The puppet could be ignored completely for now, as long as it didn’t sneak up on him it couldn’t possibly pose a threat. Then the mutt… Was it fast or actually rather slow in it mangy state? If they could create injured versions of monsters to attack whilst the magical energy was still low, then he would be in for an increasingly annoying future.

On the other hand, it might just be thing thing’s natural state, but from the engorged capillaries in its eyes, and how it hair constantly shed for seemingly no reason, its state absolutely couldn’t be great for whatever reason…

His eyes darted over to the dark forest for a moment. Perhaps it had been lured from the forest and into this low magic zone?

Surely the effects of such a thing weren’t so extreme?!

Monsters literally falling apart if they went somewhere without magic, no wonder none of those things from beyond the zone came here, it was likely that just a few minutes noticeably weakened them, but then who knew how bad things got beyond that. He’d have to confirm the theory, but for now he prepared for the monstrous wolf to leap and bit for his neck, the puppet already began its walk towards him though.

Sticking the knife into his brigandine, flat against his chest, it would become his weapon if pushed over by the monster.

For now… He moved to the side and skirted around the puppet, focused on the growling thing which remained in place with fur shedding. It turned to face him, but that didn’t mean he just stood whilst circling!

The orange tip shot forward towards the beast, but his spear merely grazed its fur cutting off a few hairs but doing no damage beyond that.

“Tough bastards then. Need to hit you directly.” The patches of missing fur were his winning ticket, however, that meant he actually had to connect with the thing.

With back legs wound up, it leapt into action as his attack reached its end, jumping forward towards his feet. Mouth wide open, he saw the rows of teeth ready to chomp into his leg, disabling movement and making him an easy target. But this sort of action is textbook for many smaller predators, is it not?

Prepared for it, he’d already kicked out and connect with mutt’s snout, sending it spinning backwards and whimpering for but a moment. It corrected itself with a growl, still trying to intimidate him.

The puppet on his right approached, but he quickly moved away from the two and saw dark red blood leaking from the mutt’s nose.

Wonderful.

As it stood up from the floor, more patches of fur fell off, revealing at least two more plausible locations to stab, but he knew his skills well enough. A moving target was still beyond his area of expertise, and that left a sole method in killing the thing. Unless it ran away, but given the fixation in its eyes and the constant reveal of sharp teeth, he didn’t think it likely.

The two went back and forth around the slow puppet for another minute or so. The mutt tried to bite his arms or legs several times, but was easily reacted due to its surprisingly slow movements and obvious telegraphing. His own speed allowed for hasty reactions as well, keeping him mostly uninjured, however, this was going nowhere as his spear missed the mark ever single time… So it was time to take a risk.

The next time he saw the thing leap, rather than knock it away he held up the vambrace and aimed to have it bite into the leather. His hands dropped the spear and pulled out the knife as the mutt’s razored teeth both stopped due to the material even he found tough to damage, but at the same time, a few teeth also cut through his skin beside the armour.

A slight inaccuracy in his prediction, but he didn’t care for a small wound.

This was the end.

Both legs wrapped around the mottled beast’s body and he pinned it on the floor with the bitten arm jammed into its mouth. Unable to attack through that, it tried to swipe at him but chose such an action too late.

With a steady hand, he stabbed the copper blade through its throat where a patch of black fur fell off in their tussle. But he didn’t finish there, instead pulling out the blade as it yelped and jamming it deep into the monster’s right eye. Its body froze and went limp, and so he stood up and grabbed the spear nearby to finish this battle.

It was an easy clean up from there, cutting all the puppet’s vines and killing it in less than another minute.

Once more, this puppet rotted rapidly to only leave its rune covered wood core behind. Interestingly, the cube referred to this item as a ‘Black nature transmitter’ which subtly confirmed that the dark green particles were either a different type of magic, or some sort of corrupted nature magic. He certainly found it an interesting item, especially as it might eventually be usable to him to form an army of puppets…

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Imagine how powerful they’d be if he could place more advanced runes on the puppets as well? Making them from slow, clunky piles of wood and vine to co-ordinated marionettes of efficient hunting… Or how about giant puppets which could tear a bear limb from limb?

“Anyway… What will you give me then?” He first waited a few more seconds, but sure that its body remained completely intact, which meant a rather annoying thing.

Like the zombies, he could theoretically harvest its whole corpse, but what about the thing was useful. Its teeth looked sharp, maybe a stick with loads glued on could make a great bread cutter… Well, it wasn’t the worst joke he made thus far!

“Useless skin, don’t know how to use the brain or organs for recipes… Maybe its insides are special like the zombies? And then there’s also the fur. That stuff might actually be pretty useful.” He looked around at the clumps of shiny black hair all around, and gathered a few patches until his cube counted it as enough to take up an inventory slot.

