After meditating, I go down to the forge, passing through the floors, I see some faces that I've never seen or know the name, the tower doesn't have only three people, obviously.
They wear a mantle that intersperses black and dark blue colors, on the left shoulder there are several white dots that represent stars and the inside of the mantle is dark purple.
Supposedly the number of stars on the mantle is an indication of the rank one has, Baha and I haven't even taken our mantles even though we're recruits because we're leaving in two days.
All that effort to get here only to leave two days later.
It almost makes me wonder why you came here at all, almost. As a former fugitive having a secure base is already a plus, having a secure base plus strong allies and an information network is simply amazing.
When I arrived at the lower eighth floor, the old monster's forge room, the left door was already open.
"Take the hammer, you will be my striker."
The old monster says as soon as he notices my presence.
"I don't think I can wield a saber massive enough that it needs a striker in the forge?" I silently question the gallon drinker's sanity.
"You're going to be using a two-handed sword putting a little weight on it is more advantage than taking weight off" The old monster begins "and if you really can't use the saber freely, consider it part of your training." And he ends his answer with a mocking smile.
For a second I imagined myself thicker in the shoulders and arms than most men wielding a saber that is more threatening for its weight than its blade.
I honestly have mixed feelings about developing in that direction, but it's not like I have much of a choice.
"What grade of steel?" I ask, erasing that image from my mind as I pick up the sledgehammer that weighs just over twenty pounds.
"Grade six, in addition there is a small amount of magnesium and silicon." Kaz answers seriously as he separates the tools by placing them next to the anvil, the massive, one-horned type.
Grade 6? So 0.006 percent carbon, within the normal range.I thought the old monster was going to show some impossible forge.
Not that I tried one when I was eight and ended up with a blade so hard it broke on the first impact.
I have no experience with such matters, obviously.
"By the way it's going to be a nine-ring saber, my priority is the durability of the blade. I don't think that's a problem for you, right?" the old monster asks.
"No, no problem." I reply in confirmation.
"Great, let's get started"
******
Since my doubts have not been quenched, but I don't want to piss off a double dantian Synchroner by accident, I decide to go to the common library.
Which I know where it is, first floor above by the way, because there are flyers for recruits at reception explaining the places a recruit can enter without asking permission from an assistant and where those places are.
By the way, Jill had another recruit hand me a robe that serves as the Tower's uniform, mine with a unique white star on the black background on the left shoulder, showing my rank as a recruit.
The higher the ranking, the more stars on the mantle.
When I reach the first floor, I go to the room at the back, which and one more on each side form the library.
The room on the right is just for researchers and above, the other two are free, the difference is the possibility of withdrawing or not the documents and books from the library.
Recruits and residents can only take books from the leftmost room.
Now he imagined a majestic library with shelves of dark, gleaming wood, the shelves filled with books and parchments in perfect condition...
And an upright checkerboard at regular intervals on the shelves would be absolutely correct.
I go to the room on the left and stand in front of the vertical board, below the board there is a diagonal board with an index book.
Organized by content and alphabetical order, next to the title a number similar to the one used to record or speak a chess move.
The position of the pieces that are equivalent to the books or documents.
I'm looking for a book on history, one on Synchroners and their abilities, and one on bloodline talents.
I take out the blue coin-like pieces for each book and stack them one on top of the other by holding them between my thumb and forefinger.
From the shelf next to the board, three books jump off the shelves and are stacked horizontally, cover over cover next to me at the height where I hold the blue pieces.
In the central hall there are tables for studies I go to them, they are for four people with a board in the center, I place the three pieces still stacked in the outermost board on the left side, and then I moved the top piece to the side and one of the books, who allocated themselves on the table, separated from the pile and placed themselves in front of me.
The first book I picked up is the one I pulled out of the pile called 'Synchro: Stages and Basic Skills' as this is the area I'm probably lacking the most knowledge of.
*******
"Are you going to use Synchro to speed up some of the processes?" I ask the old monster.
"Of course yes." He responds dryly. taking the steel, glowing red hot, out of the forge with a pair of pincers and laying it on the anvil platform, loosens one of the pincer he was using as a tongs and forceps.
From a small suitcase with several sections at different heights he took a rounded hammer and began to flatten the steel and sometimes remove some excess with the tweezers.
"Mingten there's a bag of eighteen rings next to my tools, take them and decide which ones and in what order they go on your saber." The Gallon Drinker commands, without being obnoxious by some miracle.
