Archie sidestepped an overhead stab from its stinger as it punched through the cracked sandstone brick flooring. He then leaped over a sweeping strike from both of its pincers, landing squarely on its half-mechanical head.

  With a short lunge, he grabbed the middle of its tail and wrenched it free from its base, keeping his balance as the scorpion thrashed and chittered in agony. Now with the tail in hand, he tore the stinger from the ground and arced it straight into the scorpion's many eyes.

  As it screeched and convulsed, Archie leaped off its head—purposefully stomping on the embedded stinger and sending it even deeper, piercing straight into its brain.

  With a quick survey of his surroundings with Vital Sight

  But before then, he checked his notifications.

  *[Neurovenom Hadrurus Arizonensis Lv 61] has been slain – XP has been given.*

  ***

  *[Neurovenom Hadrurus Arizonensis Lv 66] has been slain – XP has been given.*

  “Yup, all thirty-six,” Archie confirmed with a nod as he made his way to the other side of the hallway, scooping up a few of the now dim cybernetic eyes from the scorpions along with some of their large mechanical pincers before sending them into his spatial storage, safe for one of the dim red cybernetic eyes.

  , Archie mused, bringing a now-dim cybernetic eye close to his face. He rotated it in his hand, inspecting it.

  , Archie decided before putting away the cybernetic eye.

  Now face to face with the hallway’s side, where the symbols were carved, Archie began to read the symbols aloud. “Praise be the Handlers, for they shall take us to enlightenment, grant us the ability to reach our potential, and allow us to become whole.”

  “…Okay,” Archie said as he continued to walk down the hall, continuing to read the symbols on the wall and collect more cybernetic eyes and mechanical pincers.

  “They granted us vision when we could not see, they granted us legs when we could not walk, they brought us from the brink of death when it was our time to pass.” Archie continued before beginning to read the dull purple painted symbols that continued after.

  “Curse those who’ve attempted to bite the generosity of the Handlers, toss stones at them while they are in the colosseums, bind them in chains when they are free, and strip them of their gifts and graft onto them the limbs of the deformed.”

  “These people are actually insane,” Archie nervously chuckled to himself before pulling his eyes away from the symbols written on the walls and focusing on the sudden fork he found himself facing.

  Archie thought to himself before remembering that he had the Compass of Desire.

  Upon taking the Compass of Desire out, Archie concentrated on where he wanted to go.

  After a few seconds of being unresponsive, the needle turned crimson red and shifted to point at the left hallway.

  Smiling, Archie made his way down the left hallway, eager to explore more of this weird sandstone underground building he found himself in.

  , Archie complained as he walked down the hallway as it was illuminated by the greenish-red light of his Forgesmith’s Flame

  It had been about an hour, and Archie still hadn’t found anything particularly interesting—just a few trashed rooms, with a couple of rusted copper and silver coins, half-buried in piles of sand.

  What did catch his attention, however, were the insignias on the coins. Unlike the currency he was used to, where each coin had different insignias, the copper and silver coins shared the same two insignias.

  One side depicted three interlocked gears, seamlessly conjoined. The other showed a bald figure with a jagged scar running along the right edge of their lips. Thin, symmetrical lines extended from the mouth, converging at the chin before continuing down the throat, which appeared to be entirely mechanical.

  He flipped one of the coins between the fingers of his other hand, glancing at the bald, scarred figure with various mechanical and cybernetic characteristics etched into the metal.

  "I wonder who this is?" he muttered. "Maybe a Handler?... No, they always referred to them in the plural. Having just one of them on both coins seems odd, to say the least."

  "Nah," he dismissed the thought, shaking his head. "From what I’ve read on the walls and murals of the hallway, the people who used to live here seemed to revere them all equally. They never mentioned any of the Handlers' names or anything specific, not even the color of their hair, so probably not a Handler."

  Then, another thought struck him.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Wait, why am I assuming this is just tied to this... uh, 'giga temple'?" He nodded to himself. "Yeah, considering the murals and inscriptions, fanatics definitely lived here—so 'giga temple' is apt. Especially considering how many floors I've fallen down in this place."

  He tossed the coin back to his other hand, which continued to toss up coins. "Still, this could’ve been the country's currency at the time. And judging by how rusted these are, it’s been a long time since anyone’s used them."

  "I wonder how long, though? A hundred years ago? 500? a billion?" Archie chuckled to himself, thinking about his own situation.

  Archie sighed, flipping another coin absently. "So, they’re probably worthless now." He gave a small shrug. "Eh, I can probably find some coin collector or antique shop to pawn them off for something useful."

  Looking back in front of him and away from the coins he kept tossing around, Archie’s eyes widened. “Woah!”

  Rushing toward what he saw, he stopped less than a meter away, staring at the object of his fascination.

  Embedded to the wall was a rotting corpse of a raider, or what he believed to be a thief, considering their outfit.

  The person in question was a scaled humanoid figure dressed in tattered and torn black clothing and wearing a hood, mask, gloves, a few rusted daggers, and quite a bit of rusted-over lockpicks.

  It had been a long time since this person had died, but not long enough for their body to have completely decayed, definitely less than a month or two unless evolving made you decompose faster.

