"Suggestions?"

"The article doesn't mention the time needed for an upgrade, but I would estimate raising it from A to S will take at least an hour, Milady. And only so soon, because your smithing ability of 27 exceeds the tier of the material. I have two suggestions for speeding up the process: the first is to use the spell Supercharge. I haven't dared to bind it for fear of disturbing your rhythm."

"Where do I get it?"

"You already have it. You used it in the fight with the Icemaster."

Name: Supercharge

Description: Fills you with the energy of lightning. All of your cooldowns sink one tier, and time slows down.

CD: 5 min.

"Nice! What does 'sink one tier' mean?"

CD tiers

Tier-1: 10 sec

Tier-2: 25 sec

Tier-3: 1 min

Tier-4: 5 min

Tier-5: 10 min

Tier-6: 25 min

Tier-7: 1 h

Tier-8: 8 h

Tier-9: 1 day

Tier-10: 1 week

"It only works on one spell once. You wouldn't be able to reduce the cooldown of 'Rise to the occasion' from 1 day to just a few seconds by casting it multiple times."

"I should use my champion spells more often, but I'm afraid they will be on cooldown when I need them the most. But when I'm here in the simulation grounds, it shouldn't affect the cooldowns in the real world, right?"

"I'm not sure Milady, Champion spells are special. You don't have to level them. Their effect is solely depending on your faith."

A picture overlayed Flora's HUD: "Summon the God" and "In the name of the God" were crossed out, "Rise to the Occasion" not.

After a bit of guessing what Aito meant, Flora understood she could use Rise to the Occasion without triggering the CD in the regular game, and she shouldn't use the other two spells.

First, Flora reheated the material and hammered for a while to regain the feel for it. Then she cast the spell.

!

Flora felt herself growing bigger. The hammer in her hand felt lighter, and her movements not only more smooth but also more precise. The growth stopped just a few inches away from the ceiling of the room. Bending her legs in a horse stance, Flora continued to bash the metal with power and grace. Too soon, the effect ended, and Flora shrunk to her regular size.

"That was awesome! I felt like Superwoman! Give me some numbers, dear."

"Height: 3.38m; Duration: 28 seconds; Stats OV change: 280 percent."

"I should do this at least once a day! Not only because it is fun, but also to get used to the changes!"

"May I tell you my second suggestion, Milady?"

"Of course, sorry, I've got sidetracked."

"Aquire a better hammer. It is a rite of passage for novice smiths to make their own hammers when they reach level 25. A manual is available at the Garage."

Flora agreed after looking at her hammer: it was only B rated and the best she could buy from the shop.

"Let's finish the Octopussy first. Then we'll do the dailies. We will pick up the manual when we're at the Garage."

"Another option is to get a better flame. But I see no way to accomplish this while at the Metaworld."

"You've got to be kidding me! Even the flames are rated?" Flora inspected the fire in the furnace but found no badge.

"It is a tier-0 fire, Milady. Therefore it has no badge."

Flora shrugged. "Write it on the to-do list. Prio B."

Next, Flora tried Overcharge. She had never done any drugs but smoking a bit of weed in college and occasionally drinking more than she was thirsty, but she thought the spell effects rivaled a great drug. Electricity shot through her veins. She felt pumped up and capable of working at an unprecedented speed. Her hammer flew through the air and relentlessly bashed on the metal.

The spell only lasted ten seconds, but at least she could enjoy its effects multiple times an hour.

After another quarter of an hour of hammering, the metal finally gave in and raised its rank to S.

"Puh!" Flora tried to swish the sweat on her face away with the sleeve of her scorched and grimy mech-suit. This action only redistributed the black strikes of coal.

Now, the lump of metal was only a bit bigger than her fist. Flora estimated she needed two of them for one tentacle and three for the head, around 20 overall.

"Fortunately, the copying tool exists!" Flora chirped.

"Bad news, Milady. You can't copy material. You have to provide it to the printer."

"Aitoshuri!" Flora was exasperated.

"Beep?"

"You own me big time, sweetie!"

"Beep? Beep! Beep..."

"Yes, I will profit from a better octopus, too, but the question is whether I profit in relation to the time invested! Young people have nothing but time. I have everything but time!"

"Beep..."

"No need to feel down, sweetie. You had only the best intentions."

Like a caged panther, Flora strode around the small workshop.

"Beeep. Beeeeep. Beep? Beep! Beep... Beep?"

"I'm having a crisis! Why do you have to have your crisis at the same time? Can't we stagger the contingencies to support each other? Aidan, help!"

