Chapter 17: A new Artifact creation method

Fang sat on his new desk in his room. The desk was given to him by his father after he told him the idea that East had come up with. Now with a stack of papers and some ink he began to prepare making spell arrays that could be used on various types of metals. As the base he used level one spells that wouldn’t be harmful even if it went off in his room.

“First let’s try the ember spell, I'll have to add mana to the ink and see if it works.”

Just drawing the spell array would not be enough it would be necessary to inject mana into the ink in just the right amounts and at the same time add another array that would allow the object in question to cast a spell.

For his blood tome this was accomplished by fusing it with a living creature, East. But for this new creation he planned to sacrifice some of the strength and convenience of having a sentient being for ease in making it.

‘You know this would work better if you used something other than regular paper, maybe if you used sheets of metal and mana beast blood for ink.’

This is something that Fang had already thought of previously but the difficulty in producing a complete and permanent array would increase if the mana he injected had to matched up with the mana in the blood of a mana beast.

In theory however the stronger the beast then the better the blood as well as the better the effect the array would have in the end. But that was still something he was not prepared to do and wasting materials for something like a prototype was foolish, according to his mother.

“For now I'll use these and if I were to do something big it wouldn’t be in the house. I'll have to find someplace outside the city.”

Of course if he did something like sticking a level five spell array onto a sword and having it go off inside the house his brother would potentially be hurt and it was not something he wanted.

‘Then one final question why not have your father help you in this, as far as I can tell his smithing kill is top level and the swords he made for practice follow a similar principle to what you're trying to do.’

His father was indeed a great blacksmith and the swords were made with the safety of him and his brother in mind containing many arrays to make it practically impossible for them to hurt each other. But those were fundamentally different from what Fang was trying to accomplish. Those swords required many precious materials that naturally had those qualities meaning that the arrays inscribed onto them weren’t there after someone made them but placed there by nature itself with some pushes from his father. In this way it was impossible to find suitable materials to mad produce actual weapons that could be handed to the general soldier.

“Hmm well that's mostly because father is busy often and finding someone else to help seems easier. Also mother said I could establish a business or something of that nature with this as well, father already has a job.”

With this he began his experiments first was the ink, for it to take in mana was not too difficult because it didn’t contain any previously. The paper on the other hand was a different story what it could hold was very little, ripping apart with even the slightest miscalculation in the amounts.

After a few incidents with the paper Fang was able to calculate just the right amount, and with East as his medium he began to draw various runes making a perfect circle on the sheet of paper.

These runes were not something that existed in this world, they were from Fang’s previous life and taken from what he could remember of normal tomes that required neither one’s blood nor a sacrifice. The only problem with these is that they were disposable and would turn to dust when used.

Fang planned to overcome this by lowering the strength of the spells and having the mana work in a similar war to a ki core that prevents one’s own ki from harming one’s self. Having completed his first prototype Fang drew the ember spell array and poured fire mana into it. Waiting with some anticipation He was disappointed to see that the paper completely lit up and burned away.

‘Ah well that didn’t work but those are strange runes anyway. Looks like you’ll be at this for a while I'm going to sleep.’

East then did exactly that and moved to Fang’s bed where she curled up and fell asleep.

“Hmm then I’ll keep at this for a while. The first attempt was a failure but that could be because I don’t fully understand some of these runes. Well regardless I can keep trying.”

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Elsewhere Far from where Fang was experimenting with Lesser walked at a slow pace all the while whistling. Behind him were seven men all carrying multiple logs on their back, arms, and legs.

Most people who walked by them would turn and laugh at their appearance. Some soldiers would give them a salute in respect to their harsh training methods, while others would simply ignore them. After an hour the thinnest of the seven men couldn’t endure any longer and collapsed from the weight placed on him.

The other six looked in horror towards the man and prayed that he would get up. Hearing one collapse Lesser smiled but didn’t immediately turn around instead he waited to see if the man would be able to preserver through will alone.

This was not the first time one of them had collapsed on their way to the dwarven kingdom, in the past one of the others had fallen and told the old man that he was leaving and tried to run away that night both the old man and their fallen brother disappeared only to return in the morning.

Their brother mumbled unceasingly about a demon and the need for strength. Fearing what the old man would do to them the largest man among them, Fald, and another of the seven, Ren, stood on either side of the thin man and stood him up.

