No Need For A Core?
289: Rising Metal

Kazue was glad that the romantic threads around Hajime appeared to have resolved without any issues, though she really wished Betty had asked one of them about the idea of introducing Dhamini and Cephelia to him that way. Of course, that might be just a bit selfish of an idea; their inhabitants had their own lives with adult brains and bodies, and at least the initial imprint of an adult mind. Naturally, they wouldn't consider asking about every decision, nor could the three of them handle making every decision for their inhabitants and the ways they chose to lead their lives.

It was just that they were also all very young and inexperienced. Kazue snorted at that thought; she'd been less mature in some ways at the age of twenty when she'd met Mordecai and Moriko. Maybe she wasn't one to judge here.

Well, this wasn't the time to worry about it, she needed to focus on the job ahead of her.

It was time to make some decisions that she'd been putting off for a while. She had decided to make their upward zones elemental-themed, but the elements didn't flow linearly, especially if one included sub-elements. She was finding two in particular to be problematic.

One of those was mud, which felt redundant given the existence of their wetlands. Environmentally they could change it up a little, though it felt a lot like the way they had done the earth zone. But it was the creatures that had her stymied; they felt the most like duplicating effort.

In the end, after talking it over with Moriko and Mordecai, she decided that instead of creating a whole zone, she would just create a shrine for Lutomose, the Great Hippo, Elemental Lord of Mud. It would be placed in the town at the beginning edge of the wetlands zone, so that Lady Lutomose could spread her blessings over travelers there, or make her ire known. As the Trionean soldiers were being sent back home, this also made a perfect time to create connections to the sewers both at the town and further into the zone, which also meant that sewer inhabitants could participate in the more common fights, so long as they were good about toning down their potential lethality.

The shrine included a mosaic of Lutomose and her retinue of singing Mud Skippers, with a fiddle playing crab upon her back. Kazue remembered an image one of her fellow shrine maidens had drawn of the crab when they were children and couldn't resist making a small, non-canonical change to the fiddle-playing crab. She added a monocle and flat-topped capotain hat to the crab, making him a very fine-looking crab indeed.

She rather thought that Lady Lutomose would not mind the depiction, as she seemed to have a sense of humor. The crab used to be one of her contenders for the title of Elemental Lord, and the only one wise enough to concede to her. The rest had been swallowed whole, though even lesser gods do not die easily. Instead, when they came out the other end, they had become mud skippers that were entirely cowed into servitude to her.

When it came time to dedicate the shrine, Kazue thought she felt a trace of amusement from the Lady of Mud, though this did not keep the handover from having a painful sting again. The normal shrines were one thing, but these shrines gave limited control of their territory to other entities, and that was not such an easy thing to accommodate.

When it came time to create their volcanic level, Kazue intended to create a similar shrine for Souflia, the fire salamander elemental lord of Lava. Creating a zone for lava in the air was logistically difficult, and it thematically wanted to be closer to the earth zone than the fire zone, which meant the nexus would have less power to work with if they put it above ground.

Neither Souflia nor Lutomose were primogens and had risen to their current positions sometime after the age of creation. This was true of most of the elemental lords of secondary or mixed elements.

With the problematic zones dealt with, Kazue could finally determine the plan for the rest of her elemental zones.

Above earth would be metal, then crystal, wood, ice, water, air, lightning, fire, light, and then void/space. Kazue wasn't certain how literal that last one was going to be; she had known that air got thinner when one went up a mountain, but she had not realized how literal and absolute that could be. Just thinking about it made her want to go hug her void-bunny. Though, admittedly she often wanted to hug Zushi simply for being warm and snuggly, no matter the excuse.

However, the zones were going to get larger and much, much more difficult for delvers. By the time it was an issue, delvers that could reach that zone should have the ability to deal with the environment. If they did not have that ability but were still strong enough for the combat, they could always delve downward instead.

