For the next unknown amount of time, Jack lost himself in the rhythm of following Austra's short instructions and watching everything the man did. He struggled a bit at holding his questions in. The more he saw it, the more he really wanted to inspect the welding tool. It had to be magitech—not the way the plates of metal were magitech, but like his boots: Origin essence magitech.

  Everything was coming together surprisingly quickly. The way Austra had arranged the piles made this very much like a puzzle, or more like a Lego prebuild. All the parts were there and just needed to be clipped together.

  The first room they completed was the engine room, according to Austra. It was in the centre of everything, and from there they laid out the floor plan for the rest of the Turtle. With the square and rectangle pieces all fitting together, it started to look like how you would make a circle in Minecraft. The whole space was about as long as a school bus and a little thinner than it was long. Almost like you smashed two cars onto each side of a bus and hollowed out the walls.

  They didn't add any more walls until the whole floor section was down. Austra took a lot of care making sure the floor pieces were placed in the right order and the right side up. Whenever Jack asked what he was doing, he just said, “Foundation important,” and continued on.

  Turrel approached at one point but must have noticed how invested Jack was, as he left after checking in. Austra at one point might have been a little frustrated at Jack peering over his shoulder and stepped away to grab something from what Jack had guessed was a toolbox of sorts.

  Walking back over, he handed Jack a tablet and what looked like a mini version of the welding tool he had been using.

  “Get parts from triangle. Follow plans. Build furniture,” he said in his short, clipped way of speaking.

  Jack, feeling like a child that had been given a job by his dad, eagerly nodded and moved off to look at the plans and tool in more detail. Austra smiled and went back to his business. Jack glanced at the tablet and the drawings on it for only a second. He then immediately inspected the small tool he had been given.

  [Compact Reassembler]

  [Expert Craft]

  This item has been forged by an expert craftsman.

  This item is powered by a rechargeable mana embedded in its core. While the gem is charged with mana from the Metal sub-frequency it can be utilised to seamlessly reassemble previously joined metal components. The device must be tuned to the specific metallic composition and must be activated along a previous join line.

  This is a compact version of a larger device and as such is limited by the thickness of the materials that are being joined.

  Jack was equally impressed and let down at the basic item description. He guessed after seeing so many high-tier crafted pieces, he expected something magical. He understood it, though; this was practical. It was a tool, and in this case, all that mattered was consistency and function.

  Even just that description hinted at other parts of the process, and Jack's mind raced with questions. Wanting to put it to use as soon as possible, he looked back over the plans again in more detail this time. Luckily, most of it was just drawings with barely any words; it looked like a pretty simple two-shelf cabinet to Jack. He noted the pieces he would need and went off to collect them.

  As a seasoned flat-pack veteran and taking a page out of Austra's book, Jack made sure he laid all the parts out once he had collected them. He double-checked and realised he was one little L-bracket short; he jogged off to get it and checked his pile again.

  Confident he had all his pieces lined up, he took the base plate and followed the instructions. He noticed Austra had paused and was watching him; he felt a little more pressure than he should have. He really had no idea what to do other than line up the pieces, there was a button on the device, so he hoped it was just point and click.

  Holding the reassembler with the pointed end at the seam, just like he had seen Austra do, he pressed down on the small button on its side. A now-familiar flash of light pulsed and, in his excitement, he forgot to move the device. As the light faded, he looked down and the tiny section he had zapped looked as if it had been merged, while the rest seemed slightly raised.

  Squinting and readying himself for the flash this time, he tried once again. This time as he pressed the button, he moved the device; he held the button in until he had completed a full line. Jack stared down at the now perfectly joined side of the cabinet. It had attached on both sides, so he only needed to run it along the one axis for it to join fully.

  He felt a renewed excitement as he went to grab the next piece, feeling that childlike glee at successfully using a power tool for the first time. He attached another wall; this one he had to run the assembler along the base and the section where it intersected with the other wall. It once again joined perfectly. He added the shelves and walls and even a circular hanging bar; he had to do the arc in two parts as his hand couldn't make a full rotation, but otherwise everything was much easier than he anticipated.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  If only flat-packs on Earth were this easy, how many afternoons that turned into stressful evenings would have been saved. He smiled as he stared at his creation once it had been fully assembled. It was almost as tall as he was: double doors, one side hanging space and one shelf, and the other was four shelves.

  As he tried to move it to the side slightly, he was reminded of the fact that it was constructed of entirely metal pieces. Lightweight metal, but when all added together, it was much, much more than he could move on his own. Austra approached and smiled at him briefly while he inspected the cabinet.

  Jack looked over the man's shoulder and saw the Turtle. He had been engrossed in his own craft so much that he hadn't noticed how much Austra had progressed. There was a second layer to the flooring now, with a slight gap between the two plates, only about ten centimetres, but noticeable. There were what looked like two distinct rooms with walls as well, all in the time that Jack had taken to put together a single cabinet.

