It was nice to spend some time with my family again. There wasn't anything I had to run around for and cram in training for anymore. There wasn't a looming threat that needed to be dealt with.

All that was left was the monsters in the waves and I was used to those by now.

It was also nice to give my hammer a rest. Well, give my Warhammer a rest, my blacksmithing hammer was just getting started. That hammer had been singing loud and clear for the past few hours for the first time in a while.

Vinny was across from me in the forge doing the same as me, pounding on a weapon of his own. Adding his hammer clang to mine.

To get back in the swing of things, I went back to traditional forging without any of the additions I had made to the process. A way to ease myself back into it without jumping into the deep end.

After some warm-up, my [Forging Style] came out to play and I was able to really get back into the mindset. I had already managed to snag a level already. It was nice to see the numbers go up after stagnating for so long.

It was relaxing to turn towards creation rather than the destruction that I had been forced into. Forced was a strong word but it was nice nonetheless.

Fighting was fun and all and got my blood pumping, but too much of anything wore on the soul. Especially something as bloody as what I had been doing. My foes being bloodthirsty monsters took the edge off of the carnage but it was still carnage.

While in the middle of shaping the metal into a sword, Abigail waltzed into the forge and walked up to me. Taking the time to finish with the piece while splitting my attention, I looked up curiously.

"We are still working on reducing the time needed but we already managed to halve the required time from a week to half that, but it still isn't enough to complete the procedure before the wave." She said.

"Is there no way to reduce it further?" I asked.

"Not that we know of. There's a degree of control that we need to keep over the process to make sure it is successful and going any faster could lead to... unfortunate outcomes."

Hearing that gave me a smidge of hope. The look on Abigail's face signified she knew what I was thinking of and disapproved.

"Theoretically," I started, "If we were to speed up the process significantly, what is the worst that could happen?"

"Death." She said curtly.

"What kind of death? A do not pass go kind or a more I'll just feel like death?" My attempt at a joke did not go over well. Her face got even colder.

"I mean death death. Like I'll have to bury another person I love kind of death." Her eyes bored into mine for a moment, "The level of bodily destruction isn't a joking matter, Chris, this is serious. It's not something we can rush."

"Yes, but, there were examples that we read that didn't take that long. There was one that only lasted a day. Why can't we do something like that?" I asked.

After getting back, I spent a ludicrous amount of points on all the information I could on Body Refinement. Honestly, I spent way more points than I should have but it wasn't like I needed them for something else.

I had well over a million of the things and buying as many missives as I did barely dented my total.

All kinds of things were available for purchase. Personal accounts of what it felt like, studies on what each process did to the body. Different ways to influence the results. Ways to mitigate the chance of death.

All kinds of things had been studied on the concept and the most important was the list of elements used.

Poison wasn't the only thing that could refine a Body of Wood, any element could be used. Fire, lightning, earth, metal. There were techniques available for almost every known element.

It was a lot of reading material to get through but I did my best. Some of the authors took an almost clinical approach to the subject which made reading the information dryer than some of my engineering textbooks from college.

It was all helpful, though, and information that I needed to get through. Picking the technique I was going to use was important to how it would affect me.

Mitchell was a bit miffed that he didn't get a chance to pick an element and was stuck with Poison after finding out there was such a wide variety. Gaining a Body of Wood through poison made one immune to most mundane poisons, greatly increasing your natural resistance to them.

If one continued using poison for every subsequent body refinement, the body would eventually become resistant to even the most potent of them. Becoming basically immune to most, if not all, poisons and venoms in the multiverse.

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

While each gave different benefits, they also came with a drawback. It increased your affinity for the element.

While that may sound like a good thing, one had to consider that raising an affinity was more than just increasing your proficiency with the element. It was deeper than that and affected you on a baser level.

It bled into your spirit and would influence the skills and classes offered. It wouldn't affect personality or anything like that, unless you chose demonic or something similar, but it wasn't always a good thing.

It made it harder to increase the affinity of the opposing element. Increasing a fire affinity would make increasing an ice affinity in the future far harder.

There were pros and cons to each element and it took me a while to come to the decision of which I wanted to use.

I threw fire out almost instantly. One, I didn't really need a resistance to fire. Ice was the natural opposite and my powers were already suited to making flames harder to use.

Two, I didn't really want a fire affinity. It would clash with everything I had built so far. I had an Ice affinity already and most of my skills were Ice related along with my Bloodline.

Fire would be both unnecessary and somewhat harmful to use.

