It was an issue they had noticed on the third day, the day after the scouting mission and after the fight with the Goliath.

Looking to replace Alice's broken armor, the two girls had gone to their resident metal mages in hopes of getting better protection for both of them.

What they found was that said mages were very inefficient. The problem lay in the fact that they needed a lot of Mana. One might expect it to be the other way around, but while an earth mage could erect entire walls using relatively little Mana if they had a lot of Magic power, a metal mage couldn't create stuff in the same manner.

In a way, Mana couldn't be considered as a form of energy, but it rather embodied the concept of 'actions'. In that way, raising a large stone pillar out of the ground counted as a single action where a lot of material was moved.

On the other hand, molding metal into a useable tool didn't require moving large amounts of material, but small amounts with higher precision. It was similar to Alice Flesh grafting Skill. If her Magic power were high enough, she could 'heal' herself instantly with just a single point of Mana. But that would then be the equivalent of putting all the pieces of a puzzle into a pile, putting them under a hydraulic press, and declaring the puzzle solved.

The creation of tools needed precision. Precision meant more individual steps. And every step cost Mana. And as such, the little Mana their metal mages had, was precious and cleanly allocated to pre planned tasks. It was all reserved for repairing, modifying, and creating new tools they needed, but didn’t have in ways that used as little Mana as possible.

"What does 'grinding' mean?" the Captain asked, not recognizing the use of the word.

"It means we are going out and try to level up as much as we can, as quickly as we can," Ava explained.

"And that means you are going to take bigger risks, which would be less dangerous if you are better armed," Michael stated.

"Yes," Alice confirmed their intentions.

"Okay, I won't try and talk you out of it. How much of a risk you want to take is completely up to you, just make sure you know your limits. However, free access to a metal mage won't be possible. Considering the situation, I guess I can allow you to take as much in terms of guns and ammunition as you need. If you kill them from a distance, the armor you currently have should suffice, shouldn't it?"

"But, we don't want to use guns if possible," Alice explained.

"And why is that?"

"We thought about it a lot. For one, we don't want to become reliant on them. Once the bullets run out, we want to still be at our full strength. It's not like we won't use them at all, but we want to keep them for emergencies.

Also, there are the Class affinities. We know already that they go up when we act according to the relative aspect. In the case of my Necromancer, it's gone up when I got heavily injured and continued to fight while undead. Also, when the thing with Simon's soul happened this night. For the warrior aspect of my Class... It hasn't been going up much. And I think that's because I need to actually fight my opponents like a warrior would. Meaning, no sneaking up on them and killing them in a single blow, and no shooting at them from far away," Alice wanted to continue, but Michael interrupted her.

"Ah, actually, the information will be released soon, but we figured out what happens when your affinity reaches a hundred percent. All Skills related to the aspect will go up by one level, and related stats get a percentage boost. Though, we still don't know what happens when both reach one-hundred percent. Sorry, continue."

"Right, even more reason to work on increasing Class affinity. However, we have one more reason. Considering the Skills and Stats me and Ava have been getting, we think that the Level-up rewards are definitely random. But, they might not be completely so.

I was getting injured a lot and got a lot of Skills that allowed me to survive said injuries, one way or another. On the other hand, Ava is always carrying a buttload of knives and has not just gotten a Skill to store objects in her shadow, but even one to turn shadows into physical objects.

The Skills might be mostly random, but we do think that they are in some way related to the way we act. And I would really like to get a Skill that allows me to actually not get injured in the first place. Or some kind of attack Skill. And for that, I would actually have to go in and fight in close range. On the flip side, if I continue using guns so much, I might end up with a Skill related to them, and that's honestly not something I would really want, considering that bullets will run out sooner or later."

"Hmmm..." Michael still didn't seem quite convinced.

"Also, one of my Skills works similar to their magic, insofar that it takes more Mana for more precision. I have been experimenting with it a lot, so I think I can help our metal mages to get more efficient."

"Fine. I guess this would have had to happen sooner rather than later either way. In the first place, we only prioritized making weapons and tools because it cost a lot less Mana, despite armoring you guys being more important," Michael finally conceded with a sigh.

"Then, let's go meet them right now before they use up all the Mana they regenerated overnight," Ava exclaimed excitedly, already in the process of standing up from her chair.

"Hold your horses. They are right over there. I'm going to talk to them now, then I'm going to talk to the rest of the leaders, and then you can go bother them when you get the OK. Until then, relax," Michael put his hand on her shoulder and pressed the girl back into her chair.

"Besides, we still have to go back and get the base materials from our room," Alice threw in her own comment.

