Robert broke out of his thoughts when Noah called for him.

"Robert, would you help Amanda with the bloodletting and then her recovery?" Noah asked.

"Sure!" Robert replied.

"Here, use these. I trust you know how to draw blood, right?" Noah said.

"Yes, I do. Never did it, but I read a lot about first aid and medical procedures."

Robert could probably pass the theoretical tests for the first few semesters of medical school.

"You're a healer, even if something goes wrong, I trust you'll overcome any problems."

He nodded and took the blood bag, tubes, and needles.

While he couldn't create blood, it was still part of the body and he could use healing hands to stimulate her bone marrow to make more. It would drain her of nutrients but she could replenish those with a reinforced meal.

"Let's do it near that metal table, it will be easier to sterilize," Robert said as he approached Amanda. "You should wait until I'm finished to feed yourself. Stay quiet and eat slowly. If you feel any nausea, please tell me."

"Okay, doc!" Amanda said with a grin. She was so excited with this new item Noah was making her she would probably let Robert chop an arm.

As they walked, Robert pondered. It seemed that what Amanda really loved was novelty. New Prime Vestiges were as novel as something could be, with their unique powers and affinities. He added new magical items to the list. And places, too. She was excited when they entered the Gravity Slime Caverns too but that wore off pretty fast after all the fighting, crowned with the mysterious eidolon and the shockwave it caused. But she seemed to be loving their quiet vacation here in the Puffbloom Islands.

At least the latter wiped away some of the trauma the former caused. If not for Damien and his undead resilience, it would be as idyllic as a visit to an alien realm could be. For her, at least. Robert still needed to use the jade mind to calm himself every time he remembered the gliding incident.

Robert moved some of the chairs out of the way. "Okay. Amanda, you sit at the table. I'll puncture a vein in your left arm and put the bag on this chair here. Keep your arm still. Your blood pressure will do all the work."

"It's not the first time I take a blood test," She rolled her eyes.

Robert leaned closer and met her gaze. "It's important we know both of us are on the same page. Bear with it, please?"

"Sure, doc," She let a short giggle.

Amanda sat on the table with a single jump and half-spin maneuver that was very graceful. Her skirt fluttered up but she was wearing thick opaque pantyhose so no lucky pervert moment for Robert. Not that he was expecting or wanting any.

He cleaned the inside of her left elbow, set the bag on the chair, and taped the tube to her forearm, leaving the needle part with some slack.

"Don't you need to tourniquet my arm?" Amanda asked as he reached for the needle.

"Not really. I just need to hit the correct vein," Robert replied. "Usually, you do the tourniquet to make the vein bulge because they're pretty hard to see but I got the diagnosis spell. I know where your vein is. Now, I need to puncture with a bit more force because of your stoneskin tempering and hundred wet hells."

He punctured with a bit more force. The needle pinched the skin but didn't pierce it. Robert chuckled nervously. He then stabbed the vein, finally punching through Amanda's tempering.

"You'll get ridiculously tough if we finish these tempering techniques. Here it comes."

The blood flowed down the plastic tube and into the bag. Robert watched it for a while, then tied the bag to the backrest and inclined the chair. He rocked the bag until it was full, a couple dozen minutes later. He pulled the needle off and healed the wound. Then he placed his hands on Amanda's thighs and used healing hands, his only stage 1 spell, to stimulate blood production.

"Did you have to grab there?" She teased with a mischievous smirk.

"In children, the femur is the bone with the most bone marrow," Robert replied.

Amanda grunted and kicked, trying to get her legs free. Robert pressed down, keeping her pinned. He didn't want to break contact and waste the essence to restart the process. Not to mention that for someone as small as Amanda, a pint of blood was a substantial loss.

"Young adults too," He added. "Then it shifts to the skull, spine, sternum, and pelvic bones. I believe I'll use your femur if you don't mind."

"Why don't you—" Amanda started but then she thought where these bones were and why Robert would refrain from touching them. With a shudder, she stopped resisting.

They exchanged a glance. Robert nodded. Amanda nodded. He kept channeling his spell into her femur.

"If you have food and drink in your storage ring, consume it. You need to replenish your nutrients."

