Chương 150: AF Chapter 149 – Proper Equipment is Key

The elders were humming, deep in their chests, rising and falling. The Mick indicated it was a sign of deep excitement and approval, and the only thing preventing them from stamping their feet was that they wanted to hear what she was going to say. She made a wiping gesture, and I let the Holo fall.

"But let us not get ahead of ourselves. This is all a new path to you, and that means to start with the basics, and the basics here mean the proper Tools.

"I will insult none of you by talking of tempo, heat, quenching, and materials. These are mere details to masters of the craft, and you will master them quickly and surely, I am certain.

"But, to smith rapidly and in control, there are three Tools that are of IMMENSE help." She snapped her fingers, making them blink again as they felt the snap cross their eyeballs, and the Holo switched up.

"A Shaping Hammer. It turns the kinetic force of every blow into the finest of controlled instruments in your grasp, for just an instant softening the metal and making it move and mold in accordance with your will.

"An Anvil of Silent Thunder. Every ounce of kinetic energy concentrates in the work hammered atop it, and it rings out in your bones, allowing you to picture and see each and every detail of what is being worked upon it.

"And a Floating Furnace, which burns with flames hot enough to melt worldbone, or cool enough to barely melt tin, as you wish, yet needs not coal or other fuel, nor takes up a massive furnace that cannot be moved.

"Wielded together, even if you barely know what they do, they increase your smithing speed by a factor of eight.

"If you do know what they can do and are masters of them, that speed doubles again." For a moment, stunned silence. And then the broad, splayed feet started hitting the stone floor, stomping the ground hard as the Master Makers here digested just what that would mean to their smithing efforts!

"Your Highness!" a Miner called out, a short hand pick at his side, his expression urgent.

"Are there such tools for the Secret of Stone?"

"Worldbone has several names among humans as the hardest and among the heaviest of the pure base metals. Earth-Energized Worldbone has a special name. It is called adamant, and when alloyed properly with steel, it is called adamantine." Diamond-metal, it translated as, hushing all the lugians as they digested the implications and wonders of that name.

She reached out again, drew Quaver forth from the lump of chorozite the beautiful Sword had impaled without effort, turned her ninety degrees, and drove her back into the semi-transparent Null Aluminum like it was cheese.

"Things made of adamantine carve up lesser stone and metal like it is meat for the butcher. Picks with Enhancement bonuses, Sundering, and Breaking Runes carve through it like rotten cheese." A Pick glowed in the Holo overhead, displaying three Slots that glowed with unique Runic diagrams, and the blue-black metal of adamantine gleamed there. The sharp-eyed might have seen that, perhaps unsurprisingly, that those Runes had been among those in the complex layering that was the Arsenal of Quaver.

"And such things exist for the other trades, and magic?" asked another Maker, this woman one of those who worked in hides, judging by the exquisitely stitched and cut shreth-hide doublet she was wearing. Kris pointed again, to acknowledge the question.

"Elder, they do. But first, we learn to make the Tools that can make the Tools, and then, then we begin to make the Craft once that is done." The stomping thundered down in approval. It was the way to go about this!

"Sage Ryin has the paths and means by which the Master Rune Formation of Elemental Cleaving should be researched. We all will be informed of the advances in Rune Forming for the lesser, singular Runes, their evolution and advancement." Her Voice had no problem cutting through their approval.

"Now, be silent. I am going to start your first lesson." The stomping stopped so abruptly some of the lugian elders almost fell over.

I was still working the Holo as the Mick /noted, -Ye didn't even get to show them that ye know how t' fly, lass! - -Look at their faces, Lord Mick. If we break it to them that Cast Magic is more than Buffing warriors, tossing Elemental War Magic, Healing people, defending people, and enhancing weapons, I fear some would faint of sheer terror that magic might actually be the true and mighty path of existence, instead of just a convenient supplement to and rival of martial might.

- The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. He looked at me, thought about that. -Aye, - he finally /admitted. -Let 'em glorify in the basics, an' then find out magic can help them fly. Or move twice as fast as be possible. Or build floating invisible Wagons. - Ours was waiting for us outside the city proper, no reason to bring it all the way in here.

What was meant to be sold had been carried in, and what was needed to resupply it would be carried back out and deposited there. Princess Kristie had them hanging on every word and example as she went through the process of making a Shaping Hammer in theory and exquisite detail that the Makers there soaked up like the very thirstiest of sponges.

Even the Mick was drawn in haplessly, following along with everyone else in great interest as she went through the process of forging the Rune Formation for a Shaping Hammer that was unique to each and every lugian who would wield them, instead of being almost perfectly identical… and, in fact, the best Shaping Hammers were those beloved hammers used by their makers and handlers for many years! I… had lists of stuff that had to be done. The amount of Isotopic experimentation that had to be done was staggering.

