Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 286: Excitement Emergency

Unfortunately, having an almost empty time pool to fuel [Continent Strider] meant that he had to walk. Li Mei got him close with a [Portal], but none of the other [Portal] users had been around to teleport him the rest of the way.

On the way there, Han had sent him some “alibi messages” clarifying why his presence would be useful, which Isaac had responded to with “that’s super cryptic, but if you say this is important, it is, see you soon”.

Isaac did his usual dance through the city of Seoul, flying where it wouldn’t get him yelled at, leaping across roads where it would, and using an app to order food and then pick it up as he zipped past. He might have one of the world’s finest chefs working on campus with him, but variety was the spice of life. And the food stalls here were so good.

Besides, this wasn’t an emergency, and he didn’t officially know what had been discovered.

So by the time he’d reached the campus of Seoul University, he’d gathered enough food for everyone. Though really, he’d probably show up with gifts of food from Germany, not the stuff the people he was coming to visit could have every day.

But he was sure that some good food would be appreciated. Based on what he’d seen, things had gotten a little crazy. He was familiar with how that went because it had happened many times before at his own work. Someone came up with something awesome, and everyone got carried away. It had even happened to the team once or twice.

The first few steps onto campus were pretty standard, carrying him through crowds of students mostly unnoticed. He did draw a few eyes, but not many.

However, as he drew closer to the [System] research wing, things changed. The architecture went from sleek and modern to starkly utilitarian, with small windows and heavily reinforced walls, buildings set in a way that would make it harder for potential issues to get away from the central building, which was used for summoning.

And there were the guards. Not just a smattering of security guards, but also Hunters on what was the crappiest duty they had, sitting here to protect against calamities that were almost certainly not going to come. Sure, Bailey’s team might be the highest concentration of S-Rankers in the word, but between Professor Kim, Dr. Han, Hak, and Dasom, any monster would get its ass kicked before it became a problem. If a problematic monster got summoned in the first place, that was.

Isaac drew more eyes here, he’d probably taught most of the people here on one occasion or other.

It was only at the entrance to Professor Kim’s department that he was stopped. Apparently, people wandering in was enough of a problem that something had to be done about it.

“Dr. Thoma, thank you for coming,” Kim greeted him, “I hope the message wasn’t too disruptive?”

“Not this time,” Isaac said.

“Good to hear. Believe me, he won’t be making that mistake again,” Kim replied, then raised an eyebrow, “However, I was under the impression that you didn’t travel to grant the [Blessing of Innovation]?”

“There are few people who I’d travel for,” Isaac said, “It’s easier to start out with a hard line that I eventually start to ignore for people I deem worthy than trying to explain to anyone why they don’t warrant me coming to them. So, do you just want to get the [Blessing of Innovation] once, or do you think you might need it a few more times?”

“It depends on how much time you have,” Kim shrugged, “If it were up to me, I’d keep you for a full month and keep trying every possible combination of borrowed [Skill], but I know you’re busy.”

“I have a few more days I was supposed to spend in space, but depending on what ‘the project’ is, I could easily stay longer,” Isaac assured her.

They spent the path to the lab itself talking about various general research topics, but keeping things general.

And then they got to her lab itself, and it was in a state of absolute chaos. Chaos for a scientist, at any rate. More equipment than should ever be out of storage at once was unpacked, almost every possible surface had something standing on it, and while the coffee cups and takeout food containers were stacked neatly in one corner of the room, it wasn’t normal for a pile that high to accumulate before someone took out the trash.

“We think we’ve managed to figure out how to block summoning,” Kim said, gesturing to a mess of not only metal plates, mana-conducting wires, and runic sigils, but also feathers and scales. It looked like a cyberpunk dream catcher.

“In essence, that thing disrupts the formation of the summoned monster from the mana rising from an activated summoning circle. However, it breaks after a few seconds,” Han explained.

In other words, it was useless … in its current form. But then again, what invention was ever perfect from the get-go? They had something to start building on.

