We made our way back into the lab room where another rock had risen from the ground. I smiled at the sight. “Alright, you ready buddy?” I asked Scrap. I felt a pulse of affirmation. “Ok here goes,” I poured a little mana into the board with the rock. Looking at the altar I could tell that mana was being pumped through one of the tubes into the wall.

I bolted outside with Scrap firmly on my shoulder. Once clearing the garage door I could see a wave of mana slowly start to encompass the entire base. It was memorizing watching the shimmering shield make its way up the sky.

“Wow,” I said. I stood and stared for a few seconds before shaking myself out of it. I checked the alter to see if it was still able to power it. Thankfully It looked to be doing just fine. That was a relief. I was confident that nothing short of the floods could get in now. 

Now I turned my attention to the garage. I had a base with power, food, water, protection, and even a little attack power. All I was lacking was personal equipment. Sure I had the staff, pee shooter, and a worn-out cloak. But I didn't have actual magical equipment. With the addition of the cloak, I had bought from Beth I planned to change that.

I pulled out the cloak and laid it flat on the desk. I wanted to make a cloak that was the ultimate armor. I planned to make it so that I could fly or at least float. I wanted to be able to go invisible and take a decently sized hit without damage. I also wanted it to be completely silent and be thermally insolating. It needed to have at the very least the runes for storage, Shield, and defense. All these runes would put a heavy strain on the cloak's material. I had confidence that It would hold but just in case I would enforce the runes with powdered mana stone.

Powdered mana stone would help take the strain off the thread. Since we would be putting runes on fabric I would need to sow them directly into the material instead of what Id did last time with the ink. I pulled out the mana stone and some thread from the solar house. I broke a piece of the extremely brittle stone and began to grind it down. Wants it was all dust I through in the thread and evenly coated it. After that, I started to sow the runes in.

The Light bend formation, storage, defense, shield and enhance runes were all runes I had used before and were easy to sow in. the Fly formation, lizard's eye formation, and the silent formation were all new to me. But I managed to sow them in fine.

The fly formation used multiple float runes at the bottom of the cloak to allow for a control able height and speed. It also used air and shape runes to allow for a kind of double step. It was one of the least complicated formation I had ever made. Lizards' eye formation was similarly easy. Its purpose was to regulate the heat that came off of me hopefully making me immune to the gate alarm system. It was according to the book made because reptile monsters always seemed to find you even if you were invisible. This was weird because my world as far as I knew only recently got monsters in 2020. The rune formation used a combination of fire and ice runes to regulate the temp. Finally, the silent formation used air and harden runes to make it so the sound waves never moved past my body.

I had used almost all my thread but my cloak was almost completed. Because of the number of runes on the cloak mana cost would be astronomical. Thankfully I had a solution. I was going to powder the remaining mana stone before compressing the dust together to form a solid stone. Then I would incase it with steel before making it into a necklace. This would allow me to store excess mana in it.

It was easy enough to compress the mana dust, I just used the ground to do so. Incasing it in steel was also easy. I folded steel plates around it before having Scrap cut off the excess and weld it shut. Putting it around my neck I now had a second mana pool. 

I was eager to put on my new cloak and test it. I grabbed it while running outside. I sat Scrap on the ground before putting it on. “Ok, let's do this,” I said. I took a deep breath and poured mana into the cloak instantly I vanished my feet making no noise the air around me regulated perfectly. I even felt the rubbery surface of my Sheild formation around me. “Moment of truth,” I thought. I started to direct my mana into the Fly formation. I started to hover. It was weird but almost familiar. The solid air below my feet allowed me the feeling of walking. All I needed to do was direct my height higher with the float runes and make a step and just stand there. I was actually flying.

“Yeeeeeeessssss” I yelled as loudly as I could. I immediately started to fly up to the barriers roof. Making it there in seconds I put my hand up to it. It was smooth to the touch but also solid. I looked down at all I had accomplished in the last few days and felt immense pride. I an orphan of no standing had made a base stronger than any other. I built things using a power that shouldn't exist and was now flying a hundred meters in the sky. I had a right to be proud.

I drifted back down to Scrap who scuddled up to me. “What do you think, want to go back to the city?” I said. I wanted to go back and buy some meat maybe even cattle if I could find any for sale. I also wanted to go to Beth's merchant shop to… buy things. Scrap bobbed his head and I took that as a yes. I grabbed Scrap and placed him on my shoulder.

We blasted off towards the city. Because of my air barrier we didn't even feel the wind. Making it so we could go even faster. It took only a few minutes instead of half a day to see the walls in the distance. because of my invisibility, I didn't even need to slow down. I just flew over the wall before landing in a back alley.

 Turning off the enchantment. I walked out of the alley heading into the market. I passed a window stopping a second. I looked in the window and could see myself. I looked good, for the first time I looked good. I decided to keep heading towards the merchant's shop. It took a second but eventually, I made it. Taking a deep breath I walked in.