Amun.
7th of Ianua, 1491.
Eldereach County, Protectorate of Bakewia. Bright Bridge District, Shavew City.
6:12 AM.
[Grandmaster Artificer: Step 12, Master Enchanter - To continue down the path of the Grandmaster Artificer, you must become renowned as a Master Enchanter by creating a name brand of one-of-a-kind enchantments.]
***
Despite us being licensed and free to create whenever and wherever we pleased, Ed and I remained in the sub-guild’s halls for another night, coming to terms with our perks while we finalized and created many of the creations in our heads using the exotic materials of Ilium.
Fabrication was just the most recent of those perks. Behind that and after the Dismantling perk was the ability to Recycle crafted products into neat portions of their constituent materials. Swords became steel ingots. Wooden shields became blocks and planks. All in a matter of seconds or minutes, depending on the density of mana one used. Still, though, there was more to come and much to do. So Ed and I emerged bright and early and took to the skies at once. And though we made plans to head to that quaint city nearby, we had other priorities at the moment. Namely, to procure some land by flaunting around the temples with the flair of a rich artificer.
That made it simple to bait a noble’s servant to greet us. A few hours and several thousand gold coins later, we were afforded a plot in a small neighborhood just outside of the gate at the end of Sunset Bank. A quiet area called Heather Brook.
With a platoon of undead and some dilated time, a workshop was erected before the light of dawn splayed across the land, complete with an enchanted threshold. Likewise, Ed had much the same structure across the road. Only his boasted a spatially enchanted barn door that led to an inter-dimensional workshop on the left and a vast show floor on the right. Both basked in inspiration-giving violet moonlight. Yet, more enchantments were found within, providing electricity, ventilation, water, air, and, most importantly, heat to anything being made inside as well as an array of other amenities to aid in the engineering processes.
The barn door, though, was the true marvel. They could be formed into any opening, granting entry to a world-sized interior space on a flat plane that could easily be temporally dilated and filled with some type of environment via additional enchantments. I left the naming rights up to Ed and he replied with mutterings about their use as workshops. Not just for us but for our subordinates and vassals as well. Stations that would allow them to create anywhere.
Creation Stations, he thus decided to call them, much to my dismay.
Regardless, we went inside our respective units to fabricate copies unceasingly, sending the first several Creation Stations off to Letta and Giorno and the council in Maru before nearly fifty more were sent out to the Legion Commanders. Still, thousands more were sent to Maru after that. They had a mountain of work to do and, according to the reports leaking through their Doppelgangers, the timeline to accomplish them was shrinking fast. However, the powers at my disposal allowed us to move past redesigning the basic issued equipment with Ilium materials far before Letta and Giorno received and made use of their stations. Thus enabling us to build some more than necessary infrastructure and distribute them before we moved forward.
With that done, I dove into carving and sending clusters of crystals around the Peninsula and beyond to be primed with various types of mana before being returned to me in the station. Or, in many cases, to be kept and worked into a few designs on the home front. By then, Giorno and Letta were in such a position to allow Ed and I to spend hours communicating with their Doppelgangers while they made prototypes and alterations to our suggestions in real time until we finally, after many, many years of work, settled on a final design for our formal uniforms.
With the deliberations done, we paired up in our respective teams and broke contact for the time being. However, rather than turning to textiles and metals to make gear and arms, Ed and I turned to piles of wood and stone to make our long-awaited Legionary infrastructure and equipment.
With little help from the undead, our first project was communications equipment. And for that, I had a stellar idea.
With Polaris holding the power of light, I explained to Ed, they used all types of light-based communication and transportation-based enchantments across their lands. That much was verified by the Legionaries born in Polaris. They had everything from Lidar to radios and more at their disposal. It was, above all else, amusing to me; for I intended to use the very same methods of communication and transportation.
Light.
Light, tainted with Death, Darkness, and Void. Then made whole with the essence of the Divine Engineer- or rather, the ArcaTech.
Dark Radiation.
We determined it would have no restrictions in terms of access. At least within the Empire. Anyone member or entity affiliated with Eotrom would be able to use Dark Radiation and its accompanying technology, as that would be what our electronics-based communication would be sensitive to. But also to standard electromagnetic radiation in order to permit communications with whatever networks may exist outside the Empire.
