Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.12]

Halfway through the dismantling, Ghrughah took up the pace. He was finished with analyzing the parts and allowed himself to be less delicate in extracting the Phleya. The fact that he optimized the cutting method long ago also helped. A dark-silver metal he was manipulating—another technique executed with a precision Zeph only heard was possible—was able to cut through the alloy with minimal effort while, supposedly, wasting the least of the material. The blacksmith was using it like a precision saw, as even when manipulated, the metal stayed solid.

Zeph already finished with the blueprint and explanations, and was just numbly observing the proceedings from the side, not wanting to disturb the man who was in full-concentration mode. But when he noticed that the giant relaxed his posture somewhat while the process sped up, he took advantage of the occasion to kill the boredom.

“You are doing much more detailed work than what I was expecting from you…” he noted idly.

While still working on the armor, leaning over the table, Ghrughah spoke in a soft voice as if to not disrupt the air with his breath.

“I suppose it can be surprising. The Daityas aren’t known for masterful craftsmanship,” he replied and reached for a pipette. “It’s the reason I left. Pounding a slab of hard metal can be done by anyone with enough Power; I pursue the fine works, a finesse in my creations, for the sake of progress... Something my people couldn’t understand.” This time, he deposited the fragment of the Phleya colony into the glass container with slightly more force.

Zeph had an impression that he could understand the giant’s feelings quite well. Though, he wasn’t going to dig deeper into the man’s history. For now. Evidently, it was a painful topic. “Is this the reason you also started to learn Biology? I have to admit, I can’t see how it can help your goals. Your workmanship with inanimate matter is on another level already.”

Ghrughah smiled slightly for a second but quickly shook his head. “The next step in my art requires more still. There are limits as to what can be achieved through matter alone,” he said, glancing at Zeph. “I possess no talent in the Soul arts. To circumvent this fact, I have chosen the closest thing and it became my Profession. Biology, too, can open the road to the realm of true mastery.”

Zeph blinked in surprise. “You have changed your Profession?” Was that a possibility?

The old man snorted. “No, that would have set me back for decades. What I did was being diligent,” he said with pride. “Second sub-specialization of my Class assimilated my Profession entirely, freeing the slot. I took my time choosing a new one.”

It took him a moment to process the information. I guess everything is possible within the System, if you direct the changes with enough purpose and stubbornness… Zeph mused quietly. He tried to remember what he saw when experimenting with mixing the basic Classes before choosing the Force Generalist, but he couldn’t recall any straight-up crafting Classes coming up. Is this how you evolve a Profession into a Class? Dear System, the Class tree is incomprehensible. Please revise!

Sighing theatrically, Ghrughah broke the sudden silence, along with Zeph’s internal monologue. “Kids these days. Get a clue already,” he grunted, glancing at him.

Ups… I am being rude, aren’t I?

“I am a Force Generalist in Class and a Shaman in Profession. I hope you can see why I have doubts about the Advanced Magicule groups…” he shared some of his own information.

The man hummed, his eyebrows raised. “Good luck with that. The force prefix will make your life that much more miserable. At least I better understand where to go with your contamination now. You were partially right to be uncertain about the Advanced groups, but they wouldn’t harm your Class, just make the possibility of specializing that much more tempting for you,” he paused to tear out a micropipe from within the armor’s structure. “It is a surprise, though. I didn’t take you for a Manacaster type. What’s with the melee equipment?”

Zeph smiled ruefully, considering if he should disclose more. But, in the end, he wanted to return the goodwill. And, just maybe, the man could help him a little here, too. But before that, he had a more important question. “Do you know what the force prefix means?” he asked almost impatiently. Reading from the interface didn’t explain much of the concept to him.

“It means you are to learn not only how energy can manifest, like every Manacaster has to, but also how to transform one form of energy into another. Of course, I’m speaking in the context of using Mana and forming Mana constructs. To give you an example – you will have to learn not only how to produce a Heat Magicule and what it does, but also how to form a construct capable of lowering the temperature in the environment to use that energy in another process, like putting a pressure on something.”

One mystery less, thank gods… he thought with relief.

“I’ve heard that most forms of energy in the material world can be reduced to a force model… Although, I don’t understand that concept well, and have no idea how that influences Spells’ structure…” the blacksmith added, stroking his beard.

“It’s okay, I may have an idea about that, thank you,” Zeph said with gratitude, his desire to share some more with the old blacksmith deepening. “As for your previous question, I am quite talented in external Mana manipulation myself,” he said, flexing his Veil that was still trapped by the old man, earning himself a curious and slightly perplexed glare. The blacksmith quickly adjusted his own Veil to keep the Mana in one place. “Ahem, sorry about that… Anyway, instead, I have problems with Mana capacity so the ‘physical’ part of my PE has to be kept quite high. I decided to take advantage of the situation and have some close-combat capability. Even if my internal Mana manipulation isn’t… the best. My Soul-bond has it even worse when it comes to the capacity, actually…”

The old-timer immediately caught the insinuation. “Manasolids won’t help you. You better find yourself an ingeniator… Though, implants of this type are rare and hard to make…” he said, thinking hard.

