I use a teleport crystal to transport back to the Crimson City, then collect the loot that has been farmed by all of the townspeople over the last four days from my body double in the guildhall. It's an additional 20% of the total necessary.

Most of the C-Grade items have been handed in by the army recruits after training hours.

Adding this to the 10% farmed earlier in the week, that's 30% of the total. At this rate, I'll have everything I need well before the deadline.

I stop by the residential area where most of the army recruits stay and send a message to the three squad leaders that training will be delayed a few hours this morning. If they'd like to train in the dungeons while I'm out, my double is there to help them, but MCP farming and supervised high floor labyrinth training won't start until I'm done with some business.

Once the word begins to spread, I crush another transport crystal and make it to the stealth bunker beneath Bri's workshop in Vice City to deliver the goods.

I give her a telepathy greeting that I've arrived, then walk up through the floors as all of her workers stay focused on their morning tasks.

She collects the raw farmed item drops, then reaches under her desk with a smile and shows me something I've been waiting for.

"Your IDs, I sourced these both from two registered hunters in the Bedrock region that went missing during a series of dangerous high C-Grade dungeon breaks a while back, one that got out of hand and monsters actually escaped to the city. Some call it the Bedrock Catastrophe. There were over a hundred casualties, and thousands injured. A few black market contacts managed to retrieve many IDs from the rubble of the break once everything was over."

She places two C-Class Hunter's Association IDs onto her desk.

"Gotta make money out of whatever you can sometimes."

One is labeled [Ray Anderson][C-Class][Grade 2 Lightning] and the other [Emrie Carter][C-Class][Grade 1 Fire].

"It's been over a year with no sightings of either of them. They had no families, no friends, and no work relationships other than a handful of merchants in the heart of Bedrock City. They were never pronounced dead or even reported missing. I have guaranteed confirmation they are dead, but looking from the outside it's a plausible story that the two of them went off grid and trained up above level 500 and have now finally resurfaced to try and take the B-Class exams. So, if anyone asks, that's where you've been."

I nod and look down at the cards again to see the pictures of two young men, both around 25 years old if I had to guess. Ray has black hair and tan skin while Emrie is more fair-skinned with bright red hair.

My gaze turns up to Bri, and I chuckle.

"Is this what you think we look like? It is pretty similar... And even the names sound like ours. Ray and Emrie? Like Jay and Ember? How'd you—"

Bri shrugs, then pushes the cards forward on the desk.

"I have quite the selection to choose from. There's a large network of identity theft in the black market beneath the eight great regions. The Dark Continent isn't the only place shady business thrives. If you gave me enough time, a few months, I could have even had perfect matches made for you. Name, face, skills, class, and even scannable to The Association, but considering you're dead to them and well known as one of the former Vice Region's Elites, I assumed some names that don't match exactly were a better fit for you two."

I nod and take the cards off the table.

"You're right. That was a good decision. Now, what's with the grading next to their names? A grade 2 lightning? And a grade 1 fire? I've never seen that before."

"Every region has their own unique grading system at their association branch. The only thing every regions shares in common is the letter grade. The Bedrock IDs have a second signature on them, showing your element type if you have one and the power level on it. Grade 1 just means basic grade, grade 2 is advanced."

I place the IDs into my item storage and nod.

"Got it. So it looks like I'll be a lightning wielder during the exams."

"That's right. I'll be submitting your new names to Rodrigo this week to have him get you two registered."

"Great."

Bri nods, satisfied that I'm happy with her work in securing these IDs and begins sorting through the piles of raw item drops I've managed to get for her.

I help out with the sorting too for a few minutes, using telekinesis from a distance and thinking about a new large craft I want built in the city.

Over the last few days the construction teams have been moving very quickly, especially thanks to the new skills I granted some of them and the power leveling to bring all their current skills up to legendary grade.

At this rate, they'll be moving on to the next phase of the projects soon, which is building out a trade route through the desert from the Crimson City through many small self-sustaining villages out in the desert. Plus, connecting the city itself to major networks like Valor City, and eventually even Solara.

With this in mind, the possibility of new people coming by for trade or even wanting the option to stay in the Crimson City will be a reality.

I want to have a place where outsiders can trade freely and interact with those that want the interactions, but I also want a secluded area within the city where only members of my Rising Emperor's Domain can interact.

So, I ask Bri a question.

"Do you know any way to make long-lasting force fields? Like mana shielding, but invisible, and only harmful to certain people—"

As these words leave my mouth I remember how when I was first challenging the Dark One, flying over the desert and releasing deadly waves of fire imbued with soul energy, those under my protection were not burned by my flames.

I want to create something like this to protect the town, but I'm not sure how to even start going about it.

Bri thinks for a moment to herself, and shakes her head.

"I'm not sure."

She walks over to her hidden bookcase, turning the dagger on the shelf by the wall to open it up again and reveal a few old books, pointing at them.

"Feel free to look through these if you wish, you might find something. I haven't memorized them all."

I walk over and do as she says, using telekinesis to gently pick up each old crafting book and sift through them.

