Year 1567, spring.
“Everything going well for ya, sir? “ an ironic voice called out to Luca as he was on his way to the crafters’ district to learn more about runes formation.
Six months had passed since his first meeting with Enrik and he had gotten a lot more used to his new life. He would spend his day observing various crafts, discussing with crafters, or drawing blueprints. There was no books he hadn’t read in the royal library anymore He could now make rare grade blueprints in most trades in a very reliable manner and was on the verge of breaking through to making epic grade blueprints.
The crafters had gotten to like him as they had all benefited from his insights and his skills. For he was a crazily fast learner and an exciting student, challenging their knowledge and coming up with new ways or new ideas every so often. This of course rewarded him with experience gains and skills level-up, making him now level 20. Of course, the king and his advisor had now understood he would never be an Archmage and that he had his secrets. They also knew he was spending all his time with the crafters but he had refused to explain what he was doing and as he had the support of four heroes that were already level 40 and would soon reach higher heights, he was pretty much left alone.
Which brought him to his current situation, Luca turned to see who had called him out. It was Yorru, the orphans with whom he had leveled his teaching skill.
“Well as a matter of fact yes, things are going rather well.” Luca felt somewhat worried but he knew nothing could happen to him in plain daylight.
“Well, I’m happy for ya… Cause you see, ever since you stopped teaching us halfway, things have not been so good for us…”
“Us?”
“Yes us, the orphans ya taught and then left to themselves. We thought ya cared about us but once ya unlocked your skill and your hero friends came by ya just stopped teaching and caring, didn’t ya? So we went back to what we were doing before, and it’s not doing so good to be a street rat right now.”
Luca did feel guilty about that. He had a plan to help the orphans but things got delayed and right now he was busy leveling himself and learning crafts for his class. He didn’t know what to say or what to do.
“So, sir, (Yorru insisted on the word) I was wondering if maybe, now that you got all these friends in the crafters’ district ya couldn’t do a little something for us ya know. As payback for helping you level your skill. Not much, maybe just leaving a word or something, proposing us as apprentices, telling them we’re not bad people ya know?”
Yorru was pleading by the end of his speech. Luca looked at him and saw he was starving. His clothes were dirty and torn, barely able to fit the growing teen. Under them, he could see the boy’s ribs. His eyes were yellow with fever and he looked positively desperate for help. Luca hesitated. He had so much to learn about runes but yet, something in the boy stirred deep pity in him.
“Look, there’s no way they’ll take you in that state. Here, take this money, go wash and eat something, buy some clothes, and then come see me this evening at the palace, I’ll find something for you.”
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As night started to fall and Luca headed back to the palace, he saw Yorru waiting for him in front of the palace’s doors. The boy looked much better than he did this morning having bought a fresh change of clothes and eaten something. Luca let him in and brought him to his room. He asked the maids to prepare a second bed for the night. He had thought all day about what he could do and thought maybe he could both help the orphans and help himself in this situation.
They took dinner and Luca asked questions to the boy who was clearly intimidated. He had an idea for him but he needed to get to know him better before he did anything. Then as they finished dinner he said.
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“Here’s what we’re gonna do. If you swear an oath to keep secret everything you see and hear while you’re with me, I’ll take you with me everywhere I go and teach you more advanced stuff. You’ll be kind of my personal student and my assistant. This should allow you to gain a great class at age 15 and meanwhile, you’ll help me with my work. For the other orphans, go find them tomorrow, I’ll talk to the crafters I know so that they take them in apprenticeship for me. But they will have to follow me when I leave the city and when I’ll go to Lalcqia.” Luca paused to let the information sink in. “I’ll let you the night and the day of tomorrow to decide, now go back to my room you can sleep there. I’ll be in the library working.”
Yurro hurriedly got up and left, Luca thought he had seen tears in the boy’s eyes, but that must have been his imagination. How unjust was a world where orphans had no one to take care of them while he was pampered for doing nothing, just because of some hero blessing?
Two days later, Luca had placed all nineteen orphans in apprenticeship and now had his personal assistant. It felt weird moving around all day with the boy but Acai had stopped accompanying him for quite some time and having someone to bounce off his ideas with was good. The boy had taken the oath and would spend a few hours each day in Luca’s mental library. Luca would also take time to personally explain things Yorru didn’t understand, using his [Profound Teacher] skill to prepare a good future for him.
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The first epic-grade blueprint Luca made was of a flute. He and Enrik had been working on instruments for quite some time with the help of more specialized crafters. Musical instruments were not hard to make, but their quality had a tremendous influence on the effects of the music played with it and it was very hard to come by rare grade or higher woodwind instruments.
So he had got to work, modeling different shapes and different combinations of woods through his [Virtual Modelization] skills and then taking insights from Enrik to make changes. It had taken more than thirty trials before he found the perfect harmony he sought. Every detail was accounted for: the size of the holes in the flute, the distance between them, the total length of the flute, etc. He ended up choosing a combination of three types of woods, one imbued with fire elements to make the music more powerful, one with air elements to better attune the sound, and one with earth elements to give the instruments enough resilience. In this world, it wasn’t uncommon for high leveled musicians to have the strain of their skills break the instruments.
He had to carefully balance each of the woods so that their elements would work in harmony and not destroy each other. But the result was grandiose.
[Congratulations! You have conceived and drafted a [Flute of wind, earth, and fire (epic)]blueprint. This blueprint cannot be copied. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]
[Congratulations! For designing an epic blueprint of a woodwind instrument by yourself you gain the [Woodprint blueprint (epic)] subskill to your [Golden Blueprint]. You have been awarded 1000 exp.]
[Congratulations! You have reached level 23. Experience to level 24…]
He had finally done it. He was no longer only a teacher or a theoretician, he was a real inventor! He looked at the blueprint to see what he had created.
[Flute of wind, earth, and fire (epic) blueprint: A flute that harnesses three elements to create powerful and stable music. +25% to sound purity +25%to sound diffusion. Can be used to cast fire, earth, or wind magic through music.
Stats…]
He would bring it to Enrik tomorrow, this was one step closer to their common dream of crafting legendary items.
In the following months, Luca successfully created a dozen of epic grade blueprints which the crafters he worked with were then glad to use. Sadly, in this world, a blueprint would be destroyed after one use and the system prevented Luca from making copies of any blueprint. He had tried but every time the paper on which he was making a copy crumbled as he neared completion. This was even more frustrating since every blueprint he had made remained forever in his mental library where he could consult them as he pleased to prepare for other works.
The end of his year in Dawnheart came by and now Luca had to leave to join the other heroes. He had made a lot of friends with the crafters community and it somewhat pained him to leave them, but what had to be done had to be done. He decided to let the orphan apprentices stay a bit longer to practice and they would join him later, but Yorru would go with him.
Iria came by Dawnheart to pick him up and escort him during the journey. After a last audience with the king, they left the city. Jordi had already picked the location they would build their first town, and in two years they would go to Lalcqiua to fight back the demons and establish a new civilization.