“No, I know that already. I was interested in the Manasolid for another reason. But I don’t have funds for an ingeniator… or rather, the Mana battery blueprint. How am I even to tell what are the chances that they would succeed? I need someone competent, not just knowledgeable in the field…. Umm, by the way, are you keeping that Manasolid stable manually?” he asked, gesturing at the bulge in the pocket on the man’s leather apron.

“Yes, it’s a training method. Also, thanks to that, I always have some spare funds on myself,” he laughed silently, returning his attention back to the armor. “The only thing I can suggest is to visit the smaller marketplaces to look for someone with the Skillset. You can even post a notice there.”

At Zeph’s prompt Ghrughah gave him directions to more obscure places where people with unconventional Classes and Skill combinations could be found. There was no way of avoiding this route, too – the more successful individuals and groups would not only ask too many questions, they would also want Zeph’s money, not meddling, while he wanted to be a part of the invention process… for many reasons. The most prevailing one was the unwillingness to put an unfamiliar prototype inside his body. The past mishaps of the System could have traumatized him slightly…

The blacksmith then started to talk in more detail about his own stance in the city. The time flew past as they talked, and, in seemingly no time, the armor was almost done.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

Suddenly, Zeph recalled the poor driver that was probably still waiting for him.

“Ugh, how much time has passed,” he had a feeling it was already dark outside, but it was hard to tell without windows or a clock. “How are you telling time without seeing the daylight here?” he asked in slight irritation.

The blacksmith almost burst out laughing but had to keep it inside to not lose control over his Veil. It took him a good minute of quiet snickering into his own arm to cool down. Finally, he looked back at the grumpy Zeph. Small drops of tears could be seen in the corners of his eyes.

“You… how long are you in the city?” he asked, fighting to keep his face straight.

“Three days,” he deadpanned. “It’s the first city I saw in these lands. Is it that funny?”

“Oh, sorry about that then,” the blacksmith finally gathered himself with the last deep breath. “See that contraption?” he asked, gesturing at something that Zeph treated as a control panel of sorts this whole time. On one of the pipes, which probably were Mana conduits, a bronze plate with toggle switches resided. Now, that he took a better look, the number of switches in the lower three rows was quite familiar: 12 at the bottom, above that 4, and then 8. The month, the week of the month, and the day of the week… he quickly concluded after counting the switches toggled up.

The fourth, highest row had 6 switches, and only the last one wasn’t set to an upward position. But, strangely, the fifth was protruding at a 45-degree angle to the left. It wasn’t moving, though, so it wasn’t working the same as a hand of a clock.

Six ‘hours’ in a day? That can’t be right… I will need to ask Aisha and P’pfel about that. But the position of the switches suggests it’s close to Earth’s eight PM…

“How does that even work?” he asked, tilting his head. It didn’t seem like the plate had any mechanism inside to count the time.

“Well, did you see the cable network outside?” Zeph nodded. “It’s a simplified version of Communication System… I am talking about those black plates you saw,” he added, seeing his confusion. “Those are a standard in workshops nowadays, but the Mana signal becomes incoherent over long distances. That’s why the Communication Network outside uses electrical pulses instead. It’s primitive, people have to send the pulses manually with Electro Spells or enchantments, but it allows for encoded communication. Anyway, this piece of metal is a simplified Wadokei. It counts pulses sent by the communication bureau – they have the original timepiece counting the time. There is, of course, a separate cable network for Wadokeis,” Ghrughah explained absentmindedly while working the last parts of the armor.

No oscillator clocks then… Wait, they don’t have any watches! Zeph realized and immediately perked up. Ho ho ho! Why, isn’t it a perfect opportunity? he laughed maliciously inside his mind.

Gru cringed in shame at the image of a villainess that sprung up in Zephana’s brain, which stopped him from continuing with the farce.

He forgot about his companion for a moment. Their communication link was becoming stronger by the day because they kept silent most of the time.

“Ahem… Umm, Ghrughah-jiji,” he caught the old man’s attention. “About that Manasolid…”

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It was long after midnight when he finally left the workshop. The last part of the negotiations took a while, but he was satisfied.

“Thank you for waiting this long,” Zeph said to the disgruntled driver, handing him two silver coins.

This placated the man somewhat. They had sent Uliala to inform him of the delay and to invite him inside to rest and eat something, but that didn’t change the fact that he was sitting for a few hours in the cold. There were no restaurants or bars nearby, which was a big oversight from Zeph’s side.

The man helped him carry his goods to the carriage, of which there were plenty, and they drove off into the night.

Zeph ignored the picturesque, glittering-in-the-lights view of the alien city covered in snow. In the yellow light of the passing street lamps, rhythmically filtering through the windows to disperse the dark shadows inside his cabin, he took stock of today’s quarry.

