Savage Awakening 580. Boot Camp (I)

A/N: This chapter was accidentally posted yesterday. It was up for about 20 mins before I noticed the mistake, sorry for the confusion folks!

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The next morning, Zane set off for the Conclave.

Before he headed off he said his final goodbyes to his friends.

Evan reported that he was slightly ahead of schedule with his Concepts. He’d been working hard on them in his downtime, and he’d been able to use his Tower Points and System Credits to buy all the Law treasures he’d needed. He’d gotten a hefty sum from clearing the Trial League. There seemed to be a totally different currency system going on in there.

No one knew what the Delver King’s treasure was, but it was rumored it would help with breakthroughs. Evan was hopeful.

Meanwhile, he had a ship to catch. He went on for quite a bit about it. Evan was a big fan of cruise ships.

“I’m really excited!” said Evan. “There’s only a few more floors to go, but… I guess it also means there’s not much time left. Maybe just another twenty years?”

“Mhm, just about,” said Reina.

“I guess that’s not so much time…” Evan looked like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with that.

Finally he just settled on hugging them all again. He looked a little sniffly.

“Sweetie…” said Reina. “What brought this on?”

“I guess, just because there’s not much time left, I never really stopped to think about it all that much.”

Evan went over and gave Zane and Avery another hug as well.

“Aww… dangit,” said Avery.

Zane ruffled him on the head. “It’s not like it’s the last picnic we’ll ever have,” he said. “When this war’s done with, we’ll just meet up again. Then it won’t be nearly as rushed.”

“Maybe we can go do some longer bird-watching tours,” he added. 

It was kind of hard for Zane to imagine a life after this all finished. It’d kind of been the defining driving force of his life for so long, the thing that’d powered all those years of grinding.

He imagined—hoped—it’d feel quite peaceful. Like he’d finally let go of a weight he’d been bearing all his life.

Evan wiped at his eyes a little. “That does sound really nice…I think for now, I’m just gonna do my best! And really try to make the most of it.”

Chomper barked in agreement. Evan had a villain organization to beat. They’d recently started poaching lots of beasts, apparently, for what Evan believed had to be nefarious purposes. He wanted to get to the bottom of it.

In contrast to Evan, Avery was a bit behind in her essence.

“But as previously stated,” said Avery, a tad defensively, “I’m just gonna be consistent! It’ll all work out, just you watch.”

She crossed her arms. “I have nothing more to add on the matter.”

Zane felt that was fair enough. 

Reina just planned on finishing up her last two Concepts. “That, and some last-minute physique prepping, should be all there is to do,” she told Zane. “At least, for my own training. Then… I suppose it’ll be time.”

He nodded.

He was starting to feel it too, just a little. He was eager to join the Barbarian Sage, but he was starting to consider just what this latest meet-up with his friends meant. Just how far into the timeline they were. Meetings like this would be pretty hard to come by soon. 

They all knew this would be the last big uninterrupted stretch they’d get to hunker down and grind. Then it’d be breakthrough time, and after that…the War that’d end it all. And the detonation of that rocket ship of shards and Credits Zane was steadily building for himself.

It was getting to be crunch time for all of Dragonspire, not just them. 

“I’ll plan to break through just after you,” said Reina. “Then we should be ready.”

“Alright,” he said. “Just keep me updated.”

“Mhm.” She went up to him, looking like she had a lot on her mind. In the end she just gave him a kiss. 

“Just one more push,” she said. “Zane… just—finish this, okay?”

“I will,” he promised her.  

He gave his friends one last wave. He’d see them on the other side.

With that, he left for the Conclave, feeling a mix of emotions, some bittersweet.

He stepped through the teleporter, felt it lighting up all around him…

He took a deep breath. Then he felt himself blasting away. 

Zane just stood there for a while, letting the stars stream by, thinking of his friends and just how much stronger he’d have to get, and fast. 

He cracked his neck.

…Hells, but he was pumped to punch a Kaijuu.

***

There were a few teleporters he had to take between the World Tree and the Conclave. The big hubs were joined by quite a few routes, but they were too far apart to link directly. He usually took a private route reserved for Reina’s tier of VIP. It’d been opened to him due to his status as the Mistress Consort.

Along the way, he munched on some dreamsteel.

He’d been pretty consistently munching over the years, in the background. It didn’t take long to load his body full of the stuff on a daily or bi-daily basis. He burned through it with Astrolith fights, skill testing, or just plain metabolism. His progress hadn’t really been all that worth nothing, though. 

He’d steadily grinded his way up to—

Friend of the System IV - 48%

He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to unlock the next store section before the war. Though he didn’t really need to. He’d need a lot more Credits to clear out his currently unlocked section. And if the store sections kept up the pattern, things would only get more expensive from there.

Still, he figured it couldn’t hurt to keep up the progress.

You never knew how fast Credits would start pouring in once the war began. He still had no clue how much an Empyrean kill was worth to the System. Maybe he’d end up making use of new sections of the Store sooner than he thought.

***

A few minutes later, Zane stepped foot in the Plaza of Titans.

