Fate Weaver’s Legacy

It was very curious what the Fusion skill considered to be ‘one’ item. A two-piece bikini counted as one item. A whole set of Vcuber clothes counted as one item. And apparently, a small pile of War Shark feathers counted as one item as well.
In other news, I now had a very weird-looking knife with a bulky emerald handle and a thin blade made out of the aforementioned feathers.
I had been hoping for a result like this, but I honestly hadn’t expected it to actually work.



“Hmm. You know, there might be something to that,” I mused. “But if that’s true, this skill is kind of insanely versatile, isn’t it? Way more than I thought it would be…”
Just like the gun being unreasonably powerful and the dungeon being way more intense than I’d expected for a D-rank…
“Well, I’m not gonna complain! Time to go make a door!”
I set to work on it. First, I cut down a suitable tree with my key sword again. One far away enough that there was no chance of it falling into my home.
Then I tested my new makeshift knife on the wood and found it quite hard, but once I channeled a bit of Ether through the knife, it went much better.
It still took me hours to cut out a few roughly plank-shaped pieces from the trunk I’d cut down.
And then…
“So… How do I make this into a door? I don’t have nails or anything…”
I hadn’t really thought this through, had I?


“Hmm… That’s an idea… Uh, what are you talking about, George?”

I slowly raised an eyebrow and tried to put as much ‘I’m judging you energy’ into it as possible even if I knew that he couldn’t see me.



“Eehhh… I guess it might…?”
It sounded really dumb, but… Well, I should experiment with Fusion more anyway. I hadn’t really done much of that besides combining a few items. Granted, I was kind of limited on Ether right now.
“Okay, fine. Let’s try fusion then…”
I picked up the plastic wrapping from the Ether bar, stopped for a moment, and then piled it together with the paper wrapping from the Ether burger as well as the empty bottle from the Tempor juice and the empty can from the Ether pop.
In other words, a pile of trash. Sure, a variety of trash, but still, all of it was trash. Now the question was whether it would count…
I touched the pile of trash and focused on using Fusion. To my delight,
of the trash successfully turned into a blob of orange energy and not just the plastic wrapping I’d been touching.
“Heck yes, chat! I can even group things together with Fusion! Maybe that means I can combine more than just two items without having to soulbind things?”
Which would, in retrospect, make getting that skill kind of pointless.


“Hmm, good point, actually… Well, let’s see what it does!”
I took the set of planks laid out in front of me and shoved the glowing blob of Ether into them, specifically trying to categorize all of them as one object in my mind.
The entire thing began glowing as it absorbed the blob and a moment later I was left with the final result.
I stared at it.
“...Uh… I guess it’s a door…?”
It looked kinda like a door. The planks were haphazardly held together by pieces of plastic and paper wrapping. The whole thing looked like it could fall apart if I breathed on it wrong.
Well, I


“Well… I mean, the quest doesn’t specify that it has to be a
door. And it’s not like I need a good door that badly, so…”
I gingerly touched the abomination and tried picking it up, fearing that it would crumble in my hands.
Surprisingly, the whole thing held together, although it didn’t quite feel like one unified whole with how parts of it moved independent of each other.
“Right… Eh, good enough…?”
I shot Appraisal at it just to see what it would say.
A fusion of two objects.
Yeah, I didn’t know what I’d expected.


I pulled the door outside of my shelter, frowned at it for a moment, and then simply covered the entrance with the door.
The size was a bit off and I had no way to make it swing open like an actual door. I would have to keep removing and then replacing it again instead of it opening on its hinges like a normal door would.


I snorted and opened my quest window.
:
   Find a shelter to sleep in [ACHIEVED]
:
   Create that shelter yourself [ACHIEVED]
   Find some bedding and a pillow [ACHIEVED]
   Have a proper door to your shelter [PARTIALLY ACHIEVED]
- 3SP
- 5SP debt
“Partially… Well, I guess it’s not really a
door. But how am I supposed to make it into one?”
I assumed it referred to the way I couldn’t open the thing like a door, but I had no idea how to fix that issue, especially with the awkward triangular shape of my doorway.



“Hmm… Interesting idea.” I rolled my eyes at Jamie’s comment. “Uh huh.”
I reached into my backpack, pulled out a couple of the feathers, and carefully put them in one pile, before doing it again and creating another pile. Then I gingerly touched one of the piles – in a way that it wouldn’t cut me – and activated Fusion.
The pile turned into an orange blob as expected and I shoved it into the other pile. A moment later, the glow abated and I was left staring at…
A pile of jagged sharp objects that looked like a cross between caltrops and used razors. They kinda resembled door hinges if I squinted enough and ignored the spikes, but… could I even use them as such…? Maybe I could use the spikes as built-in nails…?
“I… don’t know about this, chat.”