Some are printed, others are hand-written, and some aren't even books, they're just papers stacked together with old crafting recipes inside.

While I flip through the pages, Bri continues to sort the raw items I brought for her today.

Despite the look of many of these books, most of the crafting recipes are common knowledge to someone like me that has a mythic grade crafting skill. However, they do give interesting insight to certain crafts even though they aren't exactly what I'm looking for.

I find that there are certain ways to imbue elements and skills into items using large amounts of people's blood even at the special grade or legendary grade rating of a craftsmanship skill.

As long as the blood is being drawn while the skill is activated, and the craftsman uses enough mana as a catalyst, there is a non-zero chance that mythic grade crafts like imbuing skills into items are plausible.

There are even rare cases where makeshift skill orbs were created by chance with long sessions of blood draining to craft special items and even infusions to swap the blood of the skill holder to a person that wants that skill. A lot of these trials seem highly illegal and there are even notes of a number of casualties during some trials, but they have notations here that the experiments have worked.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Although no skill transfers or consumable orbs in these trials seem to be permanent, some of them do last up to 3-6 months in some cases. Others have reported certain aspects of skills staying in their systems longer, but to a far less potent degree than even a basic no-grade skill.

I've heard of people buying skills in the past before, and even seen some association workers with over two skills in their status. I can only assume they've managed to find a replicable way to do the same, but from what I've gathered here, it is nowhere near as safe, seamless, and permanent as my version of skill orbs.

I scan the books more and more, looking for keywords like shielding, barrier, or force field, but nothing other than recipes for mana shielding come up in my searches.

There's only one single paper that shows something remotely similar to what I'm attempting to make.

It's a self-recorded study done by one craftsman that managed to reach level 500 many years back. Despite being a craftsman by day, he also fought in dungeons by night, and mostly used defensive gear and spawn camping tactics to power level himself higher in search of new levels of crafting.

His ranked-up buff reflected his battle tactics, and he awakened a force field buff just like the one I'm trying to make. It allowed objects to come in that he wanted and pushed objects away that were perceived as dangerous to him.

After many tests, his detailed notes show him using a similar method to the crude blood draining rituals of skill imbuement, but while having his buff activated the whole time.

He managed to imbue this buff into many objects over his years of testing. These include shields, swords, and even mana shielding itself to make barriers that would let certain objects in and out according to the parameters he sets.

Once I get to the end of the page, I flip it around to read more, but there's nothing left.

I search through all of the other notes and books a second time, trying to find his name in any other papers or books, but it never shows up.

The floating papers all drift back to the bookshelf, and I hold only the one in my hand, then turn to Bri who has finished her item sorting.

"I think I found what I'm looking for... well, at least something close to it."

She smiles.

"Good. Now I have a busy day of meetings and crafting to get to with these new items."

I look up at a clock on the wall and see that over an hour and a half has gone by while I was immersed in the papers.

"Oh—yes, I have a long day ahead of me too. Thanks, Bri, for the IDs, and this paper. I'll see you soon."

I crush a teleport crystal and come back to the Crimson City with about an hour left to kill before the time I said I'd be back to train the recruits again.

In this time, I have a few new crafting methods to try out.

I make my way out to the open desert right outside of the city about 1 km away and begin merging high B-Grade items from the labyrinth with large amounts of blood imbued with the same fiery soul energy that I used to burn my enemies but protect my allies.

Many of the item drops just burn up on the spot, or turn into various unstable and cursed items.

However, after using self-regeneration to regrow all the blood in my body over five times, I finally get a stable reading once I try imbuing this energy into a sheet of A-Grade shielding.

It shifts to become blood red, but doesn't instantly decay or show any difference on its appraisal reading.

However, I'm positive it's different. There is soul energy inside the shielding now, and it's continuously radiating its energy in place.

I want to see if it has the same properties as I'd wished for, so I fly back to the City and ask for one of the prisoners to take a few minutes off of his shift as well as a random townsperson.

They both stand out in the desert with clueless looks on their faces as I point to the red glowing square of shielding on the ground while I myself am flickering with black fire in my Flame Emperor's disguise.

"Both of you touch it, then step back. If it harms you I'll repay you the damages and more."

Both of them hesitantly walk forward, and lean down to touch the red glowing metal.

The man who shares a link of loyalty with me pushes his hand right through the energy easily and touches the pure metal backing like nothing is there. His confusion turns to a smile as he lifts his hand out from the red aura and it appears nothing at all has happened to him.

The prisoner pushes his hand through just like this man, and the opposite happens.

He does not share the same link of loyalty that the other man does through my buff, and the fiery soul energy reacts much differently with him.

The instant his hand touches the energy of the red aura, it begins to melt away. His fingers to forearm disintegrate to nothing before he yells and pulls his hand back and the place that last made contact continues to burn with dark red flames.

Even as he falls back the fire continues to burn him, creeping down his arm before I use a dense mana blade to cut it off right above the flames.

Still, now he's dripping blood into the sand, but I throw him a mythic grade regeneration potion and he drinks it without question with eyes filled with fear.