Those zones were going to be much slower to gain, so Kazue and her spouses had plenty of time to think up ideas for them. It took a high-powered tournament, more than a month of constant delving by over a hundred soldiers, and a month of rushed delving as a lead-up to the tournament to get the mana for this zone and they had no plans on holding a tournament every year.

Mordecai had suggested once every ten years, which both she and Moriko liked. It was the sort of thing that could be very disruptive if it happened too often, and the rarity should also make it more interesting for people who had to travel from farther away. They also agreed that they needed an appropriately grandiose name if they wanted to make it an ongoing event, but deciding on that name could wait.

Now, for the new zone. While Mordecai wasn't going to be a direct part of claiming the territory, he did have a crucial job so that Kazue's attention was not split more than it needed to be. Krystraeliv needed to grow as well, or at least, the crystal part of her did. Mordecai was in charge of making sure that happened swiftly enough while also ensuring that the accelerated growth did not hurt the world tree or the forming dryad.

On the edge of the stone city, at the far end from where the earth zone paths met the plateau, stone steps began to appear. As the steps climbed up and over the hunting zone and the survival zone, their composition began to change into more metal-rich stone types, then into dense ores, and then finally reaching an elevated, square platform made entirely from cubes of metal set in a pattern that would only make sense if you knew the exact composition of each cube.

That part was simply Kazue having fun, she wasn't presenting any challenges yet.

A solid wall made of more metal cubes surrounded the platform and two doorways split directly to the left and right. Around the right-hand door various weapons, shields, and armors were welded into the wall, while the left-hand door had metal tools and utensils welded to the wall around it.

For the moment, each door led to a simple metal corridor that led directly away from the platform, then turned sharply toward the opposite end of their territory, and turned a second time to meet at a large circular platform with an empty center, whose inner edge aligned with the outer edge of the stone town far below, allowing the light to fall through.

While this initial layout was being created, so too were its supports. Columns of earth rose up to meet and merge with columns of metal that descended from the steps, platform, and corridors, and those supports were soon reinforced with a network of arches.

Kazue did her best to provide enough physical integrity to support the structure even without magic, and their new metals and alloys certainly helped, but it felt like she was reaching the limits of what would be possible without involving magical forces.

Hidden within the columns, walls, and floors were runners of living crystal that were extensions of Krystraeliv’s root system, and a few of those were wrapped around mycelium from Sarcomaag. Kazue and Mordecai weren't certain how well the raid boss would be able to manifest himself in most of the elemental zones to come, but it seemed best to start with assisting his growth through as many of the zones as possible and find out what he could adapt to from there.

All of this structure was supported in turn by Krystraeliv's branches. While Kazue had reached out to claim the new zone and build up the metallic structure, Mordecai had been carefully guiding the world tree's growth and had stretched out crystalline branches to grow under and around the structures and archways Kazue had created.

These basic corridors were only the beginning of what was going to be done, especially on Mordecai's side.

Now for the shrine.

The Elemental Lord of Metal was Betieau, an automaton who had fully awakened ages ago and had mastered multiple magical arts as part of its personal path toward self-improvement before setting forward onto the path toward godhood.

The primary focus of the shrine was a statue of the risen god, but the common blocky figure didn't feel right. She wasn't quite sure what the source of this inspiration was, but Kazue went with her instincts and crafted a much more detailed and articulated figure. There were no assumptions about magic animating the metal form; each joint could actually work properly without such magic, though the internal source of motion was not revealed to her.

The final result somewhat resembled a knight in full plate armor, but the proportions were wrong to have a person inside of it. Instead, it had the proportions appropriate for a human or elf who was not wearing armor. The statue's face was also fully articulated, though its design was clearly mechanical rather than being designed with the details of an organic creature's face.

It was more tiring than it should have been to craft, even with the alloys she had used for each component, and Kazue felt fairly certain that Betieau itself had provided the inspiration to guide her artistry. If this was a truer representation of the elemental lord, well, she wasn't quite sure what to think about that, but she was happy that the god was pleased.

She shared her experience with Mordecai and he speculated that their recent experimentation with new metals and alloys had drawn the divinity's attention toward them, letting it be swiftly aware when Kazue started creating a metal-focused elemental zone.