He saw the same squat houses of rough-hewn stone, towers of blackened steel, and open forges CLANG-CLANGing with some of Dragonspire’s highest-grade metals. It felt like ages since he’d stopped by. It had to be nearly a half-century, now that he thought about it… It looked pretty much as he remembered, just much busier.

The Conclave was probably as busy as he’d ever seen it, now that he got a closer look.

The air was rife with spark-showers. Everywhere he looked, he found Divine Profound-grade heavy metal being moved around. The Steelheart’s teleporter hub was bustling, just like the World Tree’s. Tons of crates were being shipped in and out of forges. Crates full of giant golden shields, Divine Profound suits of armor, all runed-up and shiny, gleaming bows studded with gemstones, and smaller bows made of a steel-like wood—all incredibly valuable items on a Galactic scale. All headed off for use in the coming War.

He just stood there for a bit, waiting for the Sage to arrive. In that time he got quite a bit of encouragement from the Steelheart folk nearby—mostly cheers and hearty thumps on the back.

He had a few quick chats with folks as they passed by on their way to cart off their various payloads. Even just taking it all in stoked that eagerness in him more. Something about seeing everyone hard at work, getting their encouragement, just had that effect.

That was the Conclave for you.

Before long, one Barbarian Sage charged out of the teleporters.

He promptly tackled Zane in a hug.

“The hells took you so long!” roared the Sage. Zane had come about five years earlier than he’d initially projected, but he got what the Sage meant.

The Sage pulled back, patted him on the shoulders, beaming.

“Look at you! You didn’t run out of good steel in that Astra, did you?”

“I’ve still been taking in a decent amount,” Zane reassured him. “I feel like I might need some higher-grade stuff to level more, though.”

“We’ll fix that soon enough, don’t you worry.”

They grinned at each other.

“Hells, but it’s good to see you again, lad.”

“It’s good to see you too.” 

“What do you say we get going?”

“Sure.”

They ambled along the Plaza, making for the teleporters at the far end. “I’ve been hard at work these past few decades, fixing it up, I tell you,” said the Sage. “She’s a beauty, alright. You’ll see.”

The Sage started giving him a quick rundown, then cut himself off. “Y’know what? It’s better I just show it to you. Rebuilding that thing took so much damned effort—not just from me, either… speaking of.”

“Summersteel!” he called to a squat, thick-bearded Elder at a forge as they passed by.

“Jogo!” the Elder flipped up a welding mask and waved. “You and the lad off to make use of those Law pistons?”

“Just about!” said the Sage. “You remember Sage Summersteel. And there’s his disciple, Viria.” The woman by his side gave them a quick wave too.

“We might’ve met just once, I think.” Back in his first training cycle on the Barbarian Sage’s planet, if Zane remembered right, and only briefly. But he appreciated the help. 

“Well, Summersteel’s not the only one who’s helped out. Karakas over there did the welding and the runework. Those’re some of the top artificers and blacksmiths this Galaxy’s got to offer, and I got ’em to work on Boot Camp for the better part of a decade… that’s strong Empyrean work. It’s the only way to get that place into shape. Some of the stations had to be custom-built. If that’s not an investment, lad, I don’t know what is.”

“Which stations?” said Zane, quite curious now. “You mean the machines?” 

He’d seen them—these shiny giants in the back of the Sage’s messages.

“That’s right,” said the Sage cheerfully. “That’ll be where most of your Law work’ll go down… Alright, let’s just go through what you’re up against first, lad. Just so you know what it’s all for.”

The Sage rubbed his hands. “When you get to the Fourth Form Titanform and up, you can’t just get by with using moons for training anymore. Even planets. You’ve got to go to the most extreme stuff this Galaxy’s got to offer. That’s what Boot Camp was built for.”

The Sage nodded. “Put another way, it’s the only way we can get your body the stimulus it needs to really grow.”

“That does make sense.” Even with his Concepts, it felt like Zane had to seek out pretty top-end stuff to keep up his rate of progression. That starfield, for instance, had to be one of the best Law treasures Dragonspire had to offer.

He also quite liked this whole ‘seeking out the extremes’ theme. It just worked well with who Zane was. 

“That goes for your Law training too,” continued the Barbarian Sage. “To get through the complete Fourth Titanform, with your Foundation Stone in tow, you won’t just need to max out all your body levels, lad—which, by the way, is a hell of an undertaking on its own. You’ll need to learn a high-as-hells-grade Concept and load that thing straight into that stone in your core. It’s a lot, I’ll grant you! Not just learning the Law, but loading it. Which is why we’ve custom-built some of the best damned machines this Galaxy’s ever seen for you to train with. And we’ve got a whole bunch of Kaijuu to practice on. Can’t really ask for much more than that. Now—it might seem an odd one at first. Almost doesn’t even seem like it should be a Law, but every truly massive thing in this Galaxy’s got it, even if subtly. And when you learn it, it’ll make every single thing you throw hit that much harder.”

That did sound quite promising… “What’s it called?”

“Pure Size, lad,” said the Sage proudly. “It’s called the Concept of Pure Size.”