  “Good. Slow but good,” Austra said as he walked over to the tablet and picked it up. He tapped a few more times and then handed it back to Jack.

  “Next. Be quicker.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

  These plans looked like they were for some sort of table and a bench. He chose to take the praise and ignore the other comment for now. He was new, of course he would be slow. He did enjoy the challenge, though, and so he raced over to the designated pile to collect the parts.

  He was much quicker at putting these two together … but in the time it took him to put them together, Austra had finished most of the interior of the Turtle. He was attaching the exterior sections now and, up until this point, Jack wasn't sure why it was called a Turtle, but he had been saving his judgement.

  There was now a distinct curve to the outer shape. There were gaps between the rectangular walls of the interior that seemed like dead space to him but obviously had a purpose. The plates on the outside were being slightly overlapped, which gave it a distinctly scale-like appearance; mixed with the curve that he assumed would end in a domed ceiling, it really did look like a turtle shell.

  He didn't want to interrupt Austra, who looked like he was in some sort of construction flow state. The man was so confident in each of his motions; there was something soothing about seeing a professional at their craft. The way he was grabbing metal plates that he had stacked on the ground and holding them to the wall reminded him of a bricklayer, if instead of mortar the bricklayer used a high-tech, zappy lightsabre to attach each brick.

  Jack picked up the tablet and swiped to the next section. There were more plans here for shelves and what looked like footlockers. He noted the pieces and went to work once more, moving his workspace slightly as the collection of immovable metal constructions was left scattered in his wake.

  “Hey, Jack, you doing OK?” He heard Monty's voice from over his shoulder while he was finishing up one of the last of the three footlockers he had collected materials for.

  “Oh, um, yeah, I’m good. This is actually pretty interesting. I feel like I am contributing, so that's good,” Jack replied as he zapped the last hinge in place.

  “That is good to hear, Jack. Austra seemed pretty pleased to have a helper, which in his case is very rare. To be honest, I would not have picked you to be someone he would have taken a liking to… He is not big on talking… and you … well, you know,” Monty joked as he easily slid one of the completed pieces to the side to get closer.

  “Fair. My tongue runs faster than my brain sometimes, but it’s OK. I actually want to learn a little about how all of this works, so hopefully we have some time for him to teach me while we are here,” Jack said as he looked at all of the completed furniture he had put together and smiled.

  When he glanced past all of that, he saw that the Turtle looked almost completed. Other than the top of the dome, it looked like all of the external walls were attached and Austra had just finished a little rectangular box that jutted out from the front of it. The box looked like the cab from a road train, and Jack guessed it would be where Austra controlled the device from.

  “Well, if all things go smoothly, which I will do my best to make sure they do, then you should hopefully have a bit of time to get a paragraph or two out of him.” Monty tapped Jack on the shoulder as he stepped closer.

  “I wanted to say thanks again for coming, Jack. It will be a bigger help than you know. At some point when it is safe to do so, and if you are interested, I think it would be good if we tried to get you some more … hands-on experience as well. A chance to test out your focus and maybe work on your skills?” Monty, seeing the flash of hesitation in Jack's face, held a hand up and continued.

  “Only if you want to. I know you don’t really have that drive, but even a little bit of experience can help if you ever have to defend yourself. No need to decide now, just think about it and let me know later.” Monty winked while Jack nodded.

  “For now, Austra has asked me to help load up this masterfully crafted furniture before he puts the top on the Turtle, so if you will excuse me,” he said as he picked up a footlocker and rested it on his shoulder.

  Jack's eyebrows almost touched his hairline. He knew Monty was strong, but Jack could hardly even slide them, let alone lift it. Monty didn't even look like it was hard to hold as he wove through the mess of parts and headed towards the Turtle.

  He shook his head and considered Monty's words. He didn't necessarily have a problem with fighting; he just didn't know how he could do that effectively at the moment. His apprehension about the Riftspawn had faded with time and with encountering the Yeti and the Elemental. Not all of them were things he knew from Earth, but they all had that same anger, that same hunger that shocked him so much.

  He would learn, even if it was just to be able to defend himself like Monty had said. He needed to work on his skills as much as he could as well. He had talked with Turrel about this a lot and, while it was great that he was able to advance his tier quickly, it lost some of its benefit if he couldn't keep his skills progressing at the same or a closer rate.

  His next tier would be another trait. He was hoping for something that would give him more options in the future, something that would take advantage of his unique situation. If Turrel's study and hunch was correct, he could hopefully influence the options if he focused on his skills enough. So much to do and no idea how to do any of it.

  Jack let out a deep sigh as he picked up the tablet and swiped again, setting eyes on the last page of drawings. He only had two more things to make and he was done. If there was one thing he could pride himself on, it was his stubbornness. Once he had committed to something, he would see it through, no matter how long it might take.