As for offerings, rare metals or the fine craftsmanship of more common metals were appropriate. Insufficient offerings meant that the door leading to Kazue's path simply would not open, though Mordecai's was available if one wanted to risk having the active disfavor of the metal god weakening your armor and weapons while making those of your foes stronger.

Unfortunately, it hurt just as much to hand this shrine over as it had the earth and mud shrines. Kazue had a feeling that part wasn't going to change.

Time to work on their paths.

Kazue's layout was relatively simple for each of the rooms she created.

A short distance past the doorway onto her path, the corridor opened up onto a large central chamber with several rooms branching off of it.

These rooms had the complete range of equipment and materials needed to turn ore into clean, workable metal. This started with a bloomery for making a soft iron that could be worked into wrought iron and ended with the latest advancements that had been taught to their inhabitants (and thus the nexus) by some of their dwarven delvers.

The challenge here was simply to learn the very basics of smelting, including the control of fire to have the correct temperature. If you could produce clean iron and clean copper, even in small quantities, you passed.

Naturally, there were teachers on hand to help you through the process, and safety was part of the lessons, right down to the how and why of filtering air/smoke and containing water for later treatment. Kuiccihan already had strict rules about keeping air and water clean, but those allowed for magical treatment. Kazue wanted to teach the basics, though to be fair she'd had no idea about how this stuff worked before she'd been reincarnated as a core. This was all about respect for the metal.

In recognition that some people would be able to master the process faster than others, there was also a short corridor branching off with doors at each end and a spiral staircase at the far end. This staircase had several small windows along with air purification enchantments, and it led up to a space above the metal working area that had washrooms, cooking facilities, some basic food supplies, and sleeping areas.

This basic layout was duplicated for the challenges beyond, though the details would vary to match the requirements.

The next challenge was to learn to shape and forge metal. Again, copper and iron were the metals that one had to have basic proficiency in before moving on, though if anyone wanted to linger and learn even more, they were welcome to do so, and the nexus made sure to have additional work space and storage lockers for those who didn’t have the space or equipment back home to continue work and wanted to come back in the future. Most craftsmen preferred to keep using the same tools when possible.

The third challenge was bronze and steel. Creating these alloys required different techniques, and one had to both create the alloy in question and shape it, though the shapes did not have to be complex. Again, further lessons were available for those who wanted to master blacksmithing, or white smithing for that matter, as lessons in tin and such were available. Once more, Kazue made sure to add additional spaces for extended and repeat delvers who wanted to work on their own projects here.

The fourth challenge was gold smithing, though that included metals like silver and platinum. This included making specific alloys such as electrum or rose gold. Some of these alloys were desirable for their appearance, some were very small alterations to make the gold or silver harder while leaving the metal nearly pure. While simple shaping and casting were required to pass, there were once more advanced courses available for those who wished to master gold smithing and train in jewelry making, plus more work and storage spaces for people working on their own projects.

Kazue's fifth and final challenge was the hardest by far. All the toxic materials and waste products that had been captured during the previous trials were collected and stored so that each delver had to deal with the waste product that they had produced.

Now they had to learn how to process it to either make it nontoxic or to contain it in its least toxic form. There was no perfect solution here; things like quicksilver couldn't be rendered safe and simply had to be contained indefinitely. Well, the nexus could actually deal with waste by fully absorbing it, but the point here was to teach people how to deal with it outside of a nexus's territory.

There were important lessons being taught here about respecting the materials you were working with, but it was also a subtle advertisement. Azeria could produce the desired metals without the unwanted waste products, which made it a very valuable resource for all sorts of metal smiths.

Deciding on rewards for this zone was easy. In addition to a delver keeping anything they crafted, an appropriate amount of valuable metals in raw form would be presented at the end of the zone.

The giant metal ring that represented the end of the zone was, of course, another small city, this one being made almost entirely out of metal and replete with brass and gold ornamentation.

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