Steady. One step after another. Fighting against gravity itself, going above and beyond the destroyed ground. The first contact happened.
Converters activated and vacuumed loudly. Astor could hear the noise from afar.
It sucked the black hole’s emanating light. And mana started going out of the Converter’s opposite end, right outside of the black hole’s area of effect. Way too much mana.
“Is the spice not working?” Astor asked his friends.
Cayn answered, “I don't know, we did everything correctly, didn’t we?”
“Relax boys,” Bel said, sipping a milkshake. Where did she get that? “The black thing has too much mana, that’s all.”
How was that possible? Didn’t the Helper say that the Gravity Warper was manaless? She refused to share information, even after many interrogations.
Astor pondered. The goal here was to absorb the item whole, and it did work with the Gravity Warper prototype. They tested it and it worked normally.
Wait.
Isn’t the Converter similar to the Gravity Warper? Both absorbed, except one expelled the mana and the other retained it. Weren’t they the same thing? But what would happen if the Converter got overcharged and couldn’t expel the mana anymore?
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Oh no.
Astor spoke to his friends, “I messed up—”
Screams came from the troops as they tried to run away from— from… another black hole.
One. Two. Three. Only three troops’ lines were left, as the fourth had vanished into the second black hole.
“Astor!!” Bel yelled, dropping her milkshake. “What do we do?!”
He stared at the double catastrophe. Panic? Fear? Sadness? He couldn’t put words to his feelings and was distressed again.
What happens when two black holes collide? Nothing good, surely.
Then he saw Cayn jumping down, Someone from the fourth line had survived and struggled to get away from its suction.
Astor had to do something too. Quick, think about a solution.
Two items. Same interactions. One was a ball, the other a tube. What’s the difference? Mana. But why?
Astor crouched and held his head. He pondered. Again and again. He stared at the black holes, slowly approaching each other.
Then he noticed a difference. The new black hole was truly black, just like when he saw the phenomenon for the first time. But the new one emanated a How did the item control the black hole in the first place?
Sage, the inventor, activated it and deactivated it at will. And from what they know, her class was [Mage]. The black hole produced light, like the [Corpuscle] skill would.
So what if the item created the black hole and she just used [Corpuscle] to deactivate it?
Astor had to try. There was no guarantee, but there was no time to lose. He jumped down and rejoined Cayn, who was still rescuing the man.
“Astor!” he said. “Grab the man for me.”
Cayn threw the man at him, with unexpected vigor. Astor caught him and asked Bel to replace him. And she did so.
Cayn was resisting against gravity, anchoring himself with [Protection]. Astor glued himself to the ground with mud magic, he then caught Cayn with hands made out of earth.
“I have to go, please attach a chain to me,” Astor told Cayn right after helping him.
He needed to stop both black holes to collide. Running to the black hole, he couldn't hear what Cayn said afterward, but the chain was there, solid and ready to pull him out.
Astor was near the first black hole, the other being further away, in the median of the first black hole’s diameter. He used [Corpuscle]: spawning one speck of light outside it at first.
It got sucked in.
Another speck of light, where the emanated light was. It just added to the circle of light. He had to get closer. The Helper always had the item at a certain distance, from what he recalled. He needed to be as close.
Slowly, he approached the black hole. He put his whole faith into Cayn to save him, in case things fail. Something he’d never do before the Journey started.
The circle of light was hot. Heat even more unbearable than the blue firestorm.
“Yo,” Bel said, behind him, also attached to the chain.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to catch my milkshake, but it got sucked into the thing, and then I saw your cloak get caught on fire; I’m here to support you!”
Cayn had to deal with persons in imminent danger of perma-death, what could go wrong?
Bel healed Astor’s burning skin, sparing him the need of drinking
He used [Corpuscle] again, this time, directly on the black hole, at the edge of it. And as he did so, he could see the light emanating even more. Better, the black hole was It worked!
Paying no mind, he continued until he ran out of mana,
The shrinking was infinitesimal, if it wasn't for Astor’s perfect memory, they’d probably not notice the difference.
“Hey Blue-eyes,” Bel said.
“Yes?”
“I’m not floating anymore.”
Astor neither. The gravity had weakened enough. He looked behind and Cayn wasn’t struggling either. The black hole’s area of effect was but the shell of its former self. A blue screen appeared.
World boss vanquished: 4/9.
Of course.
“Blue-eyes,” Bel said.
“Yes?”
“Is it weird if I say it’s kinda anticlimactic?”
“What did you expect?”
“A big boom…?”
“You want us to explode?”
“No, not , just an impressive finale.”
“I like it when it’s calm,” Astor replied.
“Wanna grab a milkshake?”
“Sure.”
***
A week passed, and with Astor’s effort, the two black holes were inert enough to become a source of research.
The competition had been won by the Converter’s inventor, good for him. Astor got his due share of the prize; he did improve on its main flaw after all.
The Helpers, them, were jailed for their crimes. Sage refused to share any information, while her co-workers spilled everything they knew. The Gravity Warper was indeed a black hole maker. And the shutdown was also the [Corpuscle] skill, Astor had guessed right, but it was mainly thanks to Leander for destabilizing the Helpers with his speech.
Inventors gathered around Astor, now nicknamed Blueys. They’d talk about the phenomenon and learn from each other. And before he knew it, Astor had become a researcher himself. Containment plans were created by them to stop the black hole from expanding further. And more importantly, they were looking for a way to bring back the individuals who got portaled away.
During that time, Astor grew suspicious about the System’s quest and everything that happened so far. He wanted to get to the thick of it all. But before that, he told his friend about his past.
They understood.
And their bond grew stronger.
Astor
Class: [Mage]
Level: 50
Skills mastered: 9
Title:
Mana: 100/100
Skill sets:
[Class switch] skills.
[Mage] skills.