We had to replicate the resonance effects of the materials of the Staff of Clarity in controlled conditions, then change them to something more modular, controlled, and stratified, instead of unstable and organic as seemed to be here.

Once we had the operational effects down of what was actually happening with this Bludgeon/Force Formation, then we had to start on Isotopic variants of all elements and alloys and crystals, looking for similar resonance effects between them, how to link them up, and deliver the same sort of magnification effect for energies that did NOT act anything like Bludgeon/Force did. It was millions of variants, and then countless patterns to those variations.

The various Elemental Resistance Cleaving Formations that the legacy items might retain would give us some guidelines, but for others, it was going to be brute force cranking through what worked and what did not, and some of it was bound to get explosive and messy. Explosive failures were great failures, a sign that you were generally close to something. I studied the Assault Orb that Sage Roekruen had brought back. It had tons of microfractures through the blood-red crystal and the iron prongs which enveloped it.

The Orb itself was artificial, and had definitely been made using the blood of Hea Tumeroks, the Slayer effect seemed based on it. The Slash Cleaving, however, was based in the iron prongs grasping the crystal, not the Orb itself. Neither effect had been activated, the Rune structures not formally linked to the rest of the magic in the Orb, along with greater Rune structures not connected in the Orb itself, powering up the basic effects there to higher Scarab tiers.

A Weapon Upgrade Kit, purchased from the place called the Colosseum, and some other specialty vendors, had improved the Orb. Nobody knew if the people or creatures who had sold them still existed.

"Off on your matter of honor now, Lord Mick?" King Kresovus asked in a low voice. The meeting had dispersed with startling speed. Rather than stand around and attempt to bother us with minor details, the lugians present had seized upon what was presented to them and were hurrying off to make them a reality. Shaping Hammers, Crafting Tools, the Anvils, the Forges.

I'd made up crystalline representations of each of the things, non-empowered, but easily examined by those who used Artificing Magic as examples of what to follow. The master copies were in Kresovus' possession and available for any lugian who needed to examine them, if they didn't have their own copies. Those who did have copies were also going to be sharing them with others, and collaborating with them to get their Tools made all the quicker.

The quicker the Tools were made, the quicker the Crafting could begin, and the failures to accumulate! The scribes were already preparing in great joy the tomes that would record each and every failure, the nomenclature to be used, the who and why and date and results. Failures would begin, crossing out the wrong paths, the incorrect paths, and narrowing the road that needed to be traveled, the True Road of Lore, ever down.

We were bumbling in the dark, but even the blind could find the way, as long as they marked the proper road, and where not to go!

"Nae, Your Majesty. We be going to the Aun first. They be sure to be as enthusiastic as ye an' yer own, for all they work in wood and bone and hide, and need know what is going on," the Mick answered. Two darkly helmed, generically armored lugians nearly as tall as the King waited nearby, silent and still and easy to miss, bland expressions on their face that did not indicate any of the violence they were no doubt very ready to unleash. A casual Assay put their Levels at 200.

Not peers of the Mick, but no slouches at what they did, and certainly better than all but the very best of the Gotrok.

"Address this matter, then return. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, and all will be provided for," the lugian king said deeply.

"Hah!" Lord Mick answered to that.

"I be not needed a'tall, Your Majesty. Only the two lasses here. I'll be asking how they want me an' me Scouts around underfoot, an' we can go from there." The old lugian warrior laughed, and saw us off from the city of stone carved into and up from the mountain.

"We don't want or need to know your real names," Kris told the two lugian brutes, who looked down at her with grave interest.

"And we can tell nobody what we do not know. You are going to be addressed as Gross, and you as Kopf," she pointed to each of them in turn.

"If all goes well, you will not need to do anything but watch and report on your return, and this matter will be done.

"If all goes poorly, no dishonor will fall on your names or that of your kin. Nod if you understand this." Both lugians nodded firmly, thin and grim smiles escaping them at her polite consideration for their personal and family honor.

"Good. All aboard the Disks!" I flipped up a set of them, and the Scouts who had stowed their supplies all hopped aboard. A bit warily but interested, as the buzz of the new magic had pervaded Ithaenc Tukal, the two lugians clambered atop them, and found the slender things of silvery force holding their weight without any trouble. They found the Wagon floating there without supports quite wondrous, but said not a word about it, content to watch and to obey.

"Lord Mick, where are we heading?" she asked him.

"The Aun hold the end of the island, below the waterfalls that spring up on Mount Ithaenc out o' nowhere. Be a bit of a hike, an' we be bound to have some distractions along the way." Hoots and calls from the Scouts atop the Wagon or around it on Disks cheerfully conveyed that they wouldn't mind some more distracting Karma at all. They had Naming Karma to make, and Levels to take, Masteries, Feats…!