Chapter 360
The rift was dark and oppressive, filled with smoke that caused no end of interference with Matt’s spiritual perception. There was also a pervading aura of fear, the entire area almost dreamlike in quality. He half-jokingly checked to see if Sien had followed them into the rift, but of course, she hadn’t. It all just felt a little too in theme for her favorite rift for there to be zero chance she was pulling a fast one on them.
Now that they were out of the public eye, flashes of light came from his teammates as they began donning their gear and casting their buffs, feeling out the respective spells to ensure everything was working as expected.
For Matt, that began with pulling his newest set of armor out of storage. Sadly, it wasn’t the hyper-awesome set of power armor that he’d used in the war, but a new set he’d commissioned for himself now that he was Tier 26. In theory, if they were to start a new war right now, he’d go back to using his power armor. But with centuries of peace for the Empire ahead of them, that wouldn’t be happening. The maintenance of the armor made it impractical to use in normal delving, and it wasn’t technically his anyway. He could push that fact if he really wanted to, but… eh. He had used others' old weapons and armor and that was only possible if the Empire had them ready to loan out.
Anyway his new armor was fine. He had a deep rock obsidian breastplate that enhanced armor skills, silver nickel bracers, a gold dust helm that enhanced self-buffs, and feather walker boots that enhanced movement spells.
With his armor secured, [Cracked Phantom Armor] was his next step, the blue light seeping out of his skin and hardening into a solid mana construct. He’d long since optimized the first layer of the spell well enough that he looked like some kind of abstract mannequin, with a blank face and unremarkable limbs. Atop that, the second layer of the spell pushed its way out in the form of a more typical set of Empire armor. Then Matt activated his Tier 25 Talent, and the blue mana became glittering crystal. He didn’t know exactly how the mana crystal around his joints stayed flexible enough that he could move just fine, but he was glad it worked.
Talents were weird like that.
The armor clinked faintly as he ran through his stretches, making sure his body was still in peak condition before he started cranking up the mana running through [Regeneration]. He’d had it running the entire time, of course, but only at a low rate. Still, there hadn’t been anything unexpected, which meant his body was working just fine. He stretched his arm out a good ten feet, flexed his hand into a bladelike shape and locked it there with the aid of his Rubberfruit, Chameleon Vine, Lockjaw Crystal, and of course, his Stygian Gossamer, making his knife-hand nearly impervious to meaningful damage.
He released the minor body-morph and fired up [Archmage’s Presence]. Power erupted from Matt’s core, but was constrained by his armor to not spill out into his surroundings but it made him feel like he could crush anything put before him.
Everything the spell touched was instantly magnified, and the world began to move in slow motion as his senses sharpened tenfold. His perception was so finely tuned that he could feel [Cracked Phantom Armor] redoubled in durability as subtle flows of mana shifted into more optimized patterns, then reinforced even more by [Archmages Presence] directly. At the same time the enchantments on his armor gleamed brightly as they worked overtime, and his body surged with power.