Quest Academy: Scavengers, page 54
All the twigs and branches had been fused into uniformly cut stacks of wood. The blackened trees had kept their ominous hue and the addition of essence had given them an almost reflective quality. In their basic state, they had been a Common material, but with the infused essence, it had been enough to bump many of the stacks into the Uncommon grade. The preparation was complete and now all Sal needed to do was start the assembly. That was the reason for the silence during their meal.
Brophy’s hand trembled as he raised the fork to his mouth. Sal felt a massive pang of guilt at seeing the man so close to the dregs because of Erika’s plan. He had operated as a battery for Sal throughout the entire day, and he was clearly close to his limits. Rochelle was physically fine, but her eyes were filled with concern when she looked between Sal and Brophy. Only Ioseph and Erika looked unfazed by the tension around the stove, with the latter eyeing the stacks that dominated their campsite.
“Do you need to wait for Brophy to recover, or do you have enough essence to finish the project?”
Her tone was controlled, and Sal wondered whether he had imagined her smile from the previous day.
Sal shook his head as he glanced at Brophy. “I can get started without him. If I start to struggle, we can use the Transference. That should give him enough time to recuperate. The essence absorption rate here is incredible, so he’ll probably be back to full within an hour or two.”
Brophy grinned as he placed his plate on the ground. “An hour is more than enough. I can’t be the only one who’s excited to see our new accommodations?” He looked around the group, and his easygoing smile managed to alleviate some of the tension.
Rochelle smiled as she took Brophy’s empty plate and stacked it beneath her own.
Ioseph had his arms folded as he stared at the stacks of wood. “It’s hard to believe that all the wood we dragged here only amounted to that. I can’t get my head around how much they’ve shrunk.”
Erika nodded as she followed his gaze. “Are they just more compact?”
Sal shrugged, which caused a few looks of surprise. He raised his hands defensively and smiled. “I just know how to do it; I don’t necessarily understand everything about it yet. Most of this stuff has been learned through trial and error. I’ve only had a handful of Crafting classes with Upgrade and haven’t learned anything about refining from her yet.”
Ioseph frowned. “I know it’s rude to ask, but I can’t figure your ability out at all. Are you an Appraiser, or a Crafter?”
Sal met his gaze and smiled. “Yes.”
Ioseph chuckled and shook his head. “Suit yourself. It’s really impressive, though. I don’t know where we’d have been sleeping without it!”
At those words, Erika got to her feet and stretched her back. “Speaking of which. I’d very much like to sleep tonight in our new fort. We’re not going to get any closer to it by chatting here.” She gestured for Sal to hand over his plate, which he did wordlessly.
It was finally time for him to get started. His essence was fully restored, and he had the blueprint firmly ingrained into his mind. He exhaled slowly as he moved toward the first stack of wood. Mythcrafter prompted him with the placement of each component and Sal was relieved to see that it looked like a giant puzzle.
All he needed to do was stack the pieces of wood in certain positions and his essence would keep them in place. The weight of each piece of timber was putting an unforeseen drain on his essence, but Sal ignored it and continued. He had to enter their tent a few times to place a few of the larger pieces, with most of them creating a lattice-like effect across the sloped ceiling. Sal didn’t question the blueprint as he stacked some of the wood on top of each other, leaving it for the ability to figure out when it came to flooding the thing with essence.
When he added the hundredth piece of wood, Sal was nearing his breaking point. With a wave to Brophy and Rochelle, they got into position and Sal felt his essence being bolstered artificially. It wasn’t like the cores he tethered to in the workshop as it was an already refined essence of another person. If he had to describe it, it wasn’t neutral…but still worked for what he needed it to do.
There were another three stacks to go, and Sal guessed that he was around sixty percent of the way to completion. The tricky part was climbing up onto the tent and having Ioseph hand him the large planks that would act as the basis for the tower. Smaller pieces were able to be thrown up to him, which sped things up considerably.
Sal continued to work for another couple of hours, long after all the pieces had been assembled. With so many parts of the puzzle, he couldn’t afford to take a risk and activate it. He checked each piece to see whether anything had dislodged and was relieved about his decision when he found more than five errors scattered around the tent. One had been a large mistake in the interior that likely would have caused the project to fail. Sal wondered whether it would result in all the components falling or whether they’d just fuse together incorrectly.
Erika stood with her arms crossed as she watched Sal intently. Maybe she had looked into his mind and knew that he was close to the finish line, or maybe she had been watching the entire time. Sal didn’t know which it was as he slid off the roof and admired his handiwork. It didn’t look like much at the moment, but it would transform into something truly great. His blueprint had given him a fair idea of the finished outcome, and Sal was excited to see their reactions. It had been almost two days of refining, and he was ready for it to be finished.
The sloping tent was barely visible with all the planks of wood surrounding it. The tower looked more like a roughshod assortment of small panels and branches, with a series of planks visible at its base. The slate color of the rock enclosure contrasted with the blackish hue of the wood, and to everyone staring at it, it looked terrible. All their work had culminated in a tent surrounded by wood and it wasn’t hard for Sal to read the apprehension on their faces. Only Erika looked confident, but Sal knew she was cheating.
