So, coffee exists here. Made from plants infused with soul energy. Just what one needed after a hasty bathroom break and some unsatisfying military rations.
THIS was something he would bring home to his girls. "Mmm."
The 'leader' Tawna offered a small pot. "Honey?"
Adam chuckled, trying to ignore the small squad of armed female Faunus in sexy dancer outfits following behind them. And 'Betty', the cow girl riding on his shoulders. "Why not? This stuff is amazing plain though."
Sienna padded up to his right absently twirling some sort of chain whip with blades, orange eyes glaring at the passing women. "So what can we do for you, Sir Muscle-ton?"
He frowned. "Right, first I have no money... so let's go fix that. Anyone know where I can get to a workshop and where I can find some scrap materials?"
One of the girls raised a hand. "I'm a weapon craftier, and I don't mind if you borrow our forge a bit." The girl next to her nodded. "As for scrap, anything from a damaged weapon tends to be ground up and added to the metal of the replacement parts. We believe strongly in communing with our tools and weapons, and it is not uncommon for recycled powder or weapons to be used for literally generations in a family."
He checked the dog eared girl. "Roxie, right?" A nod. "I don't need much at first, but the more raw material I have the more I can accomplish. It doesn't have to be anything with the emotional investment as weapon parts, I can use raw ore or cut ends and whatnot. Even slag from the refinement process can help me a lot."
Half the crowd scattered, barely any orders passing as Sienna made some hand gestures. "Right, we'll head over to Roxie's joint while the girls collect some raw material and any scrap or loose bits they can. Meanwhile, tell me a bit how you went from massive and murder-fun to tiny and adorable?"
They chatted a bit, Betty finding his ability to shape shift almost TOO exciting, as they wandered through Kuo Kuana. A feeling of excitement was pulsing in the street, the lack of heavy death and property damage pulling a festival feeling in the air as people dashed everywhere.
They were walking towards what Simmy noted as the Chieftain's house, Ghira's place, and the main street was covered with market stalls that owners were eagerly returning to, trying to take advantage of the emotional high running through the crowds. He ended up trying a few snacks being sold along the way, the girls insisting he try a few samples even if they were paying for it.
Roxie's place was near the industrial section of the city, which was surprisingly close to Ghira's home and the center of town. The biting smell of hot metal twanged in the air, with clouds of steam showing that Roxie's place was more like a Guild Hall than a personal forge. The entrance alone was wide with constant traffic, workers and material loaders pushing through all kinds of equipment and resources while crowds of Hunters and high level Crafters passed alongside them.
Not that he had much time to explore, as the girls plied him with questions and offered snacks and refills of coffee even as they moved towards the work floor.
It was a bit crowded, and he felt a little overwhelmed... but it was a welcoming feeling as well.
Finally though, he had arrived. Piles made with ingots of metal, massive wooden barrels filled with powders and shrapnel, and access to a secured wall section filled with Dust and Dust Crystals of all kinds of natures. Fire, Ice, Electric, Gravity, Combustion, Hard-Light, all kinds of it was carefully seperated and sorted... and it pulled his attention. Like sunshine behind a waterfall, he was drawn close.
The girls rapidly found their new friend beyond distracted, ignoring the world... as a forest of bone limbs erupted from his white suit.
Adam on the other hand, was entranced.
Dust was amazing.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Sienna watched Betty get gently lifted by a twelve jointed bone limb, white fingers carefully placing the squirming feminine package into her arms as a multitude of others began pulling Dust from the reserve wall as if they were free samples.
Not that they would say anything.
The man's assault on Grimm earlier had done more good than gathering ALL this expensive Dust and detonating it. They wouldn't be so stingy as to refuse him access if he needed it to work with.
That said, she winced with a few others as rare samples kept for months or years were casually pulled from storage and evaporated by some sort of red beam of light.
The nearby work stations, which had slowed significantly when an elephant Faunus surrounded by very powerful and socially significant women just waltzed into the building, now ground to a halt.
Metal, barrels of scrap, and millions of lein in Dust were just vanishing into the twisting bone forest of limbs as the man's bright blue eyes blazed with fire, something glowing and twisted swirling under his focus as small hisses and pops made the wary flinch.
It couldn't be dust explosions, not with pops that weak. But he was doing something even as metal was melted in the air near his hands, as wire was inserted and laid, as thin plates were welded and screwed into place.
It was art. A symphony of parts and limbs and focus, somehow avoiding collisions and disaster by the smallest of margins.
The fact that he could sip coffee without the rapid motion of the tools and arms getting in the way was impressive as well.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
First, Dust in general was not only crystallized kami, it was also not quite existing in three dimensional space.
It wasn't just multi-dimensional though. It was sort of... folded on itself. If reality was a series of fabric layers, one on top of the other, this stuff was bulging slightly into other areas of reality without breaking through.
Probably was how weapons could shift from a spear to a sniper rifle or chain gun, really. It wasn't quite soul storage like Adam used, but it didn't hide stuff in another chunk of reality like Shard Crystals did either.
It was an odd effect of having so much faith impregnating the material world. Add in that the entire population of this planet only survived fighting the Grimm thanks to Dust, and well... worshiping the material and finding soul connections to the weapons that used Dust made a lot more sense.
That said, his personal kami peanuts were more pure in a way. Like unaligned Dust, it could be powdered and added to existing Dust Crystals to cause them to expand and grow.
Thankfully that test used a nearly impossible to measurable fragment of his faith, as the new Gravity Dust had nearly covered his work space until he could get the Gather beam to consume it at the same rate as expansion. As it was, it took a few minutes before he could absorb enough away to get back to work.
