Chapter: Imprinting

Blaze looked at the new batch of trainees, thankfully there were just eighteen potential spear candidates that had not reached level six already. He had been with Rugrat sizing them up and looking to show off his skills and increase his level. Against level eight and nine boars, nothing was his opponent, with every spear slash and stab he reaped lives.

He didn’t take one step back and everything was killed within 2 or three swipes of his spear. As they walked back to town he could hear them talking to one another.

“Did you see leader Blaze’s spear technique?”

“How fierce was that? Is he even human?”

“I wish I was able to do that!”

Blaze hid the smile that threatened to appear on his face as they made it back to the village.

They passed a number of pits and defenses that had been put together. Erik’s examples had been created and the logging camp had been finished, with the people not needed there copying Erik’s examples and building up the four layered defensive lines all the way back to the village’s wall.

They would have been more of a hindrance than help in making the showering and bathroom installation.

Blaze saw the cleared area where the building was supposed to be placed. People were bringing in lumber under the guidance of Shi Wanshu, the woodworker that Elise had put in charge of designing the different structures Erik had ordered.

The homes had also been organized, some being torn down to clear up roads. The new clean and orderly streets allowed one to quickly pass through the area and they could actually fit in more house, reducing the cluttering around the barracks to the north west.

They headed for the barracks where Erik and a new batch of trainees were waiting.

“Consolidate your gains tonight, tomorrow we’ll begin training,” Blaze said, dismissing the group that he had headed out with in the morning.

They dispersed, dropping off their weapons at the barracks, Rugrat nodded to Blaze and headed off towards the smithy.

“Captain Blaze, good to see you, I’ll be scouting ahead if you want to take command of this group?” Erik asked.

“Yes, sir,” Blaze said, knowing that Erik was establishing a chain of command with him leading the others, it would make things easier in the coming days to establish it now.

They already thought of him as a leader, now he would impress this into them personally.

***

Rugrat’s hammer stopped mid swing, as he started to realize something, he could see through his hammer. He released the hammer but he could still see it in his mind, it was as if an imprint had been made in his mind.

His brows were pinched together as he pulled out a sword, he closed his eyes as he traced out the sword with his inorganic scan, he built up an image of the sword in his mind, with a simple thought he flickered from the imprint of the sword and the hammer.

He took out other weapons and tools in the shop, imprinting them on his mind.

It wasn’t long before he had imprinted all of the tools and items in his storage ring and in the smithy into his mind.

Rugrat stood there with his eyes closed as he looked at the imprints from the different weapons and items that had passed through his hands.

He compared and evaluated them, he didn’t know the full techniques of how they were made, all he could sense was their makeup and appearance, based on this he was still able to see similarities and it allowed him to finally apply some of the knowledge that he had accrued against the different objects he was seeing.

He could also see how the mana, he subconsciously injected into the weapons he was making, allowed their power to increase.

Without even thinking about it, he would circulate the mana in his body, condensing it, like he would to open his mana gates.

Erik might be at eight mana gates, but Rugrat had opened eleven, his every action seemed to draw in mana, to him it was no different than using his muscles.

Rugrat frowned as he looked to clear his mind, he thought on the compound bows and crossbows from Earth. He thought on their gears. He drew down a few pictures, Taran looked over but he didn’t say anything as Rugrat continued to close his eyes, picturing them and writing down as much information as possible.

“String, tension on the tendons, springs,” Rugrat muttered to himself, trying to inspire more thoughts.

Soon he ran out of things to write down, he gathered everything and left the workshop, finding a cart he put his hands on the leaf springs under the cart and took in that information. Then he went to the storage area, moving to the pulleys that were used to move different objects.

He headed off to find Shi Wanshu.

“Mister Rugrat, can I help you?” Shi Wanshu was a burly looking man with bright brown eyes.

“Pulley systems, do you have a drawing of one?” Rugrat asked.

Shi Wnashu pulled out a picture and gave it to Rugrat.

He muttered to himself and wrote something on a notepad.

He passed it back and walked off, gathering odd looks as he compared between different pieces of paper.

He went back to the workshops and talked to a lady who worked with the tendons.

After sometime he went to an empty desk in the workshop, papers were littered around him as he started to make individual drawings of different components.

He grabbed one of the completed crossbows and put it on his workbench.

There was a stirrup to make it easier to string one’s bow, but it still wasn’t that fast. Rugrat went and grabbed two hooks and a length of metal.

He put the hooks on the bowstring and using the leverage of the metal, easily drew the bowstring back.

He did this another five times before he put the string with hooks and metal down. He started to pull on the string with just his bare hands it was much harder and slower as his hands were starting to hurt after doing it five times.

A woman in the shop who was watching him closely ordered people to get more hooks and string to make the assists and get more lengths of metal.

Rugrat made a note on his papers and then grabbed some pulleys and put them on the sides of the bow, he bit his lower lip in thought, comparing his drawings against the crossbow.

He left quickly, taking his notes.

He saw that people were gathering rope and hooks, he went to the woman organizing things and dropped off a page of information.

“Modify the bows that you can, make multiple lines with the hooks,” Rugrat said.

With that he headed back to the smithy, he grabbed a crossbow that hadn’t had a bowstring put on it yet on his way out.

Taran was there working on a crossbow as Rugrat worked on a piece of metal, he built what looked like a leaf spring but with notches in it.

He worked it accordint to a template he had drawn out. Then he created two ridged pulleys, he smoothed out the pulleys.

