Shaping the tough bones of the panther had been harder than Mike had expected. He tried using the knife to make a small cut in the bone, but that proved inefficient. It had taken him 10 minutes to get a section to be shaped even vaguely like a knife. After trying for a while longer, the frustration of slow progress got to him. He set one of the bones on the floor, and took out his soul hammer.
With a swift swing with the spiked end, the bone shattered into several shards from the point of impact. Mike picked out the one that looked like it would require the least amount of work to shape. From there, it had only taken another 30 minutes to get it into the shape of a knife.
It wasn't sharp yet, but he fixed that by scraping it at an angle against a flat portion of rock he found for some time. He enjoyed working with his hands and making things, but damn did it get a bit boring when you had to rub a piece of bone on some rock for 20 whole minutes.
After some time it got to a point where it was as sharp as the dagger he was using, including when the dagger had a mana edge on it. He spent a few more minutes making the knife look pretty by shaving off the extra bumps along the sides. Next it was time to make a handle. He tested the edge of the new blade by cutting a branch off a nearby tree. He didn't know what the hell the system did to the trees, but they were far more durable than they had ever been pre-system.
It took a full strength chop with the knife to get through the 3 inch thick branches. He thought back to the tree he had felled with his hammer, and how he had been beating on it for at least a dozen minutes before that came down. It wasn't even a particularly thick tree, just full of whatever magic was in them now.
Mike carved the wood into a comfortable to hold handle for a couple minutes, aiming to make it as smooth as he could. He got the shape just right, and moved on to attaching the handle to the blade. This was where Mike realized his critical error. He had forgotten to leave part of the bone shard to be stuck into the handle as a method to attach the two.
He grumbled, already knowing he wasn't going through the effort of making another blade. He tried solving the issue with what seemed to make everything in this new world work, with magic. He used his mana to fill the handle with mana, and filled the knife with mana as well. He placed the blade in the appropriate position on top of the handle, and tried connecting the two pools of mana then ran through them.
The stagnant mana inside each stirred up as they attempted to equalize in mana density. Mike attempted to control the flow into a kind of loop that flowed back and forth across the blade. It worked, and he had a knife. The mana seemed to be securely inside the item, none leaking. This was fortunate, as Mike was sure it would fall apart the second the flow of mana was cut off. Mike checked his notifications, pleased by everything he saw.
*Skill upgraded. Combine, becomes Mana adhesion (rare)*
*Skill upgraded. Basic mana manipulation, becomes Intermediate mana manipulation (uncommon)*
*Skill gained. Infused weapon creation (rare)*
*Profession level up x2! Crafter (level 6)
*Race level up! Human (level 7)*
That was a lot of cool things to get from making a knife. He had needed to try out quite a few things he hadn't done before to get it done, and he was proud of his progress. He identified the knife, wanting to see what his efforts had created.
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Infused Alpha Night Stalker Knife (Rare)
A Knife made from the bones of a Night stalker Alpha. This knife has been infused with mana and thus has an increased durability and mana conductivity.
A rare item. It sounded good too. The already impressive durability of the materials had gotten boosted further by the mana he had unfused it with. Mike was about to begin working on more items when he was reminded why he made the knife in the first place.
The smell of cooking meat reached his nose, instantly grabbing his attention. He wasn't typically a big foodie, but after not eating much for several days, he certainly would enjoy the luxury. He walked over to the source, once more seeing Otto. He approached the man, getting a greeting as he got close.
“Hey Mike, we were just about to finish the last of the meat. Grab a plate, and help yourself.” He said. Mike paused at the mention of plates. He was pretty sure nobody had access to ceramic or plastics, and was surprised to see that the plates in question were some bark that had been stripped from trees and had the insides smoothed and clean. He grabbed one, grabbing a slice of meat. As he used his dagger to cut and eat the food, he showed the knife he had made off to Otto and the other two cooks with him.
“It will cut through most anything you put in front of it, and don't even worry about it losing its edge. I put a bit of mana in there, so as long as you don't start trying to split rocks with it, it will last a lifetime.” Mike said, remembering the infomercials he had seen on tv as a kid.
“No two for one deal?” Otto asked, also reminded of the ads.
“Tell you what, another slice of meat, and it's yours for free.”
“Well you have a deal then.”
Mike almost tossed the knife to Otto, much like he had tossed the dagger to Mike, but realized a fumbled catch would likely result in the loss of a finger or two. He handed the knife to the chef, who graciously accepted the gift. They chatted a while longer before Mike got back to crafting. Mike figured the next thing that could be useful was going to be some armor, since he didn't really know what else to practice with.
He followed the same process he had when making his wolf fur armor. The only difference between working the materials was that the panther pelt was stiffer, and needed to be cut and connected in sheets opposed to just making the armor out of one continuous piece. He used his mana adhesion to connect the pieces, similar to when he made the knife. It was much more mana intensive, due to the amount of materials involved, and he needed to take a break every now and then to allow his mana to regenerate.
After a few hours of this, he had a set of armor fit for a king. Said king was going to be Mike, as he quickly dawned the armor, getting a feel for it. People gave him strange looks, which he didn't understand until inspecting his armor closer.
Alpha Night Stalker Armor set (Rare) (Synergy)
An armor set made from the pelt of an alpha night stalker. Infused with mana, the durability and toughness are both increased. Gives a passive stealth bonus, with bonus getting larger the more mana is infused. Due to having a complete set of Alpha Night Stalker armor, Durability, Mana conductivity, and Mana efficiency are all increased.
Finished reading the significantly longer description than he had been expecting, he realized the looks he was getting were probably because he was under the effects of the increased stealth, giving him an effect similar to the panthers ability to be hard to see, even when you knew they were there.
Mike drew the mana out of the armor, aside from the bare minimum that kept it together. The looks people gave him were mostly stopped by this, but he still had some coming from the lowest leveled people present. He ignored them, once more looking through his notifications.
*Skill upgraded. Armor creation, becomes Infused Armor creation (rare)*
*Profession level up x2! Crafter (level 8)*
*Race level up! Human (level 8)*
It wasn't as much of a wall of text as he had gotten before, but it was still nice to see. Remembering to allocate his free points, he spent half on his constitution, and half on his fortitude. He was proud of his armor, and was sure it would provide some good protection, but he didn't want it to be the only thing keeping him alive when it came down to it. It wasn't quite time for the sun to rise yet, but it would definitely be soon.
He picked up the remaining materials, which were mostly bones, as the armor took up nearly all of the pelts, and walked over to the cave that was being used to store the fire wood and spare materials from the other panthers that were killed. He absent mindedly noticed that a few bones were missing from the panther piles. Guess I’m not the only crafter, he thought.
He set the spare materials into their own little corner of the cave, and scratched a message in the stone that made it clear people should avoid the pile. In crude, sharp looking letters on the ground, were written the words “Don’t touch!”.