Author’s corner: HELLO HELLO! THAT’S IT GUYS, THE END OF THE ARC!

ANYWAY, I’m pretty sure that I covered everything I wanted to cover during these last chapters. So I think this is it. Gon’s got his three pets done, is going to spend his time training and crafting… There will be a small time-skip for the next main chapter since it will be mostly training and so on. Nothing interesting, probably.

ALSO, there will be one last chapter (59.5) that will be the closing act and the beginning of the break. But there is still something before that. I plan on at least finishing the Crossover and post the data-base for characters/skills.

ALSO(2), that will probably not happen tomorrow, neither after tomorrow because classes. But stay tuned.

ALSO(3), So… for those who read one of my posts in my last chapter… Well… Thanks to Sony’s E3 show, I got a weird idea to put on my RE: story. It’s crazy, bold and unique. Will it work? I have no idea. Will it be good? No idea either. Will I do it? Yep. No doubt. A RE: (ish) story. Sci-fi (ish) style.

Have a good read.

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Leaving the chance to test our new skills for later, Aura and me quickly had to find a way for Cygnas to get back with us. We had the need for a cook during our travels, since I am completely unable to cook. Even in real life, my cooking skill is something on the negative levels.

Heck, even instant food, only needing to add the spice after it is done, tastes bland when I make it myself!

Based on this alone, I would say that there are also skill levels in real life, since some people simply make food taste better because it’s them who made it, but maybe that is just me.

Anyway, since it was still deep into the night, with none of us being able to cook, we had to resort to simply using the rabbit’s meat and sticking it into a bonfire to let it cook. After some time that we thought that would be enough, we took out the meat and ate it. As we savored our food, we started to let out small tears.

It tasted so bland! So boring!

We might be getting a bit too used to good food here.

Thinking about hunger and good food, there have been some time since I last ate in real life too. The last time was during our last run in the dungeon, so it should be a few hours by now. Maybe after getting this done I will do something about it. For now, let’s get a cook.

Luckily, I already had almost everything I needed to make a new pet for myself. And yep, I did say it right. To MAKE a new pet for myself.

What, you thought I would take some random wild animal, then take it, brainwash the little bugger and have him follow me? Nah, I’m not that crazy… I think. Actually, the very thought that pets have to be animals is overrated! I could have a pet rock for all that I cared, and it would still be my pet! I’M A GOLEM FOR THE LOVE OF CYGNAS, I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO HAVE A PET ROCK!

Does that mean that clockworks can have pet gears? And treants pet flowers?

That… Would actually be very cute.

Focus, gon, Focus.

Anyway, I quickly went back into the city while I opened the tutorial that Arkhoss gave to me and looked at a very specific part. As me and Aura walked into the city, I noticed that now there were some more people walking around, since the day was dawning, and as we walked down the streets, many gazes stopped on Aura, who still had her ice armor equipped, even after so long.

It seems that the skill lasts as long as she wants, huh? That is nifty, to tell the truth, since she could always be ready with the skill.

And it seemed that Aura also liked the attention she was receiving, since the usual looks of the ones who wanted to cuddle here were gone, and now it was one of surprise and respect.

It is a bit down heartening when your own pet looks cooler than you. But since she was clearly walking besides me, some of the respectful gazes also befell on me, so It’s not that bad, to tell the truth.

As we walked through the streets and elevators, we finally reached the place where I wanted to reach. Argento’s store.

I came in and saw as the, now four, attendees started to organize the store. One of the new ones, a human-looking undine, quickly came towards me and saying in a polite tone.

“Excuse-me, sir, but we aren’t open yet.” She said with a business smile.

“No, I actually came here to talk with the owner.” I said with a wry smile.

“I understand, but the owner…” She was interrupted when another attendee, one that I actually recognized from last time, came and put her hand on her shoulder.

“Lily, that one is who the owner calls Wargon.” She said with a wry smile before turning to me. “Forgive her for that, she is new here, sir.”

“No problem, I did notice it.” I said with another wry smile, but the new girl widened her eyes. Lily? That’s the same name as my sister!

“Wait, then you are the one who crafted this?” The girl said while picking a dagger from her waist. I recognized it as one of the fire-tail daggers I made.

“Yes?” I said with a raised eyebrow, and I saw as her eyes started shining.

“Waah! I never expected to see you in real life!” She said with shining eyes that left me taken back. I looked towards the other girls who simply smiled awkwardly. “I saw some of your equipment selling, and it just was so good for my level!” She said with some admiration in her voice.

“I… See…” I said a bit awkwardly as I looked around for help, but the other attendees simply smiled at me, as if saying that I had to deal with this on my own. Not even Aura offered me help, as she seemed to be having fun. “I’m… Glad you like it…?” I’m not exactly good with people like her.

“This is my best weapon up to now!” She said with a smile. “I really wanted to thank you!”

