After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World

While Garan was stuck, Althea still had much room to grow, and the current levels of monsters and the training hall were enough for her, even until she reached his current level.

Althea took out her sword, which had been improved to handle more monsters of her level.

It was no longer the same katana she started with, and not even the same as the one upgraded by Brenda back then. The former could only handle monsters until level 5 or so, while the latter could handle monsters just above level 10.

This time, the katana had become a proper peak Class-D sword made for her by the weaponsmith team, and then went through some tempering using Garan’s ability. It was a gift from Garan for her birthday this year.

Garan learned a lot with them, especially when it came to the criel metal. He and Oslo were actually the greatest elemental contributors to its study.

Although the weapon was technically D-class, it was akin to a C-class weapon in terms of durability and strength. It was especially amazing because Garan was not a weaponsmith, yet what he did enhanced the item rather than disrupting the weapons’ internal arrays.

This was actually unheard of, even the Grandmasters said so, but their family had a lot of oddities, and some theories were floating inside people’s heads, just that no one was really wording things out because they didn’t know how to.

Anyway, for the first few hours, Althea mastered the handling of her sword. She memorized its length, its weight, what was the best angle for the sharpest slice, and even how to swipe at awkward angles.

They couldn’t always get a clear shot, right? Garan taught her that there would be plenty of times when she’d be hurt or thrown down, and it was impossible for her to get the proper stance. In those cases, he taught her how to either escape, make space, or even cause damage, even in awkward positions.

This way, even if she was cornered and even if one appendage wasn’t working, she would not be helpless. This was her request of him. She was weak compared to their enemies, and although she had a lot of cards, she might not always be in a position to use them.

The atmosphere around Garan turned cold just at the image of her in pain, and Althea had to hug him and give him a few pecks to calm him down.

It was only then that she could place herself in awkward positions and actually risk losing skin. Whenever she did, and she asked him not to move, Garan would always look like he was the one physically injured.

Other than her sword skills, she wanted to try one of her theoretical skills, ones related to her elements.

After learning that she could use things like cactus to shield and spike, increasing her offense as a wood user, her mind worked and branched out on other possible techniques. However, she only had time to do a few experiments and trials until now.

She wanted to try it in actual battles now. Once again, she used the cactus, one of her more flexible plant partners.

Interestingly, she could control it with either her wood or her water element. With this, she could adjust the energy consumption accordingly, because using whichever element was abundant at a certain place and time consumed less energy.

Interestingly, using cactus also helped with her ability to control water, too.

Even Garan didn’t know this.

”You see... when we— well, you—were dealing with the goveyrm, I was inspired to do something like this,” she explained.

Cactii had a special ability to store water, so using combined wood and water elements, she could improve her ability to absorb surrounding waters, allowing it to condense more.

Speaking of her water element training, she and her master had finally created the type of acid that would work well with her water ability.

Althea’s space also had a jug of acidic liquid, though its makeup was made similar to water, except it was mixable with water, so she could still control it.

Further, a few drops could transform a bucket into a similar acid, too, which was super efficient.

This was done by something called autocatalytic activation, which, in layman’s terms, was when a substance created a small reaction in one part and it created more of what was needed to keep the reaction moving.

Imagine dropping a small cup of colored dye into a large bucket of water. It would normally take time and some movement to spread out, but with this reaction, it would be like the dye would teach the nearby molecules to turn into dye too. It wouldn’t dilute either.

It was a magical concept. With technology here, it could only be done when two creative and obsessive alchemists put their minds to it.

Another item that she and Grandmaster Hoffen managed to crack was the stabilization of potion-enhanced equipment.

This was hastened when the other two alchemists caught wind of the invention and immediately wanted in.

After doing another oath (they had such high status and strength that each ’patent’ needed a separate oath, and still with a time limitation), the two got into it with them. While Althea still took breaks to spend with family, the three basically only stopped when they had to sleep for a few hours (and eat).

If it weren’t for their levels, one would wonder how they were alive.

Anyway, one of the main concepts used here was vibration, wherein they added the factors of wavelengths and frequency while combining potions and the equipment.

Although it wasn’t perfect (yet), the stability had already increased by 15%, which was a great sign. Even as it was now, it could already save lives. One had to remember that the original prototypes managed to last an entire intense war before. Add 15% to that, and this meant they could take hours-worth of attacks with ease.

Zenno and Cheman were in awe. The product was really similar to what the Enhancement Hall special building could do!

Could Alterra really do everything manually someday?