Warily looking at the creature, Akiel tiredly looks around. All the packed teeth had scattered. Scrunching his eye ridges, he glances at the creature. Sighing, he says, ”Of course my lord, I was just unable to recognize you.” Getting on his knees, he says, “I was going to prepare them into consumable items to present to you, but if your eminence wants raw materials, they are yours for the taking.”

Looking at his nails, the creature says, “Yes, I knew that. I do require the teeth as raw materials. They make for the perfect delicacies in my off time. If you can fetch some more, I would even be inclined to reward you with something of value.” Quirking an eyebrow, Akiel silently pulls out the dungeon Taggen’s list. Glossing down the list, he asks, “Can you tell me where I can find the lungs of a nether worm?”

Scratching what should be its chin, it says, “Nether worm huh? Also a delicacy, but for another reason. They only come up for a few seconds a month. I can tell you, but first, you must get me something that I want.” Motioning it to continue, Akiel lowers his head, not wanting to make eye contact. “I want you to get me the heart of an archdemon. My father has forbidden me from eating any more, but he can’t stop me from eating a dead one. Head to the ruins to the west of here and you’ll find a way to it in the bottom-most layer.”

Hesitating, Akiel says, “Consider it done. Just one question. What am I to call you and forgive my insolence, but what manner of being are you?” Chuckling, it says, ”All you need to know is that you are talking to a royal wyvern. You also have no need to know who I am, I will be waiting. I will be watching, anticipating the beating heart of an archdemon.” checking the last item on his list, Akiel smiles while facing the ground. Not getting a response, the creature says, “I’ll give you a year. I want you to kill it exactly a year from today. You can keep the teeth, they don’t really taste that good.”

Waiting a few moments in silence, Akiel looks up. Not finding anything, he quietly turns his mana sight back on. Casually sweeping his surroundings, he finds the thing still standing right in front of him. Pretending like he found nothing, he gathers the teeth and constructs the bundle again. Running just past the creature, he smirks. “Trouble just seems to find me. At least it came to me on a silver platter, all that’s left is to gather the ingredients.”

Accelerating to terrifying speeds, Akiel easily makes it through the sparse forest. Making his way to his base, he stops to observe the village from atop of a hill. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he continues to his base. Entering, he places the pile of bones on the central counter. Since he didn’t need to relax or cook, the base only had workspaces. Quickly bringing out a large pestle and mortar, he starts to grind one of the teeth. Pulverizing one of the bones down, he empties the mortar into a container on the side. Counting on his fingers, he decides to grind the rest of the teeth first.

Finishing after a couple of hours, he looks at the container satisfied. The bones hadn’t dried yet, so the marrow and moisture still inside had contributed to making it into a paste. Sifting through the container, he frowns. Muttering to himself, he says, “It’s not the right consistency. I need more fluid.” Walking downstairs, he enters the collection room while looking at his collectors. Hanging from the ceiling were animals of all types, slowly bleeding out. All the blood collected in a large bucket shaped containers underneath. Pacing through the specimen, he stops next to a stone bird. It’s the very same species that the village worships. Apparently, they keep pests away from their vulnerable crops. The only thing special about their blood is the lack of impurities that can obstruct mana flow.

The only use they have for the blood is to lubricate their joints and to prevent wear and tear. It’s secreted out of their pores and occasionally coats their body in a protective film. Dipping his finger in the pitch black blood, he nods in satisfaction. Carefully hauling the bucket up the stairs, he places it down next to the container full of moist bone powder. Grabbing a large spoon from the walk-in tool closet, he tips the blood into the container. Leaving the majority of the blood still in the bucket, Akiel furiously starts stirring the paste in with the blood. With his new body, he easily churned the mixture and beat it into uniformity.

Smirking, he quickly places the bucket of blood underneath the slowly dripping stone bird. Looking around, he says, “I’ll need a bit more room to accommodate for larger species I hunt in the future.” Walking back upstairs, he pulls out his unactivated runes. One for heat, one for ice and one for energy repulsion. Finally, he pulls out two of the timed electric discharge runes. By using a time rune to regulate the timing, he paired it with the electrical discharge rune. The book had detailed another way to use it, but at the time his mana pool was nowhere near big enough to support the ejection of continuous lightning.

First activating his heat rune, he places it in a previously made rack. Placing it directly above a mana line he constructed using a massive battery deep underground, he watches as it lights up with a dull orange and starts emitting heat. Next, he applies the timed electric discharge runes. Not infusing his mana in them, he puts them directly into the new drying rack. Finally, he activates the last two. Remodeling them into his body, he replaces the stone and only keeps the rune circuits. Placing the ice rune on his left hand, he shifts his old fire rune into his right hand. Putting the energy repulsion rune on his chest, he pulls out his first water rune. Staring at it, he decides to deal with it later.

