“It looks like we are stuck here for another day. Rukia is undergoing some kind of evolution and cannot be moved until it is complete. On the bright side, The High Priestess has the ability to facilitate the soul binding process and has offered to perform the soul binding ritual for everyone here. It doesn’t matter if you already have a soul bound item or pet, she will even provide a suitable item to anyone who doesn’t have one already,” I said, finishing my explanation.

“Is it just items, or can she soul bind Koda to me instead?” Magnus asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure you could ask her directly. She is still out and about helping everyone recover from the attack.”

Everyone in the party went through their inventory to see what they had that would be worthwhile to soul bind. With my part in all of this completed, I walked over to one of the blank walls and activated my portable smithy. I needed to get my other axe forged so I could have the matched pair soul bound to me.

Once I entered my forge, I pulled out the Body Refining potions and extracted the vial labeled with a one on its cork. I used my Identify on the potion to see what I was dealing with.

Fire Body Refining Potion I

Duration: 60 minutes

Effect: 10% Fire Body Refinement

The liquid inside was reminiscent of a deep red burning coal. I popped the cork off and took a whiff. It carried the scent of a hot oven, mixed with the pleasant smell of pine logs burning. With a deep breath, I tossed the liquid into the back of my throat and swallowed it down like a cheap shot of whisky.

The liquid burned going down, searing my throat like I had just drank boiling water. The burning sensation flowed into my gut before spreading out. The sensation stretched out to the tips of my toes and my fingertips. Even the hair on my head felt hot. It was decidedly uncomfortable, but stopped short of actual pain.

I sat down for a few minutes and focused my senses inwards to watch how the potion interacted with my body. Most of the potion still sat in my gut, but trickles of it were already circulating through my bloodstream. I slowly cycled my Ki through my Stomach Meridian and the potion flowed along with it. It was processing faster with my cycling than without. The heat built up in my body faster, pushing closer to the edge of pain. I stopped cycling my Ki and opened my eyes to an updated prompt.

Fire Body Refining Potion I

Duration: 52 minutes

Effect: 10% Fire Body Refinement

So, without cycling the potion, it would normally take a full hour to process the first ten percent. I could push it with cycling my stomach, but then I couldn’t use my Ki to help forge the second dragon’s fang. It would take more than an hour to make it, so I can just let it do its thing in the background.

Decision made, I fired up the forge and prepared my materials for the forging. I left the completed Dragon’s Fang out for reference. I wanted them to be as close as possible to each other. forging one offs was relatively easy compared to hand making a matched pair. It took a lot more control and attention to detail. I used the other half of the three-pound hammer, so the steel would be the same for the bulk of the axe head, and the other half of the Embersteel ingot. I had already mostly forged the Embersteel to the size I needed, it only needed a bit of refining to mostly match the cutting edge I needed.

I went back to the forge and placed the remaining hammer piece in to heat. After flattening out the steel and folding it over to make the eye. Before I started the forge welding process, I checked the timer on my first potion.

Fire Body Refining Potion I

Duration: 9 minutes

Effect: 10% Fire Body Refinement

It was almost complete, and the mild burning sensation fell away into the background. I didn’t want to just sit around for nine more minutes, and I didn’t want to start the forge wielding portion either. It would waste time on the potions. So instead, I focused on cycling the last bit of potion with my Stomach Meridian. It got intense there for a bit, but after only a minute, the potion finished running its course and I could take the next one.

Fire Body Refining Potion II

Duration: 120 minutes

Effect: 15% Fire Body Refinement (25% cumulative effect when taken after Fire Refining Potion I)

I downed the potion and braced myself for a more intense sensation. I waited a full minute for the feeling to ramp up in intensity, but it only felt like the first potion did, maybe just a hair stronger. With a shrug, I cleaned up my steel and preheated the metal before adding in the flux. Once the flux melted and the steel was up to forge wielding temperature, I wielded the end of the eye closed, but left the edge open, where I would insert the Embersteel blade.

Like the first time, I lost myself in the motions of swinging the hammer, heating the steel and letting my Ki flow through it. I didn’t focus on infusing the edge, or any special effect with the Ki. I wanted it to suffuse the metal and for it to be ready to take the bindings.

Controlling my Ki was even easier now with all eight Meridians open than the first time I forged the axe. The repetitive motions were very therapeutic. For a short time at least, I could put all my stresses aside and live in the moment.

Before the last heat and quench, I checked on the progress of the second potion.

