Was Casten Vorrick’s third wish the ability to vanish into thin air at will or was that courtesy of his Crow #0 suit?
I mean, I had already seen Zee do it. Why wouldn’t the flagship Obsidian Crow suit have the same capabilities?
“Good thing you didn’t get too far yet,” Riven said lightly, reaching for my shoulder.
I casually sidestepped him before his hand could land.
“So much for ‘Valdemar doesn’t care about you’,” I muttered, pacing around slowly, Vorrick’s words still echoing in my head. “You looked mighty nervous a second ago.”
Riven shrugged. “I told you, he doesn’t. Helen and the guys just told me where you wandered off, so I figured I might still – “
“Riiiight,” I interrupted loudly, rolling my eyes. “How na?ve do you think I am?”
“Not at all,” Riven said, his tone suddenly softening. “Listen. Valdemar really doesn’t care whether you walk left or right. But this isn’t only about him.” He sighed deeply. “Many of Libra’s agents were recruited by Cecilia. I was recruited by V, but your mother was the one who set me on this path first. We couldn’t save her when the Crows came for her. The least I can do now is save you by getting you on board. Many of the others support me on this too despite what V thinks.”
I stayed silent, ignoring what he said about her.
It was another lie.
If he really wanted to repay a debt he thought he had to Mom, why not reach out much sooner—way before I became Chronos’ Champion and gained some value in Libra’s eyes?
Nah…he, and the rest of Libra, only did what Valdemar told them. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I seriously began doubting if I could ever break his loyalty to him.
Additionally, unless Casten Vorrick had used his invisibility when he dragged me here, there was no way the miners—some of whom had definitely followed me behind from a safe distance—hadn’t seen him.
Which meant…this was most likely an act by Riven.
Valdemar might have anticipated Vorrick would approach me. He allowed that to happen—had Riven leave me alone for a moment too long, expected me to run off on my own—because that was part of his plan.
Which meant they already had a counterplan in motion for whatever Vorrick believed he was setting up. I wondered if Vorrick was aware of that and had a counterplan for the counterplan.
I needed to understand more of the web Dolos had spun around all of this. Because if Vorrick wasn’t lying and Overlord was in Valdemar’s hands now, then we might have a problem as big as Erebus. With something like this in his hands, there was no guarantee Valdemar wouldn’t commit atrocities far worse than the oligarchs.
Like I said, I wasn’t going to side with any of these bastards. I will save the world on my own terms. But right now, I was still too far behind. I barely held half the picture.
Only one thing was crystal clear: my inexplicable importance to both sides.
“Valdemar doesn’t need to know you ran off,” Riven continued as I remained silent. “I won’t tell him if you won’t. But just…do this, Viktor. Join us. Don’t be an idiot. You know he’s right.”
My bullshit radar was blaring. And yet, watching them compete for my allegiance was somewhat amusing—despite the dire circumstances.
I imagined this was how promising inventors fresh out of graduation felt: guilds circling them, fighting to recruit them.
Apparently, accidently, I somehow reached a similar stage. And now everyone wanted a piece of Viktor Halegrim for some unknown reason.
But why? What does being a Champion actually grants you besides phantom pain, endless responsibility, and mind-fracturing amnesia?
Either way, Novus was still the objective as far as I was concerned.
And I already had a plan.
But first, I still needed to check something.
I glanced at my Checkpoint timer.
[Checkpoint lvl. 1: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:08:55]
Then, without another word, I headed toward the same mine I had initially been heading to before Vorrick stopped me.
“Hey. Where are you going?” Riven called after me, quickening his pace behind me.
“The crane,” I replied, pointing ahead. “I need tungsten. You’re free to join me if you want.”
“Tungsten?” he echoed. “Could’ve just told me. We have plenty.”
“I’d rather get some of my own,” I said, not breaking stride. “You know. I wouldn’t want to feel indebted to you the way you feel indebted to my mother.”
A small jab at his earlier lie. Guess I was unable to keep it bottled up like I knew I should have.
The patrolling pair of Enforcers had just disappeared around the corner. That left only the two stationary ones by the entrance.
The sounds of machinery were so loud at this distance, I basically had to shout.
“Are these two with Libra as well?” I asked, stopping behind a building a short distance from them, so they couldn’t see us.
“What?” Riven looked past me toward the guards. “No.” He shook his head. “But you’re not making any sense. I said we can give you tungsten. We can give you whatever other metal you need too.”
He pointed at his COG. “Maxed out. Yours could be too.” He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."
I hesitated for exactly one second.
If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Who knew what kind of invisible strings would come attached if I accepted? Getting marked by Erebus, for example.
