“Ah, Leon Raime!” the Director said in greeting as Leon walked into his office. “Please, come in! Come in!”

Leon smiled as he took a few more steps into the starkly lit office. The Director, as always, was sitting behind his desk, his body almost completely obscured by the shadows cast by the light shining in from the giant windows behind him. However, the Director wasn’t alone in his office, Penelope was there as well. Leon, after seeing her, had to fight the urge to scowl and pause, barely managing to continue onward with a fairly stoic expression despite this unpleasant surprise.

He hadn’t had much to do with Penelope over the past ten years. As far as he was aware, the woman was off doing her own thing, or performing the duties expected of her as one of her father’s Hands. In the course of performing his own duties, Leon had rarely run into her, and on those few occasions where he did, they hadn’t said more than a sentence or two to each other in passing. It seemed to Leon that Penelope was not happy that her father had decided to bring Leon into Heaven’s Eye, and that sentiment was made all the clearer when the woman blatantly frowned upon his entrance.

As Leon approached his desk, the Director said, “I’ve heard that you recently completed quite the masterful piece of weaponry, young man.”

“I wouldn’t call it masterful, myself,” Leon humbly replied. He was about to continue, but Penelope had to interject, first.

“I’m sure few others would call it masterful, too,” she hissed.

Leon’s eyes narrowed in a tight glare, but he wore a light smile as he turned to her and growled, “Seems your father just did, or are you saying you know better?”

“In this case, I’m sure I do,” Penelope shot back as her aura began to spike in intensity.

However, before Leon could fire off another verbal riposte, all the magic in the room suddenly froze, and both Leon and Penelope’s auras were forced back into their bodies by the weight of the Director’s magic.

“That’s enough of that,” the Director whispered, though his tone brokered no argument. “The two of you need to learn to get along, and you’ll need to do so quickly, because you’re both going off on a mission together.”

Penelope, heedless of her father’s stated desire to get along with Leon, loudly snorted and turned away from Leon.

Leon, however, compartmentalized his antipathy and focused on the task at hand. He wasn’t happy that this was going to be a joint venture, but the faster he was able to get it done, the less time he’d have to spend in Penelope’s company.

“What’s the job?’ he asked. “Are we joining the wyvern hunts again?”

Despite the past couple of minutes, his tone and demeanor brightened considerably over the course of his question. If there was one thing that could improve his mood in this situation, it was being tasked with hunting giant monsters.

“An accurate guess,” the Director replied, his shadowy faced bending just slightly to appear as if he were smiling behind his dark curtain. “Things are going to be a little different this year, I’m afraid. There are going to be considerably fewer Imperials joining the hunts.”

“Why’s that?” Leon asked, though a quick glance at Penelope showed his surprise to be exclusive to him.

“Figures someone like you wouldn’t be keeping track of current events,” Penelope muttered.

“Penelope…” the Director said in warning, his tone dropping slightly in pitch.

Penelope held up a finger to her smiling lips, showing that she’d be quiet, though she hardly seemed at all remorseful for her outburst.

“Leon, have you heard about the recent build-up of arms around Argos?” the Director asked.

“I’ve heard some whispers about it, sure,” Leon replied. “I’ve certainly gotten quite a few boosts to my income; my flight suits have been selling faster than they can be manufactured.”

“They’re quite well-made suits,” the Director stated appreciatively. “Better than all other mass-produced flight gear on the market, it’s no surprise that they’re popular. But it shouldn’t come as any surprise that most of those suits are ending up in the south, with the Imperial Fleets.”

“I suppose not…” Leon said. He attempted to keep his tone light and carefree, but he knew that if there was a build-up of armed forces in the Argonaut Sea, then it meant that there was going to be conflict with the Sky Devils in the near future, and he wasn’t yet sure how he felt about that. Given that the Sky Devils were in all likelihood the last remnant of his Clan on this plane, he’d been hoping to find some way to get down there and see what was up with them in the next few decades. Renewed war was going to make that difficult, without a doubt.

