While Billy didn't want to throw away the armor, Edward gave him since its effects were that amazing. Still, he needed some upgrade… One crazy upgrade that would put Billy way ahead of his enemies. His idea was to make a magic armor that would have a core that would have the same power as the core of the Golems he created, and it would use that mana to power up his physical abilities. The more mana, the more power he would get, and thus, he would use his own mana to focus on magic… Billy was envisioning something quite insane, but it couldn't be helped. He reached a point where he had too much to lose. So, he had to go all out in order not to lose anything…
Instead of working by making some prototypes, Billy started with the design since he wanted to make the whole armor to be as optimal as possible. All the parts would need to be connected by something like magic circuits. Billy had never made those before, but he had to start now in order to achieve what he was envisioning.
"Let's see… it has to be a full-body armor… I guess it also would be good if it could hide my face," Billy thought. "Eventually, the enemy will notice that I am the one inside, but the surprise factor will always help."
Unlike high-tech or magic armors that expose their weakness in broad daylight that Billy had seen in movies and in other media, Billy was deadset on making the core as hidden as possible and behind numerous layers of defense. Thanks to that, he had a hard time coming up with a decent design for his new toy. After all, as long as it keeps a normal size, like three or four meters tall, it wouldn't be hard to find the core. Still, making it much bigger would increase the energy consumption to keep the whole thing going. So, Billy didn't know what to choose between efficient and absurd but not continuous raw power.
"Well, let's focus on efficiency first… once I complete the first model, I can make others considering the right improvements," Billy nodded to himself.
Billy, who already slept a lot more than anyone in his house, began to cut his sleeping hours even more to work on his next project. While he felt pretty good while working on that, everyone else got worried since he looked excited but tired all the time.
"What are you working on right now?" Kate asked one week after Billy began his newest project. "You don't look sick, but it is only a matter of time before you collapse from overwork."
"Hmm… I guess I got carried away," Billy said. "Well, I am just trying to forge some new gear, and I got caught up with my excitement. Nothing else happened, really."
"Well, if you say so…" Kate said. "Are you making anything that we can use?"
"Right now, the prototype is specially made for my size. Once I finish it, I can try to make it for you guys," Billy replied. "It will be a bit weird, though."
"How so?" Kate asked.
"You will see…" Billy replied while showing a complicated smile.
While a single power armor seemed cool, Billy imagined that a group of people wearing the same would look weird. He couldn't explain why… maybe it was because they would look like the mighty morphing warriors if they got armors or different colors, or even if they had the same color.
In any case, when Billy thought about that, he had even more ideas for his armor… it would be awesome if he could make it portable. Using something like a box, or a bag as a basis, he could make the armor become something else entirely and then become the armor when he needed… it would be heavy as hell. Still, one could have their cake and eat it at the same time. Nevertheless, he would need many prototypes to reach on that level.
While Billy was writing down his ideas, he finally got a message from Icarus… it took him a lot longer than Billy had expected to answer… in any case, Billy's guess was correct. He had found another continent… even though he had run over the ocean for days to find it.
"I guess this explains why the summoner only shows up now and then…" Billy thought.
Billy wrote the news to Lucyna as well, and then he asked for more details from Icarus. As it turned out, even though he ran for three days in a straight line, he didn't find anything, but on the fourth day, he finally found some land. As it turns out, that world was a long bigger than they had expected. From that perspective, it seemed that their continent was like a small piece of land compared to the world. Billy wondered how the hell the day would have twenty-four hours then… Unless that world had more than one sun and no one noticed until now. That was another thing that didn't make any sense. Nevertheless, it was just a small detail.
Apparently, Icarus had been trying to get some Intel while keeping his presence hidden, but that was almost impossible because he was forced to fight many times… The area around the new continent had some massive Aquatic monsters. After fighting them for a while, he decided to retreat because he was low on mana. Billy sighed when he read that, but he couldn't complain much…
"I confirmed my theory, and the necromancer probably came from that continent, but now I can check that area when it is so far away?" Billy thought while rubbing his chin.
He had the barrier protecting his home, but he still will have to leave for weeks in order to investigate the new continent. Unfortunately, the best chance for him to protect his family would be by taking the fight to where the enemy lives.
