Ultimate Level 1
Chapter 486: Choices Made

Chapter 486 - Choices Made

Without making a sound, Max watched as the automaton child stared at where the light was streaming up from the hole in the floor he had made.

A single green eye focused and unfocused, the other socket empty and black.

Its head moved from side to side, glancing around the room. As its head turned, the cable connecting to its back slid along the stone table.

“Father?”

Peering through the hole he had made, Max activated Demonic Teleportation and replaced the stone he had moved, cutting off the light that was spilling into the room above.

With a few seconds of no one around, he marveled at the device before him.

Every one of his skills related to engineering or crafting with these things was going off.

A four-foot-tall pedestal was before him with a glowing yellow crystal the size of his head.

Half a dozen runes that his Omnilingualism skill could read pulsed on the outside surface. Another twenty-plus, his mind couldn’t comprehend, but based on what he saw, he imagined that this thing was the most potent source of power he had ever encountered.

The stone floor was covered with neatly bound cables that ran upward into the ceiling, and the floor had its own runic patterns set out in a circle.

What the heck is this thing?

Max carefully moved around the metal stand, inspecting the different buttons, levers, and connectors that all had a purpose. Everywhere were things his skill told him that had a function for channeling the power being released from it.

To his left was a stone door, runes carved in it, and a sensation of a trap or something nasty was being set upon it.

Opening his dimensional space, Max stepped inside and stood before his party. He could see them all looking at the crystal behind him.

“I’m assuming that's it?” Cordellia asked. “What are you going to do with it?”

Frowning, Max pointed at the stand it was resting on.

“If I’m right, this crystal gives off too much power to simply be here and do nothing with it. Based on what my skills tell me, I’ll have to disconnect it from the tiny clamps I see at the base of it and then transfer it in here. I’m pretty sure it won’t fit into my normal storage.”

“Why’s that?” Fowl asked.

“Too much power. Like… far more than any of the crystals we’ve picked up in the tower. Part of me thinks this tower floor is designed so that you can’t simply pick this thing up, store it, and vanish.”

“You mean either way you’re going to fight someone or something in order to pass this floor?” Batrire asked him.

Max nodded at their healer.

“But if we take this,” Tanila said as she tapped her lip, “can we get out of here? Is there a portal anywhere nearby that we can even take?”

“Gods, imagine if there wasn’t a portal unless you either kill that giant or turn in the crystal,” Fowl muttered. “But then again, haven’t most of these floors had a portal unless it had a boss?”

With no real answer, Max shrugged and turned back to face the object everything seemed centered around.

“I really don’t want to give it away if we can help it because I think this is something I’ll need to help craft the dragon tooth.”

“Seriously?” Tanila gasped. “You can tell?”

‎ He nodded at their mage.

“I’m planning on ripping the whole thing off the floor if I can,” Max said. “There are a few things I believe I can do to help infuse magic and energy into weapons with this. Still, I won’t know until I try and most likely that will need to be somewhere safely away from everyone else. The problem we’re facing now is that once I take this, I do not doubt that Zenk will sense it, and this entire city will become chaotic.”

“So we’ll be fighting?” Fowl asked.

“Most likely. The question is who or what,” Max replied. “We’ll need to prepare for whatever might come the moment I take this, but the real problem is we don’t know how strong anything on this world is. So we might be facing an entire town of elite automatons.”

They stood there momentarily, each glancing around, and Max could tell they were considering their options.

“If we had to fight one, I’m all for killing Zenk,” Fowl stated. “Something about a goblin prancing around like that makes me think they must be evil.”

Chuckles came from everyone, and Max pointed at the crystal.

“I’ll try to disconnect it and bring everything I can here. You all just wait and see what happens. Worst case, it blows up, and I’ll live.”

Tanila frowned at Max. “Not a good way to use a skill that might be needed in the coming days. I understand there aren’t many options, but…”

Her voice trailed off as Max held up a hand.

“Without Bob here to help, all I can do is be smart. That means not risking anyone else,” he replied. “But once that’s done, we’ll go out as a team. Perhaps we can find a portal inside here. If not, maybe we can–”

He stopped talking, and an escape gem appeared in his hand.

“You’re not seriously thinking that would work?” Cordellia asked.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Nodding, he held it up before all of them.

“What if all we need to do is get out of this floor with the crystal? Would that count as a win?”

“Technically,” Tanila said as she held up a finger, “if you defeated the boss on a tower floor and used the gem to escape instead of the portal, you would still have the win counted. The main thing is defeating the boss. You’re willing to bet one of those to find out?”

