Grey felt like shit. That really didn’t need to be said, but honestly, he was wishing right about now that his tongue worked well enough for him to scream it from the rooftops.

This shit really, really sucked.

The last time he had died so many times in a row he had at least had a few hours buffer between them. This time, it was barely a few minutes apart.

It felt like he could only withstand that two or three more times at most before he would be stuck in an infinitely looping death cycle where he would come back, only to die immediately because his soul was a fragmented mess.

Luckily, he had expected this and prepared the extra Cyber Cores he needed ahead of time. He still had quite a few blue credits left over, easily in the tens of thousands.

What he hadn’t expected was for the Cyber Cores he could buy with that much to be on a whole other level. Just a single one of them was enough to charge all of his mechs several times over.

The only unfortunate part was that his current inventory definitely couldn’t store them.

However... if he used them to upgrade his inventory first again...

That was a matter for another time. Right this moment, the only thing Grey had eyes for was the teleportation platform before him.

’Yes, yes. I can do it.’

Grey laughed a hoarse laugh. His lungs felt like they were burning from all the breath holding he had been doing.

Right now, he could definitely hold his breath far longer than a normal human given normal conditions. But the problem was that his body had been burning through a ridiculous amount of oxygen and energy at the same time.

So he might as well have been a normal human at the time.

Grey couldn’t stop himself from laughing, though. He couldn’t stop laughing because...

"This is going to be so fucking easy."

Grey pulled from his memories and already figured out the list of what turned out to be seven items used in the creation of the armor. He was able to pick up on that from just his memory of the sight of them alone.

What he couldn’t quite do was figure out just yet how all of that meshed together to form circuits he could only just vaguely recall.

He had seen the surface level of the circuits, but he didn’t know all the underground and hidden mechanisms within. That was a huge part of the context he was missing.

However, it didn’t matter because what Grey needed to do was tweak the teleportation platform beneath him, not make it from scratch. What he needed was the specific method of repelling the Fog of Chaos to stop it from influencing things.

And that was only a small part of the actual armor.

Still, that task would have been incredibly difficult nonetheless... if not for the fact Grey’s mind connected more dots than he expected.

The altar. He had almost completely forgotten about the altar.

He was thinking so much about the armor and the Mech Soul he had forgotten about the damned altar.

—

Name: Altar of the Savages

Rarity: Mythic

Accepted Type: N/A

Rejected Type: N/A

Description: An altar of forgetfulness and erasure, but also one of hope and revenge.

Abilities: At the Sacrifice of Blessed Item, accumulate Blessed Aura to form a Blessing Carapace, allowing perfect resistance against the Fog of Chaos and immunity to Holy Type Abilities.

—

This was the altar that he had found in Giyoto’s little hideout. What was fascinating about it was that when Grey found the portion of the armor that reflected the section he needed, he recalled seeing the pattern elsewhere in a simpler form.

The Altar of Savages. It too could provide resistance against the Fog of Chaos.

Suddenly, Grey realized he had access to a simplified version of what he needed, and the far more complex version. This would minimize mistakes a great deal.

But of course...

"Can’t I have anything nice? Fuck, man."

Grey groaned, slowly tapping his forehead against the floor. He didn’t even have the energy to get up in the first place.

The roadblock he was facing now was one he probably should have considered earlier.

The teleportation platform. How was he going to modify it?

Usually, raw material manipulation was easy. He slapped it on a Cyber Mat, then used Cyber Cores for the energy he needed to break it down. Then he would use his mind and the connection with the Cyber Mat to reform them seamlessly.

He was sure that his Cyber Mat was of high enough quality to manage it.

He was also pretty sure that he had enough money to trade for enough of this blue credit level Cyber Cores to cause real change to the teleportation platform as well.

But did he have the mental capacity left over to do it? Even if he took a nap to allow his mind to reset, would it be enough?

The gap between him and the level of crafting in this platform was too far apart.

"No. I can’t go out like this."

Grey took one more deep breath. He had made it too far. He already had the solution in his hands. There was no way he was going to fold here.

’Think. Think. Think.’

Grey wasn’t as ignorant of the ways of crafters anymore. He knew more than probably the best crafters of the Holy City now. The mechs he could create if he had the time might probably level cities.

He just needed time and power.

Two things he had none of.

His nails scraped against the ground with such force he nearly peeled his back. If not for the Bringer of Light Gloves, that may very well have happened.

’Come on, Grey. There has to be a way. There has to be.’

It was then that there was an unexpected pulse from Prometheus.

A cute little bobbing flame appeared in his mind’s eye.

—

[Prometheus Phase III Initialized]