I do as he asks and approach the tool bag next to the floor there is a fabric bag closed with a red string. I drop the sledgehammer and place it on the right wall support, at least the one that looks right in this forge that looks like an altar of macabre rituals.
With four forge furnaces, coal if they were used by a normal person, but it wouldn't be surprising for Kaz to simply keep shooting bolts until he heats up the metal, one in each corner of the room positioned diagonally from the center.
A few meters away there are squares of an apparently metallic material, in each frame there are tools of blacksmithing and cutlery attached to the walls by specific supports.
On the other side of the forge furnaces are the oil cooling tanks and a little further to the side are the water ones, in front of them are anvils a little smaller than the ones the old monster is working on, some of different types like double-horned anvils.
And so the center of the room is an almost imperceptibly raised circular platform, where the old monster is working surrounded by four miniature forges, two cooling tanks and nearby shelves with the same tools as the frames.
And of course there has to be a channel in relief compared to the floor on the perimeter of the platform with a line going towards each corner of the room that divides into two enclosing the entire area from the forges to the corners.
Seriously, what's the point of all this some evil liquor thief ritual?
*******
"Synchrono, is basically the power to make two phenomena occur simultaneously and in a mirrored way, over time the word came to be used as a synonym for the extraordinary abilities of a Synchroner."
So begins the book I'm reading, which I must say hasn't detailed or expanded on anything Kaz has said yet.
This probably has more to do with the fact that I'm only on the second page than a problem with the book's content.
"Such a fact isn't all that surprising considering that most Synchroner abilities differ only in the way they are controlled and the amount of bridges."
After these words there is a list with brief descriptions of each type of control and what stage it can be used:
"Overlapping: the Synchro target has the movements overlapped with the Synchroner. The most basic type of Synchro you can use from the very first stage.
Mirroring: The target's and Synchroner's movements are mirrored, can be used from the first stage, but is more commonly used from the second stage onwards to put two targets mirroring each other in a forced loop while the Synchroner itself is free to act however he want.
Parallel: It is the natural evolution of the overlay, the Synchroner now controls targets parallel to each other, it is usable from the third stage.
Harmonization: this is not a form of control but an amplification of raw power, when the Synchroner creates the second dantian it is possible to create a closed loop by changing the flow of one of the channels. This circuit makes the Synchroner absorb Ki in real time and strengthen its bridges directly. These are general characteristics of the harmonic state, some organizations and Synchroners demonstrate other effects unique to the individual or organization.
There are other forms of amplification that will be discussed at the end of the book.
Virtual simulation: from the seventh stage onwards the Synchroner can simulate reactions and states inside the dantian, directly synchronizing the simulation with reality.
It is also important to note that every Synchroner has their own ideas on how to improve their skills, an example being the Tang family's web connection of 'Martial Heritage', in which they discovered a way to divide a bridge into smaller parts, called threads. to pass the limit of nine connections. They obviously don't teach non-clan menbers how to do this, even though they can go past the limit of nine bridges, they can still only use nine attributes."
Hmm, overlapping should be when attribute follows Synchroner, like when I cover my fist with lapis fire, mirroring should be when Kaz forces us into the zombie marathon regime. I don't think I've ever seen anyone using harmonization, and as far as simulation must be when the Tower Master created the artificial stars to wipe out the horde, the blades could also be simulation results but it's not impossible that he was overlapping them with a lapis.
I've also never seen a mirroring loop, I think.
After comparing my experiences with the examples in the book, I continue my reading.
"In addition to the forms of control, there are also the secondary benefits that each dantian brings, namely:
First dantian, its side effects are imperceptible most of the time, being an improvement in health, cognitive capacity and senses. Honestly in my opinion the fact that this is what makes someone a Synchroner is already a great benefit."
I end up with a slight smile at this comment, then I remember my awakening and seriously think about whether I shouldn't have a "friendly" conversation with the author of this book, I asked myself this question three times.
Forget it, he's probably at a higher stage than me.
"The benefit of the second dantian is a huge improvement to the Synchroner's physique (improvements tend to be directly proportional to the Synchroner's physique before the upgrade), increased lifespan and accelerated healing, healing not regeneration."
Did someone die confusing the two?
Hope not.
"The benefit of the third dantian is an improvement of all cognitive abilities, the sixth sense, the reflexes and the five senses.
Supposedly when one reaches the ninth stage the third dantian is improved once more, but what is the result or the cause of this improvement is beyond my understanding."
Well now I know that the author of that book is below the ninth stage. What a surprise.
Enough researching for today, I'll see if Kaz and Mingten are done with the forge