The Eldrim Cards Legacy

Chapter 182: Augmenting weapons

There was a very literal hum that broke the silence of the armoury, as if the spear was waking from a long and deep slumber. It vibrated gently in his hands, and the silver body of the spear took on a bluish tinge.

Nero's aether flowed into the spear, and from the spear power flowed into Nero. Nero instantly felt strengthened, so much so that the weight of the spear went from being a burden to being just right. But he experienced more than just an increase in brute strength.

Nero could feel his thoughts flowing faster, clearer than before. He could tell that his speed had increased as well. He experienced an overall augmentation in every aspect of his being, and it was incredible.

Yet it was not free. He could feel the spear feeding off his aether, and Nero knew that it was at an unsustainable rate. If Nero used no other cards and did not use his innate ability, then he would at most last twenty minutes holding this spear, or less. Probably less.

But much more importantly, this kind of augmentation stunned him completely. It was not that augmentation in itself was a new concept. There were countless cards that could do as such. As soon as he entered the Initiate realm they'd become available to him, since they were too complicated to be used by Neophytes.

Yet there was no card at play here, nor did Nero have any control over this phenomenon. Instead, it was as if this was the standard augmentation that this spear provided.

He recalled a casual conversation he had with Vanessa regarding making equipment that could utilise various effects or spells. Now he had come face to face with one such piece of equipment. Had she already known to expect this?

"Channel your aether into one of these weapons," Nero said, looking at Gabriel. He wanted to see if they all had the same effect. In fact, he put down the spear and picked up another one. Yet the augmentation he received was identical.

"Whoa!" Gabriel exclaimed, and Nero looked at him to see him holding a sword tinged with red. His movements were extremely quick as he tested the blade by swinging it through the air - too quick. It seemed the augmentation he got from the sword was less balanced, and more focused on speed.

But the red colour attracted him. Was the nature of the augmentation due to the weapon, or the colour that the weapon took on when they used it.

"Swap weapons," Nero said and handed him a spear while he grabbed a sword himself. Much like the spear, the sword was too heavy to be used normally, though its weight was not as exaggerated as the spear.

He channelled his aether into the sword, and as it took on the colour of his flames, Nero felt a different kind of power flow into him. The world seemed to slow down, just a little, as his mind felt faster than ever before. The weight of the sword seemed marginally better, but it was not to the level where he could dismiss it in combat. In that sense the spear suited him more.

Their exploration of the Vault continued, and after visiting several more rooms containing miscellaneous items that they either could not understand the use of or could not use under the present circumstances, they eventually exited the storage section of the Vault, and entered into another one.

At first, it seemed like the rooms they were discovering now were even more useless than the ones they didn't understand back in the storage area, until Nero made a significant discovery.

"We're in the administrative section," Nero said as he read through a computer. The reason why he was even moderately fluent in old Valen was because of his interest in history, but even then it took him a while to understand what was written.

"This is the logistics office," he said. "These are the files pertaining to the everyday use of supplies for the operation of the Vault. That's strange, why is there such a large number of weapons being regularly brought into a research facility?"

"If this is the administrative section, then the security node should be in one of these rooms," Gabriel commented.

"No seriously, Gabriel, come look at this. They were bringing in hundreds of weapons every week, though there is no mention of what they were being used for. There's a lot of Revitalization tablets as well, which is what I assume is the proper name for Aether candies. This looks like they were supplying an ongoing battle rather than a research lab."

There were also countless other items mentioned in the logs, but Nero did not know what they were so he could not guess what their purpose was.

"We already know that something must have happened 1210 years ago to empty out the city so abruptly. Maybe they were fighting a war with someone. Maybe they all ran away to the Moon when they thought they were going to lose. Regardless, Nero, we don't have time to be spending on these things."

"Even if they're fighting a war,why bring the weapons here? And where are they? The armoury was not nearly big enough to fit them all..."

Eventually Nero relented. As interesting as it was to try and unravel the mysterious past, they were on a time limit.

Once they discovered that the security node might be nearby, they sped up their search of the rooms until they eventually stumbled onto a particularly large office with dozens of computers.

Even if the security node was not in here, it would probably have some information on where it might be... and maybe, some more information on what was happening all those years ago.