Inside the training room of the guild hall.
“I will be teaching you three important rules to survive in Hell Difficult.” Rin stated before pointing her sword at an individual in the group. “Step forward.”
The man stepped forward.
Rin slammed her sword into his shoulder and knocked him to the ground.
Pointing for the next person to come forward, Rin repeated the process with everyone. Knocking all who stepped forward to the ground. Until a man raised his weapon beforehand and refused to step forward.
“Good.” Rin nodded and gestured toward the individual, “The first rule of Hell Difficulty is to think for yourself. Don’t blindly follow anyone instructions or advise.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief and lowered his weapon.
Walking toward the individual, Rin knocked him to the ground with her sword before he had chance to respond.
As he groaned in pain on the floor, the people around him scooted several feet away.
“The second rule is to never let down your guard.” Rin stated as she returned to the center of the room. “Or you won’t even know how you died.”
Pointed toward a woman still standing upright, Rin asked. “You, what should he have done?”
“He should've kept his weapon in a position to block your strike?” The woman cautiously answered with a nervous expression.
Rin narrowed her eyes, “Would that have changed the outcome?”
After thinking carefully for several moments, the woman shook her head, “Probably not.”
Gazing around, Rin examining the remaining people and asked them a question. “What would have changed the outcome?”
None of them answered.
With Rin’s strength was far above them, she could easily beat all of them. If she was determined to deal with one of them, there was no strategy they could think of that would change the outcome.
“There will be situations in Hell Difficulty where every response will lead to death.” Rin coldly stated before pacing back and forth in the room. “Your main goal upon entering Hell Difficulty is to avoid those certain death situations and fight for any chance of survival.”
The people around glanced at each other with slightly regretful expressions.
While they wanted to grow more powerful and to continue forward, this route was clearly more dangerous than they’d given it credit for.
“I’ll only explain everything once.” Rin said without emotion, “Never trust in teleportation. Immediately upon being teleported somewhere, move and only begin to assess the situation afterward.”
Several confused faces appear amongst the group, but everyone nodded regardless.
“Avoid all flowers and open fields in the tutorial.” Rin said and added afterward, “Don’t travel far from the supply room until you plan to leave.”
“There is a basilisk atop the nearby mountain guarding the exit runes. You will not be able to beat it.” Rin plainly stated. “It would be a miracle if you even survived meeting it. Meeting the basilisk is a certain death situation. On the fifteenth day, early in the morning, there will be a window of opportunity when the basilisk isn’t in its nest.”
Rin waited a moment for the crowd to process the information before continuing. “The majority of people who survived the tutorial zone left on the fifteenth day. The remaining people who didn’t utilize that window of opportunity have abnormal abilities to survive the unexpected situations.”
Rin purposefully left out the number of people who survived Hell Difficulty’s tutorial. She wanted to improve their survival chances, not scare them away from participating.
The crowd consciously noted down the information and several gulped.
For a normal person, entering into Hell Difficulty without this information on when exactly to leave would effectively guaranteed their death. Unless they were lucky enough to accidentally find the exit during that specific time period.
Even so, this information only gives them a chance of survival. Rin would consider this workshop a success if even one of them survived.
“I will spend the next two weeks training you. Whether you learn enough to survive in Hell Difficulty is up to you.” Rin ended her speech and stared at the people in front of her. “Any questions?”
“What’s the third rule?” Someone called out, clearly remembering that she stated earlier she was going to teach them three rules to survive Hell Difficulty.
Rin glanced in the inquirer's direction, “That’s for you to figure out. People won’t always tell you the answers in life.”
With everything said, Rin began teaching them about Hell Difficulty.
Two weeks was nowhere near enough time to improve their physical skills, thus Rin could only supplement their knowledge. As long as they had enough knowledge and made the correct judgments in corresponding situations, the likelihood of them surviving was considerably higher.
Of course, this would mainly be effective if they managed to survive the initial section with traps. The only knowledge she could provide them about the trap section was how to solve the various puzzles, and what to watch out for.
If they couldn’t survive the traps despite her advice, they didn’t have a chance of surviving later in Hell Difficulty.
[Year 2, Day 230… Approximately two weeks later]
POV Swap – Tobias
Staring at the various metal components in the living room, I mentally compared the parts to the schematics.
Alright, so… good news! I managed to find the materials for the drilling machine (Hopefully they fit together properly).
It was slightly complicated to negotiate with a blacksmith to accurately create the parts (as my personal system’s power ran out awhile ago resulting in the translation function stopping completely). However, with the materials and the relevant knowledge in-hand, it shouldn’t take long to build the drilling machine.
The machine should allow me to explore underground and find that temple the clairvoyant talked about.
Scratching my head, I stared at the components.
Although I’m still clueless about how this machine actually drills underground. There’s no drill on it, and the magical arrays described in the book are too complicated for me to understand their function.
The entire thing is basically a circular device that someone can fit inside with various magical arrays inside to operate all the functions.
I can only hope that the machine works properly.
Sadly, there’s also an additional bit of bad news regarding the drilling machine that I hadn’t paid attention to beforehand. After understanding the schematics better, I realized the drilling machine needs a separate power source to collect mana for it.