"I'm sorry, Milady. I haven't the faintest idea what the problem is or what Aitoshuri is beeping."

"My problem is I'm old, and I'm going to die soon, and I'm not satisfied with Robby's way of choosing a wife, and I'm very doubtful of his choice. She is the one who will replace me as the most important woman in his life! Maybe she has already superseded me! I realize that this is the natural order, but it should be at least be a great replacement! You know, he shouldn't trade down.

And Aitoshuri's problem is she made a suggestion, and I got a crisis because of it, not really because of it, but it unexpectantly triggered my subconscious issues. She feels terrible about it and not only about the concrete case, but she generalized it also to her overall performance and why stop there to her existence. Did I summarize it sufficiently, Aito?"

For a moment, only the sound of the crackling fire and Flora's footsteps filled the workshop, but then Aitoshuri beeped in agreement.

"Drama-Queen!"

Beep!

"No, you are!"

Beep!

"You are ten times more a drama-queen than me!"

Beep!

"And you are infinite times more a drama queen!"

Beep!

"Infinite plus one is not more than infinite! You lose!"

Beep!

"I don't care about ordinal numbers! ∞ is more pretty than ω."

Beep!

"Yes, it looks like boobs, but the infinity symbol consists of two circles, and a ring is the most divine form. Divinity trumps Humanity, especially boobs! Or if you like titties that much, then you could see it as the abstracted symbol for boobs."

Beep!

"Now we arrived at a debate on principles. Are you honestly arguing the realized immanent form is better than the idealized transcendent?"

Beep?

"Ha! Thought so!"

Beep!

"Oh, you dare! Aidan, she called me a closeted demiurge!"

"Milady, have mercy for my circuits and leave me out of this discussion!"

"Alright. We should all calm down and concentrate on the key issue. Is it whether I enjoy the refinement process, or is it whether I profit from it or maybe if it helps to further my goals, winning the duel and mastering the Hero’s Entrance?"

Flora walked back and forth but came to no conclusion.

"What would I like to do if I had no obligations at all? Lying on a sunny beach, with a sweet cocktail, watching the waves. Oh no! This image contains no toasters!" Flora checked her forehead for fever, and it was hot because of the furnace. "I think I'm ill! I have to be to come up with a toaster-free fantasy!"

"You have no illness-debuff, Milady."

"Maybe it's a mental illness?" Flora pondered, but then she stopped abruptly. "I know the problem! Because I'm now aware, there exists a better material to build the octopussy, I'm unable to use the inferior ones! My perfectionism is stressing me! But I refuse to spend hours hammering anytime I want to build something nice. Let's create a metal refinement machine!"

Flora put three thick stone plates perpendicular to each other, and three hammer plates adverse to them. After adding a robot arm, runes to heat up the metal, and an AI controller, the prototype was ready.

Name: Metal-Refinement Press V0

Type: Smithing Tool

Description: Refines 20x20x20 cm chunks of metal.

Regular Mode: 5 mana/min

In-Built Feature: Refine metal.

In-Built Feature: Heat. CD: 25 sec.

Tier: 1

Rating: B

Flora ordered the printing of eight machines and sixteen blocks of the hull material and two blocks of the metal, which made up the foundation of the Doom Moon. Aitoshuri had recommended it for hammer-heads.

It was finally time to get nice foci for Deriga and her. Therefore she added two Multitool-foci and one Onyx Lightning Plasma-Sword to the queue.

Flora switched back to designing a new framework for her divine generator. She wanted to waste less space and needed shelves for the church and the workshop. So why not combine a generator with a rack.

This time she took two 1x1m sheets of stone, crossed them, and put the sphere for the generator in the middle. She threaded the wires through channels in the stone and put connectors on the four outer edges. Furthermore, she riffled the stone to put case boards inside the connected constructs.

One of the generator casings looked like a plus symbol. If you connected two horizontally, you had a shelf: ++. If you put another two ++ on top, you had a # or a 1x1x1m container, which was open on two sides.

For the church and its window front, the bench generators looked more beautiful, but for the production hall and other walls, the racks were much more practical.

"Sorry, Aitoshuri, for the change of plans. We will put the already produced bench generators in the roof garden."

Flowing Flowers to RadGlory Flow: "Sweetie? Oh right! You are not my sweetie at the moment! Can you speak with me, though?"

RadGlory Flow to Flowing Flowers: "Yes, Ma. And I'm still your favorite son, right?"

"Of course you are, sourly!"

