When Jason awoke early the following morning, he immediately set to work studying his enchanting guides. Learning new runes was a relatively quick process, if he could understand them, thanks to system assistance, so he dived right after his morning shower.

He went so far as to read all the way through breakfast, which ended up being a simple affair of sausage and vegetable omelettes, as that was something he could easily whip together while distracted. In particular, he decided to focus on his fourth and final tome he’d gotten from Jerrik, a humorously-titled volume called ‘Bigger And Better: An Enchanter’s Guide To Unnatural Enhancement’.

Despite what the title might have implied to someone back on Earth, Jason found the subject matter was quite mundane: it was an in-depth look on the use of enchantments, Life-aspected ones in particular, in the rearing of plants and animals to provide increases to various attributes as they grew to maturity. In short, it was a book about creating magical GMOs.

Jason quickly discovered that with rank 15 of Engrave, the guide was now a veritable gold mine of runic knowledge. While the subject matter itself was unimportant to him, the book was filled to the brim with easy-to-learn sequences which contained runes such as Might, Agility, Stamina, and other such qualities a [Beastmaster] or a [Druid] might wish to impart to personally-raised companions. Jason even learned a rune for ‘Vitality,’ which confused him at first because to all appearances, the Voice did not impart any kind of hit point system to the world’s denizens. It turned out it was rune related to general health and a wellbeing, rather than any kind of specific stat.

All in all, Jason was practically ecstatic by time he was ready to head back to the smithy: he’d learned a dozen new runes in just under two hours. Most of them would be exceptionally useful in engraving his and his companion’s gear, and upon his arrival, Tersk presented him with just the thing he needed to get started.

“We’re still getting the forges heated up,” Tersk told him after waving him inside, “and Jerrik won’t arrive for the leatherworking portions for another hour, so it’ll be a bit longer yet before we’re finished and you can get to the real work, but I’ve got something here so you can jump right in.”

He led Jason to a mid-sized workroom different from the ones Jason had been in before. This one contained a few small worktables filled with various tools suitable for detailed metalwork, and Jason realized with a bit of embarrassment that he’d left his crate of supplies behind last night. Tersk had moved it in here onto one of the tables.

Tersk beckoned Jason over to the crate, from which he removed a small cloth bundle. He unwrapped it, revealing a dozen simple arcanite rings. Half of them were formed of fancifully twisted wire, with empty mountings ready for a gem, or in Jason’s case, some sort of mana crystal. The other half were plain, uniform bands, without any sort of ornamentation.

“Your basic ring is pretty quick to make once you’ve got the metal stock,” Tersk explained, “so after you left I had Bereth put together a bunch. Figured you’d want to try your luck with something small and simple before you got to the big stuff. Plus, an enchanted ring of unusual material is easy to sell if you need some quick cash, no questions asked. Besides, even if you want to be fancy with those hardpoints of yours, your friends could use ‘em.”

“Good for finding out what exactly ‘takes on additional properties’ means as well,” Jason commented.

“Indeed,” Tersk replied. He placed the cloth bundle down onto the table, and then retrieved his ward against eavesdropping.

After activating it, he gave Jason a frank look. “Now, I trust you’ve come up with a suitable story to give Jerrik when he arrives?”

Jason nodded. “Lumi pointed out we have an easy excuse, at least for him. When we first arrived, Therissa informed him that we’d received an unexpected windfall, but due to various undisclosed circumstances, we’d found ourselves with no remaining actual gear. She then told him she opened a line of essentially unlimited credit for us.”

Tersk nodded in understanding. “Ah, and your provisioning of the town with enchanted arms supports the idea that you were hardly destitute, rather quite the opposite, and you simply found yourself without specific coin at that moment in time.”

“Exactly,” Jason said. “All I have to do is tell him that the arcanite itself, in the form of the raw metal, was the windfall Therissa mentioned, sent to us by system mail. So she knew that at the time, we were in possession of something of great value, but it needed processing into an end product first and that I would need some time to level up my enchanting first.”

Jason affected the half song-song tone of the chronically delayed, gesturing back and forth with one hand. “Then there was the whole dungeon thing, and then the mayor wanted us to go gather supplies for the town, and then I was busy with all the enchanting, and the we were fighting… so on and so forth. Only now do we have a bit of a breather to turn it into something useful, and so here we are.”

Tersk rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “Aye, that could work. It’s certainly a plausible enough story.”

“Speaking of plausible stories,” Jason interjected, “While we were talking it over, Kera asked a question about adventuring that I don’t actually know the answer to. I was wondering if you did. I mean, I know you aren’t an adventurer yourself or anything, but you’ve worked with them a lot.”

“True. But I really only pick up the bare bones.”

“Well, this is a pretty general thing,” Jason replied. “Namely… can low-tier monsters drop really rare loot? When we first cleared Seraptis’ dungeon, we received some loot chests with randomized ‘rewards’ in them. We’ve also seen dungeon-spawn leave behind loot when they die. Do they always leave behind the same things, or can you occasionally get something really rare? Like, would it be possible to get lucky and receive a random item chest from killing a murkling?”

Tersk snorted in derision. “Possible? Yes. Likely? Not on your life. Maybe if you killed… oh, say ten thousand of the little buggers, you might have a one-in-ten chance of having found something unusual.”

He shook his head. “No, if your intent was you wanted to claim something of that nature as your source, you’d be better off claiming you got it off a Boss or a Keeper, or even as a reward for a full clear. Claiming you got a cache of some rare crafting material off such a low tier creature… well, people are more likely to assume you’re just lying and maybe even outright stole it from someone, and let me tell you, you do not want adventurers thinking you are the kind of person who’ll steal from his fellows.”

Jason agreed. “Everyone hates a loot ninja,” he said.

“Loot Ninja?”

“Nevermind,” Jason said, waving away the question. “Anyway, it just came up in conversation and none of us knew the answer. Good to know.”

Jason picked up one of the rings and examined it carefully. “Hmm. I’m not even sure I can fit seven enchantments on something so small,” he mused. “You wouldn’t happen to have a jeweler’s loupe, would you? Maybe goes by the name of a jeweler’s magnifier or an appraisal glass?”