He pulled off the old bow arms on the crossbow and put on the new ones with the pulleys. He fought with the tendons, finally getting them looped to one another. He then strung the bow and wiped his brow.

He looked at his new creation with a proud expression.

He grabbed his reloading assist system he’d built and went out of the smithy into the archery range.

Glosil frowned when he saw the new contraption in Rugrat’s hands.

His eyes bulged out at seeing Rugrat’s reloading assist, the way that the leaves for the bow bent backwards was alarming. Rugrat raised it to his shoulder and fired, the arrow shot straight and true, just hearing it one could tell that the power was much greater than the original crossbows.

“Hah! Pulleys motherfuckers! Enough pulleys and levers and you can move the world!” Rugrat shook his head and looked at the bow in his hands with a smile.

It was more complicated than the original crossbow, needing a new front assembly that had to be flexible and not brittle and have a pulley system that was precise took time to smooth down perfectly.

The draw weight on the bow had nearly tripled though.

“It’s going to take longer to make them, I can get Taran to make the trigger assembly, then I’ll make the leaves of the crossbow and the pulleys, break it up and increase our speed,” Rugrat went back to the workshop and showed Taran his new weapon.

“So, do we change the ones we’ve already made or just make them in this style now and then work backwards?” Taran asked.

“Leave what we have, at least they’re weapons, the leaver loading assist will already increase their rate of fire a lot, we can give the updated ones to the best shots and then go through updating the other bows afterwards,” Rugrat said. “Also, I was looking at different weapons and it seemed as if I could almost remember everything about them as soon as I had a good understanding of them?”

“Imprinting, it’s a hard skill to learn,” Taran said, nodding. “Basically there are two ways to do it, use a technique book with the imprints of a lot of different items, though those would cost more money than you’d see in one lifetime because it’s like giving someone tens of blueprints at once. The other is to become extremely familiar with a weapon, I can make simple swords for the guards easily because I’ve got it imprinted. You’ve never learned this? It’s like how using a spell, it will become easier and easier.”

Rugrat went silent, this wasn’t like back on Earth, it seemed that as he learned items, an internal codex remembered them for him, he could perfectly recall all of the tools in the shop, then all of his spells.

He didn’t realize how strange that was until now.

***

Domonos stood at the gate, looking towards beast Mountain.

He’d received word that the Willful Institute had finished whatever they were attending and were heading to Chonglu to depart through the totem.

Domonos knew how dominating they were and had made sure to pay the guards before to make sure that there were no issues.

Wren might be the one inheriting the Silaz Merchant House, Domonos wanted to make sure that their position was secure.

Thinking on this his thoughts turned to the two men that had shamed his brother Wren, strength was everything in the ten realms, he needed to make an example out of them, or if they were indeed stronger, make reparations. Wren might have to throw away his reputation, but if they could keep or grow their position Domonos wouldn’t hesitate to force his brother.

There was a cough from a covered carriage next to Domonos.

His eyes turned to the covered carriage with soft eyes.

“Little sister you should’ve stayed at home,” He said in a quiet voice.

“Big brother doesn’t know when he’ll be back, so I want to be around you until you have to leave,” a soft voice complained childishly.

Domonos could only laugh, he might be the strongest in the Silaz family, but the core, the heart of the silaz merchant house was his little sister Qin. All of his brothers and father used her as inspiration to grow the business and their strength more, to try and find something that could help or heal little Qin’er.

That was why Wren’s gift of premium monster cores was so well received as it allowed Domonos the capital to increase his position by gifting it to people he had come into contact with in the Wilfull Sect.

Domonos gripped his fist tighter, if they had to bankrupt the entire Silaz Merchant house, they would do so for Qin’er.

Domonos saw a group moving in the distance as a group of people wearing the same uniform and crest on their chest appeared in the distance.

So fast Domonos thought, controlling his expression as he saw the people from the Willfull Institute coming closer.

They reached the gate, not caring about the line.

Domonos bowed to them, the group slowed as one of the elders slowed, nodding at Domonos, seemingly pleased with his disposition.

“Not bad,” he assessed. “We will be leaving for the institute promptly.”

“Yes elder Rei,” Domonos said.

“Oh, do you know these two men,” Elder Rei said, showing a crystal that had a picture of Rugrat and Erik captured on it.

Domonos fought to control his expression.

It’s them!

“I don’t,” Domonos shook his head, bowing again to hide his expression. “This lowly one is lacking.”

“It’s not your fault, come, we’ll go to the Wilfull Institute directly. Say your goodbyes in five minutes,” Elder Rei said, receiving the crystal and heading for the totem with the group of other Willfull Institute people.

Domonos nodded, quickly moving to his sisters carriage, his mind abuzz.

If he was able to survive the black blood poison then they must be actual healers! The healing houses must feel threatened at losing patronage and business, if we were able to get them to look at little Qin’er, maybe they could help.

“Little Qin, listen to your brother,” Domonos said as he lifted the curtain, seeing the tears in his eyes he didn’t have time for words of comfort.

“Brother Wren is to make peace with the two back then, they’re real healers, they might be able to help you,” Domonos made sure that she understood everything.

“Qin’er will tell father and brother Wren,” she replied.

“Good girl,” Domonos said, a harsh emotion rising in the back of his throat. He cleared his throat and pinched her cheek.

“Big brother has to go now,” Domonos smiled as tears fell down her cheeks.

He didn’t have more time as he left the carriage and ran to catch up with the Willfull Institute people.