"Yes, doctor!" She took fruit from her ring and bit on it. "I can't wait to get out of this realm and finish this tempering."

"Me too. Being the bodyguard of someone tougher than me will make my job way easier. I mean, if we are attacked, I can just pick you up and use your body as a human shield."

Amanda groaned as the mental image evoked by Robert's suggestion outraged her. "Why, with my granite bones, you can also use me as a blunt weapon!"

"No offense, but you would be too unwieldy as a weapon." He said, absent-mindedly. Robert's focus was on the healing spell. It took a lot of concentration to convince the body it needed to make more blood. It wasn't a wound per se.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She kicked, trying to hit him. "I'll be fine, just go and take the blood to Noah!"

Robert took a couch out of one of the rings he looted from Damien. "Only if you sit there and keep eating and drinking while I am away."

"I'm not a child!" Amanda protested.

He stopped. "Where did that come from?"

She looked away. "Never mind. Just go. Look, Noah is idling, waiting for the blood!"

Robert took the disposable collection system, put it back in the box, and into his ring. He took the bag carefully and walked away.

*

*

Looking at his back, Amanda berated herself. Why did she react that way? Wasn't she over her teen crush on her bodyguard? Why did she let what could be dismissed as friendly banter and just a wish to look after her well-being escalate like that? Was she stupid?

She had lost a pint of blood so maybe it was the cause. She was feeling a bit dizzy and slow-witted. Yes. That and her stupid hormones. She was a two-star Archhuman, why did she still have to deal with the stupid visit from Aunt Flo? She lost more than a pint of blood, by all accounts.

Amanda slid off the table and had to grab the edge to keep her head from spinning. Damn. Why couldn't she develop the Blood affinity, and quadruple or quintuple the amount of blood available to her? No. And when Robert tried to help her recover some of the blood, she literally kicked him away.

Stupid!

Wait. Robert used diagnosis on her. Did he notice she was having her period? Did he even care? She wouldn't ask but the desire to read his mind burned inside of her. Did he feel her heart run wild when he grabbed her thighs nonchalantly? Like it was nothing? Was she making a mountain out of a molehill?

Amanda clambered and dropped on the couch. Why did Robert have a couch in his ring? Why was he wasting space with useless furniture? But damn. This couch was so comfortable. She had to figure out what it was made of. Did he get this couch for her? No, probably not. He was too dumb to do such a thing. She shook her head. She shouldn't think ill of him. Most of the time, Robert was so helpful! And he just teased her to lighten the mood. Why did she need to be such a bitch? Because of the cramps? The hormones?

A bottle of water appeared in her hand. She opened it and drank slowly. Oh. Robert was coming back.

*

*

Robert put a hand on Amanda's forehead and cast diagnosis. He could read her stress levels and see that, while she seemed to be resting comfortably on the couch, she was still distressed. Otherwise, her blood sugar levels were low.

"Did you eat breakfast?" He asked.

"I'm eating it now," Amanda replied, then added. "Dad."

Robert let that last remark slide. "Noah asked if you want to see him preparing to craft your item."

"I do!" She brightened up. "Did he arrange this with you before?"

"No. I learned what he intended to do at the same time as you did. Here, take my arm. Now that I got your hematopoiesis going, I only need physical contact to continue the process."

She stared at him, eyes flickering. Then she shook her head once and lifted an arm. Robert helped her to her feet and took her to the edge of the hole.

Noah had changed the box to another that looked similar but was taller. The side that opened to drop the ball back on the rail was open. He was stacking slabs of crystal inside. Robert counted five.

"Is everything okay?" The teacher asked.

"Sure. I'm still a bit dizzy, but Robert is using his magic on me," Amanda said with a smile. "Are you going to compress the crystal even more?"

"Not really," Noah replied. "The crystal here will be sacrificed to provide energy to the enchantment. I'm engraving runes on each slab so they trigger when the ball hits the box. They will break down and channel all their Ether at once to jumpstart the process. Then the ones closer will give the material the desired shape. We repeat it above but the order is inverted. With energy flowing from both above and below, we can create a zone of highly-compressed Ether that will stimulate the materials in the middle, and then create the enchantment. Since we are using your blood, it will be bound to you."