In turn, that would give rise to the monstrous cesspool of anonymous degeneracy that was the internet. Something I debated long and hard about bringing into this universe or not. But, alas, the benefits couldn’t be ignored. As such, I took the time to establish and connect the VoidNet to all existing hardware and software within the Empire.
That said, it was decided that it would be necessary to create a separate and highly secure network for the Legions. To be governed by a digital undead intelligence housed within a void somewhere within the labyrinth of my home world. Infused with all of my domains, the project was to be called NoxNet, VoidNet’s sheltered, smaller but infinitely more capable little brother. It would have the same capabilities as VoidNet plus the mental apps I’ve been using for years with the Eternal Eye; along with several more applications tailor-made for those less proficient with technology. Made accessible only to the soul-bound Legionary recruits and their superiors to assist them in their endeavors.
That required us to create devices that all classes, namely druids, could use. Thus experiments were needed. And in time, they would be done. But first, another task was at hand.
Together, we sorted through and named the nigh-endless materials born from Eotrom and across all four domains, finding with surprise the materials born from the mana domain were severely lacking in terms of variety and usability. Each type of material only had an average of four variants. But oh, were they powerful. Especially the divine wise rocks.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
That aside, we continued designing and testing the field equipment and class-specific uniforms before the materials were distributed and the final seal of approval was given. While the designs varied by class, unit, and occupation, each piece of equipment was fabricated with the same materials and each individual received a variation of the same article of equipment. Some kind of headpiece and eyewear. The obligatory trousers, top wear, and boots, as well as gauntlets or gloves and their enchanted belt with the attached tool buckle. Aside from that, each piece of cloth was comprised of Noxweave. Which itself was composed of a layer of Faerie Fiend Flax sandwiched between sheets of Netweave, stitched together by Attosilk.
Attosilk was carbon nanotube fibers strewn from the biomechanical silkworms and spiders of Ilium, giving the already durable material the properties of a true lightspeed fiber optic fused with high voltage wire. Netweave, on the other hand, was the result of Faerie Flax seeds being eaten and passed through the bionic birds of Ilium, giving rise to a fiber with innate networking capabilities. Or in other words, a smart fabric. Last and most importantly was the Faerie Flax that took energy from the domain and power tied closest to the fiber of my being. Mana, Darkness, Death, and Void. It seemed no different from Faerie Flax at a glance. However, it was a fabric that was tied to the soul once attuned and thus would remain attached to the soul past death.
No matter the class, Noxweave would allow the commanders to monitor every aspect of their subordinates in real time akin to a blue force tracker that worked across the borders of time and space. As far as the rest of the equipment, however, only the rucks, helmets, and eyewear held any material from Ilium. The rucks were, of course, spatially distorted, yet contained many pockets still to divide rations and equipment accordingly.
The shoulder straps featured nipple-like protrusions at mouth level that were connected to two such pockets within the ruck. One for water and the other for their drink of choice, of course. Unless one was a dwarf, Els made certain of assuring me. In which case it would be ale and liquor to increase the stores of their camel humps. Something that required us to make a variant that went without the inborn water distiller.
The two radial pockets contained storage spaces for fast-action items such as weapons and potions sat on one side while the slow-action items such as tools and equipment composed the other. Two progressively smaller pockets on the front, stacked one atop the other, were intended for provisions and emergency supplies. Thus the more extensive main pocket was reserved for anything from raw materials to loot gathered during travels.
The camping set was enchanted just the same. Externally, it detached from the base of the ruck and unfurled into a one-person tent. But of course, it was spatially enchanted to step down into something comparable to a studio apartment with minimal furniture. Only a table made of Demowood- a nanite-infused table capable of intaking resources to build hardware within itself to accommodate a number of needs, be they residential or industrial.
The boots, whatever design they happened to be, were enchanted with darkness to allow for silent movements at will, along with gravity enchantments for wall walking. So too were the gloves enchanted with gravity as well as electromagnetism to allow for spider-like climbing and grip strength. Then they were reinforced along the knuckles and backhand for extra protection before we completed the bill with clawed or webbed variants.
Few enchantments were found in the trousers. Besides the pockets and some camouflage, there wasn’t much of anything needed. The belt and in particular, the buckles, however, contained many exotic augmented metals.
