Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! Some preparations before DA ARMOR!

ANYWAY, TOP FIVE WEEKLY VIEWS BABY! CHURCH OF CYGNAS CAME HERE TO STAY! Do you guys, have any idea on how I started laughing like a mad man when I saw that? Actually, you might, since mad laughter is kind of common when it comes to me… I guess… AND THE CHURCH OF CYGNAS HAD ONE SERIOUS BUMP IN FOLLOWERS, AND WE ARE NOW AT ALMOST 700! CYGNAS BE PRAISED!

ALSO, I almost had a heart attack right before posting this chapter, as there was a blackout literally ten lines away from the end. Luckily, word had auto-saved eleven lines away, so not much of a big loss here.

ALSO(2), it’s time for our favorite couple to appear again! And now with a reference to a certain person…

ALSO(3), I’ve been kind of feeling that I have been reaching some kind of slump recently, so I’ve been considering giving a one or two weeks hiatus after a couple of arcs to “plan”, notice the quotes, some more arcs. But even if I do that, there are still fifteen or so chapters before we get there, so I’m only giving you guys a very early warning.

ALSO(4), I’m kind of considering making a thread only to explain things people find confusing, but with my serious procrastination problems, that might not be a good idea… Hmm…

Have a good read!

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So, there is going to be a patch within two to three days of the games launch? A bit strange if you ask me, but I’m not complaining, patches usually means good things, like additional content, extra functionalities, bug fixes and rebalancing…

WAIT! WILL I BE NERFED? NOOOO! THE NERF-HAMMER IS COMING!

“Hey, Cyg… What exactly will have in the patch?” I asked a bit worried.

“Well, It seems that there will be a new ‘hard-mode’ that the players will be able to activate at the cathedral.” She said as she stared at a window. “For now, all I know is that it will involve more realistic combat mechanics like fatal strikes and debuffs depending on where the hit lands.”

“Wait… All you know? Aren’t you the one making the patch?”

“Well… Actually, it’s my main body that is doing it.” She said as she turned back to me. “This part of me isn’t aware of everything my main body is doing. I only know about the patch because there is a post in the forums about it, made by yours truly!” She said proudly.

It is somewhat strange when she says that she is reading a post she made herself to get information that she doesn’t have.

While thinking about these things, I suddenly remembered about something that left horribly worried, as I turned to her and asked my great fear.

“What about the Window-balls? Are they getting patched out?”

Cyg blinked for a few seconds before starting to laugh loudly.

“No… My main body just said that the window-balls are still in. It seems that nobody tried doing that yet.” She said cheerfully.

I sighed in relief at that. I have no idea on what I would do if I were to lose my trusty window-balls. My main straight-men equipment capable of delivering righteous fury at a safe distance?

After feeling relived of the fact that my trusty sidekick wouldn’t leave me so soon, I turned back to the Eldor and proceeded to advance back there. Cyg quickly changed her fur back to blue, before warning me that she would be in control for the time being.

I immediately made my way towards Sol’s place while Lieutenant decided to go some place else by himself. It seemed that just like I can see the two in the map, they also know where I am, so I left it to him find me whenever he felt like it.

As soon as I reached the plaque announcing her store, I heard something blowing up while some light flashed from beneath the door. I looked at Cyg a bit worried and we both darted in, quickly reaching the inner workshop.

The place was a mess, with half of the room completely blown up and the other completely stuffed with all the debris that was thrown by the explosion. Just as me and Cyg looked at the scene shocked, we saw some slight movement in the rubbles and I quickly rushed there. After some quick excavation, we removed a laughing old hag from there.

“What just happened here?” I asked as I took a potion from my inventory and passed It to her. She readily drank it and turned to me.

“I just got to intermediate and was testing some things.” She said in a happy mood completely disregarding the fact that her lab was completely destroyed for the second time in a few days.

“And what the heck did you do to blow it up so badly?” I asked confused.

She looked back at me happily and quickly darted to a door that led to a large depot with many spare equipment. When I looked at it I could only stare surprised to the sheer amount of surplus equipment she had. It almost looks like she expects her lab to explode every other day.

Ignoring my shocked face, she picked up a distiller, some chemicals, a mana crystal, and took it back to the main room, where she immediate started to dissolve the crystal, and without even removing the chemicals, she threw the dissolved mana crystal into a glass cup and triturated a wind crystal before throwing it in. She passed me the cup with the crystal and motioned me to activate it.

I raised my eyebrows, but picked the cup and activated it anyway.

