Chapter 104: Forging the Black Sun
Isolde didn’t tell him to hurry up. She turned her head and looked at the black, corrupted water flowing out of the fountain.
She walked over to the edge of the stone basin. She didn’t use her wooden staff. She just reached her bare, pixelated hand directly into the thick, toxic sludge.
Her hand flashed with bright green hexadecimal code.
The Anomaly program inside her instantly overrode the environmental status of the water. The black corruption violently burned away, replaced by a glowing, pure white light. The sludge turned completely clear, bubbling with a faint golden energy.
Isolde cupped her hands, scooped up the glowing water, and walked back over to Levi.
She knelt down in the dirt next to him and held her hands out.
Levi opened his eyes. He looked at the water, then looked at her face.
The system threw up a tiny text box over the water in her hands.
[Divine Restorative]
[Rarity: Unidentified]
[Effect: Instantly clears all physical fatigue and restores stamina to 100%.]
Levi reached out and cupped his hands under hers, letting the glowing water spill into his palms. He brought the water to his lips and drank it.
It tasted like cold, fresh mint. The effect was instantaneous. The heavy, burning ache in his real-world shoulders completely vanished. The crushing weight on his legs lifted. His stamina bar shot from the blinking red zone straight to a solid, bright green 100%.
Levi let out a massive sigh of relief, leaning his head back against the stone.
"Thanks," Levi said softly.
Isolde remained kneeling next to him. She didn’t pull her hands away immediately. She just stared at him, her gray eyes locked onto his face.
"My primary directive is your continued operational efficiency," Isolde said. Her voice was still broadcasting directly into his audio feed, but the robotic cadence was slipping. It sounded slightly hesitant.
Levi looked at her. He could see the tiny flickers of green static trying to correct her behavior, trying to force her back into a cold, unfeeling machine. But she was fighting it.
"You didn’t have to do that," Levi said, resting his arms on his knees. "You could have just told me to drink a stamina potion from my belt."
"Potions carry a synthetic delay in their algorithmic processing," Isolde replied, her voice hitching slightly. "This method was faster."
Levi smirked. He leaned forward, looking her dead in the eyes.
"Just say you care about me, Isolde," Levi said quietly. "The code won’t break if you admit it."
Isolde froze. The green static rippled aggressively across her gray cloak. She looked down at the dirt, physically breaking eye contact with him. Her hands slowly pulled back, hiding inside her sleeves.
"I..." Isolde started, her voice completely losing the audio-broadcast effect. She sounded exactly like a normal human girl sitting in front of him. "I care about your operational efficiency."
Levi just smiled. He didn’t push her. He knew how hard her human emulation was fighting against the God-fragment trying to delete her. She was already doing the impossible just by sitting here.
"Good enough for me," Levi said, pushing himself up off the dirt. "Let’s get this crafting done. We have a boss to kill."
***
Levi stood up, brushing the damp dirt of the greenhouse off his Obsidian Carapace armor. He didn’t have time to relax. The trial room was waiting just ten floors above them.
He walked a few feet away from the stone fountain, finding a clear, flat patch of dirt right in the middle of the botanical garden. He needed space for this.
He swiped his hand through the air, forcefully opening the [Boundless Fusion] interface. The three glowing golden slots materialized in front of him, casting a warm, humming light that completely contrasted with the sickly purple glow of the room.
"Alright," Levi muttered, opening his inventory. "Time to do some high-stakes alchemy."
He pulled out the massive stack of pitch-black flowers.
[Gold-Tier Midnight Lotus]
He had exactly twenty-seven of them. That was the magic mathematical number required to push an item up two full rarity tiers using his SSS-Rank talent.
Step one was straightforward. He dragged the twenty-seven Gold-tier lotuses into the fusion slots in batches of three. He hit the fuse button nine times in rapid succession. The interface flashed with a harsh, bright yellow light. The solid black flowers melted down, their petals completely dissolving into a thick, concentrated liquid. The liquid compressed and funneled into small, sleek glass vials.
The light faded, leaving nine glowing vials floating in the interface.
[Midnight Extract]
[Rarity: Platinum]
"Okay, phase one complete," Levi said, grabbing the nine Platinum extracts out of the air.
He didn’t pause. He placed the nine Platinum vials right back into the fusion slots in batches of three.
