Surviving The Game As A Barbarian Novel - Chapter 620
Chapter 620: Glorious Return (3)
The synthesized monsters created by putting mana stones into the machine could be defeated to obtain tailor-made essences, and from that, we learned of a particular trend that these essences shared.
The mana stone that entered Machine A decided the stats of the custom essence, Machine B would determine its passive ability, and Machine C would determine its active ability.
Ah, I should explain that said result was obtained by giving the essences to the expedition members who had leveled up at least once after coming down to the underground floor.
However, while the base stats and the passives were set in stone, it was unclear how the active skills were determined. Perhaps that was why, but the color of the essence was dependent on the active skill.
“So what you’re saying is…this has the stats of a Goblin, the passive of the Troll, and since the color is blue, it should have the Ironrock Hill Guardian Chaser’s Earth Vent.”
Raven, who kept a record of every time a new monster was summoned, gave a detailed briefing whenever a new essence dropped.
Then, without even having to ask for my permission, she contained the most recent essence in a magic vial and labeled it. There was not a single person in our expedition group who wanted to eat an essence like that, whose value, if any, would lie in research.
We hadn’t saved that many of our members yet, and of the ones that he had, we’d been forced to waste their slots to test out the custom essences. The first thing the group would probably do after getting out of there was erase those essences.
“Alright, let’s resume our search!”
Although we had been summoning a handful of monsters for research purposes, we ended things there with that last monster, then focused on the conveyor belt maze to find our allies who were still trapped.
A custom essence.
The concept of it was so enticing that any adventurer would go wild for one. However, if we wanted to farm those essences, we first needed to hurry up and find where the rest of our expedition group was being held. I was worried about them, and on top of that, we had another reason to consider.
It’s too hard with our current numbers.
Hunting the synthesized monsters was pretty difficult. They were much stronger than the essence they dropped, had base stats that were a combination of the three monsters used to create them, and had all three monsters’ passive abilities as well as all three of their actives.
A custom monster crafted from three rank nine monsters was naturally stronger than an ordinary rank nine monster, and while the synergy between the monsters used for the combination determined how much stronger they ended up being…
On average, it’s +2 for the average ranks. If the abilities synergized, it might end up being a +3 or even a +4.
Well, the more synergistic the creation was, the better the essence it dropped.
…This is a shame.
After driving ourselves wild at the unbelievable discovery of this machine, we had put the search on hold to spend some time researching it. However, the downside of its use finally had us sobering. Although it was incredible, it wasn’t so great that we would give up everything else just to farm the perfect essence here.
Three rank one monsters would probably be difficult to defeat even with a character strong enough to open the Gate of the Abyss.
From what I could tell, even if we had everyone from the expedition ready to fight, a rank two combination monster would probably be too much for us. Though, a rank three monster might be doable.
But we’ll have to suffer some injuries.
In the end, to obtain a custom essence, we needed to be much stronger than the target essence.
It’ll be a core essence, but one that’s either an upgrade of a lower-rank essence or an essence that lets you free up an essence slot. Those are the two main drops you’d get out of this machine.
Well, a high-ranking essence could also be obtained by mixing the monster with a lower-rank monster to potentially lower its power.
The problem is the material at hand…
Most of the monsters in the factory were low-rank monsters. It wasn’t particularly problematic, per se. The factory allowed for the release, combination, and separation of the monsters all by itself. If we put a mana stone that we already had onto the machine, a monster would be created on the conveyor belt, and that allowed us to check which monster produced that mana stone.
Not to mention, a monster created like that would never leave the conveyor belt if we didn’t attack it first. If we just waited, it would take a round and return to the machine that would turn it back into a mana stone.
But if we let the conveyor belts run, it’ll be difficult for us to continue our search.
No matter what we did, saving our allies first was our best course of action.
One day, two days, three days, four days…
Time passed quickly, and I finally received the news I had been waiting for.
“W-we found them!”
We found the hidden room.