The buckle’s core was primarily composed of Volterum; or Voltaged Electrum. Its property was to absorb many types of energy and store it within the metal itself as electrical potential energy. Taking that into consideration, it was used to power the devices implanted within the uniforms as well as any equipment a legionary had on their person. Shielding the buckle was a shell of Dimensionite- adamantine given 4-D properties through augmentation. With this ability to change at will, the buckle's slingshot winch could be configured in an almost infinite number of ways. Spider arms could be used to lower the line gently just as easily as a winch could be used to lift something easily. Not to mention the many ways it could be shaped to plug into external devices. If that wasn’t enough, the buckle was imbued with a pair of gravity enchantments to allow for weightlessness and in turn, redirect the pull of gravity for 'flight.' As for the small but powerful grappling hook, it was made of Vicesteel with Arcsteel tips; a hyper-magnet, and a variable welding electrode respectively. All connected to a shadow-infused line of Attosilk.
Like the trousers, the tunics weren’t enchanted much. Only enchantments for camouflage and protection from the elements. They did, however, hold traces of Holosilver to display digital holographic nametapes, unit patches, medals, and the like. As did they hold Biogold, or gold that had been augmented to be as psionically conductive with the body and mind as regular gold was with electricity; in turn, granting the wearer thought-based control of their gear akin to a neural net.
Yet still, there was more.
Specifically, there were four more. The cowl. The helm. The eyes. And the watch.
Given how, in a sense, everyone would be blessed by my mana domain, the cowl held only three variants for those blessed by the twilight, moonlight, and engineering domains. Like the Owl, those graced by twilight received greater dark elven cloaks made with Dusk Owl feathers and Night Ave quills while those blessed by the moon received pelts made from the wolves and deer of the Silverstream Forest. As for the builders, crafters, engineers, and artificers, there was a heavily enchanted silken lab coat with a feathered collar like mine. But, like the others, so too was it imbued with Dark Space to allow the wearer to Bamf to safety or meld into the shadows.
Whether it be a leaf crown or a helmet, the headpieces were all made with Dimensionite and Biogold coupled with adamantine and mithral, allowing the adamantine headdresses to stow away to a smaller size when not in wear while retaining the protective barriers emitted by their space, gravity, and force enchantments.
Naturally, the eyewear contained the same materials in addition to Holosilver and a cluster of near-microscopic enchantments attuned to the ambient sound, EM radiation, light, darkness, death, mana, and other energies. Passively, the cluster sensed the wearer’s ambient surroundings and funneled the data into a central processor- a data shard. Even a small fraction of the augmented diamond was capable of storing a few petabytes of data. Giving each Legionary what essentially amounted to augmented senses, complete with augmented reality.
Those features only increased tenfold once the wearer was connected to NoxNet. Done by the easy act of putting on a watch.
The base functions were the same ones Letta perfected so long ago. Dual time zones, adjusted automatically between the local time and Eotrom time. Or between mortal time and the time spent within a spatially distorted chamber. It contained a sun tracker, timers, stopwatches, and a silent alarm. The bezel could even unfold to reveal a compass rose. Or to activate the hidden feature.
Such a feature was birthed from a microscopic set of devices housed deep within the piece. It started with an enchantment that mapped the area outside the immediate environment using dark lidar pulses and transmitted the data to the same aforementioned processor. A Data Shard. The information gathered through the pulses, the cluster, and data received from beyond was then fed to some Holosilver to project a holographic map of the local area; or augment the map to their eyewear, depending on the wearer’s discretion.
It was perhaps an overpowered loadout for my beloved Legionaries. But what I was sure they were to face in the distant future made it more than justifiable. It made it necessary. And what I expected of them demanded it.
Only once the gear was tested and packaged for later distribution, did I notice the arcane words lingering before me and frowned. It wasn’t how I expected to make a brand of enchantments but I wasn’t one to throw away a free meal in favor of making some bread. I readily dismissed the words and went on to modify the gear for the Commanders’ liking while Ed went to make their larger equipment. Likely creating his brand of products in the process.
Albeit without his doppelganger.
“There’s something else you and I need to make, Edward," I told the clone after pulling him from Ed's shadow. “It's going to be something incredible.”