A strong wind worthy of a tornado suddenly blew all over the room, kicking up all the settled dust around us and throwing the unprepared me a few meters away. I also heard the sounds of a mad laughter coming from nearby, and a soft bark when Cyg appeared besides me.

I picked her up and tried to find my way through the dust towards Sol, following the sound of her laugh.

“I think she might be a bit crazy…” Cyg whispered to me.

“And what exactly makes you think that?” I asked in a fake surprise.

“Not sure… Maybe it’s the laugh?” She said in a fake pensive tone.

After walking around a bit we found her laying in another corner of the room. I helped herself up again and asked.

“Okay, what the heck was that? I’m pretty sure a wind crystal shouldn’t be that powerful.”

“That is exactly what I *cough* discovered.” She after coughing out some dust. “It seems that *cough* the dissolved crystal, instead of *cough* working as a battery, works as an amplifier.”

Then, it basically throws out all the energy of the mana crystal together with the elemental crystal? That is interesting.

WAIT, if I gather a whole bucket worth of these dissolved crystals, throw a bit of elemental crystals inside, then I get a huge elemental explosion? OH MY GOD! I’m so going to have fun with this!

“Before you think of getting a bucket worth of mana crystals, throw a bit of elemental crystals to get a huge elemental explosions, it seems that the effect is limited to one mana crystal worth at a time.”

GOD DAMMIT!

“But is the effect limited to one big explosion at a time, or can you make it a delayed effect?” I asked. She blinked surprised and made a pensive pose.

“Not sure, but it’s worth giving it a look.” She said with a nod. Then suddenly cheered up as something came to her mind. “Oh, yeah. That thing you asked me to do with the claws and fangs…” She said with a smile. “I managed to do something with it. I already passed a prototype to Torg and he is trying to see if he can forge something with it.”

I blinked surprised before looking at her.

“Already? Didn’t you start that a few days ago?” I asked surprised.

“Hey, I did tell you I was the best around.” She said with a proud smile.

I could simply whistle in surprise at her quick work. She really surpassed my expectations, as I was kind of expecting to get here and find out that she was only half-way through the research. And if I add this to the crystal that Torg took home earlier, then now I had two new things to test my crafting skills.

“Then, does that means that the ones made with Blazing tails materials are ready?”

“No… I started working on those recently, and they are much more powerful than the others, so it will take a bit longer for it to get ready, but no longer than lunch tomorrow.” She said in cheerful mood.

I nodded satisfied, and since all the questions I had were answered for now, I decided that I would pay Torg a visit and see if he got anything in his crafting attempts. I tried to convince Cyg to look around for lieutenant since the blacksmithing sector was a bit too hot, but she refused to and said that she wanted to see it for herself.

I sighed loudly and took the elevator together with her, and she clearly started to regret her decision, as she started to pant loudly while sticking her tongue out. As I wondered what I should do, I decided to go and take out the heat resistant ring and put it on her, but since it was too small, I had use her straw-hat string to tie it to her.

Luckily, it seemed that it worked. I was a bit worried that since it was an equipment it might not work, but looks like it was unfounded. Maybe it’s because it’s not a combat status per-se, and thus she could take advantage of that?

What matters is, the heat didn’t affect her anymore, and thanks to my ready to anything skill, neither was I!

Let me be a bit more specific, I do still feel the heat, but it’s nowhere near what it was like back when I first came. Now it is more like one of those sunny days, not enough to make you feel bad, but just right so you can’t get comfortable.

Nothing I haven’t had worse when I close the door of my room when my PC is turned on.

I quickly reached Torg’s place just in time to see him cooling down the forge as he prepared to call it a day. I greeted him heartily, but his answer was a bit melancholic, as he seemed to be very tired from a long day of work. Deciding not to bother him too much, I went straight to the point and asked if he had something on the Crystal and the whole claws and fangs thing.

He said that the new material that Sol made was surprisingly good to craft, being almost as durable as iron, but a bit too hard after it was done. Nothing a bit of good old blacksmithing techniques wouldn’t solve. However, when it came to the combined crystal he was still having some problems, as it was still a bit too brittle to forge with. However, according with his words:

“This one smells like good alloy material, different from the simple crystals you use on the knives.”

I have no idea on how a good alloy material smells, but it’s not me who will doubt the guy who can knew I was smelting crystals through his nose alone.

However, since he spent all his time working today, he was a bit too tired to show me how it works, and asked me to wait until tomorrow morning. I agreed with this and asked if there would be any problem if I were to use his forge while he sleeps so I would have my blacksmith up to intermediate tomorrow. He gave me a go and then left.