With a deep breath, Sal flooded the structure with his essence and pulled sharply on the tether Rochelle had given him. Brophy’s essence mingled with his Mythcrafter essence and blended into both the tent and the surrounding wood. Sal watched in fascination as the planks started to fuse together.
Each component hungrily drank in the offered essence and glowed vibrantly. It truly was a sight to behold as it took shape. Sal moved into the tent and applied his essence to the lattice on the ceiling. Pillars of glowing wood pierced through the tarp as the tower above started to take shape. Sal needed to stay underneath it as it would be impossible for him to scale the tent in the construction phase.
A few gasps from outside told him that it was starting to take shape, but Sal zoned out those thoughts as his visor picked key areas that needed his attention. Essence needed to be massaged into certain points that hadn’t fused automatically. Planks had to be repositioned and the tent needed to be pulled in different directions to accommodate the change in layout. It was a slow process, but Sal was happy to do it. With every little tweak or change, he saw the improvements it would make to the overall result.
When he finally exited the tent, he was met with a look of pure astonishment from Erika, which made the whole ordeal worth it. Brophy was equally impressed as he moved around to inspect the structure more closely. Rochelle prevented him from getting too far away as she yanked his sleeve back to keep him tethered. Ioseph shook his head in disbelief, and it warmed Sal’s heart to see their reactions to his work.
After some final touches, Sal noticed that the structure was no longer taking any of his essence.
He deactivated his ability and stood back with the group. It was finally time to see the result.
Chapter 75 - Double-Edged
Sal held his breath as the structure came to life. It came with a huge sense of accomplishment, and he could barely believe how it all had all come together. Looking around, he saw the expectant looks mirrored on everyone’s faces.
What had started as a plan to create a separate tower onto the tent had transformed into a fortified keep of sorts. Internal and external wooden frames glowed with the rock enclosure to create something entirely different.
Sal’s visor flickered a few times, drawing his attention to the base of the wooden planks. His eyes widened when he saw roots burrowing into the ground, undoing all his refining work as the materials reverted into their original form. The tower grew larger, with the sloped tent swelling upward to accommodate the new frame. A series of crackling noises signaled that the internal wood was bending into shape, and it wasn’t dissimilar to the noises they heard when Ioseph’s wards caused half their surroundings to explode.
“Is it always like this?” Brophy stepped closer to the wooden planks that were writhing into their new form.
Sal didn’t answer as he watched everything unfold. The glowing lasted quite some time, almost pulling in the atmospheric essence around them before revealing its final form. Their wait finally came to an end when the entire structure flashed, causing all of them to shield their eyes to block the sudden light.
When they opened their eyes, practically all of them gaped at their new lodgings. Sal wasted no time in inspecting it with the Appraisal ability, curious to know what sort of properties it held.
Name Black Oak Tower
Origin Crafted (Reforged)
Age New
Grade Rare (Low)
Dimensions Calculating…
Materials Infused Oak | Infused Rock | Polyester | Aluminum | Refined Warders Essence | Refined Mythcrafter Essence | Refined Soul Forge Essence | Refined Transference Essence | Plastic | Clay
Attributes Harden: Greatly increases defensive capabilities by hardening skin or external surface material.
Amplify: Greatly increases the potency of essence-related abilities.
Rooted: Natural growth occurs, utilizing atmospheric and subterranean essence. Rate of growth is determined by essence supply.
Refined: Increases Crafting Grade based on essence quality.
Abilities Harden | Amplify | Rooted | Refined
Power Source External Essence
Evolution Yes - 1%
Quality Perfect
Condition 100%
Value Est. $45,000.00 – $87,500.00
Sal had to do a double take when he saw the listed properties of their new fortification. He had assumed that the essence he borrowed from Brophy and Rochelle would be converted to Mythcrafter essence, but it had transferred their unique essence types straight into the materials.
The result had been a change in abilities, with Transference creating the Rooted ability, and Soul Forge creating the Amplify ability. Harden had been carried over from the original rock enclosure, and Sal assumed that Refined was a result of their various essences being used in the construction. He marveled at the result, as it was far beyond his expectations. There wasn’t even an evolutionary rune in the design, but Rooted had brought that capability naturally. He wondered whether it was because he had used natural ingredients from the forest, but didn’t know for certain.
“This is insane…” Brophy breathed.
Black wood was intertwined in the shape of walls, almost like the trees had grown together to create a natural barrier. All the spaces between their branches were slate stone, like their previous tent. The branches coiled upward to create what looked like a natural perch. Sal’s meticulously placed tower had turned into a sort of crow’s nest, with branches weaving around it to create a natural defensive point.
“It almost looks like black glass,” Rochelle whispered as she touched the reflective wood.
Ioseph and Erika moved forward to where their tent flap had been. It was Ioseph who figured out that it was now a door, but only after grasping at a few different areas in the hopes of opening it up. When he swung it open, his eyes widened.
