After shaking Tanya’s hand, Ford stood and said, “All right. Time for bed. We got to turn around and take you home tomorrow.”

“No,” Tanya said defiantly.

“Yes,” Ford countered, crossing her arms.

“No,” Tanya said again, louder this time. Then she turned around and ran back to the camp. Ford ran after her and saw her run up to where Ee sat, still eating dinner, and saying, “Auntie Ee! Auntie Ee! Ford won’t let me come with you guys on your adventure!”

Ee’s eyes widened, and she looked up at Ford. “Is that so?” Ee asked in a kind, motherly voice Ford didn’t know she had. Then Ee used comms, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ABOUT!?!”

Ford smiled nervously and said, “I can’t let you come on the adventure because it’s dangerous.”

“You said you would protect me!” Tanya said, “and a promise is a promise!”

“I promised not to put you in my void space.”

“Actually,” Gimble interjected, “you said you would keep her safe as long as you lived.”

“Gimble! You’re not helping!” Ford yelled over comms. Making the giant shrink back.

“Yeah, you promised!” Tanya said, agreeing with Gimble.

Ford looked down at Tanya and then up at a furious and powerful guide. Ford had to think quickly to convince Tanya to go home, “Well, what about your father? He’ll surely miss you and worry if you’re gone for too long.”

“Papa’s dead,” Tanya said casually, “I’m going on the adventure.”

“What about your friends at home? Or the orphanage you live? Surely there’s someone worried about you.”

“Friends all got kidnapped, enslaved, killed, starved, or disappeared,” Tanya said, counting off fingers. “Everyone who still knows me doesn’t like me. So, I’m going on this adventure!”

Ford blinked a few times in shock, not letting her nervous smile slip. “Surely there’s someone –”

“Nope,” Tanya interrupted.

“Uhhh,” Ford said, at a loss for words. Then she looked at the furious Ee and glanced at everyone else.

“We could still kill her. Especially now that we know no one will miss her,” Wrath suggested.

‘We are not going to kill a child!’ Ford thought. Then she saw Gimble giving big puppy dog eyes and Ace doing the same next to him. Even Farah looked a little hopeful. Ford sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Ee said over comms.

“Ee, can she come?” Ford said.

Tanya jumped with joy and looked expectantly at Ee. “Please,” Tanya asked, giving the best puppy dog eyes that no one could refuse.

Ee shifted uncomfortably on her log and rolled her eyes, “Fine. But take a bath.”

Tanya jumped excitedly and asked, “What’s a bath?”

“Farah, you’re up,” Ford said, turning to her.

“Why do—” Farah started to protest, then remembered, “oh yeah. I have the bath.”

Farah led Tanya into the forest for privacy, and Sunny flew after her. Ford then turned to Ee and asked, “Can I use the forge? I need to distract myself.”

Ee raised an eyebrow, then nodded, pointing at a patch of trees. Ford walked over to the trees and stepped into the portal behind them.

***

Ford sat down at the forge’s workbench and pulled out some blueprint paper and a pen from a cup on the table. Then she thought about how she wanted to build the nunchakus and what materials she had in the forge. She had enough excess iron for another leg for Ace, which was a lot, but no wood to use for the nunchakus.

“We could use our swords?” Greed suggested. Being helpful for once. “But first, we should allocate our skill and ability points.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a lot of points to use,” Wrath agreed.

“Fine, I’ll do that, then start working on the nunchakus.”

Ford focused on the cog wheel in the top left corner of her vision, opening up her stats screen. She had 20 skill points to spend. She then put 5 points into STR and END and the last 10 points into WIS.

Name: Ford Sinn; Gender: Female; Race: Human; Grimoire: Antarctictite; Class: Ruler/Sin/Angelic; Level: 23.

Abilities: STR: 55 + 10 (65); PER: 40 + 20 (60); END: 65; INT: 51 + 20 (71); AGI: 42 + 20 (62); CHR: 32 + 15 (47); LCK: 25 + 10 (35); WIS: 50 + 20 (70); SOL: 46.