***
After searching everywhere by going up the conveyor belts, we finally found the room our allies were being held in, the holding room that could only be checked through the CCTV camera in the control room.
“Uh… This is…?”
“I-I’m alive…!”
Using the Flower Crown of Anguish, we woke up everyone, and the room bustled with activity.
“What is this headwear? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one like this before…”
“…It’s a magic tool that Mr. Yandel had. I don’t know the details either. You can ask him yourself if you want.”
The wizards asked about the flower crown once in a while, but I just brushed them off with a vague answer. Thanks to no one being with me when I obtained the flower crown, no one suspected anything even when we used it like this.
I mean, what were they going to do if I said I just had it from the start?
“Mister…”
“Bjorn!”
In any case, after finding the room, I was finally able to reunite with my allies.
“How are you feeling? Doing alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry. What about you, Mister?”
Although they had lost consciousness for a while at this point, thankfully, none of the members of the Anabada Clan were harmed.
But that wasn’t the case for everyone.
“…One of my essences has disappeared.”
“Huh? Me too! One of mine did as well!”
A few members of the expedition group reported abnormalities, and they all had one thing in common. They were those who had been dragged to the factory first and had been turned into a mana stone before returning. One thing remained odd about it, however.
“I-I’m fine.”
A few people who had turned into mana stones as well reported they were fine. The wizards gathered everyone and checked on their conditions as a result.
“The dignity of their souls has decreased by a stage. That is why their most recently obtained essence is not working.” “Then what about the others?”
“Our theory is that their accomplishment value has decreased. The ones who had their souls weakened all advanced not long ago.”
In truth, those who didn’t get the level-down penalty were those who had spent a good amount of time farming experience points since their last level-up.
An experience-decrease penalty…
A deeper look into its effect had me concluding that the amount of EXP lost was around 1,000.
“Wait, then what am I supposed to do now? I’ve already defeated all the monsters of rank three and below…”
“Then you’ll need to aim for monsters above rank three.”
“What?! And I’m supposed to do that while missing an essence?”
“…There is no other way.”
For me, who was aiming for max level, these guys were practically wasted characters, and they made their frustration and despair known. Although it wasn’t something I should be thinking while looking at them…
Thank goodness.
Relief crashed over me. Amelia had been among the ones taken. If she hadn’t woken up in the middle of it and escaped by her own strength, that would have hindered the execution of my plan. Our goal wasn’t to farm the seventh or eighth floor and live by earning money.
After calming the chaos a little, I immediately gave the order, “Deputy commander, you will take the rest and move to the underground. Raven will tell you what you’ll need to do there. Emily, you will go to the control room to turn on the conveyor belts again, and return here afterward.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
“Investigation captain, you’ll stay here and investigate the entire room with the search team and the investigation team. If my guess is correct, there will probably be something hidden here.”
“…Understood.”
Alright, then with that, I had given all the orders I needed to at that point.
I grabbed the guy who tried to walk down to the underground area with the main group. “Sven Parav.”
“Yes?”
“Are you feeling alright?”
“Ah, yes… I don’t feel any different from usual.”
“Good to hear. Can you follow me for a second? I want to have a private conversation with you.”
Since this wasn’t something to be discussed with the others around, I took him aside to a quiet spot.
“This is something that only a small number of people know, so take even greater care than usual not to tell anyone. Understood?”
I went with light intimidation to ease us into the main topic at hand, but that ended up earning me the opposite reaction I wanted, as he only looked wary of me. “Uh…then not hearing it might be the best…”
Hey, don’t try to run away here.
Well, this guy had a nasty habit of opting for the flight response whenever anything happened.
“This is something I must hear your opinion on, so stay and listen. This is an order.”
Only after I activated my Barbarian-Commander mode did he change his expression and take on a listening posture.
“… Yes. I’m listening.”
I took a look around before lowering my voice and telling him about the Research Station Overseer I met in the control room. Of course, there was no need to tell him about Hamsick’s story or the way the entire conversation went. I just needed to get the main point across.
