Awakening a 10,000x Skill Proficiency Multiplier in the Apocalypse

”You want me to stay here?” Valerie asked. Her voice echoed slightly in the massive newly rendered grand hall of Sanctuary.

The room was gorgeous and featured vaulted ceilings of dark glass and a massive obsidian war table, but it was entirely empty.

”Manage the guild menu,” Sebastian said. Tossed her some scrolls. ”Set permissions to zero. Anyone comes within fifty feet, the towers turn them to red mist.”

”Set the access permissions to absolute zero. If anyone who isn’t us steps within fifty feet of those walls, I want the Arcane Towers to turn them into a fine mist.”

Valerie caught the scrolls and her corporate instincts took over. She was already organizing the data and sorting through the administrative menus with rapid practiced movements.

”I got this. But where are you going? We have no guards. No crafters.”

”Going shopping for an employee,” Sebastian said. Stepping onto a teleport pad. ”Lock the doors.”

WHOOSH. He turned to blue light. Shot back to Ironhold.

He needed a crafter. But he didn’t need just any blacksmith who could bang out a decent iron breastplate. He needed a lunatic!

He needed someone whose code was fundamentally wired to bypass standard magical conventions and embrace absolute destructive engineering.

He needed Galleon!

Sebastian materialized back in the smog-choked oppressive atmosphere of Ironhold.

He didn’t head for the bustling market square or the gladiator arena. He turned his back on the wealthy districts and descended straight into the Slums.

It was a labyrinth of rotting wooden shanties and open sewer trenches that made his real-world apartment look like a five-star hotel.

The NPCs here were hostile, desperate, and heavily scripted to rob players blind.

Sebastian ignored the pickpockets and the thugs. His deadpan gaze and the heavy metallic clanking of the Rusty Iron Dagger at his belt were enough to deter the basic AI routines.

He navigated the twisting maze-like alleys until he found it. The Rusty Anvil!

It wasn’t a tavern. It was a collapsed lean-to structurally supported by sheer stubbornness and a mountain of empty ale barrels.

Lying face down in the mud and snoring loud enough to rattle the corrugated tin roof was a Dwarf!

He was incredibly broad and covered in thick soot-stained leathers. His fiery orange beard was currently soaking in a puddle of highly questionable violently yellow fluid that smelled strongly of vomit and cheap dwarven spirits.

[Target Information]

[Galleon : Level 35]

↳ Class: Master Artificer (Blacklisted)

In the game’s lore, Galleon had been exiled from the primary crafting guilds for attempting to build a siege engine that accidentally blew up half of a mountain range.

The established meta considered him a joke NPC. He was just a flavor character you could occasionally buy low-tier explosives from.

Sebastian knew better. In the later years of the apocalypse, Galleon’s chaotic engineering was the only thing that kept the Void Titans from breaching the final human holdouts.

Sebastian walked up to the snoring mass of muscle and hair. He didn’t gently shake him awake.

He casually kicked the Dwarf squarely in the ribs!

THUD.

”Wake up. You’re hired,” Sebastian said.

Galleon groaned and made a sound like grinding gravel. He rolled over and wiped a glob of mud and vomit from his face with a thick calloused hand.

He cracked open one bloodshot eye and glared up at the ragged human standing over him.

”Fuck off,” Galleon slurred. ”I ain’t selling you firecrackers. I’m busy.”

”You’re busy drowning in your own piss,” Sebastian said flatly. ”I’m not here for firecrackers. I need a weapon.”

Galleon snorted and pushed himself up into a sitting position. He leaned against an empty barrel and looked Sebastian up and down.

He took in the starter cloth tunic and the absolute lack of visible wealth.

”You cannot afford me boy,” the Dwarf sneered and burped loudly. ”My hammer swings for gold. Heavy gold. And you look like you couldn’t afford a rusty nail. Go find an apprentice blacksmith to fix your butter knife.”

Sebastian didn’t argue. He didn’t pull out the hundreds of gold coins sitting in his inventory either.

Galleon didn’t care about money. He cared about the craft! He cared about pushing the boundaries of the physics engine until it screamed.

Sebastian crouched down so he was eye-level with the hungover Artificer. He pulled a piece of charcoal from his pocket and grabbed a relatively clean piece of discarded parchment from the mud.

”Idon’t have gold,” Sebastian lied. ”But I have a design. A piece of physics your drunk brain can’t even dream of.”

Galleon’s eyes narrowed. ”Watch your mouth human. I built cannons that make the gods flinch.”

”You built loud toys,” Sebastian corrected.

He began to draw on the parchment. His hand moved with incredible speed and was guided by the flawless memory of a man who had spent years memorizing the schematics of survival.

He didn’t draw a catapult. He didn’t draw a magical ballista.

He drew a long dual-railed barrel. He sketched the detailed geometric overlapping of magnetic runes and detailed a highly specialized induction chamber designed to convert raw ambient mana into pure kinetic acceleration.

”Standard weapons use explosions,” Sebastian said. Scratch, scratch. ”Weak. Too much kick. What if you use a mana-field to push a metal slug down two rails? Nonstop acceleration.”

Galleon stopped breathing. He leaned forward and his bloodshot eyes were suddenly wide.

He tracked every line Sebastian drew. The alcohol seemed to instantly evaporate from his system.

”The friction... it’d melt the rails,” Galleon whispered. ”And the power... you’d need a Leyline just to turn it on!”

”I have a Leyline Node,” Sebastian lied again. He knew his own glitched mana pool could power the weapon indefinitely.

He finished the schematic and tapped the center of the drawing.

”I call it a Mana-Conducting Railgun. It fires a slug at Mach seven. It doesn’t break walls. It punches holes through the concept of walls.”

Sebastian stood up. He crushed the paper.

”But if you’d rather sleep in piss, I will go find a Gnome who actually wants to build something interesting,” Sebastian said. He turned his back on the Dwarf and took a step away.

”Wait!”

Galleon scrambled to his feet. He slipped in the mud but caught himself on the barrel. The Dwarf was practically vibrating with manic and unadulterated engineering lust.

He looked at Sebastian not as a ragged newbie but as a prophet who had just handed him the holy grail!

”You... you have the resources to fund this?” Galleon asked with a trembling voice. ”The established guilds, they called me mad. They said my designs were too volatile. Too dangerous.”

”I’m building a castle in the Valley of Cinders,” Sebastian said over his shoulder. ”I need a dozen of these on my walls to kill anything that moves. I don’t care if it’s crazy. I care if it works.”

Galleon didn’t hesitate. He reached down and hoisted a massive rune-etched blacksmithing hammer from the mud. He rested it against his broad shoulder.

A terrifying soot-stained grin spread across his face.

”Point the way, boss,” Galleon rumbled. ”Let’s build a big fucking gun.”