Storing the list away in my hold, I laugh at the requested weapon. “Of course that would be on there.”

Searching through the neatly auto-sorted ingots in my hold, I pick out the one that immediately comes to mind with this weapon, bulkite. The dark purple ingot, bordering on black, made with heavyweight and growth aspects will be perfect for this.

“This is probably gonna take me the rest of the day.”

Steeling myself for the task ahead of me, I run my fingers down all the necessary enchantments, booting the forge fully to life. A wave of heat hits me and I smile as I grit my teeth and apply heatproofing enchantments to myself.

This project will require a lot more than a single bulkite ingot, so I create four more, visiting Colt in the alchemy room quickly to pick up a tonion. The resulting ingots all come out medium quality, my skills at smelting them clearly need improvement.

Something to ask Ilmarinen about later.

Setting to work, I trace out the basic form I want to make each piece, making diagrams like Ilmarinen showed me how to do.

Mystic Metalwork helps carry this process, making my work easier. There’s no need to worry about creating solder or welds when I just seal the metals together using the Perk at the end.

Hammering out the basic shapes I need, I set to work on specifying the form. The list has a few specifications on it for this particular weapon. Cassandra’s own interest is apparent here as most of the weapons on the list are just names, giving me a level of creative freedom.

Using my mana, I create Essence Paths within the metal to increase mana efficiency for the one using it.

Finishing making all of the basic shapes that will fit together to make the finalized weapon, I begin that process.

A ring attaches to one end of a rod with a point at the other end. Two identical curved arms fix to the sides of the main rod. A crossbar goes just a bit below where the ring is attached, made from two smaller bars of bulkite.

Using a mix of Metallomancy and Mystic Metalwork, I assure that all of these connections are as flawless as possible, giving myself a headache by checking with a mix of Aetheric Supremacy, Primordial Perception, and Shaper’s Soul.

Smiling, I look at the finished weapon laying before me. An anchor. It seems I have some fans due to my heroics.

‘Just a name now.’ I can feel the notification waiting for me, but I want to name the weapon before I allow it through.

‘How about… The Abyssal Hook.’

Level up! For creating a weapon relating to your main combat Talent out of highly effective materials for your specific weapon of choice, your Talent: Adept Blacksmith has reached (4/50)!

Level up! For immersing yourself in the creation of your weapon of choice and coming to a deeper understanding of it as a result, your Talent: Adept Anchorist has reached (19/50)!

‘Huh. That’s unexpected. Makes sense though, I certainly feel more familiar with anchors after making one from start to finish myself. Well, let’s enchant this. Then I’ll look at it.’

Adding in some complex durability enchantments, I focus on empowering the metal as much as possible. It will be dealing some heavy hits if my own experience is any measure to go off of, so it needs this.

Leaving space for now, I figure any additional enchantments beyond some durability improvements can be by request. The enchantments I apply now are “stacked” in a way that even if the weapon grows, they will accommodate to the new size.

The enchanting feels better with the improvements to Inscriber’s Elegance. The lines come out cleaner and I’m able to push them to more deeply integrate into the material itself, giving them less of a chance of falling apart over time.

‘Alright, Inspection time.’

The Abyssal Hook

Quality: Medium

Traits: Heavyweight, Growth, Highly Durable

Description: An anchor made of bulkite, granting it the capability of growing in size and weight considerably. Enchantment setups have been applied to this weapon to give it a high level of durability.

Hefting the piece into my arms, I activate the innate ability of bulkite and feel the weight increase as the piece expands in my arms. It’s significantly less wieldy in this state, but the intent is that it will only be expanded during hits and shrink back to original size afterward.

‘I’ll have to warn whoever requested this. It’s heavier than Argo in its expanded form, and he’s made of Palemetal. That shit’s heavy. No scale to tell just how heavy he is though… I’m not sure if manually adjusted ones at a doctor’s office would go high enough to read it either.’