"Base materials?"

"Yeah, it's one of the ways I figured out to make it cheaper in terms of Mana. Instead of making the armor from scratch and purely from metal, you take something else and cover in the material."

"I see, you can talk out the details with the guys. I will get going then. Enjoy your breakfast."

"So, today is the day," Alice didn't specify any further.

"Nervous?" her girlfriend asked her.

"That's a harsh understatement," she answered, pulling the other girl into a hug.

Half an hour later, the two girls found themselves in a room in the basement, together with three elderly men. The room gave off a strange atmosphere. It was a bit chilly, and the bright fluorescent tubes covered the room in a harsh light.

Three strong tables stood at the walls without the door, each with a comfortable chair in front of them. The tables themselves were made from rough steel plates that were unevenly formed with irregular surfaces and wavy edges. It could be said that their quality was so bad that it would have been impossible to find such tables before the apocalypse. Maybe they could have been some kind of designer tables.

Now, however, it was a clear sign of who exactly worked in this room.

"So, yer the ones we’re supposed to help today? You are the two Scout lassies, right? Have ta thank you for all yer've done for us old people, so I'm happy to help you out. Ye can call me Smith," the man in front of them introduced himself.

It was strange watching him heave a hunk of steel onto one of the tables as he talked to the two. For all the strength he showcased, the man looked positively ancient. Completely bald with age spots covering more area than they didn't, and his skin was so wrinkly and saggy that if he had no eyebrows, Alice wouldn't have been able to tell where his eyes were.

"Smith?" Ava asked with a grin.

"Yes, that's my name. I was told to help you, so tell me what you girls need."

Alice quickly jumped in before her partner could start any of her antics, explaining what they needed, "What we want is armor for the two of us and a shield for me."

"Hmm, I don't think our energy is gonna be enough for that. Maybe the shield and chest protectors for both of ye. At most."

"Well, I think I can help with that. Your Skills work depending on your mental image, right?" Alice asked just to make sure.

"Sure," Smith answered, the other two men nodding along as they watched from where they sat at their tables.

"I have a similar Skill, and I have been experimenting with it. And I think I have found some mental images that are more efficient and effective than what you might be using. For example, you have made the tables by imagining the metal to flatten, right?"

"Well, you can see the result," he pointed at the bumpy surfaces that were many things, but definitely not smooth.

"Yeah, that's pretty much the same result I got at first. But did you know that, at least for a while, you can render the material fluid?" Alice explained one of the things she found out. Finding that out had been great, but experimenting with it had been everything but. Fluid meat was many things, but most of all disgusting.

"Ye are saying instead of forming stuff directly, we could make forms for castin’ the steel? We will have to try that. But how is that going to help right now? We don't have anything to make the forms with."

"Ah, you have to get a little more creative. Don't have it turn fluid like water. Instead, make it more viscous, like honey, for example, and pour it on basically any flat surface, and you get a perfect sheet of metal. Then, you take this," she lifted up the football armor she had found in one of the buildings they raided, " and..."

"Clay," one of the mages interrupted her, "You make sheets, then give them the properties of clay and fold it around the edges. Should cost two, maybe three Mana per surface, if it works as you described."

"Exactly," Alice confirmed.

The last man stood up, taking a closer look at the armor and the other pieces she was holding.

"If we say it's two Mana per surface... No, Grey, you have the highest power. How much steel you think you could change at once?"

"Fifteen kilos, maybe. Ah, I see. I make one large sheet for one Mana, and then we make a lot of smaller pieces like cutting cookies. Depending on how fast we are and the size of the pieces, we can further reduce the cost. Then it would be just another Mana to attach each one instead of two or three if we make them individually. Good thinking, lassie. This is going to make our work a lot more efficient."

"And you want all of these coated?" Smith asked, looking at the small mountain of equipment Alice and Ava were carrying.

"Yeah, the shield first. Then the helmets and body armor. Should you run out, then prioritize the arms over legs," Alice explained in what order the girls had decided to prioritize their armoring of different body parts.

Finally, Ava explained the rest of what they wanted since she knew more about that stuff than Alice did. She had been quite surprised when Ava told her that most medieval plate-armors weren't even five millimeters thick in their strongest places.

Had Alice been the one to decide, then their armor would have been a centimeter thick everywhere, making it so heavy that they wouldn't be able to move properly. Sure, in the future, they might be able and forced to use armor like that. But at the moment, they still weren't physically strong enough for something like it.

Of course, Alice had increased her Muscle-density, making her two and a half times stronger than she had been when the apocalypse came. But since the physical Stats were multipliers for their basic strength and stamina, that only meant she was now on the same level as a professional athlete. Despite all her Skills and Stats, she still wasn't quite superhuman.