Tersk moved over to one of the workstations and rummaged around for a moment before returning with what to Jason looked like a set of steampunk-esque goggles attached to an adjustable leather strap. The left eye covering appeared to made of several layers of thin glass lenses, while the other looked more like a loupe for magnification. Minuscule runes decorated the device on all sides.

“Use this,” Tersk said, handing it over to Jason. “Picked this up off one of the Vendor’s Guild folks a long while back, when I was still doing pieces like that music box. It’ll do you better for detail work. It comes with an enchantment that’ll help steady your hands, and some minor skill boosts.”

Tersk depressed a tiny lever near that would sit near the wearer’s left temple, and one lens rotated upwards. “The left eye lenses can be flipped in an out. Each one has some kind of analysis enchantment on it, though I suspect you won’t need those.”

He flipped the lens back into place. “The right eye meanwhile can be twisted in order to increase or decrease the magnification.”

Jason whistled. “Skill boosts? Now that is a useful piece. May I….?”

Tersk laughed. “Go ahead. I’d love to see what you could make of an arcanite version.”

Jason grinned in reply, and then activated his [Arcane Sight] with a command.

The headpiece shone brightly to his vision, and he realized it must have been made by a seriously dedicated enchanter, because it had ten different enchantments on it. Each of the three left-side lenses were enchanted separately, line with runes along the rim of the lens. They assisted in the detection of mana, specific aspects, and relative purity level of whatever material was being examined. The runes along the border of the protruding right-side lens had three sequences: one for magnifying the user’s vision, and two control runes that acted together as a kind of valve to adjust the amount of mana that could flow through the first enchantment. Then, as Tersk mentioned, the device as a whole boosted one’s manual dexterity, allowing for steadier hands when working fine detail, and provided what looked to be a single-rank increase to Engraving, Appraisal, and Jewelry Crafting.

Jeweler’s Goggles of Minute Vision: This exceptionally complex variation on a jeweler’s loup provides the wearer with several analysis lenses useful to appraising magical jewelry, as well as bolsters the wearer’s ability to perform fine detail. Critical Success! Thanks to your extensive knowledge of, and exposure to, the runes used in creating this item, you have been able to decipher all of the involved sequences! Runes Learned: Mana, Purity, Dexterity, Magnification, Skill Boost

Jason stood there for a moment in confusion.His notification said that he had learned all the sequences, and he hadn’t received any kind of runes relating to the actual skills that were getting boosted. When he tried forming the rune in his mind, as if preparing to use [Improvise], he received the answer to his unspoken question.

“Well, that’s disappointing,” he said out loud.

“Didn’t get anything?” Tersk asked. “Ah, that’s unlucky.”

“Huh?” Jason asked. “Oh. No. I actually learned the whole thing; thanks for that by the way.” He turned the device over in one hand, gesturing at the runes. “This thing’s a real masterpiece. I don’t have the ranks to fully duplicate it even with the arcanite, but I knew enough of the component parts that I’ve picked up all the runes. There were several good ones in there. I’m just disappointed that I can’t enchant skill boosts for skills I don’t have.”

Tersk looked vaguely amused. “Didn’t know that, but makes sense, I suppose.”

Jason gave a short laugh. “That it does. Hard to impart knowledge of something to someone else if you yourself are unfamiliar with the subject.”

He pulled the magnification device onto his head and tightened the straps. Then he sat down, and began conjuring up his tools.

“Welp, time to get to work. Let me know when Jerrik arrives.”

Jason’s first order of business was to test out a basic, if comprehensive, defensive enchantment on the first of the simpler bands. Even with the enchanted goggles, he wasn’t yet confident enough in himself to want to immediately dive into trying to scribe runes onto a surface only a few millimeters across, and curved at that. He wanted to practice a bit first, and he figured he’d have better success on the wider surfaces first.

The first sequence Jason settled on was one that would make the wearer highly resistant to minor injury in combat, such that only strong blows stood a chance of cutting or piercing the skin. The sequence he engraved was literally that of ‘Armored Skin’, though the original application had been intended for improving the natural toughness of a beast’s hide rather than a person’s skin.

Jason didn’t bother to question why something that made your skin - or hide - deflect strikes as if it were weak steel would also still feel perfectly normal and allow you to move freely. It was magic, after all. As far as he was concerned, trying to answer such questions was a good way to give himself a headache.

Instead, Jason focused on pair of resistance enchantments for Fire and Electricity, the most common of offensive spells. Those sequences were fairly basic, so he added an Enhancement rune to each one in order to add extra resistance. This took him perhaps another ten minutes, with each sequence taking less time since he was already familiar with similar ones thanks to enchanting Kera’s clothes.

After he finished engraving the third set of runes, Jason activated all three enchantments with several doses of arcane powder, put down his tools, and paused to examine his handiwork.

The runes had come out flawlessly, and thanks to the goggles he’d had little trouble compressing his ‘handwriting’, so to speak, down into such a minuscule space. He’d even apparently earned skills for calligraphy and jewelry design, though he didn’t have the skill points to spend on them, and wouldn’t have done so even if he did.

Jason almost dropped the ring when, in the midst of his examination, it rippled and changed form, just as his alchemical infusions often did. No longer a simple, pale blue band, the ring’s color had changed to a sort of dull, orange-tinted gold. The ring itself split into two separate, flame-motif bands which were joined together at the bottom, rose up at angle, and met at a flat disk where a pair of stylized lightning bolts sat inscribed, almost like a signet ring. Each resistance enchantment had shifted to one of the split sides, while the defense enchantment now lined the inner band.

“Huh....” Jason put the ring on the desk, examining it critically.

This… might change things, he considered. I’ve been concerned about surface area, but if the system actually changes the structure of the arcanite based on its enchantments, that could either mean I can’t count on structural stability or a specific enchantment threshold, or it means I don’t even have to worry about it because the piece will just reshape itself to something appropriate.

Damn. There’s no way to know without trying, ether, is there? Welp, nothing for it then but to enchant the hell out of this thing and hope it doesn’t melt my hand off. Assuming it’s even still enchantable after I’ve added the powder and it changed form.

Jason picked up the ring and gave it a quick once-over with [Arcane Sight] first, but it wasn't immediately apparent what, if any, additional properties the arcanite had imparted.

