Thomas quickly got to work pulling out materials from his inventory. He was really looking forward to having the U.L.T.R.A. and being able to just leave his stuff laying out or stored inside of it. It would also clear up a lot of space inside of his inventory. While he got his stuff ready, Snowlily went to her favorite spot inside of the workshop and lay down. Her crystalline blue eyes followed Thomas's every action. She wanted him to finish his work soon so they could slaughter monsters together. The sooner she became stronger, the sooner she could be of more help to him, and the sooner they could have a true partnership and take care of each other. She had her own pride and didn't like having to rely on anyone's protection. She wanted to stand side-by-side with Thomas, not behind him.

Once he had everything set out, Thomas got to work. The next pieces he wanted to make were a pair of pauldrons to cover his shoulders and upper arms. Like the gauntlets, they would need to be articulated to prevent them from hindering his arm movements. He wanted to maintain his flexibility and speed so that he could use any of his various weapons at any moment they were required. He planned to create a domed piece to protect his shoulders and have strips of metal coming down the edge to protect his upper arms.

He got his Mithril ready and set it into the forge. He hadn't been able to forge much and had been cheating a lot with Transmutation. It was convenient but it left him unsatisfied. He was going to try to do as much work as possible on the pauldrons by hand. He easily ignited the forge and used his blower to get the coal nice and hot to soften the purified Mithril. As he heated the metal he pondered on what sort of embryo he should smash into the metal. After thinking for a bit he smiled, Darkness seemed like an interesting option. He liked to sneak around sometimes so if he enhanced his stealth with his pauldrons he could add other tricks into his other pieces of armor. This was the benefit of making a custom set, getting to put whatever enhancements you wanted onto every piece.

The catch was, he'd never actually used Darkness magic before. Darkness magic was frowned upon but wasn't outright illegal like Unholy magic. There was no reason to fear actually using it. Added to that, he got bonuses for using Darkness magic thanks to his race. With a smile, he lifted his hand and began to channel some mana into his palm while converting it to the Darkness magic. Unlike the restricted elements of Holy and Unholy, all the other elements were simple enough for him to use. Without much effort, a small pitch-black orb of magic appeared floating above the palm of his hand.

With a thought, the orb rapidly expanded and created a dome around his body and extending out about a meter. The dome was so black that it seemed to suck in the surrounding light. Within the dome, Thomas sat comfortably in the darkness and smiled. His eyes glowed blue as he activated his night vision. Surprisingly, he couldn't see through the darkness created by his own magic. He canceled both the spell and his 'All Seeing Eyes' with a frown, "Well, that's not helpful at all."

With a glance at his character sheet, he smiled. Darkness magic had appeared on it. Though it was low ranked it was more than enough. He was now one hundred percent confident in pounding a Darkness attributed embryo into the Mithril. He would need to think about exactly how he would want the enchantment to work with the embryo. Though he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with magic due to his experiences in the past, he'd never really been a full magic caster class before. He usually only used it as a supplement. He thought about the issue until the Mithril ingot had taken on a bright orange glow. The thoughts were brushed aside so he could focus on his work at hand.

He plucked the Mithril from the forge with his new tongs and carried it over to the anvil. His sledgehammer appeared in his hand next. After taking a deep breath and focusing, his mana began to churn and was quickly converted to the Darkness element. It flowed down his arms, through his tools, and into the ingot. Soon, loud hammer blows rang out a pleasant, if loud, sound as metal collided with metal. The glowing Mithril ingot was quickly distorted by the hammer blows that trapped particles of Darkness magic within the metal. Curious about what was happening within, he activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' to get a peek within.

What he saw inside of the ingot was rather intriguing. All of the Darkness mana that he trapped within the ingot were gathering into a clump in the center. With every blow of his hammer more and more particles all clumped together and slowly formed into a sphere. At the moment it was no bigger than a BB for a pellet gun but it was growing with every blow of the hammer. The other elements he'd used had all permeated the metal in some way, this was his first time seeing it all gather into a single spot. He kept his eyes on the growing ball of blackness while pouring more mana into it.

Over the next several minutes, the ball of Darkness kept getting bigger and bigger as more mana particles were trapped within the metal. Once it reached a point of near saturation, the ingot let out a disturbing ripple. There was no color to it, instead, it was more like pure force. It reminded him of the phenomenon that happened back when he was in Ulvstad, only on a much much smaller scale. The wave didn't even leave the room. He examined the interior of the ingot with a look of surprise on his face. The large sphere that had nearly filled the ingot had collapsed down to the size of a small marble. Even without knowing much about Darkness magic, he could tell that there was a lot of power compressed into that small ball of blackness.

He wasn't sure what it could mean or what would happen when the ingot was broken up into multiple pieces but he would find out soon enough. He placed the ingot back within the forge and heated it back up. Once it was ready, hammer blows rang out once more as the mangled lump of Mithril was slowly tuned back into an ingot shape. When he was done with it, he grabbed another ingot to repeat the process. Each ingot would be turned into a pauldron. He didn't plan to make the pauldrons too thick or large so they wouldn't require much metal. Unlike older RPG games where the more powerful the shoulder armor the bigger it was until it became ridiculous, he planned to keep his small and low key. Seriously, how could people wearing shoulder armor bigger than their heads even see to their left or right?