“Okay... I’m… Going to go see Argento now, then…” I said while squirming my way out of the store and into the office area before I could get even more awkward in that situation.

Once I got into the room, I couldn’t help but notice that the office was even more packed than before, with many papers, files and books spread around the whole room. The desk with the gnome was even grander than before, to the point that Argento was using a small bench atop of the chair to keep it on his eye-level.

As soon as I got in, the Gnome raised his baggy eyes and looked at me, and he looked ridiculously tired. To the point that I wouldn’t be surprised if he told me that he was awaken for two days straight, real life.

“Gon, Please tell me that you have something to sell-me today!” He almost begged me, leaving me shocked.

“Geez, man. What happened?” I asked surprised while making my way to the desk, Aura laying on floor besides me. “You look completely wasted! And there is only a couple of days since I last saw you! ”

“Oh, Gon, my money bag!” Well, at least he doesn’t beat around the bush. “There is a competitor store within Eldor, and they have been giving me a headache!” He said while shaking his head. “My profits fell by two percent ever since they opened! Oh, the pain!”

I had to hold myself really hard to not hit the gnome in front of me. Isn’t two percent perfectly within the expected fluctuation levels? Oh well...

“Sorry, but I haven’t had time to craft anything besides this…” I said pointing to the sword on my back, which made the gnome look at it with hungry eyes. “And it’s not for selling, before you ask.” I said with a smile, which made the gnome slam his head on the table.

“But… But… Just a bit more… And I could… Crush them…” He said something scary in such a depressing voice.

“Well, sorry, but I don’t think I can do much about it…” I said with an awkward smile, before an idea came to me. “Say… Was there an announcement of a new dungeon recently?” I asked with some curiosity and he shook his head.

“No, you have to find the dungeons on your own in here, so there isn’t an announcement.” He said while laying his head on the table.

“Then… What about selling information?” I asked with a raised eyebrow, and the word sell alone made him raise his head excited.

“You have my interest.” He said while supporting his head on his hands.

…

“For the last time, no! I don’t want to become a merchant!” I said while trying to push away the gnome hugging my leg.

“Okay, okay…” He said downheartedly letting go of my leg. I sighed loudly while going back to my seat as the gnome went to the door leading to the store, where he spoke something with the girls working there. Probably the request I made in exchange for the dungeon’s information.

The idea I gave him, was to basically sell information about the dungeon we had found out. Both information about its location, as well as a walkthrough of the hard mode, which probably would give most players some difficulty.

'Some' difficulty, heh.

We both knew that it was only a matter of time before they started to post it on the forums, but he would probably be capable of earning a significant bonus before that started. That, and the fact that I would start crafting after I felt satisfied with my training I would start crafting some more items for him to sell quickly cheered him back up.

Anyway, he quickly came back while looking curiously at me.

“So, where are your two friends?” he asked me. “I wouldn’t mind having some more of their help. I got many customers that day.”

“Well, they do have their real lives to take care of, you know?” I said with a smirk, which he copied.

“Well, while you are here waiting, mind telling me about what happened with your fox? She seemed a bit… smaller before.” He said while looking at her. “And that armor…” He almost started to drool at this, which made me smirk.

“One, she wanted to get some more action, so I gave it to her. Two, that’s a skill, so no gold to find there.” I said, once again crushing his money-making dream.

As I watched him sigh in defeat, I heard the door opening while Lily came in, carrying a leather bag with the things I had requested. Afterwards, she sat down with us as Argento passed her a feather, inkbottle and paper, before asking me to explain about the dungeons and it’s trick.

As I spoke, she started to copy my words on the paper, as well as drawing a rough map from how to reach it, as well as the enemies we found on the dungeon and some other important parts that I thought that I should point out about the bosses, like skills and so on.

And I must say that her drawing were ridiculously good. I must say that the only difference from the real thing was because I was only describing, and she hadn’t seen it by herself. If she had, it would probably be identical.

After some time, she had finished around ten or so pages of drawings and writing. All in less than an hour. Well, not that I am complaining.

I left immediately after, as I felt that the girl would probably bombard me with questions and I’m not exactly the most sociable person around with people I’m not used to be to. After leaving his shop, I went towards another store that had the equipment I needed to create my pet, and one that I had visited only a few hours ago.

“Cygnas dammit, brat! There wasn’t even six hours since you came! How the hell do you want me to find something within only that time?” Sol said when I busted into the laboratory. This time she wasn’t sleeping, but standing near one of the benches while wearing a lab-coat.

“Nah, the reason is different.” I said with a smile as I walked to her bed and took out something from my inventory. “For now, I came to make myself a cook.” I said with a smile, which earned me a raised eyebrow.

“Oh? Interesting…” She said while eyeing the item in my hand. “And why didn’t you show that for me earlier?”

