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1265 Words
The guild was located at the foot of a mountainous region that was both windswept and arid but wasn’t quite a desert. It seemed to either be undergoing desertification or being brought back from said state.
From what he could see, there were only a few buildings that seemed recently constructed, along with a few people working to dig out what he suspected would become a small lake.
As they approached, half a dozen people took to the air, so they politely slowed to a stop in order to introduce themselves.
A man with dark skin and silver hair, like Liz’s Jules identity, handled introductions. “I’m Arthur, Guild leader of Audrey’s Apples. I assume you are Peter, Liv, and Paige?”
Those were the false identities they had donned for their time on this planet, with Liz being Liv and Aster being Paige.
Seeing their nods, Arthur introduced the four people behind him. “These are my right hands. Eric and Erin are the twins, and then we have Andre and Abdul. The first two are who you guys will be dealing with mostly, as they are the ones taking charge of the new recruits and their training. Andre and Abdul are helping me revitalize the land here, along with the guild’s defenses.”
After they introduced themselves and shook hands, they split off with the twins.
Erin spoke for both of them as they flew a few miles away before landing. “So this is where we want to create the rifts for the trainees. From what we read, lower Tier rifts should be fine to be placed near each other on a higher Tier world like this, correct?”
Matt nodded as he threw his AI into analyzing the ground and surroundings. After getting some surface readings, he pulsed [Earth Manipulation] to get a feel for the underground and fed that information into his AI.
“It’s fine. Honestly, on a Tier 18 world like this, it will be harder to keep the rifts from Tiering up rather than dissipating.”
Eric snorted at that, and Matt thought the man might disagree with him, but he waved Matt off. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just weird to hear someone say a rift doesn’t need constant babying and mana fed to it so it doesn’t fall apart.” He nodded to his sister. “We were raised on a Tier 2 world, so we had to be incredibly careful growing up.”
Matt nodded to the man, but didn’t volunteer any information about himself. That would have built rapport with him, but these identities didn’t have any such background and wouldn’t be able to relate.
“Well, don’t worry. Even with minimal maintenance, the arrays I’m gonna set up should easily last twenty years. Once it’s up and running, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Saying that, he sent over the plans his AI had made. Most of it was based on the standard model. Luna’s Aperology book had contained plans for single cell rooms that were fifteen foot squares, set in rows however long the customer wanted. Here, they would then be set in rows ten long from Tier 1 to Tier 14, which was where the guild had asked for it to be stopped.
According to the growth models the guild was going for, they wanted five rows of rifts from Tier 1 through 5 and then one row of ten for rifts Tier 6 through Tier 14 so they could nurture a new crop of recruits.
It reminded Matt of one of his Folded Reflections lives, but these guys were far wealthier than his guild had been, with a Tier 30 guild leader at the helm and a higher Tier world to call home.
As he walked them through the layout he wanted, Matt used his AI to simulate everything and laid out the false walls that the guild’s own AI showed them, displaying all the security measures he would be adding.
Their guild leader would be the one doing most of the structural work. As a Tier 30, he could create higher Tier materials that would be safer in case a rift break did happen. In that event, better materials would give the people inside more time to evacuate to safety.
Matt, on the other hand, had to design and lay out all the safety measures that would both keep the rifts from absorbing too much mana and Tiering up, and also kill any monsters that might come on an unplanned Tier up.
The guild leader had everyone build to Matt’s specifications in just two days as he worked with the others to create a lake.
He found it gratifying that the guild leader wasn’t just creating the lake himself, even though his cultivation and mastery over [Earth Manipulation] would have easily allowed him to. Instead, he was working with the guild members, new and old, to manually dig out and create portions of the lake’s underwater features together.
They were building something together, and Matt could see the happiness on everyone’s faces after they finished a place for smaller fish to hide when it was filled up with water.
Once he had the building built, Matt quickly started making the formations the rooms needed with the materials provided, which were all the highest quality, allowing him to quickly work through the thousands of required plates.
Two weeks later, Matt had created over three hundred rifts in the building, set in neat little rows, which completed his side of the deal. He hadn’t used his own mana for the enchanting or creating of the rifts, but even that expensive bill hadn’t bothered the guild leader. Arthur seemed ecstatic to have a way to train his newest recruits and invited them to join the lake filling ceremony they were holding that night.
They ended up going and having a good time as the guild all together put mana into a water condenser that would symbolize their creation and addition to the lake. Matt knew most of the water from the lake would be coming from a nearby Tier 16 rift with its own lake, just for the sake of efficiency.
The next morning, he was proven right as the lake now housed billions of gallons of water, though Matt knew they would be refilling it often as water seeped into the soil around it. It was an intentional design choice to revitalize the land, but it was one that would demand a certain amount of maintenance.
Once their portion of the deal was done, the guild set aside a bit of land at the farthest reaches of their territory, where they were able to set up shop and create a number of Tier 14 through 16 rifts.
Luna then put them through a rigorous training regimen. They started delving the random Tier 14 rifts Matt made with no restrictions so she could watch, but before long, Luna had them working separately. Liz and Aster ran Tier 15 rifts together or Tier 14 rifts apart, while Matt either worked on his mana control or worked on strengthening his Concept with the black hole core he had pulled out of Minkalla.
As it turned out, Luna had a device to amplify its aura until it felt like the original black hole, allowing Matt to throw his Concept at it and grind away at his Domain, strengthening his willpower and honing his skills.
But that wasn’t all. Once a week, the three of them would take to delving the Tier 16 rift.
- Writer