Open skills? Yes/No?

HP: 715/715

STM: 6,630/6,630

MN: 337,402/337,402

MNP: 10,000,000/10,000,000

EXP: 0/8,143

STM Recharge: 602/sec

MN Recharge: 672/sec

Grimoire Level Progression: 10%.

36 skill points available.

After allocating the ability points, she opened the skill menu.

Select Class

Labor selected

Select Sub-Class

Blacksmith selected

Select Route

Armor

Weapon

Enchanter

Soul Forger

‘Which should I choose?’ Ford asked.

“Soul Forger,” Greed suggested.

“Also enchanter. Enchanting our weapons would come in handy,” Wrath also suggested.

Ford nodded, ‘We’ll look at both of them.’

Soul Forger selected

Skills: Soul Fire, Borrowed Soul, Soul Hammer, Soul Forger

Ford ignored the new skills and re-read the four original skills.

Skill: Soul Fire: Create a forge using fire made from your Soul. Requirements: SOL: 50. Cost: 1 SOL point/day. Level: 0/1.

Skill: Borrowed Soul. Borrow someone else’s Soul to run your forge. Requirement: SOL: 50, Skill: Soul Fire. Level: 0/1.

Skill: Soul Hammer. Make a hammer out of your Soul. Requirements: SOL: 10, Skill: Soul Fire. Cost: 10 SOL points. Level: 0/1. SOL points will be refunded after use.

Skill: Soul Forger. Craft weapons, armor, or equipment using Soul Fire. Requirements: SOL: 50, Skills: Soul Hammer, Soul Fire. Cost: enchanted weapon, armor, or equipment, 10 SOL points. Level: 0/100.

Then she read the new skills available for her Soul Forger route.

Skill: Soul Creation. Create materials out of your Soul. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 5, Skill: Soul Fire. Cost: 1 SOL point/creation. Level: 0/5.

Skill: Soul Enchantments. Create enchantments using your Soul. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 35, Skill: Soul Fire. Creation time: 1hr. Cost: 300 MN/sec, 300 STM/sec, 5 SOL/enchantment. Level: 0/5.

Skill: Soul Enchanting. Enchant Soul created materials using your Soul Enchantments. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 35, Skill: Soul Fire, Soul Creation, Soul Enchantments. Enchantment time: 1hr. Cost: 250 MN/sec, 250 STM/sec, 1 SOL/enchantment. Level: 0/5.

Ford put one point into Soul Hammer and Soul fire. Then she put five points into Soul Creation, Soul Enchantments, and Soul Enchanting. Then read the changes to the skills.

Skill: Soul Fire: Create a forge using fire made from your Soul. Requirements: SOL: 50. Cost: 1 SOL point/day. Level: 1/1.

Skill: Soul Hammer. Make a hammer out of your Soul. Requirements: SOL: 10, Skill: Soul Fire. Cost: 10 SOL points. Level: 1/1. SOL points will be refunded after use.

Skill: Soul Creation. Create materials out of your Soul. The materials created need not be natural but must follow all physical laws. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 25, Skill: Soul Fire. Cost: 5 SOL point/creation. Level: 5/5.

Skill: Soul Enchantments. Create enchantments using your Soul. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 40, Skill: Soul Fire. Creation time: 20 Min. Cost: 550 MN/sec, 550 STM/sec, 10 SOL/enchantment. Level: 5/5.

Skill: Soul Enchanting. Enchant Soul created materials using your Soul Enchantments. Requirements: INT: 50, WIS: 50, SOL: 40, Skill: Soul Fire, Soul Creation, Soul Enchantments. Enchantment time: 20 Min. Cost: 450 MN/sec, 450 STM/sec, 5 SOL/enchantment. Level: 5/5.

Then left the screen since she couldn’t do anything else with the rest of the skills.

Enchanter selected

Skills: Destroy, Transfer, Enchant, Quick Enchantment

New skills available

Skill: Creation. Create a low-level enchantment. Using the created enchantment will make the enchanted item a common enchanted item. Requirement: INT: 50, WIS: 20. Cost: 2,000 MN/enchantment. Level: 0/5.