Either way, it was time to start using them for a change. Just not in the way they would expect and plan for.
“No, thanks,” I said, shaking my head. “If you want me to come with you, get rid of those guards for me.”
He stilled, studying me in silence.
“Is that really all you need to join us?” he asked slowly.
“Sure,” I replied.
He immediately started toward them, and I called after him, “For now, at least.”
He slowed at that, but didn’t stop as he continued toward them. “Follow me.”
I did, slowly and at a distance—just in case he was lying and those two were Libra agents.
The moment the Enforcers noticed Riven’s uniform and shoulder insignias, they snapped to attention and saluted. Riven returned the gesture, then stepped closer to them so he won’t have to shout what he had to say. Unfortunately, due to the relentless roar of drills and engines, I couldn’t make out the words.
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A second later, Riven turned and pointed at me. “Come on. Go in.”
“Just please don’t touch any of the machines!” one of the Enforcers called out, raising his voice over the endless noise.
“Of course!” I lied—not for the first time today—and stepped past the makeshift entrance into the mine’s staging yard.
The open worksite was manned by at least twenty miners, and five Enforcers. Some operated the various machines scattered around the clearing, while others used Kinetras to lift and carry sealed crates and load them into massive flatbed carriages—heavy transport machines with open cargo beds. There were only five crates loaded, suggesting the yields were low thus far.
The staging yard was laid out with the mine at its far end—a massive vertical shaft cut straight into the ground with a jagged, uneven mouth. It was a sheer drop: manmade, mostly circular excavation with reinforced inner walls plunging downward. The rim also had pitons set around it with thick, coiled ropes waiting at the side—for when the miners had to descend into the mines personally to continue digging the drifts.
It was surrounded by guardrails extending several meters out—likely to keep that area clear of people in case of ground instability or collapse as it was probably the most unstable place in this digging site.
The largest machine in the yard was the crane I had set my eyes on. It stood idle for now, its hook block suspended overhead—the heavy steel scoop at the end of its cable swaying slightly.
The second largest machine resembled a colossal rotary drilling rig, easily the height of three houses stacked atop one another. Its drill bit—a massive rotating auger—was already buried deep in the earth, still spinning as it dug even deeper. The ground trembled beneath my boots from the vibration. Looking at the short end of the auger on our side—how much of it wasn’t yet underground—I wondered how deep down the rest of it was drilling through now. Were they attempting to descend their search even lower? There was no way this mine was a new site.
At its base, the drill machine had enormous tungsten counterweights anchoring the rig in place—solid external blocks created to prevent the entire structure from tipping under torque.
Scattered across the rest of the yard were smaller sorting machines that looked like belt conveyors feeding into a large cradle. Freshly excavated soil and crushed rock were moving on the belts and shaken across grated metal surfaces so that the miners stationed along the sides could manually spot and extract mana crystals and smaller metal ores embedded withing the debris.
Under the gray haze, the occasional flicker of colored stones gave the crystals away. Each one was swiftly plucked out and tossed into the same crates I had seen being loaded onto the flatbed carriages.
Funnily enough, despite their massive size, each of these machines was powered by a single Aetheris embedded into their engines.
From what I could piece together—based on observation and what little prior knowledge I had—the process worked like this:
The drilling rig wasn’t merely boring into the earth. The end of the auger could expand sideways slightly, its rotating assembly spreading and agitating the surrounding subsoil and bedrock. It didn’t just dig—it churned and pulverized its surroundings, grinding layers of compacted earth and rock. Like one of those kitchen blenders they had in Skyhaven, just much larger in scale.
Once enough of the underground formation had been crushed, the drill machine would disengage and make way to the crane. The crane would lower its hook block and lifting rig—connected to a reinforced scoop—into the shaft, and haul up the excavated soil and fractured stone. It would them dump it into the conveyor hoppers, where the conveyor belts machines and miners separated crystals from rock.
Then, the miners would descend into the shaft slowly, reinforce its walls, and once they’d hit ground down there, they would begin digging drifts manually and excavating more ores and crystals.
In a way, the underground of the Foundry was a massive maze.
“Unluckily,” Riven said loudly over the noise, “many crystals are buried really deep. Like really, really deep. So the damn oligarchs don't mind tearing the entire Foundry apart. They don't care if the people here have to live on top of rubble—or under it.”
I ignored yet another attempt of his to frame the oligarchs as the sole and only villains.
Yes, they were terrible. I knew that. But Libra were not better.
Valdemar would just replace them and continue the same damned practices they held. Eventually, someone else would rise to overthrow him too. The cycle would repeat.
That, of course, if Erebus didn’t end up winning and devouring our world today.