On the other hand, if any of what he’d heard about the Sky Devils was true, then he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to meet with them. They sounded like monsters, and they weren’t exactly related to him by blood—the Sky Devils were probably descended from his Clan’s vassals, and if there were any direct descendants of his Clan among them, then they no longer carried the Thunderbird’s power.

Still, for all his apprehensiveness, he was still incredibly curious about them, he just hadn’t been able to figure out any way that he might be able to investigate them without having to sift through a mountain of Imperial propaganda. Their island in the southeast was practically impossible to gain access to, unfortunately, so that left his hands rather tied.

“Well,” the Director continued, pulling Leon out his brief musings, “there have been signs that the Sky Devils are preparing some kind of assault on the settlements around the Argonaut Sea, perhaps even against the Sword itself. So, most of the forces that the Sunlit Empire and the Sentinels might’ve sent to aid in the culling of the wyvern population are instead being sent south to shore up Argos’ defenses.”

“What about Ilion and Evergold?” Leon asked, referring to the capitals of the Ilian and Sacred Golden Empires.

“Ilion is still sending a delegation,” the Director replied, “but it’s going to be smaller than usual. A few hundred of their finest hunters, but none of their usual military presence.”

Leon lightly scowled. The presence of Ilian arks had ensured that the previous hunt five years ago had gone off with little collateral damage to the surrounding regions—and that was quite the feat, given the sheer power that the wyverns possessed. By Leon’s estimation, the creatures probably had enough raw power to rival a human mage at least a tier above them, if not more. Their bodies were huge, and they produced an incredible amount of mana within themselves—a bigger body meant more blood, which meant more mana, which in turn meant more magic power immediately at their disposal. After the previous hunt, Leon could understand why the Scorched Fields were so depopulated; the wyverns burned so much of that region that no human settlements could exist for long, and why it took Imperial power to keep the beasts in check. If such force wasn’t used to combat the monsters, then the entire southwest would be reduced to a smoldering ruin every five years.

“And Evergold?” Leon asked.

“They’re the only ones sending their usual full-force delegation,” the Director explained. “More than that, actually, as one of the Imperial Princesses is joining the hunt this year.”

“Oh?” Leon said in surprise. “That’s surprising. I have to admit I’m not too familiar with their ruling family, though.”

“Talal can get you a briefing,” the Director said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “For now, concentrate on getting yourself ready. As an Imperial Princess will be in attendance, we’ll have to show up with full colors, so no letting my Hands travel on their own; you’ll be taking an ark to the Scorched Fields, and you’ll be leaving next month.”

‘A month, hm?’ Leon thought to himself as a smile bloomed across his face. ‘That should be enough time…’

---

“It won’t be easy, what you’re intending,” the Thunderbird intoned as she stared down at Leon’s sketches, though Leon wasn’t in the least bit deterred. If anything, the wide smile on his Ancestor’s bronze face only encouraged him to continue in this current vein.

“A man ought to be ambitious,” Xaphan responded as his fiery form took a few steps forward, his burning yellow eyes taking in the designs on Leon’s table. “Are you going to bitch out on this, Leon? Cry like a whipped dog if this doesn’t work out?”

“Hardly,” Leon replied, his smile unwavering.

“What are you going to do, then, when this doesn’t work as you intend it to?”

Leon stood a little straighter, meeting the demon’s challenging gaze. “I’m going to figure out how I screwed it up and fix it for the next attempt.”

“Good,” Xaphan crackled.

“As well you should,” the Thunderbird added. “You’ve progressed mightily in these past few years. I would expect nothing less than for you to reach for the heavens, even in matters like these.”

“I can’t imagine doing anything but,” Leon replied. “My previous suit of armor lasted me a good long while, and served me well in many conflicts.”

“That armor wasn’t fit for one contracted to me to even shit in!” Xaphan loudly declared. “That it was torn apart like wet paper doesn’t surprise me. Do better with this set.”

Leon’s smile took on a slightly more bitter look, and his eyes drifted toward the vault in his soul realm. Within rested the remains of his Magmic Steel armor in a place of honor. He didn’t appreciate Xaphan disparaging it like he just did, but he couldn’t deny that by his current standards, that armor was quite mediocre.

