The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

some variations for healers; we had rooms, floors, and entire sections as options, with dedicated growing areas for the medicinal plants and other requirements they had. Or they would have had, once we’d been fully inhabited, anyway.” Oracle said, looking sad. I sat dumbfounded.

“You’ve got plans for these things? That we could be building in the Tower right now?!” I asked, shock lacing my voice.

“Ah, no. Sorry, Jax,” Oracle said apologetically, turning to me and holding her hands up to forestall my barrage of questions. “We have plans for the Tower; there were other Great Towers, after all, and we have the plans from each. In theory, we could make anything you wanted; we’ve discussed the malleability of the Tower structure before, after all. The issue we have is that the various buildings and specializations can’t be built when the Tower is in this condition. There was a Tower Magus long…well, exceptionally long ago now, and he forced his Tower to begin altering itself while it was still growing. He altered the magical construction to such a degree that it warped, the Tower collapsed, and the surrounding area was devastated, as the mana used to grow something like this is, well, a lot.” She shook her head, staring far into the past. “The Emperor was furious; so many had died, and due to the loss of the Tower, additional legions needed to be brought in to stabilize the area."

"There was a war going on at the time, and the resulting movements of troops, well… let’s just say, it didn’t go well. All because the Magus wanted ‘his’ Tower to be more opulent and to grow his quarters first. The Emperor issued a commandment to all future buildings, one that his Magical Architects wrote into the programming of each spell creation.”

“There can be no focused growth, no access to designs and no additional bonuses earned, until the Tower is at ninety percent complete.”

“Yeah, but the Tower is complete, it’s just…”

“No, it’s classed as ‘derelict’ now, Jax. Until the repairs move along, the best we can do is build the features we want ourselves. We can build a healer’s hut—well, rooms, I suppose—and we will gain some bonuses from having that, provided we build it ourselves. If you want access to the plans for the Tower that we had, and to use the Tower’s mana to construct them, we need to repair the Tower from ‘Derelict’ to ‘damaged’, at the very least.”

“What do we need to do to reach that?” I asked and Oracle closed her eyes for a second before the small pool of mana that she’d been reborn in began to bubble up. In a few short seconds, Seneschal stood there, a foot-tall figure clad in shining silvery scale mail, a reflective helm covering his face, and a long black cloak that swirled in an imaginary breeze as he nodded to each of us before speaking.

“Oracle has made me aware of your questions, Jax; do you wish me to answer them here?” he asked, and I nodded, having no concerns about the pair before me knowing any such details.

“Very well. The Great Tower is currently at approximately sixty-seven percent integrity. To use the plans and reconstruct floors to maximum efficiency, we require the Tower to reach structural integrity of ninety percent. Understand that this is integrity, and reflects the outer and load bearing structure, not cosmetic or internal enhancements. This will take a minimum of eight months to reach at the current speed of repair. If we created more Golems and used them exclusively on the repairs, it would drop significantly, but that would change, depending on how many Golems we had access to. All I can guarantee is that, as things stand right now, it will be eight months.”

“Okay; how long if we gained another couple of the Servitors like the one I brought in today? You could map out the locations of the old Waystations, and I could find them, right?” I asked.

“Each additional Servitor that was class three, or ‘Complex’ and above would bring an additional seven percent to the overall total. If you found two and gave me exclusive use of the one you brought today, that would cause a twenty-one percent increase in repair speed. Add in three more general use Golems to provide assistance with tasks such as clearing and placement of stones, and we would cut the total from eight months, to perhaps five. That would be the most likely scenario. Some Waystations had more Golems, but they also may have been destroyed entirely.”

“Yeah, I might spend days searching and find fuck-all, or I might find dozens. Okay, this conversation has gone wildly off topic, and as much as it’s useful information, it’s no use right now.”

“Perhaps this would be a good time to discuss the best use of the Level Three Serv…” Seneschal began, and I lifted a hand to stop him.

“No; at least not right now. We can talk about that after this is dealt with, Seneschal,” I said. “Ame, I want you to read those books, absorb the knowledge, and tell me truthfully if you feel you can accept another book without damaging yourself. Better to be safe than sorry right now. Then I want you to consider what you’ve learned. You can take either the second Spellbook or skill book whenever you feel you can handle it, but the memory crystal will only be given once we have a resident healer, and they and Oracle agree you are ready to use it safely.  Lastly, I’ll be talking to you later about an additional project. It’s more of a concept at the minute than anything else, but Jenae has assured me it’s possible, if slightly insane.” Ame nodded and stood, recognizing that she was being dismissed, and she was clearly ready to get to work. I waved to her and opened the door, closing it after her, and turned to Cai.

“Okay, mate, I know you’ve been itching to discuss what