Fire Body Refining Potion II

Duration: 13 minutes

Effect: 15% Fire Body Refinement (25% cumulative effect when taken after Fire Refining Potion I)

Once again, I settled in to cycle the dregs of the potion to just clear it out and not risk losing precious minutes before getting the third dose. It burned more this time. It wasn’t as bad as when the Drake char broiled my legs, but it made me break out in a sweat and felt a bit like a severe sunburn. However, I pushed through and felt the blessed relief once it was all used up.

Fire Body Refining Potion III

Duration: 240 minutes

Effect: 25% Fire Body Refinement (50% cumulative effect when taken after Fire Refining Potion I and II)

Without wasting another minute, I downed the third potion. I felt an intense burn at first, like I had just downed a small bottle of habanero hot sauce, but my throat went numb fairly quickly. My stomach, though, it roiled and burned. It felt like the worst kind of indigestion and heartburn at the same time as downing a gallon of boiling water. My stomach cramped and threatened to spew all of my progress all over my forge floor.

I swallowed hard and refused to let it come back up. I didn’t even think about cycling it faster at the moment. I sat down and meditated for a while. It helped to separate my mind from what my body was feeling.

After close to an hour of meditation, it was like I was floating over my shoulder looking on with a third person camera in a video game. I slowly got up, turned my forge back on and placed my nearly finished axe head into the fire. The steel slowly brightened from black to a deep red. After a while, the red lightened until it eventually turned to a golden straw color. Once it reached the proper color, I pulled it out with my tongs and thrust it into my oil barrel. It let out a sizzling hiss and a cloud of smoke as the oil boiled around the hot steel.

After agitating the axe head in the oil for a while, and the boiling oil settled down, I removed my new weapon and set it on my anvil. I waited for it to cool more, then took a file to the edge. The file skated off beautifully, and I knew it was good and hard. All I needed then was the new wood handles and I could complete the Formations.

I stretched my sore muscles and looked around. When my sight passed over the entrance to my forge, I saw Juanita standing on the other side with a massive grin on her face. With a start, I quickly gave her guest privileges and invited her in. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. Come on in.”

“You have no idea how Maravillosa this wood is. Mis skills de carpinteria were accelerados three levels at the end. Son increibles in my opinion. They even kept their quality excepcional. You like?” Juanita asked.

I used my Identify on the Axe handles.

Shaped Axe Handle

Quality: Exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 85/85

Weight: 1Lb

Traits: Smoldering Pine: +34% Fire Effect, 34% fire resistance, +51% energy conductivity, +51% energy capacity

+2 Enhancement slot

“Holy shit! This is simply amazing. How did you manage to add two enhancement slots? You increased the Durability by thirty-five points. A fifty-one percent bonus to conductivity? Bloody hell, and how did you do all this without it becoming a Mana based Item? I can’t detect any Mana in it what so ever.”

“Si!! Son buenos!” she said with a grin. “One habilidade de mi clase es the extra slots, y mi workshop esta uno tambien.”

I blinked a couple times, trying to parse her words. Aside from a semester or two of Spanish in high school, I never really learned the language. I knew more Japanese from watching subtitled anime, and didn’t remember that much.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch all of that,” I said.

“Lo Siento. I mix mis idomas more when I get excited. I’m glad you liked it. One of mi class abilities gives one extra slot, y mi workshop gives another. Soy… como se dice… una apprentice carpenter. Because en el pueblo with so many paths, I took it as mi beneficios. Perdón, my skill perk. I enhance the item with my Manna, pero don’t leave any behind.”

“I can’t thank you enough for this. It will go perfectly with my axes. Can I offer you anything else besides the extra wood?” I asked.

“No, estoy bien,” she said, holding her hands up and waving them from side to side. “I’m happy with our deal and the skill ups que recibi. I should get a few mas levels with the rest of the wood you gave me, and todos aprecian everyone’s help con los Orcs. Buena suerte… good luck with the axes. Maybe I’ll see you at the party tonight.” With a last wave, she left my portable forge, and I got back to work.

Before I took apart my first Dragon’s fang, I carefully pulled the Ki out of it and used it to suffuse the new axe handles with Ki. the handles already had amazing bonuses, but once I infused every cell with Ki, I expected it to take a qualitative leap in the bonuses. It was trickier using an external source of Ki to perform this process. However, with my Ki enhanced vision and the increased control I had from being a rank eight body refiner, I could manage it with no mishaps.