With a shrug, he picked up his tools again, and over the next thirty minutes, managed to actually fill out his quota of all seven enchantments. Each time he added a new one, he went ahead and re-activated the ring, watching in fascination as it twisted and flowed into some new shape.

He also finally worked out how to use his UI to add a name and description to his own creations. As tempted as he was to name it something silly, he figured this piece might as well be the one he sold to Jerrik, so he tried to label it in a similar fashion to other item’s he’d seen.

Adept’s Ring of Battle Prowess: This arcanite ring grants the wearer the ability to weather most common forms of attack, as well as provides an increase to their physical strength and the weight of their strikes. As a bonus, it also doubles as a lesser spatial storage, allowing the wearer to store one additional weapon in the case of being disarmed. Benefits Provided: Continuous Armorskin. Enhanced Resistance to Fire, Lightning, and Knockback. Increases Might and Weapon Impact. Lesser Spatial Storage.

Jason realized he probably didn’t actually need to add a specific explanation of what enchantments the ring actually provided, as any adventurer who could actually afford such a ring probably had the means of performing in-depth analysis, but he was generally sick of the system’s tendency to be opaque and decided he wanted to have a bit of mercy on whoever ended up with any of the piece he was intending to sell.

As for the ring’s final form, it had changed dramatically. It retained it’s color, but had lost the double-band look, instead becoming a single thin band to which were attached seven different miniature dagger-like ornaments, one for each rune sequence. When worn, four daggers would rest at the top, and three on the bottom.

Frankly Jason thought it looked rather garish and more than a little uncomfortable to wear, but upon trying it on, he found it didn’t poke him at all when he flexed his fingers. A benefit of the armorskin, maybe?

He removed the ring and placed it on the table, taking a moment to stretch his wrists and fingers. Forty-five minutes of minuscule movements had done a real number on his hands.

While he sat there rubbing his joints, Tersk knocked on the door briefly and then entered the room. Jerrik was with him, and the clamor of ringing hammers assaulted Jason’s ears until Tersk firmly shut the heavy stone door behind them.

Tersk sat himself down at the table. “Ah, done, are you?”

“Just finished,” Jason confirmed. He passed the ring to Tersk, who examined it critically.

“Fascinating,” he commented. “This no longer looks anything like the simple band Bereth wrought.”

Jason glanced at Jerrik and chose his words carefully. “It changed for every single enchantment as well,” he said. “The arcanite also imparted some kind of hidden ability, but I don’t have the analysis skills to figure out what.”

“This is the same material that came as a part of your inheritance, yes?” Jerrik asked. “May I see?”

Jason glanced at Tersk as the dwarf passed over the ring. Apparently he’d taken the liberty of passing on at least some of Jason’s cover story.

“Yes, that’s right. Though I’d appreciate if you didn’t mention that fact to anyone who might come asking. I’d like to stay out of the crosshairs of any [Thieves] or [Burglars], thank you very much.”

Jerrik gave a deep chuckle. “I quite understand,” he said with a polite bow. “Us members of the Vendor’s Guild are more than a little prone to being targeted by those looking for information they don’t have a right to. As a result, unless legitimate law enforcement interests are involved, our members will not typically give up information as to where their wares were acquired. For that matter, given the rate at which stock gets passed around between Vendors through the System, it’s often difficult to find out where something came from in the first place.”

“Good to know,” Jason replied, “since I need to pay off my debt to the Therissa and the Lodge for helping me and my friends out after our mishap, and I was hoping to ask you for a price quote on this first piece.”

Jerrik examined the ring critically. He muttered a few analysis commands, though he didn’t produce the typical appraisal glass that Jason had seen him and other’s use in the past. Probably, he hadn’t seen a need to bring it with him to do so some leatherwork.

“Hmm… well, this is a very nice piece of work,” he muttered half to himself in between commands. “Quite possibly Masterwork-tier. Seven enchantments plus some of hidden bonus? Let’s see if we can’t….Aha!”

He slipped the ring onto the his hand, pointed his fist at the heavy stone door, and squeezed his knuckles together. With a rush of air, a wide wave of white energy burst forth from Jerrik’s fist, impacting the door with a loud wumpf that shook the room slightly.

“Not bad,” he commented. “A basic, activated kinetic blast, suitable for pushing foes away from you. Quite strong as well.”

“How did you do that?” Jason asked. “I mean, I’m the one who made it and I couldn’t get the Voice to tell me what the hidden ability was.”

“That’s not terribly surprising,” Jerrik said as he removed the ring. “My Vendor class gives me a number of highly specialized analysis skills to detect hidden features on items. And people, for that matter. Wouldn’t do to accidentally go selling a stolen, cursed ring to some adventuring Princess in disguise, now would it?”

He passed the ring back to Jason. “Hang on to that for now. I’ll need to do some checking and further analysis before I can give you a real quote, and Icertainly don’t keep that kind of money in the shop, so we’ll need to make a trip to the Lodge as well. For that matter, I might need to draw on Guild Funds to pay you something like that.”

“If you want a rough estimate, I’d venture it’s value is worth, oh… call it about fifteen hundred platinum.”

It took Jason a monumental act of will not to stare, gasp, or drool over that kind of money and instead feign nonchalance. He was supposed to be playing the part of a wealthy inheritor after all.

Congratulations! You have fulfilled the requirements to learn [Basic Acting] at a reduced cost. Would you like to purchase for 1 Skill Point, Y/N?

Jason hastily cleared the notification with a mental command. No, he did not want any more new skills. He had too many already. At least the pop-up had distracted him from his surprise.

Tersk clapped Jason on the back. “See lad? Told ya it’s be worth the investment. Now why don’t you retrieve that girl of yours while Jerrik and I get set up here, and get started on fitting the both of you for your new armor, yes?”

“She’s not my girl,” Jason protested, embarrassed.

“Other way around then, is it?” Tersk chuckled. “Pah, you young people make me feel my age. Get on with you. Jerrik and I will have the leather cut in no time at all, and you’ve got a deadline if you want to be ready for tomorrow.”

Jason returned to the house and let Lumi know that Jerrik was ready to see them at the smithy shortly. Then he went up to his lab to grab additional elemental shards and whip up a new batch of arcane powder. Fortunately, he still had various miscellaneous ingredients in refined form, even if he was beginning to run low the basics. It pained him to waste the refined elemental traits, but he could always make more as long as he was careful not to spend his last dose of anything particular.