Skill: Multi-Enchantment Items. Passive ability: Enchant items with more than one enchantment. Enchantment total: 2. Requirments: INT: 40, WIS: 40. Level: 0/5.

Ford placed one point into Quick Enchantment and five points into Creation, and Multi-Enchantment Items, then read the changes.

Skill: Quick Enchantment. Passive ability: Enchantment items instantly. Requirements: INT: 40, WIS: 40. Level: 1/1.

Skill: Creation. Create a legendary-level enchantment. Using the created enchantment will make the enchanted item a legendary enchanted item. Requirement: INT: 50, WIS: 20. Cost: 100,000 MN/enchantment. Level: 5/5.

Skill: Multi-Enchantment Items. Passive ability: Enchant items with more than one enchantment. Enchantment total: 10. Requirments: INT: 40, WIS: 40. Level: 5/5.

Then since Ford had nine skill points left, she decided to keep them for later and get to work. Then she started with the easy part of her weapon build. She began taking the iron and carbon over to the forge and melting it.

After a couple of hours of melting, she pulled out the glowing hot metal, placed it on the anvil, and created a Soul hammer. Or tried to. Whenever she tried activating the spell, it refused to work. So, she summoned her grimoire and flipped to the page with the Soul Hammer skill.

Skill: Soul hammer. You must use your essence to create the hammer to use the Soul Hammer skill. The essences used to create the hammer will affect the material you use the Soul Hammer on.

Ford nodded to herself and closed the book. She focused on the Soul Hammer skill and what she wanted her weapon to do. Then she used her Blood and Life essences to create her hammer. The hammer was shaped like a regular mallet, but it shimmered and glowed with the red and green flames it was made.

Ford looked down at the clump of molten metal before her and began pounding on it with all her might. The relentless clang of hammer on metal drew her into a trance as she continuously hammered the materials into a large lump of hard steel the size of her forearm. She canceled her Soul Hammer skill and began shaping and re-heating the lump of metal with magic. She created one hundred and forty-eight chain links and two eye hooks. Each link was the size of her thumb and a centimeter and a half thick.

She summoned the great sword she had taken from the adventurers a week ago and threw it into the forge to melt. Then she summoned two of her Obsidian Blades and examined the hilts. They were made of wood and didn’t look as though the base of the blade went to the bottom of the hilt. Before she did anything, she thought about how she would fight with the blades once she finished.

‘This will be too clumsy to fight with in an actual battle,’ Ford concluded.

“What? Nonsense,” Greed dis-agreed, “This will be a great tool.”

“She might be right,” Wrath agreed, “We probably shouldn’t use blades as the nunchakus.”

‘Yeah, let’s just fight with our normal swords. It’ll make things easier.’

Greed sighed, “Fine. But I still want my nunchakus.”

‘We’ll make normal ones eventually,’ Ford agreed.

Then she pulled out her grimoire again and flipped to the page with her Creation and Soul Enchantments skills to enchant the chains.

Skill: Creation. Focus on what you want your enchantment to do and what it would take to activate the enchantment. Once you think of the enchantment, create an image in which the enchantment will reside.

Soul Enchantments had the same description, the only difference being it required Soul points to make the enchantment. Ford closed her grimoire and began thinking of what she wanted her enchantment to be.

She then spent 100,000 mana to create an enchantment. Placed the enchantment on the chains, and a notification appeared.

Item: Links Of Fate. Quality: Legendary. Living item. Indestructible. Multiplies. Links beings together when in contact with two or more beings. Operation cost: 100 MN/sec. Multiplication cost: 1,000 MN x2, 5,000 MN x5, 10,000 MN x10. Links in total: 148.

Ford smiled at her work again as she pulled out the melted steel and began forging it into an additional seventeen links for the Links Of Fate. Then she placed all her materials and stored them in her new weapons in crystal weapon storage. Then left the forge feeling exhausted.