The next day, Nero spent the morning in town shopping with Altia. Unfortunately, Serena wasn't feeling like trying her luck out in the open. The chance she'd get murderred or captured was still big.

"Maybe after being officially adopted," she said.

He needed storage bins, generic mechanical parts, gadgeteering tools, cutlery, crockery, furniture, an anvil, livestock, herb seeds, fertilizer, blacksmithing tools, clothes, spices, bedsheets, tableware, honey, carpentry tools, paper, writing ink and pens, pencils, some painting canvases, brushes, a cartload of wooden planks, nails, and a few other items.

Altia wanted clothes for both her and Serena, glassware for her alchemy, potion flasks, dried herbs, hair ornaments, a chaise longue, a nice dining table, chairs, tablecloth, napkins, handkerchiefs, a professional still, underwear, some jewelry, gifts for more than half the village, candy, sugar, baking powder, makeup, spools of lace, a sewing machine, a rug for the front porch, a few outdoors benches, a parasol, and a porcelain tea set. She also bought a couple hundred romance novels, claiming Serena and her needed them to kill time. And then shelves, a desk, and two comfortable armchairs to make a library.

All that was scheduled to be delivered to Bezzias' mansion by the end of the day.

"Now that tree is going to look like a real home!" She exclaimed, excited.

it didn't help that some people had the wrong concept that all ape-kin lived in trees. The fact they looked like elves at a first glance if you didn't see the ears also didn't help.

Their final stop was the farmer's market. Nero almost regretted going there, as the prices were murderous. A box of sixty chicken eggs cost eight times more than back home. When he looked at the price of livestock, he gave up on his idea of raising some dairy cows for now. Maybe someone would sell him some cows back home.

They returned to the Lyceum and their activities in the afternoon. Altia went to her chemistry lessons and Nero sat with Glom in his workshop. He was tasked with disassembling another five Arbitrium while the squiig hopped from tray to tray, checking the components Nero salvaged from the captured Arbitrii.

"The fact you are able to use the [Repair] spell is astonishing. These components are as good as new," Glom said. "The mana cost must've been staggering."

Nero already knew that. He checked each component with [Structural Integrity] for flaws. As to the mana cost, he could refill his whole pool with a gray card. It used five Skills out of a build so he was the only one crazy enough to do that. He even tried to repair the big controller crystals but had no luck. Nero told him as much.

"Oh," Glom voiced his surprise. "These are useless now. The master control crystal, we spoke about it already. This is the component we can only replicate but not understand. It binds with the person wearing the Arbitrium and is responsible for two-thirds of the device's cost. Classes, Skills, Attributes, Levels. All this information is stored in this crystal. It also cycles lifeforce to power the Arbitrium, display the data on the glass panel, bind to the bandolier, and make sure the left arm stays attached to the body and the Arbitrium undamaged. The accepted theory as to why it is impossible to reuse them is that they are not as much damaged but spent. Either something inside was consumed or it never finds the right attunement again. We talked about attunement already."

"What's scheduled for today, professor?"

Glom once again went over the components. "I would tell you to salvage the other Arbitrii because the parts from these were too damaged and unstable to use, but I can see that even your Class bonus of extra durability applied once you worked them. Well, we can skip that step now. I am confident you can salvage them on your own later. I'll move the schedule forward. Let's talk about elemental attunement.

"The converters need to be attuned to a particular kind of energy. In layman's terms, an element. Light, fire, ice, lightling, and so on. I'll teach you the technique to attune them using [Essence Manipulation] and [Tinker]. One of the reasons we include a Dexterity-enhancing Skill in the standard build is because attuning is extremely delicate. One mistake and..." He left the word hanging.

"It explodes," Nero deadpanned.

"Exactly. It explodes. Essence is very volatile and powerful. Just think. Your clockwork sword uses how much Essence per minute? Ten? FIfteen?"

"Fifteen."

"How much damage can you inflict in a minute? How much energy the sword creates? The rifle over there? Imagine the decompression of an Essence crystal."

Nero looked at the plethora of components he had. "How many bombs can i make with what I have in these trays?"

"I would say about sixty. But there's a better use for those components. We can do as you suggested yesterday, and upgrade your equipment. I could go on with theoretical lectures, but I am afraid you are one that learns by doing. So, what piece of equipment are we upgrading first?"

"The spiked shield. I have a non-spiked one that has way better Attributes so it is getting neglected. What can we do with it?"

Glom showed him how to access the upgrade status of the equipment. Only clockwork devices could be improved. He used a combination of [Structural Analysys] and [Essence Analysis] to and wrote down the information. The professor then completed with the upgrade values

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

> [Spiked Clockwork Shield of Regrowth +1] - Bound to Nero.

>

> +2 Dexterity

>

> +1 Strength when blocking or attacking with the shield.

>

> Grade: green [9]

>

> Essence cost per change: 5.

>

> Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [1], Enchant +1 [1], Self-Repair [1]

>

> Modification points remaining: [6].

Glom then explained what was written on the paper. "What you see here, is a rough ballpoint. We use to say that the grade dictates the level of upgrades an item can endure. Nine for green, sixteen for blue, four for white, etcetera. Each modifier costs the listed amount if added during the item creation. If you add it later, it will cost double. Not in terms of raw materials, but what the item can safely support. You can try to go over that amount but you risk damaging the item or destroying it outright. You could add three points worth of modifications safely."