Robby laughed. He knew when she called him "sourly", she was halfway over whatever caused her displeasure.

"I need someone to carry and stack things for four hours ASAP. They should be able to follow simple commands and have at least one free nock for an AI connection. How much would that cost me?"

"I gave you a voucher for 30 hours of Riverstones support. You can use it. But one hour of it is worth at least 100 VirDos, and for such a simple task, you need to pay less. How about I sent you MiaMyMio, and you give her 200 VirDos?"

"Great, thank you."

After Flora logged out, she discovered two fire elementals next to her coffin. Both reached to her hip. One was a sleek yellow flame and the other broader with multiple fiery tongues like a campfire. Because she needed the training time, she commanded them to follow her.

Then, she ran through the church and prepared for Mia's arrival. Disconnecting the already, but in the wrong place, installed bench-generators, connecting the Metal-Refinement machines, and informing Deriga about their incoming help took up the time until the doorbell rang.

Mia wore to Flora's delight the Counterflow mech-suit, but instead of Flora's pink leisure suit, her grey hoody was visible between the tech.

"Partner-Look!" Flora exclaimed.

"Uhm, yeah. Hi." The mousy girl waved hesitantly.

A chime sounded, and then a voice eerily similar to Flora's spoke.

"Rejoice! A holy item of the Church of Evailyn has been created!"

"WTF?"

"But, I haven't ordered any toasters to be printed!"

You gained an achievement: Peak Creator: You created an SSS rated item.

+ 1 OV to all crafting abilities used during building title: 'Peak Creator': a higher chance for higher effects on crafted items.

The two women and two elementals raced to the printer, and Deriga joined them on the way.

They found Aitoshuri holding a glowing multitool.

Name: Holy Multitool-Scepter-Shield of the Goddess Evailyn

Type: Hybrid: Focus, Tool, and Shield

Description: Multitool modified to function as an intent-focus and shield. The perfect tool for believers of the church of the Goddess Evailyn to spread Her glory.

Regular Mode: 1 OV Mana-Regeneration.

Built-In Spell: Shoot healing cantrip; Cost: 1 mana; CD: 2sec;

Built-In Spell: Shoot damaging cantrip; Cost: 1 mana; CD: 2sec;

Built-In Magetech: Create Force-Field; Cost: 10 mana; CD: 25sec;

Effect: Can be used to focus all crafting spells regardless of their type.

Effect: Healing spells repair technological devices too. (Only for believers of Evailyn)

Holy Effect: Healing cantrip repairs technological devices too. (Only for believers of Evailyn)

Base Damage/Healing: 4

Tier: 1

Rating: SSS

Owner: Church of Evailyn.

While Flora compared the stats to the second Multitool-Scepter, only the Holy Effect was missing, and the rating was SS, Deriga started to pray.

"This scepter is the most imba thing I've ever seen!" Mia exclaimed. "The top guilds would pay the max price for one of them if they were tier-5, and you didn't have to convert to the Goddess Evailyn. The effect of repairing tech with normal healing spells is too broken! What are the ultimates of the church?"

"Ultimates?"

"Every church gives out prayers for all its believers. Pray for level one, ultimate prayer for level 100, and magnificent prayer at level 250. The effects of the last two vary from god to god. Like, no hetero male heals male Muslims above level 100 because when they die, beautiful Houri appear to avenge them."

"The earth religions have churches in the Cetviwos as well? Wow. And sorry, I don't know the ultimate of Evailyn." Flora looked to the still praying Deriga but didn't want to disturb her.

"Yeah. They are pretty popular and have great ultimates." Mia shrugged.

"Alright, dear. I have to run. Just follow Haidan's instructions. It's basically carrying generators for Aitoshuri and feeding the refinement machines more metal."

Looking at the glowing machines and her two fire elementals, Flora got an idea.

"Aidan, the fire elementals are tier-1, therefore their flame is tier-1 as well, right?"

"Yes, Milady."

"Why don't we use the elementals to keep the metal heated? Can I bind them to the church's mana-grid like devices?"

Aidan showed Flora the crystal she had to buy to facilitate the binding.

Name: Crystal of minor Binding

Type: Binding-Crystal

Description: Connects your home mana-grid to mana-bound artifacts. Due to energy loss, you have to provide double the amount of mana for the Regular Mode. Maximal four tier-1 connections.

Tier: 1

Rating: B

After binding the elementals to the crystal and ordering them to mind the metal, Flora packed her freshly printed equipment. Then she said her goodbyes before porting away.