Poison, venom, and acid were also thrown out. I didn't want to use those for similar reasons. I didn't feel like I needed the resistance to them I would gain and similarly didn't want to increase my affinity with them.

They didn't carry the harmful effects that fire would but it was a waste to use the chance to boost an affinity for something I wouldn't use.

Now, dismissing the resistance to the poisons wasn't done without thought. They gave a much needed resistance but I felt there were ways to achieve the same with the powers I already had.

Poison and venom worked by spreading around the body through the bloodstream, it would become difficult to do that if it was frozen.

I wasn't sure if that was a possibility I would be able to do in the future but at the very least I should be able to freeze the invading poison making it not as effective.

Maybe an upgrade to [Frozen Patchwork(R)] would make it so it froze any harmful effects that were trying to influence my body or something.

The details still eluded me but the fact that it was possible without relying on using Poison for Body Refining made me dismiss them as options.

Other possibilities got the axe for one reason or another until I only had a few left to choose from. One that people were surprised I didn't jump at the chance for was Ice.

Ice didn't even make the final list.

I felt that my affinity with the element was already strong and it would be more beneficial to pick something else. I likewise didn't need the resistance that it would instill.

I was already resistant to it. It was my own damn element. It would be embarrassing if I could get damaged by my own power.

What I focused on were things that would complement the strength I already had. Something that would mesh well with my already established ice.

There were few real options and one I briefly considered was lightning. Thundersnow was a thing that existed before and if I managed to get some movement skills utilizing lightning, my speed would skyrocket.

As much fun as shooting lightning bolts would be, there was only one element that was the clear choice.

It was something I had already been trying to add to my repertoire.

Ice wasn't the sole element that made the Arctic so desolate. It wasn't alone when Winter transformed the area into its harsh environment. While it was the main element, it wasn't the sole element.

I could replicate the effects slightly with the skills I already had but there was one big thing I was missing. My skills didn't have the... impact that nature did.

Sure, I could bring the temperature to below zero and turn the area into a winter wonderland but there was still something missing to make it complete.

A certain... je ne sais quoi.

Ice wasn't what heralded the start of Winter, that was left to something else.

The Northern Winds.

Wind was the natural choice. Wind would boost my powers better than anything else and it would be the best for me right now.

Already I tried to incorporate wind into my skill set. It was something I wanted to use to upgrade [Hail(C)]. Maybe add a devastating wind chill to the area while I fought. Ideas were easy to come by for what I could do with Wind.

I hadn't given it a lot of time, but I had attempted to try and gain a Wind Law. None of what I tried had born fruit but that didn't mean I didn't attempt it. The increase in Wind Affinity would make gaining a Wind Law a lot easier.

With my method chosen, constructing what I was going to use was the next step.

Body Refining using Wind needed hurricane-style winds to shred the body over and over again. Grinding it down with gale-force winds. I needed an environment that would create a localized typhoon with whipping winds constantly and the only way to do that was to make it.

There wasn't a place that I knew with natural winds like that so I turned to artificial means. The Runes were expensive to buy and it would take a long time to build but it was possible.

I had already started planning it.

There were a few hiccups in the plan but those weren't hard to overcome. The healers needed to be close enough to use their skills while staying out of the area of effect. The Runes needed to stay running for an indefinite amount of time until the process was over.

Other small things came up but it wasn't anything Vinny and I couldn't come up with a solution for. Trying to do it all on my own would take longer than I wanted and Vinny was happy to help.

Runes weren't his expertise but he could help construct the room. Brayden likewise had a hand in the planning.

Something this complicated wasn't something I could make on my own right now and had to fall back on buying some of the pieces from the store.

Certain formations were too complicated and were easier to buy than spending time trying to figure out how to make them.

One of the last things that needed to be finalized was how long it was going to take.

Mitchell's procedure ended up taking just under a week to complete and that wasn't something I could do. The longest I could go was 3 days. Something right after the 29th wave but done in time for the final one.

Abigail worked with all of the other healers trying to come up with a safe method to decrease the duration but they hadn't managed to shorten it to under 3 days yet.

Well, they could but not with the level of safety they wanted.

Shortening the time increased the strain on the body and the chance of death. It turned what could be a 90-95% survival rate into something more like 40-50% and sometimes lower than that depending on how fast the process was.

The faster the refinement, the higher the chance of death, generally.

They had two days to figure it out. I would be going through with it with or without their approval.

It wasn't that I didn't care about the survival rate but I wanted to evolve before returning to Earth and that was the last thing standing in my way.