He wrapped his new supply of arcane powder into a bundle, and on a whim tried to place it inside the ring instead of his pack. The ring accepted the package easily, which he took it downstairs to show Lumi.

“You made a spatial ring?” She asked. “Nice. Fancy looking too.”

“Oh, it’s a more than just fancy,” Jason told her with a grin. “Here, take a look.” He passed it her.

She examined it and put it on. Jason noted it was slightly large for her fingers; he’d want to ask Jerrik, or perhaps Nissette, to put their [Resize] skill to work when he had the final products.

Lumi clearing her throat. “Uh. Ahem. Wow,” she said, staring at the ring on her hand. “So, ah… did you have me in mind when you made this, or…?”

“A bit,” Jason confessed. “That one’s actually going to Jerrik to provide us with… more than a little cash, but I had already planned on making another one for you, maybe with alterations to one or two of the enchantments.”

“How much are we talking about here?”

Jason rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “Well… to put it the way Tersk did, enough that we could live here in relative luxury for years if we wanted.”

Lumi stared at him with wide eyes.

“Would it be like, really shallow of me to finally, properly decide I really want to stay here now?” she asked.

Jason snorted and gave her a wry grin. “I’ll let you know if I figure it out, because it’s pretty hard to not have your head turned by that kind of money.”

He shook his head with a laugh. “I’m joking of course. But no… in all honestly I can’t say it’s shallow, yeah? I mean…it goes back to what I said yesterday. It all boils down to securing our own future. That’s what we were all studying away at college for, after all. Now that we have even better options, why wouldn't we take them?”

“I mean… imagine your stereotypical, illiterate peasant from earthly medieval times, right?” Jason posited. “Imagine he time traveled and was handed the money to acquire a top-end, modern college education and pointed towards a well-paying career that actually improved people's lives. He’d be crazy to go back on that really, unless he had some really compelling reason to go back.”

Lumi snorted. “And we sure as hell don’t, really.”

“Exactly,” Jason said. “Actively planning for your future, recognizing that your prospects for the rest of your life are so much better in one direction… it’s like the opposite of shallow unless you’re only focusing on how much luxury you get to laze around in. It’s OK if the money is just the tipping point, yeah?”

“I guess,” Lumi said with a frown. “It feels a bit weird to look at it that way, though. But I supposed that's... learned. We spend a lot of our lives being told that money is the root of all evil and all that crap, and then once you get to college and are faced with the idea that you’re probably going to spend the next twenty years in debt, and aren’t even guaranteed to find a job afterwards due to the economy…”

She shook her head with a certain degree of resignation.

“Tell me about it,” Jason said with a laugh. “Anyhow, enough about that. I’m raring to go to see what we end up with. Which, uh, incidentally, whatever Jerrik has for you won’t end up being the final product. Apparently the arcanite likes to pull the same transformation trick my Infusion skill does. That ring was just a plain band of light blue metal.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

Jason elected to enchant Lumi’s armor first. She was, after all, the party tank, thus had the greatest need for better gear. If they somehow ended up facing a merrow on their own, Jason wanted to be very sure they were as prepared as they could be.

While Jason waited on the last minute fittings for the final cuts of leather Jerrik would use to assemble the non-metallic parts of Lumi’s gear, Jason began applying basic defensive enchantments to the rings. On a whim, he decided to see if he couldn’t trick the arcanite into forming new settings for elemental shards, and to his pleasure found that he could. By filing down a trio of different fragments left over from Jason’s ammo crafting and wedging all three into the mounting, he was able to cause whatever force guided the reshaping process to form three new, smaller mountings that were properly set. The shards even came out moderately well-cut, and polished as well.

When Tersk saw what Jason was doing, he muttered something under his breath that to Jason sounded a lot like, “Now that’s just cheating.”

Simply soldering a shard fragment to one of the rings without a mounting had a similar effect, and by the time Jerrik and Tersk had assembled the various parts of Lumi’s armor, sewed, welded, and riveted them together, and then made the final adjustments, Jason had created four separate rings that conferred both an enhanced version of Armorskin and a variety of elemental resistances. He planned to add to them further if he had time.

Lumi took up a seat beside Jason, blowing a strand of sweaty hair out of her face, and slid the folded pile of armor over to Jason for inspection.

“Doesn’t look anything special, yet,” she commended offhandedly. “Not much different than standard fantasy leather mixed with half plate, yeah?”

“Yet,” Jason emphasized with a grin. “Lets see how you look with all your elemental enchantments in place, yeah? Got any preference for location? Because I guarantee you that will have an effect.”

Lumi sprawled across her chair, leaning her head back and humming thoughtfully.

“Hmm… I’m thinking the dark-themed stuff at my core, with the solar themed stuff at the extremities,” she said.

“As long as you promise me that’s not some kind of edgy metaphor for how even in the brightest of places you can find darkness,” Jason said.

She laughed. “No, no, no. Oh god no. I’m just hoping maybe it’ll impart something of a decent color scheme. I mean, think about it. Pyro Knight and Gloom Guard go pretty great together right? Fire coming up from the depths. I love armors with a kind of lava motif.”

Jason snorted and grinned back at her. ”Oh, so it’s that your cold, violent exterior is belied by a warm and passionate center that can’t help but break free? Are you tsundere now?”

Lumi punched him playfully on the shoulder.

“No! Baka!” she yelled.

Jason desolved into laughter. “Oh god, please don’t start that. I hate characters like that. Give me a reasonably-balanced kuudere any day. Ninety-percent of tsuns just make me want to punch some self-confidence into them.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works,” Lumi replied.

“I can only wish,” he grumbled. “Too many shows ruined by awful characters.”

“Anyway… moving on,” Jason said in a clear change of subject. “Now, what kinds of enchantments are you looking for…?”

To Jason’s incredible surprise, some time in the early evening he was finally able to put down his tools, massage his hands, and contemplate the final touches he’d just added to his own armor.

Lumi’s armor had only taken Jason about three hours to engrave. In fact, he’d managed to finish completely engraving the armor, shoulders, gloves, boots, and a new ring for her before Tersk and his family had even finished forging, molding, and hammering out all the spare parts that Jason wanted to use for assembling turrets and the mechanical components of his armor. That had left him an hour to start in on the modules that would take up two of the small hardpoints that would lay on Jason’s belt.