Thomas chuckled as he recalled some of the truly impractical designs he'd seen. He would never make something like that, not even if he was offered something priceless in exchange. He had at least some principals! Not many, granted, but at least a few.

It didn't take him very long to pound another embryo into the second ingot and reshape it back. With both ingots completed and infused with Darkness magic, he could move onto the next step. He reheated the first ingot and began to pound it out into a sheet. Most armors were made of sheet metal so he needed to hammer it out at least a bit to enjoy himself. Once it became too cumbersome he could switch to Transmutation to finish expanding the metal into a sheet. There was a happy smile on his face as the sound of a hammer hitting metal rang through the workshop.

Off to the side, Snowlily watched Thomas and internally sighed when she saw the happy look on his face. She had no complaints about her life. Though Thomas forced her to eat her vegetables, she had little else to complain about. Still, she wanted to find something that made her that happy. She wanted to take on her human form now more than ever. She wanted to try to do what Thomas was doing. She wanted to be as happy as he was at this moment.

Thomas started to happily hum to himself, the tempo of the tune matching the tempo of his hammer blows. His mind was serene yet laser-focused on the task at hand. Blow after blow rang out until the ingot had been transformed into a sheet of metal a few millimeters thick. Without a break in his pace, he set the sheet to the side and started to hammer the second ingot. This was his happy place and he was fully immersed in enjoying every moment of it. Sadly, all good things come to an end and eventually, the second ingot was turned into a sheet of metal just like the first.

Seeing the work with his hammer was completed, Thomas let out a soft sigh of disappointment. Sometimes, he really disliked how Transmutation had changed his work. On the other hand, he downright loved the things he could do with it. Without it how would he ever have the chance to work with such amazing materials? Also, it could be used as a tool of war if he wished. He could easily destroy any market in any city of his choosing. Just a handful of items from his inventory would ignite wars even. The kingdoms within AoG were exceedingly lucky that he had zero desire to rule a nation and just wanted to keep making things for fun. They would also be wise to never piss him off.

He stored the sledgehammer away and placed his hands on one of the sheets of metal. His hands glowed while magic wrapped around the metal and began to perfect its shape. The rough battered metal became a perfectly flat sheet of metal that was exactly two millimeters thick. This was slightly thicker than most sheet steel used for armor but he could afford for it to be thicker due to its light weight. With the Mithril weighing around half as much as steel and his higher base strength, he could afford for the armor to be even thicker if he wanted. He just didn't want it to be any thicker than it currently was.

With the sheet metal done, Thomas once again activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' to examine the ball of Darkness mana in the center of the sheet. Surprisingly, it seemed unaffected by the reshaping of the metal and remained in the exact center of the sheet metal. He switched off his eyes and got back to work. He would know what would happen when he separated the metal into multiple pieces soon. His Transmutation magic flared and sank into the metal. It quickly started to separate into multiple pieces held together with only a thin strand of Mithril that could be easily snapped apart. The Mithril was swiftly broken into multiple pieces that would make up the first pauldron.

The Mithril was broken up into one large piece and several smaller pieces. The largest piece would be used to form the main body of the pauldron while the smaller ones would form the strips of armor protecting his upper arm. Thomas wasn't done using his hammer to do the work just yet. He retrieved his ball-peen hammer from his inventory while placing the large piece back into the forge to heat it up. Once the metal was hot he started to hammer it once more. This time his blows were more gentle and precise. Each blow didn't do too much on its own but as more of them rained down on the metal it began to curve. To help curve it faster, Thomas used the horn of the anvil. Whenever the metal cooled down too much it would be returned to the forge and brought back up to temperature.

The first piece of the pauldron was quickly taking shape. Eighty to ninety percent of the work was done with his hammer. The last ten to twenty percent would be finished with Transmutation. The piece was set aside and another was picked up. The pieces that would make up the armor around his upper arm didn't need much work. They just had to be bent so they would wrap around most of his arm and could be strapped in place to stay put. Technically, he could probably pull that off by hand but that was no fun. Each piece was placed into the forge to be heated before it was met with his hammer.

Once each piece had been worked close enough to their completed shapes, the hammer was put away. He grabbed the piece that would rest on his shoulder and set it in the appropriate place. His transmutation flared and began to reshape the piece to fit perfectly to his body. Thanks to hammering it out, he didn't have to use too much power to reshape it and was done in just a few moments. Normally, there would be small holes to allow the next piece to be riveted on. Instead, Thomas created thin slots. These slots would allow the piece attached to it some wiggle room and increase its flexibility.

After that, he began the process of perfectly shaping and riveting each of the pieces that would protect his arm together. More often than not, when he went through the process of making something specific to his build it would become soulbound to him. This was a great advantage. It meant that even if he was killed by other players, he wouldn't lose any of his souldbound items. Unfortunately, it wasn't so easy to bind weapons to himself, aside from his guns. It didn't take very long before he had added all the pieces of the pauldron to each other and completed the base form of the armor. It still needed a bit of work and enchanting before it could be finished.