I would have started crafting there and then, but a serious lack of ores made me have to leave the town for some quick mining. And by quick mining, I mean staying out until it was around midnight. But since simply telling you about it would be a bit boring, let’s talk about some tests I made with the new skills on the bunnies. Poor bunnies, they are always the ones where I test the new skills…

Anyway, of the things that I discovered, is that depending on how I set it, I can use the cycle weapons to change only one side of the set of weapons. For example, if I set a sword and shield as the main weapon, I can use the skill to chance the shield alone for another sword, or simply change the sword for another one. But this depends on which slot I put the second sword.

Basically, if a weapon set leaves a slot open, the cycle ignores that slot and change only the one with the equipment.

Also, the tactical charge? It’s an excellent skill. Basically I can set the charge anywhere I want and use a skill to get there. Even if I won’t use it to hit a target I have to use a skill, so I have to spend energy even if I won’t attack, which is a bad thing.

Afterwards me and Cyg went back to the city since the other skills were pretty much straight up passives, there wasn’t much of what I could to test them, so I left them out. On the way back to the forge, I noticed that Lieutenant was somewhere close to me and decided to pay him a visit.

When I found him, he was sitting in the corner of an alley with a small army of cats who were meowing things, one at a time. He sometimes would nod, sometimes would shake his head and sometimes would pick the body of a mouse besides him and would throw it to a cat, as if giving him a reward.

Is it just me, or my pet tamed more pets than me? Let’s not delve too deep into it. Might be bad for my mental health.

Anyway, there was another thing that was really caught my attention; a couple was standing there while staring at the whole scene with curiosity. I smiled at that and quickly approached them. Cyg looked a bit curious at me, as she had not met the two before, but I knew them too well.

I immediately approached them, putting myself between the two while throwing my arms around their shoulders and pulling them closer.

“If it isn’t my favorite lovebirds! Out to enjoy a lovely date late at night, are we?”

Immediately after I said that the sounds of steam pipes blowing came from my right while I felt as the person on my left started to heat up around the antenna/ears.

I laughed loudly while letting go of their shoulders before they tried to turn on me. When I saw that both Rusty and Nova were pretty much dying in embarrassment, I felt that I had done a wonderful job.

“So, what brings the two of you here? I don’t think you only came here to watch Lieutenant over there.” I asked them. Rusty calmed himself first with what sounded a relief steam blow.

“We were at. Dinner. Afterwards went. Roaming circus.” He said in his usual unique way.

“I see, and now you two were taking your time while walking around, is that right?” I asked the two and they nodded. Then I looked down at their hands and frowned slightly. “Okay, I feel that it’s time to Wargon, the match-maker to improve your relation a bit.” As I said that I grabbed their hands and forced them to hold each other’s. They blinked surprised before getting slightly embarrassed. “From now on I forbid the two of you from walking around together without holding hands.”

I mean, seriously, the two were pretty much the image of two extra pure persons dating, and they don’t even hold hands? That’s a crime I’m not willing to overlook.

“This is… A bit embarrassing…” Nova said shyly. I frowned slightly before pulling her closer for a moment and whispering in her ears.

“Look. Rusty is an awesome guy and I saw many other girls eyeing him.” Some white lies don’t hurt, do they? Well, it did it’s work because she widened her eyes and I could clearly see jealously starting to burn there. “You see, whenever you walk holding his hands you are saying to these girls: Bugger off, he’s mine and I’m not sharing. Understood?” She nodded furiously and I patted her back so she could go back to her clockworks boyfriend.

She grabbed his hands strongly and looked him seriously in the eyes while saying in a resolute tone.

“From now on, we only walk together with hands together, get it?”

Ooh, we have a surprisingly jealous girl here! She might not be as pure as I thought. I might have a good time corrupting her…

Calm down, evil thoughts are starting to appear.

Rusty was a bit shocked at her sudden change in attitude and looked at me with one of his mechanicals eyebrows raised. I simply shrugged as if saying that I had no idea on what was happening.

At first, nova held his hand with a ferocious conviction, but after a few seconds it started to sink in what she was doing and she started to blush heavily once again, although she still refused to let go of his hands.

After laughing a bit more at the scene, Lieutenant noticed me and dismissed his troop with a meow. The cats all made a salute for a moment before disappearing. He approached me and made a salute which I answered.

“You know. Cat boss?” Rusty asked.

“Yup, this one is Lieutenant Colonel Whiskers McBallofur Maximilliamus the third, and he’s a support and supply officer.” As I said that he made a salute to the couple, to which he received some curious stares. “And this one is Aura, and she’s a cook.” I said pointing to Cygnas who got to my side. She made a short bark, but I noticed it was slightly different from Aura’s.