“It feels…weird,” he remarked as he looked over his shoulder.
Erika moved past him to enter the construct, clearly curious about what he was talking about. Sal guessed that they were experiencing the Amplify ability, but he couldn’t be sure until he went in himself. Brophy and Rochelle followed her, but watched for her reaction warily.
She stood in the center of the construct and a wide smile crossed her face. “It’s some kind of potency enhancer. Not like the atmospheric essence that Prestige did for us, but rather like I’m sitting in a skill-pod?” She looked at Sal with a questioning look, as though asking him to validate her claim or to explain himself.
Sal shrugged as he gestured at the structure. “It’s because of the essence variants we used in building it. It’s taken some of Brophy and Rochelle’s ability, as well as my own. So, according to the appraisal, it looks like our tower has formed roots and will grow over time. It has Amplification and Hardening abilities too, so it’s probably channeling essence from everywhere into the interior.”
Erika’s eyebrows raised as she looked around. “You managed to make something like this with just wood and essence? No matter what way I look at it, your ability is ridiculously overpowered,” she muttered to herself as she marveled at the internal space.
The rest of the team made the same expressions of wonder, leaving only Sal outside. His visor was trying to calculate its dimensions, and he willed his visor to stop processing it. He could tell from the outside that it was much bigger than what they had before, with a second floor for their tower and an internal staircase that led up to it.
When he finally entered, Sal looked at the lattice of black wood holding up the ceiling. Whatever material remained of the tent had been overtaken by the wood, leaving only a few glimpses of the fabric between the gnarled branches.
The amount of floor space had increased with the removal of the sloped ceiling, giving them a much more spacious environment to camp. On the leftmost side was a tiered staircase that wound upward toward the tower. It dominated a lot of their available space, but it was the only way the design could be completed. Sal questioned whether he could have designed it as a spiral staircase, but dismissed the thought as soon as it came to him.
“And just what do we have here?” Prestige’s voice sounded out from outside their new fortification.
The tapping of her cane signaled her approach as the students moved to make space for her. When she finally entered and came into view, her eyes widened in shock at what Sal assumed was the Amplification ability taking effect.
“How in the world did you manage to create this?” Her voice was almost breathless as she paced around the area, tapping at the walls with her cane.
Sal realized that she wasn’t actually asking him how he had made it but was surprised at the quality of the end result.
Prestige moved up the steps to where the tower was erected, and Sal saw her suddenly freeze as she reached the top. She paced backward down the steps and gave him a stricken look.
“How the fuck did you manage to make this? It’s amplifying essence from the ground all the way to the top of the tower. A student shouldn’t be able to manufacture something like this, even with the right materials.”
Sal gestured to where Brophy stood with his arms folded. “I utilized the essence of Brophy and Rochelle, which ended up being classified as a material in the construction. You already know that I’ve got a Skill Master ability, so my crafting used their skills as components. This building has Rooted and Amplify abilities, as well as Harden from the enclosure.”
Prestige shook her head as she placed her hands on her hips. “I heard about your ability from Chatfield, but this is a whole new level than what I was expecting. You used essence and wood, nothing else?” She looked all around in wonder.
Sal’s silence confirmed that she was correct, and it seemed to confuse her even more.
“As a defensive construct, it’s unparalleled. Is it suitable for an ambush encounter, though? You might find that you’ve crafted a double-edged sword. There’s barely enough room in that tower for one person, so who are you going to send up there? Will it be Erika to try to control all ten of the ambushers, or will you place your trust in Sal’s ability to pick off targets? What will the rest of you do when the attack commences?”
Prestige looked at each of them as she moved around their internal space, paying special attention to step around the sleeping bags strewn on the ground.
Sal frowned as he listened to her advice.
Prestige smiled as she made her way outside. “I guess we’ll have to find out.”
“No, they’re on the right side! My right!” Sal shouted down from the tower.
The entire evening had turned into a chaotic mess since the ambush started. Erika had tried to man the tower at the start but couldn’t get a clear line of sight without Sal’s tracker. Without him identifying them from the outset, the ambushers closed the distance and surrounded the tower in seconds.
Each of their barriers were under attack from every angle, and the branches of the roof were impeding Sal’s ability to fire at them directly. It was a massive design flaw as the very things created to protect him were stopping him from retaliating. Erika couldn’t use her powers without seeing the attackers, and the absence of windows in the downstairs structure had proved to be a major oversight. The ambushers paid special attention to avoid the transparent barriers between the rock fingers on one side, which had made Erika’s ability redundant.
“We don’t know what way you’re facing!” Ioseph called back as he frantically tried to erect barriers from the interior. “Are they on the camp side or the other?”
Sal grimaced as he looked down at the gaps at his feet. He could barely see his team from the vantage point and tried to hold his composure together. “They’re on the camp side! If they were on the other side, you’d see them!”
“Just let me out!” Brophy’s voice was strained as he attempted once again to make Erika see reason. He wanted to be out at the campsite, fighting them in person.