His armor was reduced to a block of metal—weighing around 12 kilograms—enclosed in Mana-resistant container, and a sealed glass container with Phleya. The colony was already entering the hibernation state, which was obvious at the first sight as the green mass started to solidify. Zeph would have to visit the blacksmith daily to deliver samples of the alloy and Phleya. He had to keep the two containers close to himself to be able to feed his Mana into them through built-in vents, which was mildly annoying, but the best solution.

Next was a compression box with the small Manasolid inside. Zeph sold information on how to build a spring-powered watch to the blacksmith for it. Of course, Zeph didn’t have a diagram in his head, but explaining the operating principle and showing the basic mechanisms—like the balance wheel, gear setup, and clock face—was more than enough for the experienced crafter. He even explained the principle of using an oscillator in general clockwork. The man was truly fascinated by the idea but stated that he would need to make the structure sturdier before even trying to sell it to people. Which, in hindsight, was an obvious conclusion. They also agreed on a 65 to 35 split of profits for a year, counting from the moment the final product would be presented on the market. The smaller part was, of course, Zeph’s. All technical and marketing problems were put on the giant’s shoulders, after all.

He also bought a new spear for 50k gold. It was on the heavier side, weighing almost 10 kilograms, which would slow him down at the beginning but was necessary to train the inertia maneuvering. It would also last him longer. Its internal structure was a marvel – a ridiculously sturdy, dark-blue metal was forming a microscopic, three-dimensional, and layered honeycomb frame. The empty spaces in the cells were filled with a black, elastic metal alloy that possessed weak Mana-resistance properties. The weapon was enchantment-ready, which meant this filling could be replaced and slots could be easily made in the walls of the honeycomb structure to accommodate an enchantment. All that without wasting any material, if the enchanter knew what they were doing.

The weapon was slightly higher than Zeph. The two-sided blade was formed from the shaft itself, the edge made from the sturdy, blueish metal, and already enchanted with a variant of Hardening. It took one-fourth of the weapon’s length and had a shape of an extremely elongated leaf, but was only a centimeter wider than the shaft itself.

On the other end, a metal ball the size of a fist was screwed in. It worked as a counter-ballast and a blunt weapon at the same time, and could be exchanged for a more specialized object, such as an enchanted hammer tip. The whole length of the shaft was inlaid with Mana-conducting tracks to better accommodate for powering the enchantments. Just before the blade, four short clips could be pulled out from the shaft. They could work as crosspieces, similar to the ones on a bear spear, but were also used to secure a scabbard on the blade. It was made the same way as the rest of the weapon, adding another two kilograms of weight to the weapon. With the scabbard on, the back tip of the shaft could be used to its full capacity.

The weapon was a beauty, its surface almost artistic with the crimson traces put over the geometrical, mesmerizing surface, reminiscent of cracks on the black skin of a volcanic dragon.

Well, maybe that metaphor was a little too much, but Zeph couldn’t find a better one.

He also bought a few throwing knives and a crate of crossbow bolts with exchangeable tips. Both were made from much better materials than his old equipment, even if they were a bit pricy, sitting at 5k gold for the lot.

All in all, he spent less than anticipated and probably gained an ally. He was content, blissful even.

Moreover, Zeph couldn’t wait to show his gun to the blacksmith. With his manipulation skills, he should be able to easily duplicate the weapon and ammunition. Well, there was a question if it would be worth it – creating the shells manually would not only be a pain in the ass but also expensive as hell. Powder production would be another problem to crack. From what he gathered, only a few strategic resources were mass-produced. The rest was sourced by individuals, which meant no industrial-level automatization was present for those goods and the amounts were very limited. He didn’t check it specifically for possible powder production—there was no reason for it until now—but he suspected it would be a challenge. Especially because some of the chemical reactions ought to work differently than on Earth.

But that was in the future. There existed more than just one method to accelerate a small bullet to supersonic speeds, and he was sure someone on the higher stratum already got around the problem with their magitech. After all, it was the easiest and most simplistic way to improve ranged weaponry – increasing the projectile’s speed.

Besides, he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to introduce Earth’s weaponry to this world. Working on recreating guns for the sake of having guns wasn’t worth it. He never planned to become a weapon manufacturer in the first place. Not in the sense of avoiding introducing any, but in the context of his methods and goals. He wanted to become a full-fledged inventor, not a person who concentrates only on the destructing potential of his creations.

If people here were in need of better weaponry, he would rather leave the engineering process to them.

There was also that one remark Ghrughah has made.

‘There are limits as to what can be achieved through matter alone’ was it? Zeph recalled, burning those words into his memory. They felt meaningful, much more important than anything else they spoke about. I wonder when I will hit those limits you spoke of, old man.

His chest vibrated silently in indignation, almost making him laugh.

“Yes, yes. You have broken a few human limitations already,” he said in a half-whisper, trying to sound serious. “But maybe we shouldn’t point fingers at each other, hmm?”

Gru huffed petulantly.