The last expedition was a disaster, it only went well because of luck.

That was the main thing that hit me in the village, and also something I have change as quickly as possible. First I need something for detection, protection is already taken care of. The ring, which I dubbed ring of protection, Is fully charged able to stop an attract similar to an arcane bolt, against a grenade, it would struggle. I also need to make more varied gadgets. The grenade is powerful, but without ‚soul shock‘ it would have been wasted and the wolf would be more alert, I would be in even more danger then.

While I await Ildrick, I was brainstorming the different kind of gadgets I could make. Thanks to the mysterious amulet, I was able to stash a lot more on my person, than normally possible. I threw out many ideas, but most of them, I rejected immediately. Most of them failed because of my lack of knowledge. And my inability to forge stuff. I will be able to learn it, but unfortunately, the spell necessary is expensive. ‚mould metal‘ is one of the useless for battle, but very useful for forging category, thus the prize is very expensive. I am still unable to afford it after all this while. Granted, I didn’t do a whole lot of missions and the magic scroll one doesn’t reward a lot of wisdom points.

Putting the rejected ideas into the amulet for later research, I think about the rest. I only have a very limited amount of time, thus I can only focus on some of them. While thinking, someone is knocking on the door.

Opening it, I am greeted with the smiling face of Ildrick. Today he looks even more sinister then last time.

„Good to see you Osric, I have here your two spells or the month. “ he then hands me two booklets and continues with his speech. „The first one is ‚minor heal‘, you should have heard about the skirmisher with League of Shadow, thus this is important. The second is minor teleport. Your quota is 4 and 1 for the first and later respectively.“ He said. I can see that he can barely hold back his laughter.

With a hearty laugh and „have fun“ he leaves.

Closing the door, I have a closer look at the spells. ‚minor heal‘ is a life type spell, only useful for wounds and very weak toxins. I could have used this yesterday. I would say that the formulae is somewhat complicated.

‚weak teleport‘ is a dimension type spell, as a scroll, it teleports the user for 10-20 meters, dependent on the user. As a spell, it is less restricting, but holy fucking mother Mary is the formula complicated. So that was his laughter about, I can understand him. Too, bad I should be able to make it, but it would cost me 3-4 days to memorize. Honestly, I can engrave it in my soul the same time with minor heal.

Thank you Ildrick for your bountiful gift. I will be sure to reward you with something nice.

Alright back to my new inventions. I have picked out 3.

The first is a shock grenade. Simply stuff the bowls full with ‚minor shock‘ scrolls and use the same mechanics than with the other grenade. I shall call this flashbang.

The second is a hidden weapon. It is an underarm armour, which I modify to have slim stitches for darts. Then I imprint them with the soul shredder enchantment and coat it with some poison. For propulsion, I use a mix of a bastardised version of, wind blade‘, a spell which came from the bookshelf in the amulet.

The third is an art gun, it is shaped like a banana. Minor shock is engraved inside, with some clever tinkering on my part, I managed to make it like a laser gun. It can shot 3 times before it needs a recharge. The best thing about it is, that I doesn’t need mana, I just need to point and most people wouldn’t suspect something that looks like a banana as a powerful tool.

Now back to making them.

Number three was the easiest. The only difficulty was the direction, but I figured that out. For the armguard, I bought one from a blacksmith. It was made with the skin of a poison salamander, that means that it is highly resistant to toxins and fire.

Next for the flashbangs, I needed somewhere else than my room to work. The laboratory in the tower were too expensive for this kind of job, thus I went into my first underling Luke’s cellar.

The first thing I did there was to separate the cellar into to places. First is the normal one, and the second and by far larger one, is going to be my laboratory. With the help of Luke and two lingreaders from black mantis, we began the work to conceal and hide the laboratory. The ring reader made the concealment, furniture and the rest, while I engraved sound dampening runes all around the cellar. Next, I made them do a second wooden layer, where I also engraved the same runes. While working, I asked them about the situation with black and white gang.

„How is the situation with the sales of the scrolls?“I asked

„Good, Godfather, somehow both of them figured out, that we are selling the scrolls to both of them, but they can’t stop. As for them ganging upon us? Impossible.“ Guy 1 said

Guy 2 chipped in „Both sides lost quite a lot, We got lucky and managed to convert 2 ringleaders from white and one from dark. Both of them are giving us informations. “

„So when are they going to be ripe for taking?“I said.

„They both wounded each other heavily. That’s the reason we could convert the three. They were so wounded, that no one thought anything about them in bed for a day.“ Guy 1 said

I asked my last question „ When are they going to be ripe for taking over?“

„In a week or two I think, but mantis should know better, “ said guy 2

With that, I left the cellar and let them continue disguising the place.

Black at the tower again, I continued to knock myself out with ‚minor teleportation‘