Second Genesis

Elowen was now beet red for a completely different reason. Grey lost count of the number of jealous and infuriated faces he saw just in the short walk to the entrance.

It seemed that Elowen’s place in the hearts of the people of this city was quite high. What he didn’t understand still was why she had been waiting outside like she had. There was probably a decent reason for that.

The outside of the building had been grand enough. In fact, in terms of size and scale, it was probably only second to the palace he had caught brief glances of from a far-off distance.

The inside truly matched that exterior grandiosity. The ceiling must have been 30 or 40 feet tall. However, what was interesting was that they could see right through the second floor above their heads, hexagonal sheets of thick glass framed by golden metal holding it up.

You could see right up a few skirts if you really tried, but the women on the second floor seemed to be pretty cognizant of that and dressed accordingly.

There seemed to actually be a third floor beyond that with the same hexagonal glass frames forming the ground.

’I guess people here aren’t afraid of heights?’ Grey chuckled to himself.

He had been to the CN Tower in Toronto before, and he had been through their glass floor experience. Of course, these floors weren’t nearly as tall as those ones had been, but no normal human was going to casually ignore a 30-foot drop.

However, the purpose of this became quite clear to Grey after a moment. Through the flooring of the third floor, you could see right through to the glass dome of hexagonal glass that formed the roof of the entire establishment.

The sun shone through just right, sending beaming light through that poured into the golden frames almost like ambrosia.

That was when his senses caught it.

’They’re using the sun to power the entire building.’

Grey felt his Dark Solveign Frame shake for a moment before it settled down.

This level of sunlight harnessing was beyond anything he had ever sensed before. Something clicked for him and his Abilities shifted up from Passive Link to Active Link.

The only reason he didn’t leap to Core Sync immediately was because his Abilities were more than just about the sunlight right now. There was another half he had added to it.

Grey shook his head.

"Look at this idiot, completely stunned." Zara sneered beneath her breath, still infuriated by Grey’s earlier words.

"Sorry," Grey said, only looking to Elowen. He released her hand before he pushed his luck too far. "Lead the way."

Elowen shook her head as though to say it was fine, but then she abruptly stopped like she was afraid Grey might do it again if she said that.

She cleared her throat. "This way."

Grey chuckled, she was adorable.

Aside from tall women, he also liked women with fiercer personalities. Elowen was neither of those things—well, other than her previous shrieking. Calling her shorty had seemingly been quite the sore spot.

But maybe he needed to venture away from his usual tastes. That way he’d get stabbed in the back less often.

Grey laughed to himself, knowing what he was saying was bullshit.

If he started going after shy, demure girls now, the only difference would be that the knife in his back would come even more unexpectedly.

"Here we are." Elowen said after leading them up to the second floor. "We can get a private trading room here. Trading blueprints isn’t all that common, but it’s still common enough that the materials you’ll need should be on the inside."

"Mm." Grey nodded.

Had he ever drawn a blueprint before? Nope. But they were about to find out together.

The room was a small black-lined one, white lines of hexagonal lighting lining the ceilings and providing the glow they needed to see.

It only seemed designed for four people or so to fit at the same time. The one conscious guard Elowen had remaining wanted to enter, but seemingly got bullied away by Zara and her own guard.

Grey caught this, but he didn’t say anything, just strolling in with Elowen.

In the middle of the room, there was a desk in the shape of a tent. It sloped to the left and right, effectively making it an easel for both sides of the table.

Grey walked to one side and Elowen followed. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"Can I watch?" she asked with a glow in her eyes.

Grey chuckled. "Sure. Just help me figure out how to pull out the settings or materials I need from this thing."

Elowen’s head bobbed, her lush curls bobbing along with her. The slight fragrance of strawberry and kiwi made it to Grey’s nose and he stopped himself from groaning.

Elowen tapped at the side slanted toward them and it lit up with a screen. Hovering holograms appeared on it, and she continued to tap through until the setting changed from hovering letters and numbers to more complex symbols instead.

Grey’s head tilted in curiosity, but he didn’t say anything.

After a few seconds, she was done.

Most of the canvas had become a blank white. To the left and right, holographic symbols and glyphs formed the vague outline of what looked like knobs and such.

"I hope you don’t mind, I set it to dev settings. There’s less lost in translation that way and the resulting blueprint will have better accuracy and higher Synergistic Accuracy."

Grey remembered Barkeep Ji mentioning Synergistic Accuracy before. It probably had something to do with how well the blueprint was copied from the original.

He never really had to worry about it with the Mechanical Jaw Lineage because those were the original blueprints.

He probably had dealt with lower Synergistic Accuracy with the Prosthetic Mech eyeballs. But he hadn’t been clear enough on how those things worked to tell the difference.

Zara sneered. "Do you even know how to read those? You’re so naive, Elowen, you’ve gone and screwed him."

Elowen frowned. When they were in private, Zara always grew more crude.

She looked toward Grey to tell him to ignore her sister, but Grey’s eyes had already glazed over.

Noting this, Zara looked toward her guard and gave him a quick flick of her eyes.