“So he warned you that if you don’t leave this place within half a year, a great disaster will befall us…” he mused.
“That’s right. He spoke as if something or someone would appear at that time. He also said that it would be difficult for even five of us to survive.”
“D-did he…?”
In any case, since it seemed that I explained the situation adequately to him, I got to the main point. “So, how about it?”
“Pardon?”
“What’s your gut feeling saying after hearing that?”
He blanked for a second, seeming not to comprehend my follow-up question, but then in a moment of apparent realization, he said, “Ah… So that’s why you…”
So he realized why I had called him out. To be fair, we had done this song and dance a few times at this point.
“Speak,” I commanded. “What do you think… No, what do you feel? Should we really get out of this place, like that guy said we should?” He closed his eyes to focus, but a mere second later, he admitted
apologetically, “…It might be too far into the future, but I don’t feel anything yet.”
“But during the Ice Rock Expedition, you said you didn’t want to go in even while we were still back in the city.”
“Yes… That’s true…” he trailed off.
Then, he gave additional information about his sense of intuition. It seemed that this ability of his only activated at the last possible branching moment. In other words, he needed to be in a moment of choice for the intuition to activate.
“Then we’ll just have to do what we need to do and wait until then,” I concluded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. In any case, if you feel anything odd later, you need to drop everything and come find me. Alright?”
“Yes. I’ll be sure to report to you.”
***
After my conversation with Goblin, I decided on a guideline.
[(You will suffer a great plight if you do not escape this place within half a year.)]
Although I trusted that the Research Station Overseer spoke true, I would be making my own decision on how to act. The Overseer said it as well, didn’t he?
[(Your guess is not wrong. It is also my duty to grant the qualification to someone if they prove that they are worthy of that qualification.)]
If I could obtain the qualification by my own power before that point, then it wouldn’t matter whether what Overseer told me was true. It also removed the need for me to take up that shady offer of his.
With that, what I did afterward was quite simple.
“Commander! We found this in the room we were kidnapped in!”
We continued our investigation into this research station.
With the clue we obtained from the hidden room, we found a new area, and after finishing our investigation of that place, we found something else again.
In the process, we ended up fighting and defeating the mechanical wolf that I saw when first entering the research station, and when our progress came to a halt as our chain of clues dried up, we even went outside the temple itself to slowly obtain all the information this Rainbow Island had to offer us.
“Hey! That was a mistake. The monster that just turned into a mana stone wasn’t an ordinary Drake, but a Red Drake.”
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yes. We need to label the mana stones properly so we don’t have any problems later, so please focus. If you get confused, even a little bit, please come and ask me.”
While the investigation team continued to explore, we poured a considerable amount of time and attention into the underground factory as well. It was a sort of insurance. Although focusing on digging one well was good, sometimes, having a Plan B to fall back on just in case could prevent total disaster.
In the end, I figured that even if whatever the Overseer warned me about did appear and we needed to run away as quickly as possible, we could minimize our losses by obtaining a few necessary essences before then.
And it doesn’t take that many people either.
Currently, they were just operating the conveyor belt and labeling the mana stones, and we were planning on getting everyone together to hunt everything at once.
One day, two days, three days.
As we spent our time keeping ourselves occupied, days turned into weeks, and weeks then neared three months.
…Our investigation isn’t turning up anything at this point. Let’s get started.
We halted the exploration of Rainbow Island and returned everyone to the research station.
After gathering everyone in the underground factory, we put the mana stones into the machine.
Clack.
To set the baseline, we put in the mana stone of the rank 3 monster Arbet, who had terrible skills but incredible stats, into the first machine.
Clack.
In the second machine, we put in the rank 4 monster Oomdal, which had a good passive, but couldn’t be put into my shield barbarian build because everything else was subpar.
Clack.
Finally, for the third machine that determined the active, we put in the Orc Hero who had the Giantization active skill to finish the monster.
“Mr. Yandel. I did say it before, but we can only do this combination a total of twenty times.”
“I know.”
Please drop.
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