“These clothing are really cute. Were you the one who made them?” Nova asked me.

“Yep. It started kind of as a joke, but now they are always wearing it.” I said. And talking about crafting… “Hey, Nova, have you ever heard of Crystal tinkering? Rusty there said that you might know something.”

She blinked at my words and looked surprised for a moment, before resting her chin in her hands thinking.

“If I’m not mistaken…” She said while thinking. “There were a few stories about that back at Ezoria Argus, but it’s been too long since I heard them…” She said after a moment, then looked at me with an apologetic face. “Sorry that is all I know.”

“No need to worry. That is more than what I have right now.”

“I see… But why do you want to know that?” She asked me curious.

I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to explain her about the skill, and so I did. She seemed intrigued when I told about the things that I have managed to do. This also seemed to surprise Rusty, as he started to make a few questions here and there too, and even gave me a few interesting ideas to try out later.

“I know!” Nova suddenly said when I finished telling what I knew. She quickly took a small piece of paper from a handbag and started using some kind magic to write on it. “Here, should you ever get to Ezoria, look for a construct called Issak. He is a relative of mine and should be able to help you with this. You should be able to find him in the rune-warriors academy.”

For some reason, hearing the name of this guy made me smile, as if he somehow did something interesting that would really entertain me. I have the feeling that we would get along really well whenever we meet.

And why do I have this urge to make a maniacal laughter?

Shaking away this feeling, I left the two lovebirds to their own so that they could go on with their late night date, this time holding their hands, as Nova refused to let go of the poor, poor Rusty.

Now I turned to lieutenant and told him that I would go back to the hot sector, so he could keep up with whatever it was that he was doing and I would send Cygnas to pick him up whenever I’m done.

Leaving him to his own device and deciding to find him a heat resistance ring for him to put on, I went back to Torg’s place, where I started making a few knives and simple short swords only to level up my smithing.

It only took a few crafted items to get to intermediate.

Your Blacksmithing skill has achieved Intermediate rank. Skill: Blacksmithing [intermediate] [lvl 1]

[2%] Your experience with this craft now allows you to also works with more complex metals and alloys.

You now can temperate your materials Increasing their flexibility. Passive

I looked at the window and nodded satisfied. Good, not, it’s time to start working for real and make me some iron scales…

Actually, what about stepping up my game? Why be happy with crappy old iron when I can use steel? Yeah, that’s right! Iron is so low level, steel is the real talk now! Okay, I’ve decided, let’s start making some good, old steel ingots!

…

..

.

How do I make steel now? As I cracked my head, Cygnas got closer and looked at me curious, probably thinking on what I was doing, when I told her, she seemed put on a pensive face and said.

“Steel is iron with some carbon, right? Then maybe add a bit of coal or something else that have a high concentration of carbon?” She gave me the idea. I nodded in accordance, but what exactly could I use to make the steel? As I thought about it, the ground started to shake slightly. When I looked, I saw Torg coming back while smiling widely. “Up already?” I asked him raising an eyebrow.

“I was a bit excited on working with that thing you asked me and I want to present it on the black fair!” He said in a surprisingly cheerful tone. “I can’t spend all my time simply sleeping, can I?”

I laughed with him and took advantage of the fact that he was already up and decided to ask him to help me with the whole steel thing. He taught me that to make steel I could use a magic-made chunk of true-coal, which seems to be their names to a chunk of carbon purer than simple coal. However, if I was in a hurry, using triturated bones could also work, but would result in a impure steel. And before I asked he said that using bones of monsters wouldn’t work. Except for dragon bones, which seems to be a special case.

Don’t ask me, I blame magic.

Torg gave me a few of the true-coals to smelt it. He told me that I had to be careful to not put too much into it, or it could end up badly. It actually was a really small amount that I had to put at a time, so I had a bit of a hard time, since I’m not used to dealing with small amounts at a time.

As I dropped the molten metal into the ingot molds, I started to make some plans on what I would do for my equipment. Firstly, I would make some scales and chain-mails for armor and then use that technique that me and Torg found out to improve it to the way I want it, which would mean that I would need to take a trip to Melinda’s. After that, I would make me some new weapons to take on the dungeon. For now, a new bow and a new sword and shield would do, and this time, I will change a bit on the bow. Lastly, I would have to find something to do with Aura’s hide, since it wasn’t enough to make me a full set, but letting it go was simply unacceptable.

As I got myself motivated, I started taking the ingots out of their molds. I have a long morning of crafting ahead of me.