“Come on we’ll make it to the capital complete the job and somehow ditch the old man. We won’t turn war crazed.”

Hearing what was happening behind him Lesser had a beaming smile on his face that the seven could not see.

“They don’t even know it but they are already on the path. Solidarity in conflict and a purpose makes one strong and a group stronger… Plus I've already had my fun with one the rest are soon to follow. Oh the fun I will have. Hope Luna’s in a good mood… Oh the fun.”

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Tal stood before his king in the private chambers they had previously been in.

“So your son finally gave us something. I was beginning to think that he would never share. But that compensation is somewhat difficult considering that the blood elf has a different nature than our own saints. As for the spells he has requested that isn’t too difficult as long as what he gives us is adequate.”

The king did not care to give instruction to the blood elf but knew that most of anything that their saints could teach her would be pointless so he did not mind that request.

However higher level spells were either always kept secret by those higher magicians or extremely expensive. Of course over the years the dwarven kingdom had built up a large amount of level five spells that he could give Fang if what he presented was adequate.

The only problem now was the plans of the high nobles. Now that Fang was co-operating he could not let them go through with such a thing but at this point it would be difficult to stop. Instead he thought of a different plan, looking at his high general the king sighed openly.

“Tal lately there has been a group of people kidnaping halfs of any race so be careful with your children as I heard they were heading here. Because there is no concrete evidence we can not simply go and arrest a large amount of people, the best thing to do is safeguard your children by placing a guard on them.”

Tal was startled by this news but nodded. Of course there was no such group, or at least as far as the king knew. Instead this was a way for his to tell his high general about the imminent attack on his son and not get involved.

“Also do not spread this news instead just increase the surveillance on any areas where half dwarves live.”

In the Capital there weren't many would married or mated with those of other races so the news was something that basically only concerned Tal and a small group of people. Nodding his Head Tal showed his understanding and left.

The king sitting in his chair looked at the back of his trusted general and truly sighed at the blood that would fill the streets. Luckily it was not the blood of his citizens but bandits of human kingdoms, no one would care and no wars would start.

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Fang sat on his desk looking at a small ember burn an inch off of a normal looking sheet of paper. The ember that burned only had a third of the strength that casting the spell should have but that was understandable considering the material used.

It had taken him a week to accomplish just this and get the right array for adding an ember to the paper whenever mana was used.

His greatest discovery however was that it was much easier to fill the paper and ink with ki as it had less destructive forces. The spell would be weakened slightly but it could still be used as ki was in the end still mana. In this way Fang figured that the Dwarves would be able to replicate what he was doing and Make various weapons.

But in order to keep this information to himself Fang burned all the records he had made. He was only able to do this confidently because he had taken the time to memorize everything he thought of as necessary.

With everything gone Fang began to write a just all of what he did but everything was only partial or sometimes even slightly wrong. With all the important information being stored in his head.

This was an idea East had given him to prevent anyone from stealing something important.

‘So you finished. Well now let's go out and find a blacksmith.’ seeing as East was awake he grabbed her and began to walk out of his room.

“First we need a base outside the city, then we find someone to work for us… Let’s ask mother to help build a base.”

Walking down the stairs and looking around the house their was no one to be found.

‘Just build it yourself. We’ll walk into a smithy and look around to see what they use. Build a suitable place with magic and some logs then ask someone to work for us that seems loyal.’

Having no better plan Fang walk out his house and towards the industrial district of the capital were hammers resounded. Along the way Fang noticed that one of his father’s subordinates followed him while attempting to hide his presence. In the years Fang had been training to do exactly that he also grew adept at sensing others doing the same.

Without thinking much about it Fang erased his presence and lost the man following him. The deeper he went into the commercial district of the city the louder the hammer were.

However none of these caught his interest what he wanted was something simple and efficient so he began to head for the border where he smaller smithies were located.

(Author's Note: so ther are some concerns as to things but they are going to be explained later and if you want a little spoiler in order not to get disheartened send me a private message. I'll gladly share some of my plot things with ppl. But only through private messages. Cause I don't want to post spoilers. Anyway thanks for reading. Don't know if giving out spoilers is a good idea or not even through private messages. If you wait by the end of the week some stuff should have begun to play out, maybe, depends on how it develops and such. Anyway thanks for reading and leaving those comments. :)