Which made her extremely nervous about what they were about to attempt today, but also excited since it was sure to change if they succeeded.

It was strange to watch the old men work, having a heated discussion as they threw different numbers and calculations at each other. Only after a few minutes of taking measurements and building a simple, rectangular frame out of four heavy steel beams did they finally begin to pile pieces of metal on the ground inside the frame.

One of them, the man called Grey, closed his eyes. A moment later, the assortment of metal rods and beams began to turn fluid, looking like a pile of candles in a microwave as they turned into a puddle that quickly spread over the floor. It took only a few seconds before the material had spread out evenly, and the man stopped his magic, letting the metal turn solid again.

"Only a single point of Mana, as the girl said. Now, let's get this done," Grey confirmed as he pulled out a pen.

Together, the trio started to draw out the different pieces they needed to cut from the sheet, after which Grey once again worked his magic. This time, however, The other two, as well as the girls, sat around the metal, using knives to cut along the lines. It was a strange feeling to use a cheap knife to cut steel like a seamstress would cut cloth.

It also made Alice reconsider how she wanted to distribute her Level ups between Stats and Skills. Now, besides at least one attack Skill, she also needed a defensive Skill, or two. She did not want to fight anything with metal magic while wearing metal armor. Thinking about it, all the mage had to do to kill her was to give her armor spikes on the inside. It was a scary though that made her hope there weren’t any cloth mages that could strangle her with her own clothing. Or she would have to find a way to make them incapable of controlling her personal items.

"Done," Ava exclaimed, causing the mage to open his eyes and stop his magic.

"Hmm. Two Mana this time. You guys need to be faster," he announced the result.

With the metal having solidified again, they then picked up several pieces of metal that had been cut out like cookies from the dough.

What followed was about as weird a sight as everything else that had happened in this room so far. While Grey conserved his Mana for the next round of cookie cutting, the other two men took the pieces, lay them on top of the armor parts that were supposed to be coated, and worked their magic.

Softly, they pressed the metal down, causing it to stick to the football armor like play-doh, before they simply folded it around the edges, making the material almost impossible to get off.

For around half an hour, the three old men and two girls continued working until they finally got done.

"I mean, a lot can be said about how slowly Mana regenerates, but once you have it, it gets the job done pretty darn quickly," Alice commented as she looked at her new armor.

It looked a little strange. In some places, the metal was completely spotless. In others, there were folds and overlaps where the flat sheet had been formed around a dome-shaped piece of armor. And especially at the edges, the metal looked a bit rougher, but one had to look closely or know how that came to be, to realize that those were the fingerprints of the men who could shape steel like a piece of clay.

"It's not much, but I even have some energy left in the tank," Smith commented, "Now put the things on. We wanna see how you look all geared up."

Aside from the fact that it was now covered in steel, her new armor was already better, just in the process of putting it on. Since it wasn't a shirt with hard-plastic attached to it, but structured more like a vest, it was a lot easier to put on. In the same vein, however, the armor was made for a man, meaning that, aside from the thick inner padding, there was no space provided to accommodate her assets, making it a stifling affair. It wasn't too bad, but she would have to get used to it.

On the other hand, it was still annoying to put on since there had been quite a few gaps in the original design. Gaps that didn't matter much if all the armor had to protect from was getting tackled. But if something tried to stab her, Alice could very much do without a giant gap right down the middle of her chest or between the pieces protecting her upper torso and the thick belt around her waist.

Both had been covered by overlapping pieces of metal, but they still made it annoying to put the armor on.

Still, soon the pair stood in the room in full armor. Alice with the typical, broad-shouldered look of a football player with shin guards and vambraces. Her ax in her right hand and her new shield strapped to her left. The shield looked like it was some kind of replica from some video game, considering the overly fancy design. However, it was pretty sturdy already, and after covering it with several millimeters of steel, it was sure to hold up pretty well. It was also pretty darn heavy.

Ava, on the other hand, still had her mountain bike armor. Of course, now it was enhanced with steel. In her case, the plates were a bit thinner. She had put Alice's armor on at some point and realized that the heavier weight would restrict her speed too much.

"What the hell is wrong with the world..." Smith shook his head as he looked at the pair.

"Now, all you need is a white Chopper, and you can steal me away from this place," Ava said, admiring her steel-clad partner.

"You mean a horse."

"Nope, you look like a discount Mad Max character. And those don’t do horses."

“Why discount?” Alice asked a little offended.

“No money for the spikes.”