CHAPTER 224: PLANETARY BARRIER

Adrian stood before a pristine table in his favorite place. He might have had some genuine, surprising fun in the past few days, a rare respite from the crushing weight of his self-imposed duties, but nothing could beat the feeling of returning to his workshop.

Here, surrounded by the tools of creation, he felt truly at home. Now, after the necessary break, it was time to take the next great step.

"Summon status."

[TECHCORE SYSTEM – STATUS PANEL]

Knight: ★ ★ ★ TRANSCENDENT

Mana: 5.91%

Name: Adrian | Age: 17

System Level: 27 | EXP: 7.8% | TP: 50,010,200

[Stats: Speed - 13,000 | Strength - 14,000 | Constitution - 15,000]

[Inventions Created: 69]

He was, by the standards of his world, ludicrously strong. He had figured out from his discussions with the Elves that their former Queen Gaya, a being revered as the most powerful individual on the planet during her time alive, was only a 2-Star Transcendent.

Yet, Adrian knew that this strength meant almost nothing in the grand, cosmic scale of things. But that wasn’t his main focus now.

Adrian’s eyes remained fixed on the glowing numbers beside his TP.

50,010,200.

He finally had enough. He had spent the last six years driving the economic and industrial revolution of his world, and the System had rewarded him for the widespread utilization of his products.

With a mental thought, Adrian opened his private, long-curated watchlist in the System Shop.

Mana Theory 5 - 30,000,000 TP

Planetary Barrier Poles - 20,000,000 TP

That was the end of the list. Two items for a total, staggering amount of fifty million Tech Points. If someone had told the Adrian of a few years ago that he would be making such a monumental purchase in a single go, he would have called them insane. But now, he was seeing more than their price. He was seeing their absolute, world-changing value.

The first was a knowledge packet, a wildcard he had been saving up for.

’Volume 4 helped me understand the principles behind mana manipulation,’ he thought to himself. ’This next volume should be even more impressive. It has to be.’

Adrian had long concluded that the System’s prices, while exorbitant, were fair and just, which meant that the knowledge contained within was truly worth the price.

But it was the second item that held most of his attention. This wasn’t a blueprint, nor was it a knowledge packet.

It was something he had never purchased before: a fully-formed, physical device.

He didn’t know how Tech Core planned to do it, but it was the key, the cornerstone of his entire planetary defense strategy.

A planetary-level barrier couldn’t just be built from scratch, not with his current understanding. It didn’t work like that.

He didn’t know how the so-called goddess had created the continental barriers of old, but he was sure of one thing: he needed a central producer to generate the barrier and an active receiver to shape and sustain it. The Oracle satellite was the receiver. This would be the producer.

Adrian had scoured Thanad for a power source of this magnitude and found nothing. Even worse, he was unable to build one from the ground up.

In simple terms, Thanad simply lacked the exotic materials and foundational technology to create a device on this scale. So, he was left with no other option than to purchase it directly from the System.

’Given its capability,’ Adrian thought, his eyes tracing the description of the item, ’it’s definitely worth it.’

One could argue that it doesn’t make sense to invest so heavily in a purely defensive measure over offensive capabilities, but the barrier he was designing was far more than a simple wall.

[Item: Planetary Barrier Poles]

[Type: Magical Tool]

[Description: A set of poles designed to interface with a network of receivers. It draws mana from a stable source and converts it into a stable, high-density energy field, projecting a barrier capable of enveloping a small terrestrial plane. The barrier is not capable of self-regeneration and requires a constant energy supply from the core. Its defensive integrity is exceptionally high, capable of withstanding sustained energy attacks up to ten times the maximum output of a 3-Star Transcendent.

Contains a ’Final Retribution’ protocol: the barrier can be set to detonate, either automatically moments before a catastrophic breach, or manually by its attuned master.]

Adrian smiled after reading the description once more. With this barrier, it would be difficult for the Garog to catch them unaware or without time to prepare.

It would buy them the most precious resource in a war: time. Unless their opponents were on an entirely different level of power that could shatter it instantly, which would mean the battle was lost from the start anyway.

