Once we are in the suite I lay her down on a couch and help her get comfortable. After fetching her a drink and her book, I sit on the floor next to the couch. Then I go back to reading the books about meditation and keep her company.
About an hour later Lin starts feeling better, so I open up the soulscape. After the soulscape, Lin and I have fun for a while before going to sleep. Since it is the third night, I sleep with her instead of working on my core.
Besides, I still need to find some inspiration for a new way of working on my core. Otherwise I will just feel like I am wasting my time with such slow progress. Hopefully, when I have finished all the books I will have figured something out.
In the morning, as we are having breakfast, a delivery of crates arrives. There are over twenty crates, but I wait until I am done eating before I check them. The crates contain weapons and all but one of them are enchanted.
The one unenchanted weapon is a single handed sword and it is of exceptional quality. This sword is obviously meant to be enchanted with the high level enchantment. The rest of the weapons are more common, but not all of them have defective enchantments.
Instead, they have the normal anti-demon enchantment, but that makes sense. Now that the weapons I have enchanted are hitting the market the normal ones value will plummet. Zachariah is an intelligent man, he is probably buying them really cheap.
He might even be letting people who want the new weapons trade in their old ones. Since I can disenchant and re-enchant them, the profit margin for them will be high. I expect that I will be getting a lot more of these weapons to re-enchant.
I am fine with that, it will only be a little bit harder to disenchant them than the defective ones. So, I start disenchanting them while Lin heads down to the library to continue her work. I disenchant the weapons as I take them out of the crates and pile them up on the floor.
Once they are all disenchanted I turn around and start re-enchanting them. As I enchant the weapons, I put the finished ones back into the crates. I keep at it until all weapons are enchanted, then I turn to the unenchanted weapon.
Since it is going to have the higher level enchantment I need to pay more attention to it. Being made of higher quality materials means that it also has more room for enchantments. Since it is meant to be a top quality weapon I plan to completely fill the available space.
This just means adding enchantments to make it more durable and sharper. Once that is done, I put it in the crate it came in, grab the books on meditation, and head down to the library. All told, disenchanting and re-enchanting all the weapons only took me a couple of hours.
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My speed when dealing with enchantments appears to have gone up again. It is probably due to the fact that it is just the same set of enchantments over and over again. Repeating the same thing tends to get easier and take less focus.
When I enter the library I quickly find Lin, sit next to her, and start reading. I could have stayed in the suite to read, but even if we aren't talking I prefer being close to her. Just her simple presence makes me happy and improves my mood.
As I finish the third book I still haven't found anything useful or gotten any inspiration. After having lunch with Lin I start the fourth book and immediately I become hopeful. Unlike the other books, which were written by mages, this one is written by a beast.
Or, to be more precise, it was written by a human on behalf of a beast. The first thing that gives me hope is that the start of the book actually talks about cores. Just from the way it talks about cores I can tell this came from at least a sacred beast.
In fact, as I read further I start to think that it might even be whatever is above a sacred beast. For the first time in a long time, I actually learn something new about cores. I am not sure yet if it will apply to my core, but it is still good to learn more about cores.
It is a good thing I am in a safe place because I get completely sucked into the book. If someone was to attack me right now I probably wouldn't even notice until I was hit. However, to my disappointment, the book ends just as it was getting good.
Luckily, there is a second book in the stack by the same beast, so I ignore the others and start reading it. It picks up right where the first one left off and I am sucked straight into it. The first book only covered the basics of meditation and how to work on a core.
The second book is all about advanced meditation and techniques for cores. It is exactly what I have been looking for and it even explains why I have been having problems. It turns out that cores adapt to the techniques used on them, so a technique eventually stops working.
All I need to do to keep working on my core is switch the technique that I am using. If I switch techniques after every upgrade I shouldn't have problems ever again. Luckily, this book has several advanced techniques that I can learn and use.
"Hey, copy this book for me."
Lin says "Sure."
Once she has made a copy I put it into my pouch just in case I need to reference it later. Then I return the rest of the books since I don't need them anymore. Out of curiosity I check if the library has any other books by the beast, but I am disappointed.
Unfortunately, the books never name the beast, so my odds of finding out more are slim. It is too bad, I would love to meet it if it is still alive and talk for a while. Without a name I don't even stand much chance of finding any other books written by it.
Anyway, now that the problem with my core is solved I go back to working on the new spell. The break from working on it actually helped, I make some decent progress. Surprisingly, when I check my work I don't find any problems with the spell.
With this bit of success, the spell is now around seventy-five percent complete. Assuming nothing goes wrong, I probably only need a few more hours to complete it. However, before I can go back to working on it, I see Almort enter the library and walk towards us.