It turned out to be simplicity itself to do things in stages, which had saved him huge amounts of time. He didn’t need, for instance, to wait for Tersk to put together his whole entire belt. Instead, all he needed was a single leather sheet, precut but unassembled, which he could then engrave with a high-complexity set of spatial storage runes. Then, instead of activating them by adding the arcane powder and imbuing them with mana, he could hand off the leather sheet to Jerrik. As long as he didn’t touch or mar the engraving, Jason could then perform the final step later, after the piece had been assembled.

All in all, it had only taken Tersk, his family, and Jerrik about four hours total to assemble Jason’s initial armor, all the way from chest-piece to boots, and the spare parts he wanted. During that period, Jason worked tirelessly - mostly thanks to careful use of least stamina potions - first on completing Lumi’s armor, then on assembling his much-needed spatial storage compartments. Then, once Tersk and Jerrik had assembled his own armor, Jason had insisted on retiring to his lab to finish the job. Jerrik had protested, saying that he needed to do a proper fitting, but Lumi, understanding what Jason was getting at, pointed out that a proper fitting was somewhat pointless when both suits of armor were going completely reshape themselves as soon as Jason activated the runes.

There was also the fact that Jason wanted to ask Nissette about her [Personalize] skill she’d once demonstrated for Kera. He didn’t doubt for a secondthat it couldn’t influence the outcome of arcanite’s shape changing, and he hoped she’d be willing to sell the use of her skill to him and Lumi to do a little touching up. The two effects seemed closely similar, after all, who didn’t like to put a personal touch on their outfit?

Jason let out a slight groan as he stretched, flexing his hands. They’d really started to cramp up during the last hour.

Lumi looked up from one of the other tables where she’d been assisting Jason by doing some of the prep-work for alchemy refinement. Since he had been working hard all day, and partially for her benefit, she’d felt it was only fair to offer her assistance.

“Finished up?” she asked.

“I think so,” he declared. He picked up his conjured screwdriver and made one last adjustment before unsummoning all his tools and leaning back in his chair.

Lumi got up from her seat and came over to take a look, picking up the armored glove that would cover his left hand, examining it.

“Ye gods, I’m stiff,” he complained, rolling his shoulders. Every motion sent a little spike of pain through his neck and shoulders.

Lumi put down the glove and glanced at him. “Here… allow me..” she said, and went to one of the shelves picking a spare Serenity Tonic. She handed it to Jason. Then she moved to stand behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

Jason, shrugged, and eyes closed, downed the potion. As he felt a wave of relaxation wash through him, he was enveloped in a pleasant heat and the golden glow of [Warmth] filled the room. He felt Lumi began to knead at the base of his neck, digging her thumbs into his knotted shoulder muscles.

“Thanks,” he said, giving in to the sensation almost instinctively. It felt fantastic, and his tension seemed to just melt away.

The two of them stayed that way for a few minutes; Jason simply leaning back and indulging, Lumi quietly massaging his shoulders.

Then Jason heard Kera making her way up to the lab, presumably to investigate the glow. He lazily opened his eyes just as she stopped halfway up the steps.

“Oh!” Kera exclaimed softly. Her eyes were wide and her face went a little red. She started to stutter an apology as Lumi pulled her hands away suddenly and the glow of [Warmth] faded away.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“Huh, what do you mean?” Jason asked sleepily.

Kera bit her lip, and looked a little upset. She turned slightly, as if she was going to head back downstairs, but Lumi shook herself a little, and then moved to her side.

“Kera, it’s fine,” Lumi insisted, pulling her the rest of up the way up the stairs by both hands, and into the lab. “Jason’s been working nonstop all day, and I just thought I would do something nice for him. It’s.. it’s nothing... Look, we’ll talk about it later ok?”

She pulled Kera over to the table. “Here, check it out. He’s finished with our armors. All he needs to do is turn on the enchantments. We’re about to head over to Nissette’s place and get all the resizing and stuff done. Want to come with?”

“A-are you sure?”

“It’s fine,” Lumi replied firmly.

In Jason’s tonic-induced relaxed state, he felt like he was missing some kind if important subtext, but he was too sleepy to work out what it was.

Jason heaved in a deep breath and shook himself a little to clear his head.

“Yeah, let’s not keep Jerrik waiting,” Jason said. “You should definitely come with us. Hopefully, Nissette will have what I asked for on your behalf ready, too, Kera.”

“Me?”

“Yep. Wait til you see. Lumi’s not the only one I’m making cool toys for, after all. Though a bunch of yours are going to have to wait til later. Anyway, let's go get our final results.”

Jason brought a large supply of arcane powder and several mana potions with him, while Lumi and Kera bundled up and carried the armor. Theyprobably could have fit everything into his Haversack, but currently it was still filled with all their camping supplies, and Jason wasn’t totally clear on the bag’s maximum capacity. So they decided to play it safe.

Lumi lit their way with a bobbing mage-light, and soon they were pushing their way in through the front door of Fanciful Finery. Tersk, Nissette, and Jerrik were all present, seated or standing around the front counter.

“Looks like we’re all here,” Nissette said lightly. “Everyone ready to get started?”

“Definitely,” Jason said with a grin.

“Wonderful,” Nissete said. “First things first… Kera, I have something for you.”

Nissette unfurled a long, blue and black robe similar in cut and style to the one that Kera normally wore. The silver trim, however, now shined with a distinct shade of pale blue, and distinctly runic patterns ran along the hem.

She held up a spool of silver-blue thread. “Young Jason here asked me to do some goldwork with this arcanite of his, even going so far as to bring me very specific diagrams of what he wanted. Runes, by the look of them, so I tried to be as exact as possible. Since I know you like the silver, I mixed some of that in along with other metal. I do think it came out quite nicely.”

Jason inspected the runes critically. They looked perfectly fine to him, but there was only one way to make sure, and that was to activate them.

He withdrew four vials of arcane powder, and gestured for Nissette to place the dress on a nearby table. “Uhh…. sorry if this like, catches fire or something. I don’t actually know for sure if you doing the embroidery and me activating the runes will even work, or if arcanite thread will impart the enchanting threshold bonus or not. I’m really hoping it does. I guess uh… Lumi, stand by in case we need a dousing?”