“As much as I hate to gamble with one, I think we’re better off trying now. If it fails and we don’t defeat the floor, we can always re-enter when we’re allowed to and go up to the giant, returning the crystal to him and counting that as a win.”

“Why are you afraid of fighting? Because of the children?” Fowl asked.

“Partially for that reason, the other is I think the tower is still judging us. We’ve broken the way one is supposed to defeat a tower floor multiple other times. Why not try that again?”

Max stored the gem and moved outside his dimensional space when no one else voiced an opinion.

Bob, how I wish you were here.

***

As Max undid the last bolts, a few drops of sweat were wiped away from his forehead. He was glad to have disconnected the device and not had anything explode.

Storing the removed parts, he carefully lifted the yellow crystal from its resting place.

Instantly, his eyes slammed shu,t and his body felt like it was being stung by millions of bees.

Every fiber of his body was flooded with a power that flowed through his gauntlets and into him.

“Max?!”

Tanila’s cry seemed distant, but he ignored her, knowing his face had a pained expression.

Each step to where the dimensional space was felt like an eternity and after managing to endure the four strides to step inside, the power of the crystal immediately stopped.

“Goblin shite, that was…” he paused taking a deep breath. “Impossible to describe.”

“It looked painful,” their warrior stated. “You okay?”

Nodding, he set it down on the purple stone off to the side.

“Yeah… Now, I’ll need to get the other part and –”

Loud noises came from outside the dimensional space, and Max let a curse out, quickly moving to where the pedestal he had taken apart was still waiting.

A siren of some sort was playing and with the yellow light of the crystal gone, two green stones set in the wall cast an eerie glow over the room.

Grimacing at how quickly things had been noticed, he pulled out his weapon, turned it into an axe and chopped through the strands of tubes that ran into the room above.

After storing it, Max tried to lift it, but it was set inside the floor and didn’t budge.

Using his Stone Mastery, he began to lift the grey stones it was attached to, using a combination of wind magic to help him pull as he did.

“Can we–”

He shook his head, cutting off their ranger. Sensing the piece finally starting to rise, Max let go of the metal he had been pulling upward on, moving to the side by the stone and creating a spot to grab onto.

A loud snap rang out, and the section of flooring and pillar almost got tossed into the ceiling, his skill helping him to keep it in place.

In the hole he had created were four eight-inch wide pylons that had been connected and kept anchored.

“Let me store this, and you all hop out. We need to go!”

They shifted to the side as Max quickly entered the dimensional space, setting it down and backing out.

With it closed and the entire party in the room with him, he pulled out the gem and crushed it in his hand.

A soft breeze and the smell of a city told Max they were standing on the platform near the tower.

“That was… not what I had expected,” Batrire stated. “Then again, I wasn’t sure what would happen when one of those was used.”

“It’s just like a portal,” Cordellia said. “Except, you can use it anywhere on a tower floor.”

They all glanced at the guards watching them stand around, none drawing close, as the stories of Max had left no doubt that they were all too weak to stop him if they tried.

“I guess we’ll see if it worked,” he said, moving to the tower portal.

He said a quick prayer, touched it, and saw the notification pop up.

***

[ Select Floor to Enter ]

[ Tower Floor 72 ]

***

“Yes!” he exclaimed, doing a small fist pump and turning toward his friends.

“Seriously?!”

Nodding at Tanila, he held out a hand and high-fived his dwarven friend.

“Well… that’s good to know,” Cordellia said. “I guess we can tell Everett about that.”

“Maybe. Who knows if the tower will let us? I’m not sure about the rest of you for now, but I think we should take a day off and return tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Fowl said. “I, for one, can use a drink or two.”

“Bah, you need a drink like a fish in the ocean,” Batrire replied.

“Which means it provides the life I need to live?”

As the two dwarves walked off, chuckling, Max watched Cordellia hesitate.

“Hey, can we chat?”

She glanced at him and looked at Tanila, who shrugged.

“Sure…. Like here or…”

“Let’s get a drink, just the three of us. I know a place nearby that has that elven wine you two like,” Max told their archer. “Besides, unless you want to get into a drinking contest with Fowl, we’ll need to go somewhere besides the tavern I know he’s headed to.”

Cordellia nodded and moved to walk beside Tanila.

“This isn’t one of those talks where I’m going to get in trouble or something?”

Laughing, Max shook his head.

“No,” he replied. “Just a few things I wanted to discuss while it’s just the three of us.”

‎