“Because I will have to use this for myself.” I said cheerfully.

While she looked at me confused, I started to work with the pink crystal in my hand.

I remembered back when I first saw this piece and thought how it almost seemed to pulse with life. Well, it didn’t SEEM to be pulsating with life. It WAS pulsating with life.

Life-bound Crystalized mana (Excellent) A peculiar piece of crystal that only grows under extremely precise circumstances. This Crystal pulses with a strong life-fore, yet it still lacks an ego before being truly considered alive.

This is the main piece behind my pet-making project. Different from the other crystal, this one is a very special piece. If you were to think of it, on one hand, it is only a crystal with some life magic stored within it. On the other hand, it is pretty much a lesser elemental in the making.

After asking Cyg earlier about it, she told me, many of the lesser elementals comes to life this way, and she thought that maybe the Chaos-bound crystal might have influenced the formation of this one, thus the fact that they were brought so close together.

But, as the description said, this crystal is still a step away from becoming alive, so I can process it into something to fit my tastes and give it a shape before then. Not that it would happen anytime soon, since the process may take up to tens of years before this state finishes.

So, this is what I was going to do.

I took my skinning knife, aligned it with the length of the crystals before hitting the hilt lightly. A perfectly straight crack appeared on the crystal, dividing it cleanly in two. This is a peculiar trait of this crystal in particular. Heavy and brutish impacts spread through the whole mass, but more precise strikes like the one I did can easily part it in half, that is, if I’m supplying mana to the crystal.

Mana, it makes the world go around.

I repeated the process a few more times with many of the crystals, until I had an assortment of crystals. A few with the size of my finger, others extremely smaller, one much larger, a bit bigger than my fist, and finally, one with half the size of the last one.

All the time, I saw as Aura and Sol looked at me with curiosity the whole process, probably not understanding what I was doing. Not that I blame them, since they don’t know what I’m making, and this isn’t very intuitive. I actually have to keep the tutorial open all the time to make sure I’m doing this right.

Feeling satisfied, I asked for Sol to take us to the infusion altar. She looked at me confused for a moment, before widening her eyes, probably having an idea on what I was going to do.

She quickly took us to the deepest part of her shop, where there was the old bronze altar that I used back at Yuu’s new weapon.

As I opened a new tutorial window, I showed it to Sol, asking her to change and draw some symbols in key points of the altar, since what I’m going to do isn’t exactly an infusion. If something, you could say that what I’m about to do here is more of a programing than infusion.

After the loli-elf finished preparing the altar, I took the crystals I had prepared and arranged them on the top part of the altar, letting the larger crystal in the middle, the other crystal laying on the top of the first one, and the medium ones laying one on each corner of the biggest one. Finally, I sprinkled the smallest crystals around the whole formation.

Basically, it slightly reminded us of a humanoid body.

Nodding satisfied, I started to work on the altar. Firstly, I started by putting some items I needed around it. Since I wanted a pet, it would have to be obedient, obedience equal rules, rules equal manuals. So I put a random manual within one of the slots in the altar. The type didn’t matter, as long as it was a manual, it would represent obedience.

Following this line of thought, I put on a flower to signify life. This one is obligatory, since it can bridge the distance between having life-force and being alive in place of the ego. Having yet two slots to go, I decided to give it magic, so I put a chunk of crystalized mana, and to have it help me with gathering, I put a piece of iron ore on the last one.

Vague, I know, but it IS what I can do with my materials at hand. Let’s hope it works.

Afterwards, I had to mark some of the new markings that Sol wrote for me on the altar as a way to explain what each one would do. This part… Was probably the most complex one. Having done what I thought that was enough, I took a step back and waited, but Sol immediately shook her head.

“Nothing’s happening.” She told me with a shrug.

I groaned and went back to the altar and tried to re-do the markings while reading the tutorial once again. But it still didn’t work.

It took me a total of five tries and having to re-arrange the positions of the items in the slots before Sol finally told us that it was working. I made a mental note of asking her later how she can tell this, but for now I kept watching the altar, as a light flow came from the items and flew towards the crystals, initially slower, but quickly gaining speed.

The light got stronger and stronger as it flowed into the crystals which soon started to glow until the point that we couldn’t see it in the middle of the light.

When the light died down, I could see as the crystals still glinted slightly from within, giving the impression of being even livelier than before.

For a moment, nothing happened and I thought that I had failed in my experiment, but when I went to collect the crystals on the altar, the smaller ones suddenly trembled slightly. We blinked surprised as we watched the crystals for a moment, as they once again started to tremble slightly, moving towards the top crystal.

After some moments of looking it with curiosity, the crystal shards finally gathered around the larger crystals which all started to tremble slightly.

And suddenly, the crystals all started to float, slowly raising themselves from the altar until they were around five centimeters from the altar before starting to rearrange themselves so that the small doll-like crystal was standing upright.