Nero nodded. He had one question. "What about my Class bonus of thirty percent more stability?"

"That would add two-point-seven, maybe three points of upgrades. Since you can't add odd numbers, two," He crossed the six and added an eight. "You have eight points to work with. What do you want to add?"

Nero thought for a while. "Resist damage from blows, protection from fire and corrosion, more offense. Maybe ignore defenses too."

Glom wrote the list underneath, then crossed "more offense".

"We can work with these four and stay safe. Now, you need to write the circuitry for the modifications you want. To resist damage, you want to strengthen the metal. You need to add a controller and two maybe three converters attuned to the metal's resonance. This will harden the metal by circulating Essence as it is deployed. Protection from an element is usually done by either adding the converters for the own element or the opposite. For fire and lightning, we can use the converters as absorbers, draining the elemental energy and suing it to save on some Essence. Since it will run down the shield plates as much as the first modifications, we can merge them and save some room. I wouldn't recommend making the effect stronger but maybe we can increase the resonance on the elemental converters and grant you some of these properties."

Nero understood less than half of what he said. He just replied with "Cool."

Glom saw one opportunity for a bit more of learning.

"Have you ever wondered how the Essence you feed the Arbitrium reaches your sword when you turn it on? I know the shield is attached to the underside when retracted, but what about the sword?"

Now that Nero saw the crystal strands of the conduits, he felt stupid for never asking that. It just worked and it was good for him. "No," he answered.

"The Arbitrium is connected to your body. It uses your own flesh and bones to transfer the Essence. You are a conduit for your devices. That's why they are bound to you and won't work for nobody else."

"Resonance and harmonics, I bet," Nero threw the concepts to the wind.

"You are correct. You'll understand in time. As for the modification to ignore defenses, we will hook vibration converters to the spikes. We need just a few of them to receive the energy because the others will..."

"Resonate?"

"Sort of. But the mechanism to retract and deploy the spikes can convey the vibration. Now, let's start to draft our modifications."

They worked on the blueprint of the Essence circuits. It was why the build had [Improved Spatial Perception]. Since the plates folded and slid from a spatial compression, else the whole shield would be too thick, the design had to compensate for that, adding connectors where the plates would join to form the shield. After Glom was satisfied with the schematic, they took the shield apart, removing all the plates from the compression zone and running the conduits along them to put the converters and finally hook everything to the controller. They worked for most of the afternoon and finished the upgrade to the shield.

> [Insulated Spiked Clockwork Shield of Regrowth +1] - Bound to Nero.

>

> +2 Dexterity

>

> +1 Strength when blocking or attacking with the shield.

>

> Essence cost per change: 15.

>

> Modifiers Installed: Increase Damage [1], Enchant +1 [1], Self-Repair [1]. Increase Hardness* [1]. Resist Fire* [3]. Resist Corrosion* [3]. Ignore Defenses [2]. (*) Bundle discount of 1 point.

>

>  

>

> This shield attaches to the Arbitrium and expands to form any shield from the size of a bucker to a kite shield. The user can also make the shield grow or retract spikes on command. If not at its maximum size, the shield will expand on its own to help block incoming projectiles. Uses 15 Essence to activate and on every change. With the spikes extended, this shield deals damage to whatever is blocked, be it an enemy or their weapons, ignoring 20% of the enemy's defenses. While active, the shield reduces corrosion and fire damage dealt to the wearer and his equipment by 30%. Damage dealt to this item is reduced by an additional 50%. Repairs 1 point of durability per hour.

The increased Essence cost was irrelevant. They used components salvaged from two Arbitrii to make the modifications. Turns out the bracer had dozens of converters and sub-controllers available.

But Nero felt silly now that it was done. "I should've put the defensive modifications on the other shield and made this one stronger."

"Nah," Glom rebutted. "A shield is a shield. We should make the other shield strong against maybe wind, lightning, and water. This way you have a shield to defend against the most common elemental attacks. We'll work more tomorrow. If you have the will to do so, disassemble more Arbitrii. We are scheduled to visit the army barracks tomorrow too. I'll show you how to attune the Arbitrium to a novice there."

"Right. Thanks for everything, professor."

Nero didn't work after Glom left. Instead, he waited for Altia to return, left everyone inside the shelter, and walked to Bezzias' mansion across the street. The driveway was crowded with crates and packages. Bored and without his vehicle, Lamuril helped them move everything inside the shelter.

"How long until the carriage comes back?" Nero asked while both were lifting the furniture boxes together.

"A few months. They are taking it apart, analyzing and upgrading the design. I won't get that vehicle back, it will be re-assembled and left as a museum display. Master Bezzias will get one of the next models. A few months ahead."

Nero felt he had to rise the elf's spirits a bit. And his mother always said to give praise where praise was due. His window of opportunity was almost over as they were carrying the last crate, the chaise lounge Altia bought for herself.

"Thanks for your help. We wouldn't have achieved what we did without you. It was an honor. We're returning home in a few days."

"I was glad to be of service. Master Bezzias spoke highly of you and I enjoyed being part of something greater. You can count on me anytime."

With that, the elf coachman and one of the most reliable people Nero ever met stepped out of the portal.

"Same here. It was a comfortable ride!" Nero gave him a thumbs up.

Lamuril smiled, bowed, and walked away.