He had enough of rambling. Without another word, he mentally selected the purchase icon for both items.

[Confirm Purchase. Total Cost: 50,000,000 TP]

’Make the purchase.’

Just immediately, he felt a subtle shift in his [Inventory], the conceptual weight of the Planetary Barrier Poles now stored safely within. But he ignored that for now and focused his attention on the book-shaped icon that had appeared on his interface. He selected it.

[Knowledge Packet acquired: Mana Theory 5. Would you like to learn it now?]

"Yeah."

On Adrian’s affirmation, his mind was immediately flooded. It wasn’t a violent assault like before his improved soul; it was an ecstatic, blissful expansion of his consciousness.

Countless new theories, concepts, formulas, and applications poured into his mind, making his former, already vast knowledge pale in comparison.

The information was so advanced that he struggled with some of the quantum-level concepts for a moment before they became perfectly, beautifully clear. The process wasn’t painful. It was enjoyable, an intellectual bliss he never wanted to end.

He kept on understanding new concepts, including far more efficient ways to weave mana, the true sub-atomic makeup of mana particles, and their intrinsic relationship with spacetime.

It answered the fundamental ’why’ of magic, not just the ’what.’ He learned a bit of why everything happened the way it did. When the flow of information finally ended, Adrian’s eyes shone with a brilliant, happy light.

"This... this..." he whispered to the empty room, a laugh of pure joy escaping him. With everything he had just learned, the planetary barrier project, which had felt like a black box of impossible challenges for the most part, now felt like kindergarten work.

And that wasn’t the only thing he was now clear on. The knowledge had opened up a thousand new pathways in his mind, a thousand new inventions.

"I can achieve so much more," he mused, the possibilities unfurling before him. "So many things to create..." He paused, the familiar frustration returning. "If only I had enough resources."

Resources were his eternal bane. He couldn’t afford to spend again on the System with its exorbitant prices, and most of the truly revolutionary things he could now imagine required otherworldly materials, just like the Barrier Poles.

But Adrian wasn’t interested in that frustration currently. What mattered most was the present. The path was now clear.

He looked at his empty workbench, and pulled our the Poles.

Four colossal, obsidian-like pylons, each five meters tall materialized in the workshop. They were the Poles. They looked plain, and didn’t seem to exude any mana at all, if anything, they absorbed it.

Adrian couldn’t quite figure out what was behind the design, or if it was even a man-made device in the first place, and he didn’t need to.

He already knew that these poles were just the hardware. They were useless without the software, which is the planetary-scale formation that would connect them and shape their raw energy into a stable, cohesive barrier.

His mind immediately formulated the optimal plan, a grand strategy of breathtaking scale.

’A stable, planet-wide energy shell... it requires a perfect tetrahedral matrix,’ he thought, his mind racing.

’The four poles must be placed at equidistant points around the globe, forming the vertices of a perfect tetrahedron.’

This was a monumental undertaking, one that required two parallel projects of immense difficulty. He didn’t hesitate. He stood amidst the four silent, powerful pylons and reached out with his consciousness, opening a mind link to Charles.

’I’m here, boss. What’s up?’

’I gotten the foundation for the barrier project.’

There was a moment of stunned silence from Charles’s end. ’Already? That’s... incredible. What’s the plan?’

’I need you to get the Alliance’s joint engineering teams moving. So I’ll be sending you the coordinates for four strategic dig sites around the globe. We need to build secure, subterranean installations at each spot to house one of these poles. And they need to be deep.’

’Ooh. This is exciting. It shouldn’t be a challenge,’ Charles replied from the other side. But Adrian was quick to calm him down.

’These poles are very important, so I want this project to be treated with ultimate care. While you’re installing them, I’ll be gone for a while designing the massive control formation that’s going to link them all up.’

’Aye, aye!’

Adrian focused his will, sending the four colossal pylons out from his [Inventory] and into his room, before notifying Charles to pick them up.

He then turned to his own, empty workbench, the greater and more complex task now falling to him.

’Time to get to work.’