Moving through some stances and swinging the anchor around, I get a feel for it. The style is very similar to Argo but more simplistic and with a longer body. I simply don’t have the skill yet to make something as beautiful and ornate as Ilmarinen did.

Looking out the window, this took me less time than I thought, it’s late afternoon but still light out.

‘Wait… Light out. Lights.’ Slapping my forehead, I realize an aspect that’s been literally hanging over me that I have access to.

‘Damnit, Colt made these ceilings so high…’ Climbing up on to the table, I pluck some of the evergleam fir needles off of a hanging branch, using Plantomancy to help them grow back afterward. They’ll take a bit to rejuvenate their magical qualities but this will help at last.

Focusing on ideas of light, I visualize the vast spectrum of colors that visual light encompasses. Thoughts, feelings, and associations with each color come to mind.

All of these colors coalesce into pure, white light. Gift of Prosperity activates, converting the pine needles into three bright, pure crystals, white yet still partially transparent.

‘Hmm, I’ll have to experiment with this later. Light seems like a useful attribute to add into stuff. Well, I still have time left. Let’s try and make a chain for this anchor. It wasn’t requested but I want to see if I can make a nice one. I’ll need to use more bulkite though…’

Walking into the alchemy room to grab another tonion, I show Colt The Abyssal Hook.

“Oh wow, an anchor? I guess you have some fans. It’s a shame I don’t really have a signature weapon. This looks great though, good job! ...Can I hold it?” He pokes the metal lightly.

“Sure. Fair warning though, it’s pretty heavy.” Handing the anchor to him, he grunts at the exertion.

“Holy shit this is heavy.” He clumsily takes a few practice swings. “How the fuck do you wield something like this?”

“It was a little awkward at first but once you get used to it, it’s not a bad weapon.” Taking it back from him, I move through the stances Ilmarinen showed me and swing it around.

“Huh. Well, I need my hands free for spells.” He lets off a few sparks of Wild Magick into the air for show.

“It’s… still kind of weird getting used to a world with magic. I miss the internet sometimes.”

“Yeah, same, honestly. It’s super cool most of the time, but we’ve had a lot of scary moments too. What I wouldn’t give to just veg out and watch some Youtube though... Oh, wanna see some of the potions I came up with?”

“Yeah! What do you have?”

He takes an assortment of colorful bottles out of his storage and places them on the counter.

“This yellow one came from some of that wheat that makes things yellow. Turns out, alchemy lets you make dyes.”

Inspecting it myself, I see what he means.

Yellow Dye

Quality: Medium

Traits: Yellow

Description: This dye can be applied to any item to change its color to yellow. Mental focus may be used to recolor specific parts of an item.

“Huh. Wow. And it works?”

Colt holds up the dagger I made him, Windbreak. The handle is bright yellow in color now. “Yup. Tested it already myself.”

“Wow, we should find some more recoloring plants. I’d love to be able to choose some more muted colors for weapons… as much as I’m sure your mom loves her purple spear, she might appreciate something a bit more… muted.”

“Actually, funny thing about that. Most of these potions I made are dyes. I had quite a few colors. I found out that grass has the green recolor trait. Turns out, we just assumed it was grass and never Inspected it. Your Porcine Nose must have never picked up on it because dyes aren’t particularly alchemically strong or magical.”

Looking over, a grassy green liquid is sitting in a bottle next to the yellow one. There’s also blue and orange bottles. No purple, red, black, or white though.

“What did the blue and orange come from?”

“The blue came from something called a bluetouch sedge The orange came from an orangetouch foxtail. They’re these plants that end in orange puffs that kind of look like a fox’s tail.” He pulls one out of his personal pantry, showing me the stalk ending in a puffy orange and white point.

“Hm. Neat. We should find all the different basic colors. Even with just red we could probably mix a few to make the other colors we need if anything, but it would probably be nicer to have the base colors to work with. It’s less work that way. Black and white will be popular recolor requests I imagine…”

“Look at you getting into the shopkeeper mindset.” He smiles at me.

