Once he got the final section of bar stock for the baton down to a proper size, he set it off to the side to cool down. With the steel cooling, he returned to the forge to check the crucible. After removing some slag from the melting metal he let it be so it could continue to melt. He approached the first ingot he poured from the golden ore and sent a gentle breeze over it to cool it a little faster. He was really curious about what it might be.

System Notice: You have created a Normal rarity Sunshine Gold ingot. Quality: Above Average. You have gained 217 Magitech Engineering experience.

Sunshine Gold? In a cave underground? What the hell? How the hell did a small node of gold buried underground become Sunshine Gold? That made no sense! Grumbling about the logical fallacy of the ore, he pulled out his book on the subject and started flipping through it until the found a description of the ore.

Sunshine Gold

Sunshine Gold is the ultimate material for making weapons to fight the forces of darkness. Sunshine Gold harnesses the power of the Sun itself to harm evil beings. It is especially effective against creatures such as Undead and Vampires. Though Sunshine Gold is light, soft, and weak on its own it makes an excellent addition to any weapon meant to defeat evil and protect the righteous. It is also one of, if not the best material for channeling Holy Magic. When used as a medium for Casting Holy Magic it has the ability to amplify the power of any Holy spell.

After reading the description, Thomas closed the book and stored it away with a deep sigh. Was this cave some sort of holy ground for anti-evil materials or something? What the hell put all of these anti-evil ores in such close proximity to each other? Was there once a church built above the cave? Did some holy saint get born here? Just what the hell?!

Thomas just shook his head and knocked the ingot out of the mold. Gingerly he reached out with just a single finger to touch the ingot. He didn't know if his race counted as one of the 'evil' ones that the gold would burn or not. Normal sunlight never bothered him but you could never take such things literally. Plus, his recent encounter with the True Silver was still fresh in his mind and he didn't want to make that mistake again. As his finger gently touched the gold... nothing happened. With a relieved sigh he stored the gold ingot away in his inventory.

On the bright side, with the materials he was collecting he would be able to make epic weapons that would make any paladin-type players extremely happy. He just needed a good solid medium to go with the Mana-Touched True Silver and Sunshine Gold to be able to make one hell of a holy weapon. He could use Origin Steel but he felt like he should stick to the theme of 'holy' materials. Maybe he'd be able to find some Mithril, Orichalcum, or Adamantine with a 'holy' property somewhere and use that as the base with the True Silver and Sunshine Gold as alloys and accents.

With the remaining gold ore melting in the crucible, he grabbed the middle section of the baton and went to work on grinding it into a rounded shape. He needed to get its outer diameter to be just slightly thinner than the inner diameter of the first piece. This would allow it to fit inside and collapse down into a short profile. With a swing of the hand, the three-piece baton would be able to extend and have enough length to hit a target. Once the dirty work was finished it could be collapsed down and easily concealed. Honestly, he was contemplating making one for himself in the future.

As he ground excess material off of the steel, he made sure to taper this piece like he had the first. The base was made to be a little wider than the tip of the first piece so that it would become locked in place by friction when the baton was extended. Once it was ground down he activated his Transmutation and hallowed it out just as he had the first piece. The third, and final piece would rest inside of this one. With the work mostly done he carried it over to the worktable and picked up the first piece to try fitting them together. They didn't fit immediately since he hadn't measured anything and just eyeballed it.

Like always, he resorted to Transmutation to reshape the items until they fit together perfectly. The second piece slid within the first and with a flick of his wrist it popped out from the top of the first piece. Two sections down, one to go. He set down the two pieces and checked the third. It was still a little warm but not too hot to work with. It received the same treatment as the first two pieces, except he did not hallow it out. He left it as a nice solid chunk of steel to give the weapon a little extra heft for more damage.

With the third piece ground mostly to shape, he carried it over to the other two and inserted it in through the bottom of the second piece. Like the second, it didn't fit perfectly and needed a little coaxing from his Transmutation to fit properly. Once it did the baton had all three sections. He collapsed it down and held it carefully before giving it a flick with his wrist. With several metallic clacks, the two sections flew out and clung in place giving birth to the collapsible baton. The next few steps would finish the basic build of the baton, then all he had to do was enchant it.

To finish the baton he needed to create a butt cap to keep the sections from falling out. It was easily accomplished by using Transmutation on some of the steel he'd removed from the interior of the first piece. Once it was fused on and smoothed out the baton was technically usable. He swung the baton to extend it, then slammed the tip on the table to collapse it. The tip was still too narrow and fell completely inside of the second piece. To fix that he reshaped the tip to vaguely resemble a mushroom. This also gave the baton a small place to focus the force of a swing on and a good spot for the enchantment to work from.