  Archie mused to himself before scavenging what he could from the scaled humanoid’s corpse, careful not to brush up against the three giant bolts that embedded the body to the wall. The Forgesmith’s Flames

  Shifting his feet a bit forward to properly scavenge through the scaled humanoid’s belongings as he crouched over their body, his foot had dipped ever so lightly into the ground.

  Ting! Shunk! Shunk!

  Jerking a bit to the side, Archie was pulled from scavenging the scale humanoid’s belongings and looked around in confusion.

  He saw nothing to his left or right, but when he looked above, he saw two similar bolts embedded in the body he was scavenging and in the wall in front of him.

  “Where’s th- Oh! There it is,” Archie said as he turned around and picked up the giant metallic bolt with a bent tip from off the ground.

  Just as he was about to Identify

  “Hell yeah! Greater Physical Resistance for the win!” Archie shouted excitedly.

  He had finally been shot at—and for once, the projectile hadn’t torn through his armor like butter. Only minorly dented, which popped back into place with a quick burst of mana.

  Sure, it was just a physical attack, but he didn’t care. His armor had actually done its job, shielding him from an unseen projectile.

  To him, that was a win.

  Cold Iron Bolt (Common):

  A mass-produced bolt made out of Cold Iron.

  That’s it? Nothing else I can Identify

  Putting away the Cold Iron Bolt into his spatial storage for future melting, Archie finished up his scavenging for loot.

  His loot consisted of 20 Silver coins, 12 Copper coins, and a cool thing called a CA-RC120D.

  CA-RC120D-T562 (Common):

  Half-cast Cybernetic Arms for those of Rouge Class. Forged at Gorbin’s, the Mech’s Cybernetics Factory. Once properly attached and configured to the wielder’s Cybernetic Socket, the wielder’s right arm can now transform into that of a Standard Manabolt Pistol, while the other can now eject and retract a short blade from their wrist once activated. Provides: +140 Agi, +100 Per & +85 Will.Status: Minorly Damaged & Disconnected. Requirements: Lv 120+, Rouge-related Class, Cybernetic Sockets, & Humanoid Race.

  The item he’d just stored away confirmed his theory - he was indeed in a cyberpunk-esque world. And judging by what he’d read from the item's description, he was going to have a lot of fun on this planet both in terms of combat and in his Profession.

  After all, it was all but confirmed that once he learned how the cybernetic arms worked and managed to replicate them, he'd be able to make his bike transform.

  From the coins he looted, he also noticed something interesting, they bore the same insignias as the rusted ones he had found earlier in the abandoned rooms.

  Archie stood up, dusting off his hands as the Forgesmith’s Flames once again wreathed his arms in their familiar glow.

  Activating Gaze of the Forgefather

  As Archie inspected the runic scripts etched under the flooring, the more he learned just how little he knew about how runes worked.

  The bottom of the pressure plate had its own ‘half’ runic script, and the floor below it had another ‘half’ runic script. Once you step on the pressure plate, it will sink, both runic scripts will touch, and the combined runic scripts will be whole, and should activate. Once connected, the bolt traps will shoot out bolts.

  The only question that he had that wasn’t answered was how mana was being given to these traps, as he couldn’t see where it received its power from.

  The only clue he found was that by the traps was a stray mana pathway that was connected to the whole system, but it led down, deep into the giga temple, too deep for him to see it even with Gaze of the Forgefather

  “Whelp, can’t solve every myster-,” Archie muttered before he was cut off by a violent tremor that shook the giga temple.

  He stumbled forward, his foot accidentally pressing down on several pressure plates that activated the bolt traps. And a split second later, Cold Iron Bolts shot out from hidden traps, some embedding themselves in the wall and others colliding with his armor before clattering onto the floor—only to trigger even more pressure plates as they rolled forward, unleashing a fresh hail of Cold Iron Bolts.

  Archie barely managed to brace himself against the wall as chunks of sandstone broke loose from the ceiling, crashing to the floor with dull thuds while sand poured in from the cracks.

  His stomach dropped as he realized the tunnel he’d chosen sloped downward, hence the falling sand.

  “Ah, fuck, not this cliché,” he groaned, already breaking into a sprint, stepping on even more pressure plates. "I should have known this would happen."

  Scooping up the stray Cold Iron Bolts that bounced off his armor and rolled on the ground and tossing them into his spatial storage with his right hand, he yanked out the Compass of Desire from his back satchel with his left hand and saw that the needle's color was now dull.

  “Show me where I can escape!” Archie shouted with a wild grin starting to spread across his face and eyes gleaming with excitement as he weaved between falling chunks of sandstone and the streams of sand pouring from above, his heart pounding with excitement.

  The compass responded immediately as its needle twitched before turning crimson and arcing sharply to his right.

  Without a second of hesitation, Archie pivoted to his right and drove his fist into the cracked sandstone wall. The impact blasted through with ease, shattering the sandstone brick and leaving a gaping hole and a cloud of dust, sand, and debris erupted around the wall, but with his Perception and flame-wreathed body, it did nothing to hinder his vision.

  Without waiting a second, Archie burst through the cloud of dust and found himself in a new hallway.

  The crimson needle then immediately swung to the left, making him turn to his left and rush down the hallway.

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