“Yeah yeah yeah, and you spent all day doing alchemy yourself.”

“Actually, I left for a bit to practice magic with Pasivier. You were just really into your blacksmithing so I didn’t want to mess up your flow by letting you know. I got some more healing and mana potions made for the shop though. Then I just made dyes and these.”

He shows me two bottles of liquid, one a darker red with orange swirls running through it, and a darker blue with the same orange swirls in it.

“I mixed burning poison with healing and mana restoration aspects. It made poisons that drain health and mana specifically. Not really sure what the difference is there for the healing one… Poison already does health over time damage.” He shrugs.

“Well, it probably specifically drains prana without causing damage to the body itself. Most poisons cause damage to the body and that’s why HP will go down. It has to restore that damage.”

“Ah, makes sense then. That doesn’t sound pleasant.” He stores away all his dyes and potions. “Oh! I did learn something cool from Pasivier though. Watch this.”

He takes a normal metal kitchen knife out of his hold and throws it up into the air. A blade of wind slices the knife in half lengthwise.

“Damn. That’s some impressive control.”

“Not that. Watch.” He carefully picks the two broken halves up from the floor and presses them back together. “Repair.”

In a flash of light, the two pieces of metal seal back together. Overall, the knife looks even newer than it did when he took it out of his pantry.

“Oh right, I forgot he was going to teach you Repair. That’s cool! Can you teach me?”

“Of course. One thing to remember though. Repair doesn’t work on magical or enchanted items. So, unfortunately, you can’t Repair most of the stuff you smith. The second you use Essence Paths or that Perk with Priming Touch in it on the metal, it will be too magical.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure I’ll find uses for it anyway. We could teach it to some of the people in Portland too. I’m sure Repair would be helpful for the walls. Except for the metal struts I enchanted… Oops. They might not mind learning Clean either.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what the bathing situation is like. Lots of Hydrokinesis or Hydromancy I assume. I know some people have learned enchanting. I told them about how we set up our house when I was helping build some so I think they’re working out similar systems for all the houses now.”

“Oh, that’s good. We’ll just have to be careful about not fucking up the water table of Portland by draining it all with magic.”

“Hm. True. I wonder if the Shop sells anything like a water attuned mana crystal that can produce water for people. I’ll have to check that later and make the suggestion.” He takes out a notepad and adds that to what I assume is his to-do list.

“Well, anyway. I came in here to grab another tonion. I want to make a chain for this anchor and nothing else will expand in size with it so anything other than bulkite would just snap.”

“Really? Why not just tie the chain a little loosely?”

“...I really wanted to stick with the all dark metal aesthetic. I don’t think it being bulkite matters that much but it looks cooler this way. I just wanted an excuse to keep using the metal.”

“Oh. Well, maybe just pick something that compliments okay? Once we find more dye colors we can recolor the metal to something darker anyway.”

“Okay… Well, I think hydralite would make for a good chain anyway. Strengthening and recovery together make for a strong chain that only gets stronger when it’s stressed. Also, I think because it’s trait is called hydra’s power the chain will literally regrow if it breaks.”

“Well, that sounds like a great material to use. Even if it does break somehow when the anchor expands, it will regrow stronger.”

“Yeah. Speaking of growing stronger. Did you ever give Becky some of your blood for her scissors?”

“Yup. I figured adding my Fae blood in might get rid of the Palemetal in the description. It kind of worked. The name of the scissors changed to the Pale Fae’s Maw. The metal description says it’s made of Pale Fae voracitite too. It’s at least less telling than Palemetal voracitite.”

“Awww you’re so sweet, thinking of me like that.” Giving him a hug and a kiss, I meet his eyes. “Now, teach me how to use Repair so I can get back to making my chain.”

His eyes light up a bit. He loves teaching magic.