“So, who wants the [Blessing of Innovation], are there any resources that might come in handy that you don’t have yet …” he trailed off suggestively.

“We’re good on most materials, thank you,” Kim said, “Anything we could use is extremely valuable and I couldn’t ask you for them.

Han had lived most of his time in dictatorship, and had a poker face to match. But Isaac was damn sure he was quietly sniggering under that stony exterior.

As far as Professor Kim was concerned, Isaac was a famous and wealthy researcher, but not someone able to throw around immense resources for foreign universities, certainly not in an amount that would be a noticeable improvement over her budget. He might have told her the truth about the divine proxy war, but she wasn’t quite aware of everything he was doing.

“If you could give me a list, I’ll look it over,” Isaac promised.

Kim didn’t take any obvious action, but behind her, her assistant began scribbling down a list.

“Would you like to know how we figured it out?” Han asked.

“Will I understand it?” Isaac asked. This was highest-order magitech, so far beyond his knowledge it might as well have been ma- … it might as well have been divine intervention.

“I think you’ll find the principle behind it useful,” Han said, “Remember when I told you we were looking into R’lyeh?”

“Vaguely,” Isaac said, “I knew you were doing that, but not what exactly you were looking into.”

“We’ve seen something interesting in that city, about how it shifts around. It’s as if there are multiple cities at once, shifting and overlapping, but only one city is real at the same time, right?”

Oh dear.

“Did you keep all of the precautions in place, and fully understood everything before implementing it?” Isaac asked. He sincerely hoped they had, and doubted they’d do something that stupid, but still … that fucking city.

“Of course we did,” Kim said, “We even added a few precautions of our own. I’m fully aware of the danger that city poses.”

“We didn’t copy any of the complex messes beyond mortal ken,” Han added, “That device is meant to mimic the way the mana in the environment shifts in the city, stabilizing it in a way that blocks the conversion of the summoning circle’s mana and materials into a monster. The problem is that the mana from the circle pushes directly against the effect until it breaks, it never dissapates, and we’ve tried pitting several thousand points of mana against a simple, Tier 1 spider. It still barely did anything.”

If the mana from the summoning didn’t dissipate, it might just keep pushing until something gave, like a bubble trapped in an upside-down glass underwater. It would keep pushing no matter what. But even if all they could do was delay the summoning, it would change the world.

“So there’s a lot to improve,” Isaac said, stroking his chin, “Have you gotten a chance to look at how a stabilizing influence affects the city?”

Han grinned, “If you can get Raul there, that should be incredibly useful.”

They talked a bit more, Isaac gave out [Blessings of Innovation] like candy and finally retreated to the corner of the room with the list of materials that might be useful.

It was quite the collection of materials. Some he could simply draw from his company and take a “pay cut” for this month, others would originate in his own private stash, and one particular set of stuff could be found in one of Seoul’s Dungeons in infinitesimal quantities.

He called Raul about when he could join them in R’lyeh, then arranged for him to head there via Seoul so he might bring the needed materials from Germany, and finally bade goodbye to everyone in the lab.

At this point, he was in the way even hunched into the furthest corner of the room. Everyone was busy looking at the problem from entirely new perspectives, drawing on scientific [Skills] that they were now able to borrow, and so on.

Besides, there was something he could do to help. He left a stack of food he’d brought from Exotische Genüsse on the desk closest to the door and slipped out.

Five minutes later, he stood in the entrance of the high-Level training area of the Seoul Hunter’s Guild.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he announced, slightly raising his voice to indicate that he wanted everyone to hear and listen in, but not shouting, “I’m here because the University of Seoul needs some materials for a project, and I’m looking for someone to run the Twisted Palace with me. Minimum A-Rank, well-balanced party, experience with the Dungeon in question preferred, I’ll be paying for and providing consumables, I’ll anyone who joins me a [Skill] of their choice.”

Well, he’d accumulated a whole lot of charges for teaching, so he could definitely afford to spend them on this.

Now if only he’d not underestimated the response to his offer …