Walking over to his desk, he checks the list of things to do and taps the second point. Muttering under his breath he looks through the square-shaped gaps in the ceiling, “Scout the city.” Stroking his chin a few more times, he places the list down and looks over his other plans. Setting aside his schematics for other runes and the list of places he needed to visit, he pulls out a partial map of the capital and reads over a few of the notes. Apparently, quite a few of the villagers go to the capitol in the course of a year. Among the information, he bought off of them is the detailed map of the slums as well as the market zone. None of them have made it farther, but his own map gave some insights into that portion.

Whispering to himself, he says, “The slums start here. If I want to meet with the underground organizations, I’m going to have to get their attention, but avoid the kingdom’s.“ Tracing a few other routes and committing some miscellaneous details to memory, he pulls out his guide book and flips to the maps page. Scrolling up to the kingdom capital, he zooms into the slums area and examines the differences. Sighing, he rubs his head. The guide book map only detailed the names of roads and common names for certain areas. Nothing like the gang territories or the secret passages was included. Shrugging, he puts it away and grabs the hand-drawn map.

Walking into the storage room, he brings all of the rags and drapes he collected through happenstance. Depositing them roughly onto the main crafting table, he suddenly remembers his weak water rune was on the table. Shrugging helplessly, he starts to sort through the fabric. Although a full black leather outfit would have been a great fit for a meeting between the underground boss’s, the only leather he has is poorly made and flashy yellow in color. Thinking of his last disguise, he shakes his head. He’s not meeting anyone that important. He needs to be intimidating as well as generic. The kingdom can’t be notified about his whereabouts just yet.

Choosing a drab piece of cotton, I pick a few other dull colored fabric. Using remodel, he fuses the fabrics together into a what most closely resembles a cloak made completely of different dull colored patches. There is no indicator of what the original fabric was. Smirking, Akiel fashions the rest of the dull colored pieces of cloth similarly. Covering the yellow leather in dull-colored cloth, he remodels it into a leather jacket with no zipper. Tilting his head, he says to himself, “Maybe if I have time later, I’ll make a proper leather jacket. For now, this should be good.”

Making a thin undershirt and a pair of pants using two layers of cloth, he tries the clothes on. Feeling the leather jacket restraining his arms from fully bending, he remodels it further. Sighing, he rolls his shoulders and adjusts his clothing. Nodding in satisfaction, he turns the heat rune off and pockets the timed electric discharge runes. Picking up the fabrics, he notices that the water rune no longer had the engraved rune. Frowning, he flips the fabric pile to find a smooth piece of fabric with the water rune on it.

Raising his eyebrow, he drops the fabric pile back onto the table and rummages around for similar fabric. Finding three more pieces, he carries the rest back to the storage room. Rushing back, he picks up the piece of fabric with the water rune on it. Stepping out of the base, he channels some mana into it. Watching a head-sized ball of water fly out, he inspects the rune. Looking closer, he finds signs of degradation. Creasing his eye ridges together, he points it away and infuses much greater amounts of mana into it. Spraying water out at high speeds the cloth starts to dampen before the creation of water abruptly halts.

Halting his infusion of mana, Akiel closely inspects the cloth to find the rune gone. Scratching his perfect head, he ruminates over the discovery, “At most, at this stage, I can use the cloth as additional mediums. I could probably make something like a battery in the future but with the degradation of the rune as mana flows through, I’ll just blow myself up right now. At most, I can use it as a medium for disposable runes.”

Sighing, he goes back to my crafting table. Leaving the fabrics on the table, Akiel makes his way to the encyclopedia. Flipping to some of the simpler runes, he decides on a smoke rune. Bringing the encyclopedia to the crafting table, he picks up the former water rune. The engraving is still there but the blood used to activate it is gone. Remodeling it to resemble the smoke rune, he lays it down and gingerly applies the paste. Covering it with the fabric, he turns it over and waits. Waiting a few more minutes for good measure, he lifts the smoke rune and finds the paste perfectly transferred to the fabric. Smiling, he repeats this step for the other pieces.

When done, he finally takes a seat on the only chair in the base. Staring at his own reflection, he says, “I need at least the minimum amount of facial hair now. Some eyebrows and some hair should do. I could go bald, but the only intimidating bald guys are henchmen.”