Death… And Me

Chapter 4311: One More

It went without saying that Farriko passed the Blacksmith Guild Test with flying colors, officially becoming a Level Two Blacksmith. Even the Guild Blacksmith responsible for overseeing the exam was genuinely impressed. In fact, as a Level Two Blacksmith himself, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat inferior to Farriko after witnessing his work.

Before Farriko left, the examiner couldn’t stop himself from asking, ”I checked your profile beforehand. How did you improve this much in such a short period of time?”

Farriko thought about it for a moment before shaking his head slightly. ”I found myself an ascender as a master.”

”Oh!” The man immediately nodded in understanding. ”It’s extremely difficult to get an ascender willing to teach others. You must have some truly impressive talent if he accepted you. After all, ascenders are basically old monsters with ridiculous amounts of experience. Although they need some time to adapt to the Celestial Plane’s methods again. So, who is he? One of the Level Three Blacksmiths?”

”Ahem...” Farriko scratched the back of his head awkwardly. ”Well... he seems to have arrived in the Celestial Plane just a few months ago. He’s still only a Middle Stage Anchor God and a Level One Blacksmith himself.”

The examiner stared blankly at him.

”That’s... that’s a joke, right?”

Farriko chose not to answer. Instead, he hurriedly took his leave.

”Sorry, I can’t stay any longer. Thank you for the promotion. Goodbye.”

At this point, Farriko honestly felt that saying anything else would only create unnecessary trouble for himself. More importantly, he wanted to return to Rean’s residence as quickly as possible.

Farriko returned to Rean’s estate not long afterward. Naturally, the first thing he did was proudly display his promotion by telling Rean to check his updated information through the Ring Communicator.

Rean glanced at it for a brief moment before nodding casually.

”Well, that was obvious.”

Immediately afterward, he sent several blueprints directly to Farriko’s RC.

”These are the projects you and Dongaro will work on over the next few weeks. Make sure the two of you constantly communicate with each other. I’ll also help with the forging myself, but only for the Level One materials. As for the Level Two alloys and the more complicated parts, I’ll leave those to the two of you and will only oversee their creation.”

Now that everyone had essentially settled into their respective roles, Rean could finally focus almost entirely on the airplane itself. Besides, he had already taught the others most of what he needed them to know, which gave him even more time to refine and improve the airplane’s overall blueprints—arrays, plates, runes, circuitry runes, and countless other systems.

To any outsider observing from afar, the entire process would look incredibly strange.

Over the following months, the airplane continuously seemed to take shape, only to be dismantled and rebuilt again shortly afterward. Most of the time, the reconstructed versions barely even looked different from the previous ones.

Rean was undeniably talented, and with Sister Orb assisting him, the creation of blueprints and systems progressed much faster than normal. However, neither of them was perfect. After all, neither had ever built an airplane before. On top of that, the Celestial Plane operated very differently from the Vinx Great Void. Certain flaws only revealed themselves once the systems were tested in practice, making trial and error unavoidable.

Astralium was a perfect example of that.

The alloy created using the Astryte Ore obtained by Kentucky and Celis initially seemed flawless. However, once the energy load running through the conduits embedded within the alloy exceeded a certain threshold, the material itself began suffering damage. It wasn’t that Rean had designed it incorrectly. Rather, he simply couldn’t account for variables tied to systems he had never worked with before. As a result, he repeatedly had to redesign the alloy’s composition and rebalance the proportions of its materials.

Without anyone really noticing, a few more months passed.

As for the airplane itself... it was still nowhere near complete.

Rean stared at the unfinished structure with confident eyes nonetheless.

”It really is ridiculously complicated...” he admitted. ”But damn, this has been one hell of a project so far.”

Then he turned toward Dongaro, who stood nearby.

”Well, regardless, here you go. As stated in our contract, you still aren’t allowed to discuss anything you worked on here until the airplane is fully completed. The exit is over there. Goodbye.”

Dongaro accepted the Spatial Ring handed to him. Inside rested one full kilogram of pure Astryte metal. Just as Rean had promised, the refinement quality surpassed even what Dongaro himself could have achieved. If sold on the market, it would be worth an absurd amount.

After all, Dongaro’s contract only required him to work for Rean for five months, receiving one kilogram of pure Astryte per month. Today marked the end of that agreement.

