Chapter 9: The Lone Road to Grandmaster
Kael didn't make it far. A mile from Greywall, his leg gave out. The bolt was deep, and the chaotic energy had poisoned the wound. His suit's medical systems were offline, the Fulcrum Core dead. He crawled into a shallow cave, sealed the entrance with a collapsed rubble screen from his last gravitic pulse, and passed out.
He awoke to the smell of antiseptic herbs and the crackle of a small, contained fire. He was out of the suit, which lay in a heap nearby like a slain metal beast. His leg was bandaged with clean cloth, and a poultice radiated a gentle, numbing coolness. Sitting across the fire, sharpening a dagger with methodical strokes, was Lin.
Kael jerked upright, pain lancing through him. He scrabbled for a tool, any tool.
"Stop," Lin said, their voice androgynous and soft, barely louder than the fire. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead. The poison was… interesting. Took three of my best antitoxins to neutralize it."
Kael stared, every sense on high alert. "Why?"
Lin didn't look up from the dagger. "Talia asked me to watch her back. I failed. She tried to stop Chloe. She believed you. I… observe. I saw what you did. It wasn't an attack. It was a solution." They finally met his eyes. Theirs were a flat, dark grey, like river stones. "Chloe is broken. She sits by Talia's body, speaking to no one. Leo is obsessed with your device, trying to reverse-engineer the principle from slag and memories. Arawn is drunk. The Hawks are leaderless."
"And you?"
"I am assessing." Lin sheathed the dagger. "The King's story has a hole. You put a beam of light through it. I want to know how big the hole is."
Kael studied the assassin. There was no detectable lie, only a cold, pragmatic curiosity. "Valerius orchestrated the massacre of my family. He is bankrupt. The 'hero summoning' is draining the land and causing the rifts. I am the key to the kingdom's true wealth. He needs me alive to access it. Everything else is propaganda."
Lin was silent for a long minute. "Proof?"
"Data crystal. Hidden. Can't access it here."
"Hmm." Lin tossed a small pouch onto his lap. It clinked. "Coin. Herbs. A map with a safe route marked to the Whispering Woods. There's a druid enclave there. They were Talia's… connection. They will hide you, heal you fully. They dislike Kings and Hawks."
"Why help me?"
"Not help. Investment." Lin stood, fading slightly into the cave's shadows. "If you are right, this kingdom is a rotten tree. I prefer to know which branch won't break when the storm comes. And you… you are a very strange storm."
With that, they were gone, melting into the darkness without a sound.
Kael was alone again, but the solitude felt different. It was not the result of betrayal, but of a calculated, if icy, offer of a potential alliance. He used the coins to buy passage with a taciturn carter heading towards the woods. The journey took a week. The Whispering Woods lived up to their name—the wind through the colossal, ancient trees sounded like distant, sighing voices. The druids, a reclusive people who wore living bark armor and had eyes the color of new leaves, took him in without question when he showed Talia's staff, which Lin had left among his belongings. They healed his leg in a pool of glowing water, mending flesh and bone in days.
In their sanctuary, a grove where trees grew in geometric patterns, he found peace. Not the peace of safety, but of purpose. He used the time to repair and upgrade. The druids provided rare, living crystals and heartwood that conducted mana like a superconductor. He built a new Fulcrum Core, Mark II, smaller, more powerful, using a druid-gifted Worldseed as the stabilizer. He repaired the Aegis Suit, reforging the damaged plates with a mithril-heartwood alloy, making it lighter and stronger. He named the upgraded armor Aegis Prime.
But his greatest advancement was within. The confrontation at Greywall, the near-death experience, the immense, world-altering application of his knowledge, had forged something in his soul. He sat for days under the oldest tree, its roots deep in the world's ley lines, and he understood.
The Tecnomancer class wasn't just about building machines. It was about understanding the fundamental rules of reality—physical, magical, spiritual—as a single, interoperable system. And then writing new code for that system.
As this epiphany crystallized, the change erupted within him.
Tecnomancer Rank Up: Master (Rank 8, Level 5) -> Grandmaster (Rank 9, Level 1).
The surge of power was unlike any before. It wasn't just knowledge; it was Authority. Over the domain of his own creations.
Grandmaster Perk Unlocked: Sovereign Forge. Within a radius of his will, he could now manipulate basic matter and mana at a conceptual level, accelerating construction and infusion times by a factor of ten. He could "teach" his devices simple protocols, granting them a ghost of awareness.
New Schematic Tree Unlocked: Living Steel. Machinery that could self-repair, adapt, and grow.
New Schematic Unlocked: Spatial Anchor Beacon. The precursor to permanent teleportation gates.
Attribute Surge: Physique +10, Mind +15, Arcane +15.
He was no longer just a maker. He was a creator in the truest sense. A power in his own right.
When he emerged from the grove, clad in Aegis Prime, the Fulcrum Mark II a soft sun on his back, the lead druid, an ancient being named Oakenheart, bowed slightly. "The forest feels your harmony now, Artificer. You are no longer a discordant note. You are a new chord. Go, and may your works balance the scales."
Kael left the Whispering Woods. He was no longer fleeing. He was journeying. He had a destination in mind now: the Labyrinth of Roots, the mythical location of the Royal Vault. If he was the key, it was time to claim his inheritance. Not for wealth, but for the resources and legitimacy it could provide.
He traveled openly now, though disguised. He was a grandmaster craftsman, a wandering sage of machines. In villages, he would fix complex problems in exchange for supplies, his reputation as a mysterious "Metal-Druid" spreading. He heard whispers: of a King growing more paranoid, of Heroes divided, of new rifts opening faster than they could be closed.
One night, at a roadside inn, he saw a new poster. His face was still there, but the bounty had doubled. And below it, another notice: "WANTED: The Metal Phantom. For sedition, techno-heresy, and the murder of the Hero Talia. Extreme Caution. Possesses reality-altering artifacts."
They had given him a new name. And blamed him for Talia's death. Chloe's doing, no doubt, to assuage her own guilt.
He felt a grim smile. Good. Let them fear the name they invented.
As he rode his newly built Clockwork Strider—a mechanical steed that needed no food or rest—west towards the mountains where the Labyrinth was said to lie, he reviewed his goals: