Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 134: Surprisingly useful Paperwork

“First of all, I got an amazing new [Class], the inheritance of a warrior from the Song of the Niebelungs, called [Hildebrand’s Heir]. It’s a hybrid fighter and trainer [Class] and once I get a few more Levels, I can actually give you guys some [Skills], one’s that can’t be gained from your [Classes] or by slotting Aspects. In other words, these will be your hidden trump cards, something that people can only speculate on you having until you use them in public.

“I also got a couple of useful [Skill]-upgrades after the fight against the Demon Lord that let’s me pass on some useful stuff right now.”

As he said that, Isaac pulled five kabars out of his spatial storage, placing them on the table between them. Each weapon glowed with a low yellow light, slowly sinking into the metal until only a slight glimmer along the edges remained. Normally, this glimmer would have been all that was visible, but Isaac had enchanted the weapons and immediately put it in storage so he could show off the process.

Mastercrafted Unblockable Kabar

A standard knife designed for both utility functions in the wilderness and combat, forged by a master blacksmith and empowered with a maximum Level Piercing Strike by Hildebrand’s Heir. No unenchanted armor created by a craftsman of a comparable Level will be able to withstand it.

“These weapons have a permanent lesser form of [Piercing Strike] enhancing them thanks to my bonus for reaching Level thirty in the [Skill]. I can also grant you an incredible skill with them and other bladed weapons thanks to another [Skill] gaining a new effect upon hitting a Level threshold. I think Adam especially could seriously use a blade [Skill] because it should work with spikes, claws or other natural weapons.”

Bailey nodded “I’ve got a [Skill] called [Claw Combat] that helps a little, do you yours will work better?”

“Probably. These are martial arts movie level blade tricks, I think those should be useful.” Isaac replied with a cocky grin “But training’s for later because I got some really cool toys for you guys.”

A hermetically sealed glass box appeared on the table next, containing a block of what looked like grey putty.

“That is a set of stem cells that can integrate with any organism by adapting its DNA. However, I got that out of an Eldritch Dungeon famous for mental magic and other nastiness, so only open that book in a Security Class 4 Laboratory to study it, do not use it or integrate it with anything, just look at it, understand what you think could be useful and then atomize it. Do not replicate anything you don’t one-hundred percent understand, do not use it for anything when you can’t fully predict what will happen.”

Bailey looked at the odd mass with barely disguised avarice, but everyone else backed away and stared at the thing in disgust. That thing was an incredible boon for one of them, a terrible threat for everyone else.

“Like I said, be really careful when using it.” He reminded the professor, before pulling out another set of boxes, each meticulously labeled “What I’ve got here are a bunch of weird or strange materials from the various Dungeons I inspected during my travels, as well as some exotic potion materials. It should go without saying, but please keep those off the books and in your storage spaces, away from prying eyes.”

Isaac continued to explain the particulars of the many, many gifts he’d gotten them, ranging from tissue samples belonging to nearly extinct animals that he’d ‘liberated’ from a smuggling operation he’d stumbled across to a bunch more potion ingredients that would have been sold for the benefit of criminals if he hadn’t grabbed them.

With that done, they headed into one of the empty summoning rooms for the actual training.

“To start with, everyone please take out the knives I gave you.” He announced.

How his friends and colleagues held their gifted weapons was very telling. Raul held it firmly, but as if he were about to start whittling something. Amy held hers in what was clearly meant to be an icepick grip, but it was clear that she didn’t entirely know to do so properly, while the others held theirs with some degree of trepidation and expectation for Isaac to offer instructions.

“In essence, there are multiple ways of holding a knife, each with advantages and disadvantages. For example, Amy is holding hers in an icepick grip, which offers greater power but reduces her range. In that grip, you should primarily be …”

It took a couple of hours, but eventually, Bailey announced that he’d gained a [Skill] and then showed Isaac it’s description.

Inherited Blade Mastery (epic)

All throughout history, countless people have staked their lives onto these pieces of metal, living and dying by the blade. Some may have wielded it in anger without any training at all, other spent their entire lives honing their craft without ever having to raise their weapons in a real fight even once.

And from one of these people, you have learned the art of the blade, granting you the ability to wield all edged weapons at a decent level of skill even if you never held this particular weapon before, gain a vastly enhanced learning rate when using edged weapons and an easier application of knowledge to entirely new kinds of edged weapons.

When you hold a sword in your hand, none shall stand before you.

“That’s an interesting choice of name.” Isaac observed. It was a downgrade in rarity from his legendary [Absolute Blade Mastery], but it was a functionally free [Skill] that would give them all the skill of an average Level 30 melee fighter. They might not have comparable physical Stats, but the surprise factor alone would make up for a lot of that.

“Do you think it’s because of your inheritor [Class], or will it would always have been named that?” Patrick asked.

Isaac shrugged “I don’t know. Maybe we could find someone else with a teachable [Skill] and find out?”

“I’ll try.” Bailey promised “Later.”

Another thirty or so minutes later, everyone else had also gained the [Skill] and the group broke up, everyone heading off to do their own thing.

Karl returned to his workshop, Bailey grew a series of thorns, spines and quills on his arm to practice with and everyone else headed into the other summoning room to experiment with a different monster.

Isaac, meanwhile, headed into his office to finish off what little paperwork had accumulated while he’d been away. It wasn’t much, given that he hadn’t been here to generate any, but it did need to be done and putting it off would only serve to utterly ruin the day when he was actually forced to complete it.

Updated insurance for dealing with monsters … new insurance required for working around the explosive demons blood which is not covered by regular insurance for ‘reasons’ … another few waivers about utterly random crap … some forms that would only be useful on the off chance that he got interns or TAs … basic stuff that he only did because the bloated monstrosity that was German bureaucracy had deemed it necessary, not because it was truly needed.

All in all, it took him an hour to make the (digital) pile of paperwork vanish but vanish it did.

… and then Bailey knocked on the door and when Isaac called him in, dumped a stack of folders almost thirty centimeters thick on his desk.

Isaac literally jumped out of seat in surprise.

“What the …” he bit off a swearword “What on Earth are those?”

“Grant proposals. A bunch of people who want to research something and need money or resources to do so.”

“Yeah, I know what a grant proposal is, but aren’t we the one’s who submit them, not the ones who get them?” Isaac asked, puzzled.

“Ordinarily, these are submitted to the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft to ask for federal funding, but the [System] has added a bunch of hard to get materials to the world that aren’t available in exchange for money, or at least not at rates that are even remotely reasonable. My research team and this university are a major supplier of safely sourced monster materials, so a lot of the material-focused requests get re-routed to us for review because we have both the required knowledge about how valuable those materials are and how likely the research is to succeed and in exchange, we are awarded a lot of additional funding. We also get a lot of requests through other channels from abroad as we’re one of the premier [System] research groups.”

Isaac nodded “That part makes sense. But why do you want me to go through …” he scanned the pile with his [Aura] “… a month’s worth of proposals?”

“I figured you might be able to recognize some names from the other timeline and select proposals you knowwill pan out.” Bailey explained.

… Isaac’s facepalm sent some of the papers fluttering into the air.

“Yeah, I should have thought of that.” He added, gritting his teeth, then added in a more chipper tone “That’s a great idea, I’ll look these over now.”

If the paperwork had been as dull and bland as oatmeal boiled with water for hours until all that was left was a disgusting mush, these grant proposals were that same oatmeal with a million different spices packed into waterproof but edible capsules added in, completely unnoticeable until you bit into them and got a mouthful of whatever was inside. Sometimes it was something good, at other times, you got a mouth full of capsaicin. And what was worse, you never knew which was which until it was far too late.

There was the occasional madman’s rant about what horrible ‘tools’ that were really weapons could be created, other stuff that sounded good on paper but Isaac knew wouldn’t work, etc.

One of the good ones was a project to create a flexible ‘waterskin’ that was extremely resistant to blunt force and could be stored in a pouch fairly safely yet could be bitten open very easily. Those were for potions and exactly what Isaac had used in the other timeline. And if he’d had those in Korea, he wouldn’t have ended up eating almost a kilogram of glass during the fight. Therefore, that went onto the ‘absolutely fund’ pile.

Then there were a few proposals from people who wanted to try their hand at creating new materials with the [System’s] materials, which Isaac put on a second pile he’d labeled ‘interesting, but have someone else look over’.

But there were a lot more of these things … wants to create a Wolpertinger … pretty sure that’s about making sex toys … boring generic ‘what happens if I throw this stuff together’ Nr. 314 …

“Eureka!” Isaac shouted, leaping out of his chair and through the wall, running to Bailey’s office like a whirlwind on a sugar high.

“Come in before you break the door down.” Bailey called as Isaac’s frenzied knocking reached his ears.

“So, we need to get this guy here, pronto.” Isaac said, slamming the relevant folder down on the table “This guy is Daniel Naves Malo, the inventor of the spatial storage device in the other timeline. Not the Extradimensional Pocket you need to burn a core to move or access from afar, but an actual ring that you can put things in by touching the ring to them. And what’s more, he’s offering to move here if we promise to fund him for the next two years.”

“Ok, we can do that, but this sounds a little … I don’t think I’d approve this without you supporting it.” Bailey replied.

“Yeah, it’ll look a little sus, but we can disguise it a little by offering him basic materials, then find the results so miraculous we simply have to sponsor him. We’ve got a good enough track record that people give us a little slack.” Isaac suggested.

“I’ll figure something out. Also, will he need other stuff? We could send him a lot of additional things that we ‘thought could be useful’ and ‘accidentally’ give him a massive leg up.”

“I’ll get you a list.” Isaac promised and headed back to his office. The rest of the stack of paperwork called.