The Thunderbird was waiting with the proper response to Xaphan, though, letting Leon take the high road. Leon remained quiet, but Xaphan shrieked in pain as the Thunderbird’s mighty aura crashed down upon him, planting his face in the dirt just in front of his pavilion.

Acting as if nothing had happened, the Thunderbird stepped closer to Leon, a matronly smile on her face. “Leon,” she whispered, “I’ll be with you the whole time. There’s no need to fear this process.”

Leon nodded. “Thank you,” he replied. “I’ll admit that the prospect does frighten me a little—Adamant is so far beyond me that I can barely even comprehend what making an entire suit of armor out of it might be like…”

“It doesn’t surprise… that you can’t!” Xaphan called out from where the Thunderbird was still physically suppressing him, utterly heedless of his current predicament. “Small imagination!”

“And I suppose the great and mighty Lord of Flame—or whatever you are now—has a better idea?” Leon shouted back.

“Use fire!” Xaphan responded. “Fire is the greatest and mightiest of all the elements! None can compare!”

Xaphan continued like that for a while longer, but Leon quickly tuned him out, leaving him to rant to himself as Leon and the Thunderbird turned back to Leon’s designs.

“I like the integration of gemstones,” the Thunderbird said as she indicated the slots in the gauntlets and the one within his breastplate. “This one seems to be hidden, though?”

Leon glanced over and saw that she was tapping the spot in his breastplate.

“Hmm, connected to light and a bit of wind magic, is it? Does it have something to do with that pearl you had me look at a while back?”

“It does,” Leon replied as his eyes strayed over to the tau pearl sitting on a table next to his notes. After acquiring it, he’d spent a considerable amount of time probing it with his magic, trying to divine its secrets. It was clearly tremendously powerful, but finding out just what exactly it could do proved challenging enough that he’d enlisted the help of his soul realm residents.

Xaphan had been characteristically unhelpful—unsurprising given the lack of fire magic involved with the pearl.

Nestor and the Thunderbird, however, had a few more insights to share. The tau wasn’t a creature either were familiar with, unfortunately, but in their examinations of the pearl, they found that it was rather similar to a wisp created by a post-Apotheosis mage. It generated magic power by itself and stored it like a magical battery. It was an almost completely lossless storage, too, with the pearl’s emanations being the tiniest fraction of the power contained within it. What that power could be used for was a little trickier to realize given that the power was so well contained that even letting out a tiny amount of it was terribly difficult.

However, after ten years of study, Leon felt like he’d finally found a way to channel some of the pearl’s power. Even better, according to his preliminary tests, even if he ran all of the enchantments he had in mind for the pearl, it would still barely even register given the pearl’s essentially limitless magic potential. The thing generated magic power faster than he could drain it.

The pearl was incredibly potent, and it had given him great insight into the mysteries of light magic, a subject that he’d left rather neglected in his previous studies—not as neglected as his darkness or earth magic skills, but neglected, nonetheless. Now, after ten years, he’d progressed in his magical studies enough to attempt to use the pearl in his armor’s designs. With it, he hoped that he could create an autonomous healing system to not only keep himself going, but also heal anyone he touched. He wasn’t sure how efficacious it would be, or if it would even work, but he was confident in the design. Likewise, he’d designed his armor to be able to project a shield of light to surround himself with, and when powered by the tau pearl, Leon was calculating that it would be incredibly strong.

All of this required serious magical engineering to accomplish, and Leon was proud to say that he hadn’t needed Nestor’s help with much. The darkness enchantment placed upon his helmet to help protect against mental attacks was a little more complicated and the dead man had helped with some of that design, but everything else was a product of Leon’s studies alone. Nestor, Xaphan, and the Thunderbird had only checked his work, not helped him come up with any of it.

He was especially proud of his gauntlets. They incorporated several different simple enchantments to help channel certain powers through his hands. There were then a couple of slots placed higher up where specially enchanted gemstones would be placed, giving him the ability to swap out certain enchantments on the fly using nothing more than his natural ability to store things with his soul realm.