Shaped Axe Handle (Ki Enhanced)

Quality: Masterwork

Rarity: Epic

Durability: 115/115

Weight: 1Lb

Traits: Smoldering Pine: +46% Fire Effect, 46% fire resistance, +69% energy conductivity, +69% energy capacity

+2 Enhancement slot

The influence of Ki increased its quality from Exceptional to Masterwork. The bonuses not only increased by a further ten percent from baseline, but it looked like the Ki increased it by a further twenty-five percent. If I did my math right, all the bonuses together increased the end product from its baseline by one hundred twenty-nine percent. Gods damned, this handle is a thing of beauty. I can’t wait to see the final bonuses once everything was complete. I even have two more enhancement slots available… I shook my head to clear it of fanciful thoughts and considered what I was going to add.

I would have loved to add in an extra sharpness binding, but that needed to go on the blade, and I would have to scrap my first axe and start it all over in order to add to that part. Whatever I added needed to be affixed to the handle. The durability is already going to be exceptional. My biggest limitation so far aside from raw damage output, has been Ki Capacity. With the combined durability I expected from the end product, these axes could handle a lot more Ki before degrading the durability. I doubted that I could even include enough Ki storage to push the envelope.

With that, I decided. I would include a Ki Storage Socket and another Ki condenser. It would net me at least one point of Ki regeneration every five minutes.

With the Ki pool drained and new handles infused, I removed the old handle from my first axe. The Ki pathways and the bindings lost their inner light as the dismantling broke their functionality. They were now just empty lines in the metal. I affixed the new handles to each axe head. I used the wedge method to ensure a tight fit, then settled in at my Formations workbench. The first thing I had to do was to replicate the work I did on my original handle.

Using the Formation tools, I had to carve the new Ki channels in this new wood was harder than the last time. The higher durability increased the difficulty. Instead of making it in one pass, I had to carefully re-draw the lines several times to make them deep enough and robust enough to handle the Ki flow. I also increased the thickness of the channels. I hoped they would more easily handle the elemental Ki I would unlock shortly.

It took nearly two hours of work redoing the formations, including reinforcing the channels in the axe head, but it paid off. Not only did my skill in Formations Mastery go up by three ranks, but the stats on the axe improved as well.

Name: Dragon’s Fang

Quality: Masterwork

Rarity: Epic

Durability: 234/234

Damage: 29

Weight: 2 lbs.

Traits: +3 Binding slot, Ki infused haft and head +150% durability, +170% Ki flow, +169% Material Ki Capacity, 46% fire resistance

Ki effects: any Ki technique passed through this Blade gains the Fire attribute and +66% effect.

Burning Blade: 1 Ki per 4 points of fire damage (+66% material effect)

Bindings: Sharpness +43% damage, Protection +43% Durability, Projection +43% damage and range, Storage Socket x2 +150 Ki pool, Ki Condenser x2 1 Ki regenerated per 2 minutes in normal Essence density area

Ki Pool: 0/286

I just sat there and stared for a long time. The results went far beyond any expectation I had. The whole axe was masterwork. The improved handle combined with the bonuses from working in this smithy must have been just enough to push it over the edge from Exceptional. The fire damage it dealt doubled what I could do with pure Ki, the Ki pool increased by over one hundred twenty points, and that Ki Regeneration.

One point of Ki every two minutes… that was far and beyond what I was expecting. I went over all the compounding bonuses again until it made sense. It had to have something to do with the one hundred seventy percent to Ki flow. Energy flowed through the axe more smoothly with greater volume. That must be why the Ki regeneration more than quadrupled when I was expecting a simple doubling.

Now there was only one thing to do. I had to do it all again so I can get them soul bound as a matched pair.

I looked at the timer on the last potion I took, only to not see it. The third Body Refinement Potion ran its course already, and I lost time. I didn’t know how much time I lost, but it didn’t really matter. I popped the cork on the last vial and slugged it back. This potion managed to drop me to my hands and knees.

The intense, internal searing made the drake fight from before feel like a mild sunburn. I collapsed to my side and curled into a ball as every nerve in my body screamed out in agony. Each breath I forced in felt like an eternity. In the time that it took the universe to burn itself out, be born again, and burn itself out once more, I managed to bring myself into my meditative breathing pattern. Gradually, as new stars were born and burned out, I slipped into my deepest meditative trance.

Time no longer passed as I floated in a sphere of nothingness surrounded by a rampaging forest fire. The flames tried to reach me, to caress me with their flickering tongues, but they could not breach the void I surrounded myself with.

I sat there, separated from everything around me, as I watched the world burn to ashes.