The system threw up the standard high-tier warning prompt.
[Warning: Fusing Platinum-tier materials into Refined-Platinum requires a currency fee of 10,000 Gold Coins. Proceed?]
Levi winced. He checked his Domain wallet. He had exactly 27,000 Gold Coins left after his massive spending spree back in the Undercrypt.
"Take the ten grand," Levi sighed, tapping the confirm button.
His balance instantly dropped to 17,000 Gold.
The fusion process triggered. Three violent flashes of prismatic light completely washed out the dark greenhouse. The nine Platinum vials shattered, the dark liquid inside them boiling furiously. The digital grinding noise echoed like heavy gears turning. The liquid purified, losing its murky black color and turning into a deep, swirling void-purple.
The light cleared. Three heavier, ornate crystal vials hovered in the air.
[Refined Midnight Extract]
[Rarity: Refined-Platinum]
"Here comes the horrible part," Levi breathed.
He grabbed the three Refined-Platinum vials. He carefully placed them into the three glowing slots of the Boundless Fusion interface.
This was the final step. He was trying to push the items past the standard tier system. He was aiming for a Unique quest item.
The system UI didn’t just turn red. It flashed violently, accompanied by a harsh, blaring error sound.
[CRITICAL WARNING: Attempting to forge a Unique-Tier Quest Item.]
[A supreme catalyst fee of 20,000 Gold Coins is absolutely required to proceed.]
[Due to the volatility of abyssal magic, there is a 75% chance of catastrophic failure. Failure will result in the total destruction of all materials.]
[Do you accept?]
Levi stared at the red text. His eyes locked onto the numbers.
A 75% chance of failure meant he was almost guaranteed to lose the items. But that wasn’t even the worst part.
He looked at the required fee. 20,000 Gold.
He opened his wallet ledger.
[Domain Vault Balance: 17,000 Gold Coins]
"I’m three thousand short," Levi said, his voice completely flat.
He just stared at the number. He couldn’t afford the fusion. If he couldn’t afford the fusion, he couldn’t craft the elixir. If he couldn’t craft the elixir, he couldn’t unlock his class ultimate.
He opened his spatial inventory, desperately looking for anything he could sell. But he had already liquidated his entire stash of extra armor and weapons to fund his Platinum shield upgrade. He had nothing left but his equipped gear.
"Damn it," Levi hissed, kicking the dirt. "I’m walled by currency."
He couldn’t leave the Spire to go farm gold. Once you left an instanced tower, the spawn tables reset. He would have to climb all forty floors again.
Isolde stepped up next to the glowing fusion interface.
She looked at the flashing red warning prompt, then looked at Levi’s frustrated face.
"The game’s economy is a localized mathematical variable," Isolde stated. Her voice was entirely robotic again, broadcasting directly into his ears.
She reached out. She didn’t ask for permission. She placed her bare, pixelated hand directly over the holographic fusion anvil.
Her gray eyes flashed with aggressive green hexadecimal code. The code spilled out of her fingertips, physically injecting itself into the game’s crafting engine.
The red warning text on the screen violently glitched. The numbers scrambled.
A massive string of green zeroes cascaded down Levi’s UI. The system ledger hitched, the server struggling to process the sudden influx of unaccounted data.
[System Override: Dummy Currency Injected. +3,000 Gold Coins.]
Levi’s jaw physically dropped. He watched his Domain balance tick from 17,000 straight up to 20,000.
But Isolde wasn’t done. The green static flowed deeper into the fusion interface.
The text warning about the 75% catastrophic failure rate started rapidly counting down like a slot machine.
75%... 50%... 20%... 0%.
[System Override: Failure Probability locked to 0%.]
Isolde calmly lowered her hand and stepped back. The green code faded from her eyes.
Levi just stood there, staring at the screen in absolute disbelief.
"You just counterfeited server currency," Levi said, pointing at the UI. "You literally just printed fake money and hacked the RNG table."
"It was mathematically necessary for our progression," Isolde replied flatly, smoothing out her gray cloak.
Levi let out a massive, booming laugh that echoed across the quiet greenhouse. "I am never letting you leave my party. This is the most illegal thing I have ever seen."
He didn’t waste another second. He slammed his hand onto the accept button before the server’s anti-cheat protocols could recognize the dummy gold.