This modular approach did leave him fairly limited with the rest of his gauntlet enchantments, being able to project power, concentrate it, and stabilize it, but he’d put in extra work on designing the stones themselves. They’d be doing a lot of the heavy lifting he’d need from them with the weapons and other enchantments he wanted for his armor to include.

Still, with this modular design and the inclusion of the tau pearl taking great amounts of work, it was the darkness runes he’d needed Nestor’s help with that he was most nervous about. Over the past ten years, he’d managed to finally figure out Xaphan’s communication technique. The key had been learning how to generate darkness magic and using it to essentially ‘touch’ another being’s mind and transfer his thoughts and intentions to them, which they would interpret as speech.

In his studies, though, he’d come to a newfound fearful respect of darkness magic. His abilities to shield his mind from interference had been greatly expanded, but he’d also learned of the great potential that darkness magic had to mess with someone else’s mind. Unfortunately, all of the artifacts that he’d been able to find that claimed to defend against darkness magic were not even close to matching his personal standard—though, given that his lightning magic had a natural ability to purge darkness magic from his mind, he supposed his standards were simply too high. After all, he figured that if darkness magic was more of a threat on Aeterna, then there would be a greater market for dealing with that threat.

As it was, Leon never wanted to experience what he had in the Serpentine Isles again. Practically from the moment he’d arrived in that island chain, his mind had become the plaything of the Primal God sealed below, making him see and hear things that weren’t there and impairing his judgment. Flushing his mind with the Thunderbird’s lightning had only been a temporary measure, too, with his mind falling back under the Primal God’s sway distressing quickly.

Hopefully, these new darkness enchantments he’d designed for his helmet would go a long way towards augmenting his ability to defend his mind. He didn’t think they’d get much testing in the upcoming hunt, but he’d figure something out, and once he had better data for how his enchantments fared under pressure, he’d create similar artifacts for all of his family and retinue.

Other than all of that, he included in his armor’s enchantment scheme many of the same strengthening and empowering enchantments he had in his old armor. His already prodigious eighth-tier strength and power would be increased while wearing his new armor, and the armor itself would be greatly strengthened—enough, he hoped, to not be torn apart quite as his old suit of Magmic Steel had been.

He wasn’t intending to use Magmic Steel for this new suit. That substance was fantastic for fire enchantments, but it didn’t hold other elemental enchantments quite as easily; he needed something else.

And that was why he needed the Thunderbird with him for the forging process. With his new skill in blacksmithing, she’d given him more insight into the specifics of how Adamant was forged—the hardest and most magical substance in the universe. The process was exceedingly complex, but boiled down to its core, it was essentially infusing his mana with molten metal, letting his power and the metal mix until they were one. In that way, there would be little philosophical difference between his body and his armor, with his magic power naturally flowing through both. He’d be able to channel his magic through his armor with such ease that it might as well be his skin, and the material would strengthen over time as it took on more and more of his power. Much like his family’s sword, his armor might even form its own will, though he figured that much of what made his family’s blade special was the fact that it had once held a Universe Fragment.

He had little doubt that forging actual Adamant was essentially impossible for him at the moment. He needed much greater power and skill than he had right now, but that didn’t mean infusing at least some of his power into the steel he intended to use was impossible. With the Thunderbird guidance, he knew that he had a good shot at making this work.

“I’m here, right with you,” the Thunderbird said supportively, bringing Leon out of his brief reverie. He gave her an appreciative smile in return, his heart thumping in his throat.

He was nervous, there was no disguising that. So many new enchantments and new techniques. He had an entire month to work with, but as he stared at his designs and took in the scope of what he was intending to create, he thought that maybe a month wasn’t nearly long enough. He could easily see his natural tendency to refine his designs and iterate on them before even finishing was going to lengthen this process, and he’d need every spare second he had.

And so, with that thought in his head, Leon returned to the physical world, where his body had been laying in a chaise lounge in his workshop for just such occasions. With the Thunderbird’s encouragement in his ear and Valeria still studying the golems not far away giving him some much-needed moral support, Leon got to work.