So, yeah. I might need to build another device before this one actually works... which is the opposite of good, but what can you do?
I’ve been searching through the various books on how to power it, but haven’t found an appropriate power source yet.
For now, I’ll focus on creating the machine.
Who knows, maybe I’m wrong about it requiring a power source? The arrays are complicated, so it’s possible that I’m misunderstanding something.
Picking up the relevant parts, I scratched my chin and began the process of assembling the device.
...
Several hours later, the outline of the machine had been mostly completed.
Some of the components hadn’t fit together perfectly, but through a bit of physical force, I managed to force it together.
The next step involves the creation of the appropriate magical array.
Fortunately, I practiced creating the machine multiple times in the virtual hub. There was a space in the hub that allowed you to summon any material or items.
Instead of making mistakes in the real world, where they would be costly to fix, I was fortunate enough to practice there and minimize the possibility of failure through repeated practice.
Using magical arrays to create magical artifacts is actually similar to warding in principle. It just requires the creation of permanent lines in the metal for mana to follow and enact the relevant principles.
According the books, the various levels of artificers are measured by several classifications.
Novice. Apprentice. Journeyman. Quasi-Master. Master.
Although I’m confident I can create several artifacts now, calling myself a novice artificer would be extremely generous. I only have a limited patchwork of related knowledge.
Calling myself a novice artificer would be similar someone who knows 1+1=2 a novice mathematician.
Despite knowing that adding 1+1 together equal 2, if you changed the problem even slightly to something like 1+2, I would have no idea how to even begin solving it.
Maybe the description of ‘novice artificer’ would be technically accurate, but people would assume you knew far more than you actually do.
Still… monkey see, monkey do.
With extremely specific instructions, I can create artifacts... So, by technical definition, I am a novice artificer.
Carving into the metal with a wielding-type artifact called a ‘magic engraver’ designed for that exact purpose, slowly I carved the arrays into the metal.
The array creation process continued for almost six hours.
When the last portion was final completed, the lines carved into the metal lit up with a white light before dimming.
It worked!
The rune lighting up meant the machine was functional… or, at least, that it was created correctly.
Carefully exiting the machine, I stared at the roughly made drilling machine with a bit of pride.
Honestly, it was rather shabbily made. There were various metal bent in odd directions on the outside. No coat of paint to make the device look nice.
Frankly, it wasn’t that impressive. However, it was something I made with my own two hands.
I think I deserve to be a bit proud of myself.
It’s similar to creating a computer by yourself, even if you bought all the parts. Even if you had a guide. You had to physically create the motherboard and various internal components of the computer without help.
Regardless of whether this drilling machine works perfectly, as long as it worked safely, I’d be ecstatic.
Getting inside, I looked around the device and quickly realized something extremely important. Something I hadn’t paid attention to when creating it.
I had absolutely no idea how to operate it.
The part of the book I’d read hadn’t described how to the operation of the drilling machine at all, it only stated how to create it.
I swiftly returned to the virtual space.
Entering the library, I looked around. It was still empty besides the books inside. Ever gaining control of this place, that from before girl hadn’t returned.
Shame, I would’ve liked to question her more about the operation of this place.
The books in here were still in English, despite the loss of the system’s translation software… So, that’s fortunate. I can only assume it’s something to do with the books in this place being virtual.
Opening ‘Machinery and You, an Artificer’s Guide’, I turned to the page regarding the construction of the drilling machinery.
Skimming through the various portions…
Forge the metal with a blend of aluminum and mithril… the outline should have a smooth circular shape… utilize a magic engraver to create lines 1-10, and ensure their condition before continuing onward… Finally, connect line 219 with 34 and the machine’s engravings should light up with a white light confirming its functionality.
Flipping to the next page only displayed the schematics… with the details on general information. The next page displayed the various magic engravings required. Turning one page further and it began talking about the next machinery.
Nothing about the operation of the machinery.
… I probably should’ve expected this.
What guide about the creation of a computer would also talk about how to operate that computer?
Brushing my fingers through my hair, I briefly considered my options.
The most obvious option would be play around with it until something works. Even if there’s a massive problem, I should be able to survive it. It wasn’t designed to be a weapon after all.
Still, that had it’s own problems.
If I accidentally messed something up, I’d have to rehire the blacksmith to recreate the parts.
Frowning, I sat down on a nearby table and flipped through the book. I confirmed that there was definitely no information on how to operate the device.
I have another option, test the device in a virtual capacity utilizing this place. All I have to do is rebuild it utilizing the virtual materials, and begin testing it.
I can just randomly mess around here and see how it works.
Let’s hope the device contains an intuitive user interface… if I can figure out how to get that far.
Good luck for ur finals and don't catch corona on the way to ur exams ,which shouldn't technically even happen ,is it an online test?
Oof
Thank you for the chapter! ?♥️
Hope you do well in exams!
(If you can plox update more after. If you cannot, heyo I'll still be waiting for your novel)
Just want to say, one day when you make it all consistent (writing wise) and rewrite abit. You may be able to sell this as a novel on Amazon or something. This is a great novel.