Razorhound fur… In retrospect, what sort of name was he expecting?

Still, if he could find a way to transform it into a fibre, the cube’s recipes could transform it into fabric, surely? Then using it over hemp would ensure some protection to blades and similar creatures for a while. Though he honestly doubted that a single one’s fur was enough to make anything. If he wanted more it’d be a tough journey into that forest.

Assuming he guessed right about it, and the Razorhound hadn’t been summoned like other monsters.

There was no point in thinking about it too much, he just needed to hurry up and get access to better weaponry. The moment he could cast even the simplest magic using Solar magic or have a weapon engraved with a Nature rune, he’d feel absolutely safe hunting the things around his home. That meant the grindstone was highly important.

Weapons dulled overtime, and resharpening is a lot more important for metal edges which easily lost their sharpness.

In the iron mine, he walked around the massive empty section and found a section of wall which was purely stone without a hint of iron. Providing he acted carefully, he could easily mine out a huge block of stone and store it away for carving.

Extreme strength made this easier than ever, and as he carved into the wall deeper and deeper, he smashed his pick against the same spot one last time…

A loud snap echoed throughout the cavernous room, and he realised that the chunk of stone no smaller than himself in size completely broke off from the wall. His body leapt to the side as it began to fall forward, almost crushing him, and landing on the floor with a heavy thump. Part of him expected it to shatter into pieces from that alone, but surprisingly, it remained completely intact.

Pushing it gently revealed that the thing was actually fine, and he stored it in the cube before heading off to the tower.

To carve his first stone, it was an interesting prospect. As from there he would have to cut and polish real gemstones, and eventually engrave tiny runes into it. When laid out the steps for this magic sounded so simple, but the books describing it couldn’t have been further from.

It was like a scientist explaining how electricity works… It made no damn sense to him. Flowing electrons, well that was easy, charge governing the strength of a field around the electrons and resulting in the ‘transfer’ of energy?

Was that even right? He was just thinking up random crap to pass the journey to the tower, in the end laughing at how little he remembered of those years.

“Thank god they’re over though, it’s nice to not have anyone staring you done all the time.” He spoke not only in reference to all his years of schooling, but just life in general long after that too.

The tower’s door opened automatically as he approached and a quick walk upstairs took him to the workshop room he required. As expected there was a mortar and pestle here, though its use was still unknown to him. Crushing the gemstones made no sense, but then again, who said that the tower’s last owner only knew this gemstone magic. Perhaps he dabbled in other crafts that required this tool.

Anyway, it took minutes for him to grind the four sun slivers into a fine dust, and next time he entered the cube he could make the solar droplet. For now he held off and kept it as a small reward.

When he successfully chiselled one hexagonal crystal as asked he would allow himself to leave and rest.

With a literally chest of uniform stone bricks as well, he placed the sun charm on the table and prepared the fine tools he’d be using for this. Although, in reality he probably on needed three of the selection in front of him if done properly, but ideally he wanted to try save every single one until it was clearly impossible.

The process of cutting stone is very different from gemstones for multiple reasons, but the most significant is simply because crystals have clear cutting planes due to their atomic structure. That’s not to say some gemstones without any could not be cut, but rather that the method to do so revolves a lot more on grinding to instead produce the desired faces.

In all honesty, Joey only half understood what half the manual stated with regard to forming the simple-looking shape from stone. The measurements were fine, but it was how he had to first use a sort of cutting tool to remove excess stone before the grinding procedure began.

For this he found that the blade easily slid through the stone as though cutting through warm butter. With the edges removed and even the whole stone block trimmed on all sides, it was time to begin the grinding process.

The book told him that on the workshop table was a circular grinder and a metal arm which retained a specific angle such that flat planes could be formed.

To initiate the grinder all he had to do was attach the stone to the arm’s tip with some wax, a special sort which was left in a small copper dish on the table. How he started a fire was a joy of its own, but after some time he was able to light a splint of wood alight. The heat melted the wax, which eventually set the stone chunk onto the moving arm.

And as he moved the it down towards the circular abrasive disk on the workshop table, unsure if there was a button of magical sigil to press instead, it started rotating on its own.

“Why would you make everything like this? Just use a button, it’s not hard!” Seeing the rough material spin at rates no less than the motors he was used to seeing on Earth, except without even a wisp of noise, he couldn’t help but wonder if such a design was simply stupid. Probably not… But it still left him wondering why anyone would do things this way.

He lowered the arm onto the abrasive disk with the barest light of his charm to watch, and began learning how to follow instructions for a craft he’d only heard of.