Dongaro stared silently at the Spatial Ring in his hand, feeling deeply conflicted.

Certainly, the Astryte alone was already worth everything.

But now there was something standing before him that felt even more valuable.

Knowledge!

These five months working under Rean—and receiving an enormous amount of ’love’ along the way—had resulted in the fastest improvement Dongaro had ever experienced in his entire life. Honestly, he now felt that his previous fifty years as a blacksmith couldn’t even compare to what he had learned during these few months.

And now... it was over.

Or at least, it would be, unless he made a decision.

”W-Wait!”

Dongaro suddenly rushed back toward Rean before forcefully stuffing the Spatial Ring back into his hand.

”Take it back! Just let me stay here and see this project through to the end. Actually...” He hurriedly pulled out another Spatial Ring and shoved that one into Rean’s hand as well. ”Here are the other four kilograms you already paid me too. Take them all back. Just let me continue working here.”

Rean glanced at both Spatial Rings and the Astryte stored inside them.

”Meh...”

Then he casually tossed them right back toward Dongaro.

”I don’t need them.”

Dongaro immediately felt his legs weaken.

”T-Then I’ll pay you instead! What do I need to do to stay here until the project is finished?”

”Hum?” Rean looked genuinely confused. ”I don’t want anything from you. The contract already ended.”

Dongaro lowered his head, clenching his teeth tightly in frustration.

However, Rean continued speaking.

”We made a contract, so naturally I had to honor the payment. That’s all there is to it. If you want to keep working here, then simply go back to work. I just won’t pay you anything else. The materials for this airplane are already draining me dry as it is.”

”Ah?!” Dongaro’s eyes lit up instantly. ”So I can stay?”

Rean shrugged casually.

”There’s nothing in the contract saying you have to leave afterward. It only says you can’t reveal anything about this place until the airplane is complete. If you want to continue working here, I definitely won’t refuse. I love good volunteers.”

”It’s impressive how you keep saying the word volunteer, yet somehow it always sounds like the complete opposite...” Dongaro muttered.

”So you don’t want it?” Rean immediately asked back.

”Eh?! No! I absolutely want it!” Dongaro instantly corrected himself. ”Look at me! I’m clearly the perfect volunteer. In fact, I’m heading straight back to work right now!”

Without wasting another second, Dongaro rushed back toward his Smithing Workstation.

Rean smiled slightly before noticing Dristan, Araujo, and Farriko all staring at the exchange.

”Farriko still has another month left on his contract. As for Dristan and Araujo...” Rean shrugged. ”Our agreement actually ended a long time ago already. Any of you is free to leave whenever you want.”

Araujo immediately turned his attention back toward the array he was engraving onto the airplane.

”Wow... look at that. I almost forgot to add the seventh conduit there. Did you say something? Sorry, I didn’t hear anything. Don’t distract me while I’m working.”

Dristan was even more shameless.

”Leave? You mean vacations?” He nodded thoughtfully. ”Maybe I’ll think about it later. This workplace has so much ’love’ that I feel pretty comfortable here already.”

Finally, Rean looked toward Farriko, who immediately turned his face away.

”I still have another month left? I think there must’ve been a mistake in the contract. It was supposed to say six years instead. Well, as a Devil Beast with one of the biggest hearts you’ll ever find, I’ll personally fix the mistake myself. No need to thank me.”

”Is that so? Hahaha!” Rean burst out laughing, completely unsurprised by their reactions. ”Then back to work, everyone. Although don’t worry, I don’t plan to spend six years building this airplane. I’ll release you all much sooner than that. Just don’t even think about intentionally slowing down the project. If any of you deliberately mess something up to make the work last longer, I’ll know immediately. And if that happens, I’ll kick your asses straight out of here.”

Truthfully, Rean already estimated he would need at least another six months to finish the airplane. Honestly, that still wasn’t very long at all. In total, the project would’ve taken a little over a year from start to finish. Creating a completely new airplane from scratch in barely over a year was an absurd achievement, especially for cultivators with such incredibly long lifespans.

Unfortunately...

Forty-two days later, every single Ring Communicator inside the estate suddenly received the same urgent message.

—A Godly Creature Horde is approaching. All cultivators who receive this message must immediately report to their respective organizations or to the Godly Subjugation Guild.—