I stare forward at the red glowing square of shielding while the man's arm starts to slowly regrow and come up with another idea.

"I'll take a month off your sentence for every test you continue to do with me. Well... You have no choice, but that's the offer I'm giving you."

I turn to the man that already has a link of loyalty with me and nod.

"Thank you for trusting me. You don't have to proceed if you don't want to, but your help would be appreciated. I'll give you a gold for every test you do with me if you want. If all goes well, you should never have to worry as long as we're still connected through the link made when you first entered this city."

He takes a deep breath, and I go into further detail about what I'm trying to make. After clarification, he agrees to help understanding that he's not the one in danger here.

The tests go on for another full 30 minutes as I manage to imbue more soul energy infused blood into more shielding, and exactly the same result comes back.

I even create a ring of shielding about 15m wide, and when imbuing soul energy infused blood into the entirety of the outside, it makes a small red-tinted dome.

"This is exactly what I'm looking for."

I try to do the math, thinking about how large this city will grow to be. It's already a few kilometers in distance from the far area of warehouses to the guild and residential areas. The canyon of dungeons needs to be protected from outsiders too, and that's another few kilometers away as well. I need to make a dome at least 10km wide to fit everything I want in the inner city, and I don't have anywhere near enough shielding to produce something that large right now.

Even if I asked for every last piece of scrapped A-Grade shielding from the Valor City Towers, that wouldn't be enough.

I need to get creative.

As the time ticks down before my training session with the Elemental Elites, I rack my brain for more options, then an idea comes to mind.

My blood-bonded Infinite Essence of Regeneration. It is the product of the 7th ranked Dark Guard's clear energy crystal and silver metallic arrowhead left behind from the 2nd ranked Dark Guard. It's malleable and can form into whatever shape I desire.

It's also high enough grade that I believe it won't become a cursed item when I try to craft with it.

I think about it a little longer, then decide to go for it, making the silver substance float in front of me and expand in the air.

I stare forward, concentrating, and form the liquid into the shape of a large dome, twice the size of the one I made with the mana shielding moments ago.

I use the same amount of blood and soul energy, and the same reaction follows.

The outside of the silver dome tints bright red instantly.

My eyes widen at the sight, and I decide to expand the metallic dome.

As I do, the red barrier around it grows in size but lessens in density. The same amount of energy as I started with spreads out to create a larger dome.

I make the base of the dome 100m in diameter before I stop, then place a hand on the outer silver layer.

I can feel every bit of it.

The item is blood-bonded with me, and the soul energy surrounding it feels as if it's still connected to me, yet there is now more room in my core to recharge it with mana and Qi later.

I hold the soul energy in place just how it is for a few minutes straight, then take a deep breath and begin to let the metallic dome disappear starting at the top.

The thin silver metal disappears, but the large red dome stays in place exactly the same form.

Once the silver metal hits the sand near the bottom, I stop making it shrink and all that's left is a massive silver ring, keeping the huge red dome formation steady in the air.

I motion for my two test subjects to do as I say.

The one connected through my link walks through the red wall of energy like there isn't anything there but open air.

The grunt hesitantly touches the wall again and jumps back once it starts to burn him.

I stare up at my creation with awe, and picture it at a much larger scale covering the entire city as a final line of defense.

I let the prisoner heal and thank the villager again, making sure to repay them both with what I promised and have them go back to their daily lives.

The villager is escorted back to the bar and I bring the worker back to the construction crew, asking Maurice for an updated map of the city so I can plan out how exactly I'll make this happen once I need to do it at a larger scale.

As I place the map into my storage, I see the Infinite Essence of Regeneration is not on my status at all anymore, it is an independent object out in the distance holding up the red dome in the desert.

I come back alone and it's still standing perfectly. Placing my hand on the edge of the barrier, I let soul energy leak out from my palm, and the coloring gets much denser as the barrier itself gets stronger.

Satisfied with the results here, I swallow three full Qi pills and plunder a few mana crystals to restore the soul energy lost during these tests.

Unlike Qi and mana separately, the perfect mixture between the two that is soul energy doesn't regenerate instantly. I hardly used up 10% of my core for the tests done today, but recovering this much will still take about two hours to come back to its 100% natural fully usable state.

I float down to the desert ground level and touch the metallic circle that keeps this dome steady. Once I do, it re-equips to my status, and I instantly reform its malleable state back into a small ring that fits around my finger. Instead of just being silver like it was before, it now glows red, but the soul energy is leaking out of it at a fairly steady rate. I can tell it's not permanently imbued.

The large part of this structure that kept it stable has now disappeared, and I watch the dome of red energy begin to drift away into the atmosphere like residue from an attack.

I make sure to take notes of everything that's happened today, adding my own experiments to the pool of data that craftsmen have collected, then place it all into my item storage before heading to the residential area to meet the elemental army.

I have a long day of MCP farming to do, then, I need to make a visit to Monk at the monastery in Valor City to pick up some more Qi pills if I want to attempt creating a stable barrier that covers this entire settlement.