"And what other materials are you using aside from my blood?"

"You'll need to wait and see," Noah said with a smirk that should be impossible to see behind his mask. Robert noticed one of his ears raising slightly.

Noah drew a wind rune and cast a spell silently. A slab floated off the rack and stopped in front of him. He moved his finger and runes appeared on the surface.

"I thought you said we shouldn't use magic on the crystal!" Amanda protested.

"You shouldn't, indeed," Noah said without distracting himself from his engraving. "You don't have the correct affinities for the tasks you did. Light and Fire. Using magic on the crystal imbues it with the essence you used."

"But you can since you have all the affinities there are," Amanda provoked just to get a reaction out of the mysterious professor. Noah didn't answer.

"And this is the instructions that will give the item its shape," Noah said as he placed that last slab over the remaining ones. He double-checked his work, then closed the side. "Now, the blood and materials."

He took the bag, cut the top, and poured Amanda's blood over the crystal. Then he took the pieces of octopus antler he harvested before and arranged them over the blood-soaked crystal. He kept going, filling the middle with more and more antler shards. Robert noticed that they were cut into rectangles to better fit the box. How long had Noah worked on these?

"Oh!" Amanda squealed. "Now I see why it's going to be a cursed object!"

"Why?" Robert asked. He had a guess but wanted to hear her opinion.

"Because the lightning octopus must've held some grudges against me. These grudges remained with the antlers."

"It took some goading to keep them from dissipating," Noah remarked. Then he added with more than a dash of sarcasm. "Just a little goading."

"I am sorry, professor," Amanda gushed with praise. "I'm not diminishing how hard it is to do what you're doing."

"No, what I'm doing is easy. Learning how to do this? That's the hard part."

"How to do it correctly," Robert added.

"Yeah. To think that anyone can place enough Ether to blow up this island in a box and then hit it with a three-ton ball going five times the speed of sound. What could possibly go wrong?" Noah chortled, then cackled a little.

Amanda flinched. "It's safe, isn't it?"

"I don't have a death wish. Nor do I enjoy making my pupils suffer. But sometimes a little suffering is good for tempering the body, mind, and spirit. I strive to keep it to the minimum necessary."

Robert tapped her arm. Amanda nodded back at him.

"We trust you, professor!" Amanda said, trying to cheer up the mood.

Noah floated, carved, and placed seven slabs of crystal. Only then did he close the lid. "It's ball-dropping time!" He declared while doing the jazz hands.

"We will wait for it over... there," Amanda pointed at the couch.

"Fine by me. Here goes nothing!" Noah rubbed his hands and pulled the first lever.

The pantographic mechanism extended and pushed the platform over the hole. Once in place, he pulled the second lever. The ball, one much bigger than the number seventeen they used yesterday, dropped. The thirty-second bell rang, and the anvil moved in place.

Then Noah crouched and a bubble of force appeared around him and the control panel.

Ninety seconds after the drop, the ball hit the box. The box and anvil immediately went bright white like the noon sun. Flames and mighty sparks of lightning flared all around, arcing around the metal platform and spreading the smell of burnt ashes and ozone. Anyone staring directly at the box would go blind.

The sound of the dropping ball came after the pyrotechnics, shaking the dust on the workshop and rattling unsecured objects. The burst of wind made Robert and Amanda shield their faces.

Robert felt every hair on his body stand up. Then the glow dimmed a bit. He saw some sort of containment enchantment keeping the rampaging energies from entering the workshop, including the bright light. But the box and anvil were still glowing and radiating heat. Noah was still crouched inside the shield.

Despite all the chaos and fireworks, Robert believed that the process was under control and working as designed. He also noticed that the ball had sunk halfway through the box.

Minutes later, it started to calm down. The flames had receded to just ten inches tall, and the box was ember-red, a few shades dimmer than the anvil. It seemed the anvil leeched the heat from the box at a fast pace.

Noah stood up and spent some time staring at the glowing box without moving. When the box stopped glowing, he released the side and let the ball fall down back on the grove. Closing the side, he moved the platform back to the workshop.

"Did it work?" Amanda shouted, barely repressing her anxiety and excitement.

Noah gave her a thumbs up. "Come here and see it for yourself!" He invited.