Thomas decided to carve the enchantment on the handle of the baton so that it could be wrapped over with leather and protected. He gathered all of his supplies and began carving the enchantment into the handle while referencing his rune book. Slowly the rune for lightning began to take form on the baton. The intent for the enchantment was for all of the lightning generated to gather into the tip of the baton. He wanted to have the lightning generate high voltage but low amperage. The amperage was far deadlier than voltage. How else could a stun gun with over a hundred thousand volts of power not instantly kill someone?

It didn't take all that long for him to finish the enchantment on the handle. All that was left was to wrap it with some leather for a more comfortable grip. He randomly grabbed some leather and cut it into a long strip. He didn't bother with any glue and instead chose to fuse the end of the leather to the handle directly. This held it in place while he carefully wound the leather around the steel to form the handle. Once the leather wrap was complete he completely fused the edges of the leather to the handle to prevent it from moving at all when used.

System Notice: Please name your creation.

"Stun Baton."

System Notice: You have created an Uncommon rarity Stun Baton. Quality: Above Average. You have gained 3,196 Magitech Engineering experience. You have gained 1,598 experience. Weapon Type: Stun Baton Rarity: Uncommon Quality: Above Average Description: The Stun Baton is a simple, almost crude, blunt weapon capable of collapsing or extending. When collapsed it is easily concealed for surprise attacks. When mana is channeled into the baton it gathers at the tip in the form of electricity meant to shock the opponent.

+50 Power (Attacks with the weapon only)

+ Chance to temporarily Stun or Paralyze the opponent based on the amount of mana channeled into the Stun Baton versus the targets Endurance.

After reading over the description, Thomas nodded in satisfaction. This weapon wasn't really meant to deal damage, so the Power bonus being about average for Uncommon weapons he produced didn't bother him. The stun or paralyze effect was the important part. This was the first weapon he'd produced with a dedicated debuff effect built into it and it was a pretty good one. Paralyzing an opponent was a truely deadly effect and could change the course of a battle easily. Now, all that was left was to test it.

He slowly channeled his mana into the extended baton and watched as little blue sparks of electricity danced on the mushroomed tip. He couldn't help himself as he reached out and touched the tip of the baton. Nothing happened. Like all his previous weapons, the wielder was immune to the effects of the weapon. He turned to look at the guards watching him as a not-so-friendly smile graced his lips, "I need a volunteer."

The guards looked at Thomas as if he was crazy. One of them, a taller man with a well-built body, actually laughed before saying, "That's not going to happen!"

"Oh, okay. Then be sure to tell Yorik that this weapon is completely untested so I have no idea if it will work or not."

Thomas believed that only he could see the descriptions of the weapons he made. His basis for this thought was the sword he'd collected so long ago from one of the four people who attacked him on the road. That sword was the only piece of loot that dropped and it was unidentified. He still needed to take it to someone to have it appraised to know what it could do. He suspected that only the creator of the weapon and people who could appraise them were capable of knowing the full details of a weapon. And judging by the uncomfortable looks the guards were giving him, this seemed to be the case.

"Look, it's not like I want to beat someone to death or anything. Just a couple of little pokes that shouldn't even hurt all that much."

Most of the guards didn't seem to care all that much but a shorter nervous-looking one stepped forward, "Just make it quick."

Giddily grinning, Thomas walked up to the guard and gently poked him with the tip of the baton. He still wasn't channeling all that much mana into it so the effect was negligible. The guard just shrugged and said, "It tingles a little."

Thomas nodded and pulled the baton back to charge more mana into it. When he poked the guard again the guard jumped a little, "That felt like getting hit with a strong static shock."

Thomas nodded again and opened the floodgates to his mana pool. The small sparks on the tip of the baton became incredibly active and emitted loud popping noises as they flashed. The guard started to sweat and began to open his mouth to object but before he could, Thomas poked him with the baton once more. The results this time were delightful to behold. The guard's entire body immediately went stiff and began to spasm uncontrollably. Thomas wanted to keep going but the other guards started to move towards him. Reluctantly he removed the baton tip from the guard causing the guard to collapse onto the ground helplessly.

To keep from getting ganged up on by the guards, Thomas held his arms up and stopped channeling mana into the baton. He wanted to show no signs of hostility or resistance as he backed away. A pair of guards helped the downed guard while the remaining three watched Thomas carefully. After about thirty seconds the downed guard came around and climbed to his feet. As he stood on shaky legs, Thomas chimed up, "Looks like it works."

All of the guards, and especially the short one he just electrocuted, glared daggers at him. Thomas just shrugged his shoulders and deposited the baton at the weapon rack where it could be picked up and taken away. Shocking the crap out of that guard felt pretty good and gave him a wonderful idea for something he would have to put together as part of his plan to break out of this place and rescue Snowlily.

He hadn't forgotten about her for a single moment. Tomorrow he was going to enter the dungeon again to rack up some more experience and produce some tools to help with his escape. On the surface, he worked with the pirates to lower their guard but underneath he was seething with rage and fully intended to make them all pay dearly for putting him in this situation.