I glanced at Checkpoint’s timer again.
[Checkpoint lvl. 1: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:03:34]
Not enough time left.
Immediately, I made my way straight to the crane.
“Wait!” Riven called, hurrying after me. “What’s your plan with the crane? You promised the guy you wouldn’t touch anything.”
“I lied,” I said without turning, stopping a few steps short of the crane—and the Enforcer standing next to it.
One glance at Riven was enough to make him understand what I wanted from him.
He rolled his eyes in annoyance but stepped toward the Enforcer. I didn’t wait to see how that conversation would unfold—I didn’t have the time—and moved straight to the crane, placed my palm against the cold steel of its base, issuing the command in my mind.
Store as upgrade material.
[Error: Storing this item violates Déjà vu System Protocol #0001—Item exceeds the allowed weight cap.]
Damn.
But that wasn’t the end of the world. I only need the tungsten, anyway—the counterweight ballast housed in its base.
Unlike the drill machine, which had its counterweights external and exposed, the crane must’ve had its ballast set internally. It had to or else it wouldn’t stay stable.
I circled the crane, keeping Riven and the Enforcer in my peripheral vision, searching for the ballast compartment.
I searched for it low—close to pivot axis—and found it within seconds.
The rear section of the crane’s base was much bulkier than it needed to be, plated in darker reinforced steel. I leaned closer and caught the seam lines.
There it was.
Remove the plate, and I’d expose the tungsten counterweight blocks stacked inside.
I was about to summon a Kinetra to tear it open, but…stopped.
Was I seriously going to strip a counterweight from such a massive machine?
Even if the Inventory allowed it—which wasn’t a given—removing a counterweight would shift the center of gravity. A destabilized crane wouldn’t just tilt, it would crash. On us and nearby structures.
No. I’m not that stupid. Nor did I want to kill innocent people—even if the time loop will eventually “undo” their deaths for me.
My eyes darted around, scanning the yard for alternative tungsten sources.
Two minutes left until Checkpoint’s Anchor expired.
The counterweights on the drill machine? Same destabilization risk.
The conveyor machines’? Smaller, but the same stability issue remained.
Then my gaze froze on the miners stationed beside the conveyor belts and their work.
Some crystals were lodged inside larger chunks of rock that the vibrating grates couldn’t break apart. The miners were using large hammers to split the stones manually.
The hammerheads looked dense and compact.
Tungsten. Surely. Probably. Most likely.
I don’t know...But it was better than agreeing to Riven’s help.
I strode toward the conveyors.
“Hey!” Riven called after me.
I ignored him.
I reached one of the miners—a woman whose eyes widened when she noticed me for the first time when I was inches away from her.
I pointed at the hammer in her hands and raised my voice over the machinery.
“Can I?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, snapping the hammer from her grasp.
One minute left.
With my free hand, I summoned a Kinetra and slammed it inside my COG’s Channel Core.
[Burn Rate lvl. 5: Kinetra is burning. Time left – 00:04:59]
The orange mana flooded inside me. Strength surged through me.
Gripping the hammer, I twisted and tore the head free from its shaft in a single motion.
Then, in my mind, I commanded: Store as upgrade material.
The tungsten hammerhead vanished from my hand, and the System confirmed it was stored.
Added:
- Tungsten – 9.41kg
- Nickel - 0.33kg
- Iron - 0.15kg
Perfect.
Ignoring the stunned expression around me, I summoned my Dematerializer and connected it to the Integration Port.
[Dematerializer is Active]
[Déjà vu System: Level 25]
[Metals needed for Level 26: Tungsten – 68g, Nickel - 71g, Tantalum – 62g]
[Required Metals are present in the Inventory]
[Do you wish to level up?]
[YES / NO]
Yes.
My COG glowed.
[Civic Omni-Gear System: You have 1 Upgrade Available]
[Deja vu System: 1 Level Upgrades Available]
I immediately dropped the Déjà vu upgrade into Checkpoint—barely twenty seconds before the Anchor expired.
[Skill Upgraded: Checkpoint lvl.2]
[Next Level: lvl.3: Increases the time before Anchor expires to 2 hours]
[Checkpoint lvl. 2: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:30:21]
Seeing the last message, I breathed in relief.
My hunch was correct.
The upgrade extended the already active Anchor. I gained an extra thirty minutes.
And if I secured more metals, I could push it even further.
But before I could deal with the questioning looks from the miners and nearby Enforcers, the soundscape shifted.
The drill machine…it wasn’t rotating anymore.
The miner operating it peeked outside his cabin, eyes wide, and voice sharp.
“We’ve hit something!”
Something?
A heartbeat later, the ground beneath my boots gave way.