It was a bit creepy seeing that in such a closed room, even more when a pair of small slits appeared in the place of its eyes, then it opened, revealing a pair of black crystals in its place instead of an eye.

But the moment the crystal looked around, then at itself, and made a full spin in the air… Well…

It was cute.

How do I say it, the crystals had taken the shape of a doll around forty centimeters high, the smaller fragments taking the role of a long hair and the finger-sized one taking the roles of the arms and legs. None of the crystals actually touched each other and instead floated with a few millimeters of distance. She did look kind of cute this way.

And with that spin-around it did? I’m sure that Cyg was already possessing it.

As I watched her move around her new body, getting used to it, the window popped up asking whether I wanted to make her a battle-pet or a passive pet. I had the chance to choose since I was the one that made the pet. But different from soul pets, I couldn’t change it afterwards. Since this was the definitive body for

Cygnas, I decided to set it on passive without any doubt.

Besides, even if it were an offensive pet, it would be magic based, which would conflict with Aura.

Wait, now that I think about it, with her new armor, doesn’t this makes her more of a physical pet?

Oh well…

Congratulations. You have gotten yourself a brand new pet, a genderless Lesser crystal elemental, please choose a name for it name it: (_________)

I thought a bit before deciding on a name.

Crys.

I couldn’t go around calling her Cygnas all around, so giving her a nickname would work better for both of us. The NPCs would go crazy if they found out that her goddess was my pet.

NAME:

Crys TITLE:

(none) Owner: Wargon Relationship: Creation/Crafter Species: Lesser crystal elemental Gender: Neutral (female) Element affinity: Crystal (earth/order) Diet: Salts

STATUS: Equipped inventory 0 Satiety: 100/100 Trust: MAX Assigned role: (none) PASSIVE PETS DO NOT POSSESS BATTLE STATS

SKILLS: Gatherer [lvl1]

Racials [MAX]

-Formless (Intermediate level)

-Earthborn

-Levitation

I took a quick look at her status screen afterwards to check her diet and skills, and as she had told me, these crystals were the makings of a lesser elemental. It was even said in her species, but I must say that the diet being Salts is a nice touch. Also, the formless and levitation skills I could guess what they meant. Formless probably means that she doesn’t need to keep a fixed shape with her crystals, while levitation… Was pretty obvious, really. But that Earthborn is a mistery for me... I'll check it later.

As soon as I closed the window, Cyg, or rather, Crys, turned to me with her eyes closing slightly in a mischievous way, before she approached me while floating, putting her two arms before her body and making a small bow.

“Hello master. My name is Crys. Nice to meet you.” She said while putting on a small act. I had to hold myself not to chuckle at this as Sol looked at us in shock. Her voice had a slight reverberation to it, as if it were the crystals in her body speaking instead of herself.

“Hello Crys.” I said holding back my laugh. “My name is Gondorrer. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She tilted her head to the side, as if smiling, before nodding.

“You… YOU JUST CREATED LIFE?” Sol shouted suddenly from besides me while pointing at Cyg… Crys. While pointing at Crys.

“Hello, miss, and no. Master did not give me life. He simply granted me a purpose.” She said while bowing to Sol, who seemed confused.

I laughed for a moment before turning to Sol and explaining her the procedure a bit better, and speak more about the crystals I had used. When I was done she turned to me with shining eyes and asked for some more of the crystals, but…

“Well… Those were the remaining crystals… And the dungeon didn’t re-create them, even after we revisited it.” Probably because it was a quest item, so it only appeared the first time.

With that, we got a melancholic Sol who walked back to her bed and fell down face-first into it.

I laughed a bit at the sad grandma before walking out of the shop. As soon as we were alone, Crys sat on my shoulders and stretched her arms a bit before turning to me.

“That was fast! I thought it would take a little longer before I would come back!” She said cheerfully. “Did you miss me?”

“Yeah… We were in need of a cook badly, since neither of us can cook at all right now.” I said in a deadpan face, making her fall back from my shoulder.

She quickly floated back up and made a tantrum in front of me.

“So you just called me because you were hungry?”

“You had any doubts?” I asked in a fake surprise tone, which made her slump down her shoulders and sigh.

“So… What are we doing now?” She asked me, giving up trying to reason with me. I stopped to think for a moment.

“First, if you are going to keep up with that master thingy, I’m making you a maid clothing.” She blinked surprised at this, before nodding excited. “Second, we are having you pick cooking ASAP.” This time Aura nodded. “And third, we are going back to crafting and training for now. I want to take two-handed mastery to intermediate and Aura to my level before we go to the next hunt, and I have to work on Yagver’s armor.”

I looked to the other two, and they nodded in accordance before we started walking towards Melinda’s.

These were going to be some long days ahead of us.