“Uh huh. Since when is this about faith? Am I supposed to pray to the Fate Weaver before I use Fusion now?” I asked deadpan, and looked back at the mess in front of me.
I shook my head and picked up one of the things before looking it over.


“Hmm… I guess I can try it…”
I proceeded to use my makeshift emerald knife’s handle to hammer one of the things into the door near the top, one in the middle, and one at the bottom. Surprisingly, the door didn’t fall apart as I jammed the things into the side of the planks.
Then I hammered the thing into the shelter’s main entrance. It was an absolute pain, since I had to constantly hold the door in the right position after I got one of the hinges right.
After hours, the door was attached.
Frankly speaking, I had no idea how it still held.
I tried opening and closing the door, and although it didn’t open straight, it actually worked.
“...Well, it works.”


I rolled my eyes.
“You’re repeating jokes, George.”
Regardless, I took a look at my quest window and…
Have a proper door to your shelter [ACHIEVED]
Yup, it actually counted.
I shrugged.
“Well, that’s all I needed! Mission success, I guess. Who cares if this door is a crime against nature? My job here is done!”

I ignored Jamie and instead mentally prodded the system and confirmed that I wanted the quest to complete.
:
   Find a shelter to sleep in [ACHIEVED]
:
   Create that shelter yourself [ACHIEVED]
   Find some bedding and a pillow [ACHIEVED]
   Have a proper door to your shelter [ACHIEVED]
   Have that shelter be very far away from any other civilization. [ACHIEVED]
   +6 SP
   Small Combo expansion ticket
+3 Skill points
A ticket fell into my hands as the system confirmed the quest completion.
Instead of scanning the ticket though, my attention was focused on the quest completion window.
“Shelter that’s far away from any civilization…” I murmured. “Chat, that… That implies that there
civilization somewhere out there. The world
totally barren.”



I felt the smallest ember of hope light up inside me… and then quickly squashed it. If it was an explicit objective in a quest, then said civilization had to be
far away.
…And considering one of the tier five achievements was about jumping to another planet, said civilization wasn’t even necessarily on
planet.
I slumped again but didn’t voice my thoughts.
Instead, I checked out the achievement I’d gotten along with this quest.
- Achieve all side objectives of a quest. [COMPLETE]
“Huh, neat. I guess I haven’t done that yet.”

“Mmm, yeah. Got eleven now… I can afford a few things…” I mused as I opened my crappy door, got inside my shelter, and closed it behind me.
I could get Dual Wield on Soulbound Item… I could get its tier 2 variant, Soul Strike… I could get
… Hmm, I had a few options.
I also didn’t need to rush into getting anything. After all, spending the points mid-fight to give myself an edge had already saved me once, so if I had multiple options and wasn’t sure which one to get yet, I could just hold onto them for now.
Instead, I took a look at the ticket in my hands. This one was black with white text that read ‘2%!’ I scanned it with Appraisal.
A system consumable that increases your total Ether, Intra, and Tempor reserves and regeneration by 2% when consumed.
“Whoa, what?!
three of them? Nice!”
I wasted no time in consuming it.


I blinked.
“What? Something wrong?”

“...Yes?”


I blinked again and then slapped my forehead.
“You’re right! I should have waited! The more Ether and stuff I have, the more effective those tickets are!” I groaned. “That’s why the tickets exist at all, isn’t it? So that you can save them for later if you want to…”


“Yeah, that too. Hmm… it
be retroactive…” I frowned. “But that would be really hard to tell…”
I sighed.
“Well, what’s done is done, I guess… I’m gonna try to hold onto any more tickets, I guess, and use them later…” I frowned. “But that would make me weaker in the short run, wouldn’t it? If I died in a dungeon because I didn’t have enough Ether or something, then it would be pointless to save them…”
Ugh, a classic gamer dilemma. Play it safe or be greedy with your resources? Usually, I would go for the greedy option in games, but if I was risking my own life…?
“...You know, what? Never mind. I’m not going to save them. Don’t want to get too greedy. And who knows? Maybe it’s retroactive just like Jeoff said.”
Then I took a deep breath and clapped my hands.
“Anyway! This door took way too long to make! So long that most of my Ether regenerated already on its own! So while I munch on my pizza, you guys give me your best Fusion suggestions!”