Nissette frowned in concern, but didn’t stop Jason from performing the final activation. With a swirl of light, the arcanite absorbed the powder and began siphoning off Jason’s mana.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when instead of catching fire or melting down, a portion of the hem twisted and reshaped, and runes took on a distinctly drake-like embroidery pattern.

Jason blinked and looked at the new design in consternation. “Does… does it tap into your mindstate or something? There’s no way what I had you put on there was in any way reflective of Ceri. I didn’t even include the bit of lightning resistance her originals have.”

Nissette clapped her hands together and laughed. “Oh wonderful! I’m so glad it worked. It would have been a shame if it had been damaged.”

“To answer your question,” Nissette said, turning to Jason, “More than likely. That is how most shape changing works. Resize and Personalize certainly work that way, and I gather from speaking to Kera here that her changeling powers work the same. The Voice often intercedes in such cases.”

“Ah, well that explains a lot,” Jason said. Then he turned to Kera, gesturing to the robes as Nissette passed them over to her.

“These are a little different than your current set,” he explained. “Which, incidentally, I could add a bit more to now of you’d like. Especially if Nissette is willing to do some more embroidery work for us. Anyway, these new ones still have your Sculpt Self compatibility, but I’ve dropped the resistance boosts.”

“Huh? Why?” Kera asked.

Jason dug one of the defensive rings out of his pocket and handed it to her. “This is better.”

She examined it briefly before putting it on.

“I’ll be improving the rings as we go along, but they’ll be your source for resistances. These new clothes will instead give a fairly sharp boost to all of your physical stats, will provide more rapid recovery, make you more resistant to things like disease and poison, and a few other things, which may very well be important for you.”

“Isn’t that just Fortitude?” Lumi asked.

Jason shook his head. “Not exactly. I mean, it is, but they’re different runes. Vitality and Resilience do… vaguely different things from our normal secondary stats, and they aren’t stats themselves. The sequences do boost Endurance, Fortitude, and Resolve, but to a lesser degree and they have more nebulous effects as well, like you’ll heal on your own slightly faster, are less likely to get sick, you’ll respond to healing magic more efficiently, generally feel all around better, et cetera.”

“Oh,” said Lumi. “So it would be like… maybe a ‘Ferocity’ rune which boosted Might and Agility, but at the same time made you a little more aggressive and prone to injury. Vague, unquantifiable stuff?”

“Basically,” Jason replied. “In fact there was something just like that in my book, but the drawbacks were.. unpleasant. These two didn’t have anything like though, which was great.”

“I don’t suppose they’d stack, would they?” Lumi asked.

Jason shook his head. “Unfortunately not.” Then he tilted his head, and tilted a hand from side to side. “Well… that’s not totally true. Different runesstack, so like you can have Strengthen effects for Endurance, Vitality, and Resilience all providing benefits to Endurance, but you couldn’t put Might runes on every piece of gear and become Superman.”

“That… doesn’t make any sense.” Lumi said.

Jason shrugged. “No, but that’s how it is.”

Tersk spoke up. “Like I said before, lad, limits to encourage creativity.”

Jerrik nodded in agreement. Apparently he shared Tersk’s sentiment on that matter.

Kera hugged the dress to herself, looking to Nissette. “Can we…?”

“By all means, let’s go get you squared away,” the older woman replied.

While Kera went and quickly changed, Jason downed a least mana potion and allowed his mana to regenerate. Kera’s robes had taken quite the hefty chunk of mana to activate. He’d had enough experience enchanting by now to work out there was roughly a rate of consumption equal to about fifty mana per individual rune in a sequence, though each rune was technically made up of multiple ‘letters’. Kera’s robes had had sixteen different runes, so it had cost him almost his entire mana pool.

He was going to really be pushing things when it came to his own armor.

Kera returned after a few minutes, still in her black-haired kitsune form, her robes now [Resized] to fit her properly. Jason briefly reflected that she really did look good in blue, black, and silver, no matter what form she chose to take.

Then it was Lumi’s turn. Over Tersk’s objection, she insisted that she wanted to don the full set first, and then have Jason activate the enchantments, in the hopes that she might be able to influence the final result with the aid of Nissette’s [Personalize].

So Jason carefully paced himself, making sure to enchant each segment of her armor one piece at a time, with a solid five minutes’ rest between each major activation. And there were several: despite using relatively little arcanite in total in comparison to Jason’s suit, her gear was still comprised of a half dozen highly-enchanted pieces, and few that he’d left open for when he learned more sequences.

She’d gone with a lightweight ensemble which kept her cloth-and-leather clothing, but had removed the studded leather segments. In their place, she would be employing several arcanite pieces: a breastplate, which would be worn over a flexible combination of hardened leather and stiff cloth; a pair of arcanite boots, which came to her knee; a pair of arcanite-studded gloves, and some smaller plates worked into the leather to protect her shoulders, elbows, and forearms. The spaulders and elbow-guards were worked directly onto the leather, while the bracers and gloves were separate.

For her breastplate, he’d focused strictly on raw stats relating to strength and durability. Jason had a theory that the stronger the unified theme of the piece, the stronger the affect of the arcanite’s transformation.

He wasn’t wrong.

As he activated the breastplate enchantments, the arcanite plates twisted and warped in a far more dramatic fashion than Kera’s had, undergoing a radical change. Lumi gasped and squirmed as the metal stretched, pale blue gaving way to a deep, midnight black. A pattern of golden-hued, feather-shaped ridges appeared, beginning at her navel, then sweeping up along her core and curving around her breasts, to finally stretch diagonally across to each shoulder where they would meet her spaulders.

Jason discovered that even though someone else was wearing it, as the technical ‘creator’ he could still open up the interface and alter the description. For now, he opted for simplicity, since this was for him and his friends rather than for sale, so he simply named it and gave a brief outline of the enchantments. Jason checked with Jerrik and Tersk to make sure he could revise the description later, and then had Jerrik examine the piece to see if he could determine what, if any, hidden ability had appeared, before finalizing the entry and sharing it publicly.

Breastplate of the Battlemage: Provides a sharp increase to Might, Agility, Vitality, and Resilience. Provides an as-yet unrated level of passive health regeneration.