Listening to his explanation, he shows me the Skill a few more times, casting it intentionally slowly so I can watch the Runic Matrix and the mana flow with Aetheric Supremacy.

Just like Clean, it takes me a little bit to pick up on it, but it’s almost like applying a math equation. Once you know the inputs that need to go into the equation, you get the output quite easily.

An unenchanted glass bottle repairs from being shattered, looking like it broke in reverse, returning to its original shape.

Congratulations Lucas Creo! For properly performing the correct runic setup and mana flows, you have gained the Skill: Repair!

“Wow, this Skill is cool. Did you see this shit?” Gesturing to the complete bottle, I smash it with my fist again. It’s quite satisfying to be able to break something and immediately repair it.

“Repair.” The pieces of glass skate across the floor, forming back into the bottle. Repeating this process a few more times, I note that my mana is steadily dropping. “Wow, this is pretty expensive, huh?”

“Yeah. It’s even more expensive if it has to supplement mass. Lots of energy goes into recreating molecular bonds after all.”

“Hm, true. Anyway. I have chains to make. You gonna make dinner?”

“Yup. I’m gonna make a roast tonight!” He smiles, heading out the door with me.

“Sounds delicious. I’m gonna try at making these chains.” Giving him a quick kiss, he heads out my forge and upstairs to get dinner ready. “Oh, Gabe will be bringing Karie back tonight so make enough that he can join us if he wants!”

“Sure thing!” The soft shuffling of footsteps is barely heard on the stairs as Colt takes them lightly.

Taking the reddish-brown ingot of hydralite out of my hold, I deactivate its effect. A regrowing metal ingot sounds annoying to work with. Even if it might give me more material, the material would grow harder and harder to work with as it gets stronger.

Cutting it into small workable strips of metal using Hydromancy, I begin the act of making chains using my own that I attach to Argo as a baseline.

Heating the metal in my forge lets me bend it by hand, protecting myself with heatproofing enchantments so I can do so.

Afterward, I hammer the metal lightly and use Metallomancy mixed with Mystic Metalwork to temper the metal. Once I get into the rhythm of it, I’m able to use a blueprint from Schematic Mind to speed up the process.

Midway through my work, a notification interrupts me.

Affinity Advanced: Medium Metal Affinity 1/100!

“Oh wow, I guess all this magic with blacksmithing has really pushed my Metallomancy.” Testing it on the next chain link I’m attaching to the rest, the metal is considerably easier to manipulate. The advancement of tiers is stronger than individual points in the affinity.

Having used up all of the hydralite, I decide the chain is complete. Testing with a quick pull on the chain, I find it to be appropriately tough. Pulling hard enough to snap a link, the metal reaches out to itself and reattaches slowly, returning to its original shape. “Woah, freaky.”

Pulling the chain once more, the same link is stronger than it was before. I can even tell with my magical senses that something is different about the metal.

‘Well, let’s see the result. Inspect.’

Hydralite Chain

Quality: Medium

Traits: Hydra’s Power

Description: A chain made of hydralite. This metal’s trait allows it to recover stronger than before after damage, especially against tensile forces as this is a chain. There is an upper limit to this improvement, but the chain will become exceedingly resilient over time.

‘Daaamn, nice.’

Level up! For creating a set of complex chainlinks and improving your fine-tuned control with smaller pieces of metal, your Talent: Adept Blacksmith has reached (5/50)!

For reaching your first Talent milestone in Adept Blacksmith, you have been awarded applicable stat points to Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Insight and + 30 XP. In addition, you have been awarded one Perk Point! Perk Points can be only spent on a Perk that came from the associated Talent.

‘Oooh, a level up too. I wonder what I should spend the Perk Point on… Or should I save it for now?’ Just as I’m about to open my Perk menu, there’s a knock on the door.

“Coming!”

Walking out of my forge and up to the door, I open it to find Gabe with Karie and his family in tow.

‘I hope Colt made enough food.’