Good to know though, some of these samples were in very low supply. He probably got here between the resupply schedules.
Adam absently whistled as he carefully duplicated completed Dust crystal samples of each type and began restocking the secured wall supply. No reason to use up the last of their samples, what if someone else wanted to test stuff out? They could probably pull what they needed from their reserve supplies, but there was no reason to not simplify the process. It was only polite.
Making new Dust crystals would be expensive normally, but in a Realm like this where Faith grew exponentially? Simplicity itself! Plus he was cheating, there was far more of some types like Fire or Combustion Dust than the others like Purity or Hard-Light. Not to mention his Dust exponential growth accident earlier.
A little advanced analysis to compare the folded Crystal Frameworks for the most stable and pure pattern, a bit of 'Research' to enhance the structure further to an optimal shape... and a Construction beam build later, new sample Dust Crystals!
He would have the wall restocked in a bit, which should then allow him to continue working on his project without guilt. It was like being that guy who took the last piece of pizza, and no one liked that guy.
Back to his project, Simmy floated behind him, mentally offering modifications to his designs from her simulated experiments on the various faith imbued materials. It was not going to be a Droid or anything, introducing them here seemed dangerous, but this was a Matter Furnace using only local materials. It would join the (still being designed) Gather/Construction Gun and a small Storage Unit so he could build stuff here even without the super convenient Flame and Null Metals. Probably would need improvements later, but for now it was good enough.
He hummed a bit as molten metal was floating over his head, Dust powder was being added to some plastic and glass panels, and wiring with Electrical Crystal Dust was etched into some metal surfaces. Seriously, he would need to take a month or two and explore Dust in general, it was basically magic or partial Shard powers in a very basic form, crystallized. It couldn't handle anything advanced like flight or whatever on its own, but it managed to generate energy types without actual dimensional shenanigans, and could replace entire chunks of Crystal Shard Planets normally used to create those required effects.
Heck, some spells could be vastly simplified thanks to the materials nature. The spells could toss out the flame generation and so such and focus on straight control options instead... much easier.
In the end, it was all a bit slap dash really. Adam hadn't even had a chance to connect to the CCT System here and download publicly available information yet, but he had a lot of stuff he wanted to get done and this would be a simple way to make any stuff needed later on in this adventure.
He grinned as the materials being modified slowly grew in complexity, forming a backpack like structure to hold the Matter Furnace and Storage Unit together and out of the way while he worked in the future.
Narwhal would be so proud that he was thinking ahead this time!
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Second in command Sienna, the head of the Weapons consortium Roxie, and the girls responsible for trade, manufacturing, and so forth... they were all entranced.
Amidst the confusion and loud sounds of Adam's work, the flow of lost materials slowed... and reversed.
Mountains of absorbed Dust, some worth more than a small town's yearly income per gram, some so rare that no one dared to actually use them despite free access... Dust Crystals began to appear from the busy bone limbs and be carefully reinserted into the storage wall.
Not just the dirt cheap Combustion Dust or the common Fire Dust, Crystals of rare and near impossible to ever see Dust types were rapidly filling the containment units. Some, like the Plant Dust Crystal, never existed before! Kuo Kuana as a city had never seen anything more than Plant Dust in powdered form, and rarely at that! The stuff was beyond valuable, as it could directly increase plant life and crop growth. The few rumored Plant Dust Crystals to be found had been snatched up by Atlas, their frozen landscape needing enhanced farm methods for survival.
And now they had access to hundreds of them. And counting.
Rack after rack of Dust shelving compartments had Crystals increased in quantity, and before Sienna knew it the entire thing was now full and Adam's limbs were starting to fill the powdered Dust sections as well. As if it was barely worth mentioning to resupply an entire city with rare materials. Just... more and more.
She glanced at the girls, who also seemed a bit disturbed. How were they supposed to pay back their hero if he just spews cash in every direction!?
Their thoughts were broken off when a happy cry came from the man. "ALRIGHT!"
A glowing backpack, thousands of thin dust patterns with strange combinations of sparkling circuitry, was casually strapped onto the Elephantine Faunus's shoulders. An odd gun was attached to tubing connected the system together, and his smile was wide even as his trunk wiped sweat from his brow.
He turned to the overwhelmed Sienna, probably for the best since Tawna was still staring numbly at the massive wall of Dust storage so recently filled to capacity. "Right, I got the tools I need now... but I have run quite short of scrap and such. I know I've asked for a lot, but I promise I can make some neat stuff that would be really useful if you guys just loan me some more resources and some land to build on."
He pumped the gun which began to glow pulses of red and green. "Though I will need to talk to Ghira again at some point to find out what would be valuable here. Thinking about building some automated healing stations or something if I can get enough biological scans first. Maybe some food production, since this land mass seems to be two thirds desert."
Sienna absently led the muscled miracle man away, giving her girls time to recover and follow later.
And blinked. Did he really build Betty a saddle on his new backpack? Huh. She did seem comfortable up there.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Adam was near bouncing in eagerness, Betty's arms hugging his head. He could build a fort! No, some sort of massive tower maybe. With floors to convert excess kami and faith into needed materials.
Ooh, maybe a pizza joint? Did Remnant even have pizza? He should make sure his tower could grow or provide the right ingredients.
A thought had Simmy hum. He would have the needed seeds when the time came. And free food was always a good thing, right? Should earn him enough money to buy weapon parts or whatever.
And even if he might have showed off a bit with the robot bone arms, he managed to mostly stay under the radar, he felt. Stealthy Adam, that's what they should call him!
Not sure why Simmy was sniggering though.
. Even if dust had been a cheap material, duplicating it would have made waves.