Five minutes later, Jason activated the enchantments on the spaulders. After the feathered motif of Lumi’s breastplate, and given her class specialization, none of the earthlings were surprised to see them flex into a layered, half-dome shape with a protrusion that was reminiscent of wings.

“Why the feathers motif?” Nissette asked, examine them. “I mean, it doesn’t really shout ‘swordmage’ to me or anything. I didn’t think you had a personal sigil?”

“It’s the Valkyrie thing, probably. That's what I was trying to keep in my head,” Lumi said.

“Valkyrie?” asked Jerrik. “Is that one of your classes? I’m not familiar with it.”

“Uhhh…no,” Lumi said. “They’re... uh, well... it's sort of complicated. Jason? Help me out here?”

“Where we’re from, they a sort of… legendary warrior, I guess you’d call it,” Jason said. “Not actually real, just a story. For some reason over time they’ve gone from being some kind of priestess to being almost like a beast-kin… they’ve become divine warrior women with wings and an sort of bird-slash-angel theme.”

“Hmm…,” Tersk mused. “Maybe not so legendary after all, yes? Perhaps Lumi is one of these… valkyries, just in the making?”

Lumi’s eyes grew huge, and Kera burst into laughter at her expression. She threw one arm around the other girl’s shoulder.

“Tell you what,” she said. “If you suddenly sprout angel wings, we’ll see if we can’t get me some bat wings or a sexy devil form. Then we can be Jason’s real life consciences!”

Lumi eyed Kera askance. “I think we’re a bit big to fit on his shoulders.”

“Oh I’m sure there’s a potion for that out there somewhere,” Kera replied blithely. “Got any Potions of Reduce Person in stock, Jerrik?”

The old man grinned at her. “No, but I bet you I could find someone who does. For the right price, of course.”

Jason rolled his eyes at them, and drank another mana potion. “I still need to label these, you know. Jerrik?”

“Ah, yes.” He stepped forward and laid a finger on the spaulders. “Hmm, nothing major here. A small boost to overall spell power. Perhaps equivalent to that of a single Intellect step.”

“I’ll take it,” Jason said as he finalized the entry.

Spaulders of Elemental Might - Enhances the strength of spells utilizing Fire, Light, Ice, and Shadow aspects. Provides a small boost to Spirit and Mana capacity. Slightly increases the potency of all spells cast by the wearer.

Next up were Lumi’s boots, gloves, and one of her two bracers. Jason did all three pieces at the same time, as none of them were fully enchanted and he had just enough mana. They morphed into a similar color scheme as the rest of Lumi’s armor, and Jason noticed with some relief that the boots did notdevelop those ridiculous ‘Hermes’ wing-spurs that were so common in video games. The spaulders were bad enough, but at least they were fairly tame in scope and looked nice, unlike the more typical, stupidly large pauldrons you saw in MMOs.

He had Jerrik check the pieces over while he labeled them and took another mana potion.

Boots of Sprinting - Provides enhanced Stamina and Endurance. No current bonus. Wristband of Kinetic Projection - Consumes a portion of the user's mana to release a punishing wave of force with enhanced knockback. Good for knocking down foes foolish enough to group together. Lifegrasp Gauntlets - By channeling the user’s mana, the wearer of these gloves can grasp a foe from a distance, locking them into place and draining their strength while transferring a portion of it to themselves. Absorbs Vitality, Life, Stamina, and Mana. Bonus rooting effect.

Lumi turned her hands over, examining them critically. “Now that’s what I call a magic item,” she said of her gloves. “These weren’t on the list I gave you though. Why make them?”

“Not that I’m complaining at all,” she said hastily.

“I thought it might be appropriate with the whole Valkyrie thing,” Jason said. “After all, they’re supposed to be choosers of the dead, right? They don’t just go around taking people to heaven or whatever—”

“Valhalla,” Lumi corrected.

“but they actively decided who lived and who died during a battle, basically cutting down people,” Jason said, ignoring her pedantry. “That’s more than a bit evil in a way. So I thought, why not something along the lines of life drain?”

Lumi gave him a hug with one arm. “Well, thanks. I love it.”

Nissette handed Lumi an ordinary cloak, which she pinned around her shoulders.

She struck a pose. “Well, how do I look?”

“Like a valkyrie,” Kera commented succintly. She bobbed her head from side to side. “I mean…the color scheme is different, but…you really do look like one. All you’re missing is maybe a skirt instead of pants, one of those fancy waist-armors, and some wings.”

“It’s kind of hot, actually,” she finished frankly, provoking a blush from Lumi.

“A-anyway… you next, Jason,” Lumi said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

It took Jason over half an hour to get his armor fully activated. This was due to two things: First, he perversely wanted to make a big impression when he revealed the full extent of his hard work to the girls and thus didn't want to reveal in stages, and second, everything kept requiring constant adjustments during the whole process. Fortunately, his skills helped a bit in that regard.

So Jason removed himself to one of the changing rooms, where he ensconced himself alongside Jerrik, who assisted him in various adjustments. When he returned, Lumi gave him two thumbs up and a big grin.

“Daaaamn… you look proper sci-fi now,” she exclaimed. “With just that little bit of wizard thrown in.”

“Maybe a lot of wizard,” Kera suggested. “Are those mana crystals?”

Jason’s armor wasn’t a single solid suit, but after it’s transformation, it might as well have been. He’d intended to end up with a slightly heavier version of what Lumi had chosen. Whether it was his subconscious or the Voice that had dictated otherwise, he wasn’t sure. Once he looked in the mirror, he decided it didn’t really matter. Whatever the answer was, they had a sense of style.

Instead of half-plate, he was dressed head-to-toe in what would have felt like a mountain of steel if it hadn’t been for arcanite’s weight reduction. He was postive the transformation had violated all sorts of physical laws. As it was, the suit probably weighed a little bit more than your typical full plate, once he included the solid-looking cube of metal that at the moment only vaguely resembled a backpack. It even came complete with enclosed helmet.

His chest plate had thickened considerably, and was now formed from layered, steel-grey arcanite plates with light blue highlights that shone with a tell-tale glow of mana, almost as if he’d added LED strip lighting. Additional thickened plate covered the exterior of his shoulders, arms, and legs. Beneath the main plating, black-tinted layers of thin, intricate scales provided him with greater mobility, without sacrificing much in the way of protection. At his waist was the thin band of a utility belt, to which he’d attached several enchanted storage cubes.

Then of course, there were his gauntlets. He’d reforged an entirely new version of his transmutation gauntlet, and now sported its slightly-modified twin on his left arm as well. The left arm in particular was what had drawn Kera’s eye, for all along one side were dotted medium-sized mana crystals, set into three different hardpoints.

“Those are indeed mana crystals, and purified ones at that,” Jason confirmed. “They serve as a form of mana storage device for my new gauntlet.”

He nodded to Lumi. “Throw one of your fire spells at me,” he told her. “Don’t worry, I’ll be totally fine.”

“If you’re sure…?”

“I am. It won’t cause any problems to do it in here. Just give us some space,” he said to everyone else.

They backed up, and with a cry of “Flame Lance!,” Lumi launched a spike of fire at Jason.

In a flash, he reached out and seized her spell, squeezing his left hand around it. With a quiet roaring of wind, the flames were spun inwards, sucked into a ball of flames in his palm, where they faded away. Lines of flame-colored mana arced up his arm and into one of the mana crystals, which turned a deep orange.

Jason was surprised by his own movement, and by how tactile the spell had been; as soon as he mentally triggered the enchantment, his body had just moved on its own. He’d been expecting something different, not to physically intercept it.

“Holy shit,” Lumi said, dumbfounded.

Jason spend a moment or two in surprise examining his hand, which was completely unharmed. He'd felt the heat, but it hadn't burned him. Then, realizing everyone was waiting on him, he began to explain.

“So, yeah… it occurred to me,” he said, “mana crystals are like… storage devices for aspected mana, right? Sort of, anyway. We saw it with my first attempt on my transmutation gauntlet… the one that worked, anyway. The elemental shard I used was consumed by the enchantment because I didn’t have enough mana for the activation. So I thought… why not use them as batteries, or capacitors? After all, every enchanted item requires a capacity rune, right?”

“And then I thought, they also almost always have an absorption rune too, for pulling ambient mana into the item to keep it running, otherwise it would run out.”

Understanding dawned on Tersk’s face. “Brilliant!” he said. “So you found a way to make it activatable, and more potent, allowing you to make a variation on the classic ring of spell stealing?”

“Exactly,” Jason said. “Even better.. now that I’ve got the spell, I can do a few things with it. First, I can enhance it with a bit of my own mana, and shoot it back out.”

“I uh… won’t demonstrate that here,” he said hastily with a nod to a relieved-looking Nissette.

Jason held up his palm, revealing a transmutation circle inscribed in his palm. “When I do that, I can also change the element when releasing it, if I’m willing to pay the mana cost.”

He tapped a protrusion on the back of his wrist, and his armor flowed, popping out a raised section. “Alternatively, instead of releasing the mana as a projectile spell, I can use it to it to power what’s basically a mana-blade for a few minutes. Well... I assume it’s a few minutes. Mana crystals are pretty dense, storage-wise, but it’s not like I’ve tested it out, and again, I wont do that here. But the protype I tried out ran for about two minutes before the shard burned out.”

Jason dropped his arm and depressed the mana crystal, which began to turn slowly from orange to blue. “Last of all,” he said, “I can simply purify the mana and absorb it into myself, essentially using it like a free, really garbage-tier mana potion.” The crystal abruptly turned clear, and Jason felt a slight rush as his mana ticked up slightly.

“Cooool,” Kera cooed, grabbing him by the arm and turning it and his hand over in close examination of the machinery of the mana-blade. “What else?”

“The chestpiece provides me with additional strength, speed, and endurance, of course,” Jason said. “It’s pretty similar to yours, actually, Kera, nothing more than just a bit boost to raw stats. This thing is heavy, so I’m glad I did.”

He reached up and pressed a finger to his temple, spinning through several different vision modes, observing that his faceplate actually changed colors when he did so.

“The helmet gives me a few different abilities, namely scanning for lifeforms, nightvision, and a zoom feature. It can also extrude what’s basically a flashlight, on the offhand chance that Lumi isn’t able or around to cast us some mage lights.”

He pressed a second button on the top of his head, and the helmet pulled apart, retracting into a sort of thick collar. "And I can do that, courtesy of Kera's clothing morph, just in case I don't feel like wearing the helm."

“As for some of the other parts,” Jason said, “my boots aren’t enchanted at all yet, because I really want to save that for some form of flight spell if at all possible, or maybe magnetic grip or something, but I don’t have anything like that available yet. Meanwhile, the legs and belt are currently just storage space, for similar reasons. I’ve left the upper arm hardpoints free for now. They're hidden by the clothing morph as well.”

“And the… backback?” Lumi asked. “What’s that? Not a jetpack, if you’re waiting for rocket boots.”

He gave her a cheeky grin. “Why, I thought you’d never ask!” He reached up over his shoulder and patted the square. “This... is my new [Contraption]. Might wanna step back.”

“Shard! Out you come!” he commanded.

With a flurry of motion and a long, quiet series of repetive clicking and tapping sounds, his ‘backpack’ began to change. Slots open along the sides, and long, spindly segments extruded, reaching around to lightly clasp Jason around the torso and shoulders. The central section unfolded into a bundle of thick, arcanite cables, to which was mounted a device that anyone from earth would recognize as a miniature, multi-barreled cannon. Jason braced himself slightly as the pack heaved upwards slightly in relation to the rest of his body. The ‘head’ of the cannon swiveled up and over his left shoulder, twitching back and forth as if scanning for targets.

“Down you go, Shard. Sentry mode,” Jason commanded, and his ‘backpack’ climbed off of him, like a huge, black, metal spider the size of a large dog. By the time it was free of its perch, the machine seemed sleek and elegant, with no trace of its former blocky shape. It danced to one side and it's 'head' began swiveling in all directions.

Kera clapped both hands together and bounced up and down.

“You made a spider bot! Awesome!” she crowed. Then she gave Jason a big hug. “I told you you’d manage it!”

Jason saw the dumbfounded expressions of Tersk, Nissette, and Jerrik, and the excited ones of his friends, and knew he’d made the right decision to reveal things all at once.