I immediately start my next enchantment upon returning to the enchanter's hut. As I continue to work on my engraving, I am slowly able to get the lines smoother, and the connection points are getting more refined. It takes less than 15 minutes before I am up to the end of putting in the paste-like mixture. This time, trying my best to pour it in and prevent it from leaking out, I tried what Eleanor suggested. As I poured it in, I placed a small field of mana over the sigil, like with the tracing, but I put more mana into it to become more solidified.

Once the mixture is in place, I decide to keep the miniature mana barrier I created in its location and feed mana through it. Once again, the mana and the sigil are absorbed into the mixture. It doesn't take long to start glowing like the previous enchantments. This time, the glow dissipates after a few seconds, and the mixture is absorbed into the metal. Inspecting the item, I can't help but hold back a grin.

- Enchantment: Successful

Quality: Inferior (-80% Stats)

Experience granted: 5 -

- Tier 0 Armor: +3 Physical Defense -

Seeing the final enchantment, my mood sours a little bit. Why is it of poor quality? Nothing went wrong this time. Looking closely, I find a couple of spots on the piece that could be better, but it still makes me wonder if there are any other issues. Maybe the mixture wasn't at the correct consistency since there are still remnants of the herbs throughout the sigil. I sighed, knowing that even though I was successful, I still had a long way to go.

One good news came from this work: my mana control skill was finally achieved at level 10. Now, with three skills ready to evolve, I should evolve them with the tokens received from the tower. I will get to those later. Now, I want to focus on completing my quest and helping Uxa.

Like that, the rest of the day continues. I primarily focus on enchanting armor pieces to get used to the sigil and learn how to make a better product from my mistakes. It takes several pieces to get a quality higher than 'Inferior,' and by several, I mean 19 more pieces of armor. The next step in quality is 'Poor.'

- Enchantment: Successful

Quality: Poor (-40% Stats)

Experience granted: 10 -

- Tier 0 Armor: +5 Physical Defense -

Looking at the stats provided by the piece, I can't help but think of some things brought out in the auction. If we consider the amount of defense I can enchant onto an item, wouldn't this armor have a physical defense of +7? Compared to the half-plate we won at the auction, it provided a +8 in physical defense and a +4 for magical defense. This puts this item almost on par with those. Does that mean the pieces I paid thousands of gold for are inferior products?

Scratching my head in frustration, I can only critique myself for my lack of knowledge of enchanting before going into the auction. I knew what boons I could provide, but now, knowing what the effect of a low-quality enchantment can do makes me curious about who enchanted these items. Also, why were they up for sale in the first place?

Not wanting to think too far on that issue and wanting to continue creating pieces, I look at my quest to gauge where I am at.

- Tasks:

Successfully create 12 different items: (2/12) -

Seeing I have only completed two of the twelve items, I can guess that it implies that inferior and poor products are represented differently. Looking at the different items in Uxa's pile, I can see swords, daggers, and other weaponry piled up. There aren't many of each, but there is enough for me to keep making some progress. Taking a moment, I look at the pile of armor that has dwindled since I began to enchant. Now, only a couple of pieces of metal armor can be enchanted.

Grabbing another piece of armor, I keep working on my armor sigil first. Once I run out of them, I will move on to weapons. Practice is the practice in the long run. Several more hours pass, and by the time I need to call it a night, a small pile of weapons and armor splayed around my workspace. It had taken me several attempts to get the engraving right for the weapons sigil, but once I did, the rest of the process proceeded similarly to the armor pieces.

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Overall, there are 23 pieces of armor, 20 with an inferior enchantment and 3 with a poor enchantment. For weapons, there is a significant difference in quantity. A total of 78 pieces were brought to me. Of these pieces, I have enchanted only 17, 10 being of inferior quality and the other seven poor. This is a far better rate than the armor enchantments, but considering I had the initial experience from all the armor pieces, it doesn't surprise me too much.

In total, I have received 250 experience from all my crafting today. If I hadn't been locked into my quest, I would have been able to level up my profession to the next level, but I'm stuck with needing to craft at least eight more different items. At this rate, I think it counts the items as enchanted with a different or higher-quality sigil. Sighing in defeat that I won't be able to complete my quest today, I head back home and get ready for another day of enchanting tomorrow.

Again, my morning routine continues the same as before. Once we get close to the afternoon, one thing changes. There aren't many buildings being built currently; for the last couple of days, it has been quiet. Considering that I want to get the settlement to tier up as quickly as possible, I am considering bringing in more people. Thinking about bringing that up in the next five-day weekly meeting makes me think of other issues plaguing the settlement. Getting volunteers to work the gardens and docks, my only hope for something like that would be the newcomers. It would bring them up to speed on preparing to fight and allow the settlement to gather food.

Not thinking about that anymore, I ask Laxreal if there is anything that I need to know, and he shakes his head. "As of right now, there isn't anyone that would need your help. Is there anything that you need?" He replies.

"After yesterday, I am finding a need to get different items to enchant. The quest description made me think I only needed to enchant 12 items, but it said I needed to enchant 12 items with different sigils. I have four of my twelve done, and that is through another slightly different option of causing the enchantment quality to increase. It considers an increase in the quality of a new item as well. What I need is at least four other types of items. They can be bags, furniture, accessories, or tools. With my base, I should be able to complete all of them. I would say some other items, but from what I can tell, I will need to go and individually enchant different buildings."

Nodding his head toward me, he heads out the meeting room doors. Not wanting to say here any longer myself, I head to the enchanter's hut. I can only think for one more day, and it should be done.

Moving quickly, I find myself quickly delving into my work. It doesn't take long before I receive the items from Laxreal, and when I do, I immediately start working on them. There haven't been that many pieces of jewelry, so I have to be extra cautious when engraving them, but like I was thinking, it doesn't take long to finish the quest. While the quest is finished, I haven't accepted the reward for it quite yet. Instead, I look at what I did in the last crafting stint.

Twenty inferior products from all the different categories; the most inferior quality items were for the tools sigil. Another 20 were spaced between the four categories that I told Laxreal. I was more surprised that I didn't have many inferior accessory items. This is an excellent boon for the settlement as this will give more people options; also, with my enchanting ability to be of poor quality regularly, I was thinking of going and helping Uxa with his quest.

Taking a moment, I head to the smithy, and once I arrive, I am welcomed by the immense heat of the forges. Uxa is standing next to one with a piece of metal in a set of tongs, heating it slowly. Wanting to help him, I walk over and am about to call out when he whirls around with the hot metal and makes his way to an anvil. As he pounds on the piece, he looks up, gives me a brief smile, finishes what he was hammering on it, and then puts it back into the forge.

"How can I help you, Drake?" He asks.

"I have a high success rate in completing my enchanting sigils. Do you want to work on a project together?"

"Of course I do, but do you know what you must do to help me with my project?"

"I just have to enchant the piece you worked on after it is done, right?"

"Wrong," he looks at me, "If you were to work on the completed piece, there is a high likelihood that it won't increase in grade, but if you can enchant it while in the middle of forging, then we have a chance to increase its item tier."

"How do you know that?"

"Easy, it is in the guidebook I received for being a novice blacksmith."

Thinking about it, I didn't read much of my guidebook, or at least I didn't retain much of the information. I am sure the tips others gave me came from that booklet. Smacking my head, Uxa comments, "You forgot about your guidebook, didn't you?"

"I wouldn't say I forgot. I just didn't remember some initial lessons that could have made my life easier. Eleanor saved me in a couple of instances from bashing my head against the wall."

Casting a flat look my way, he shakes his head. "You forgot, got it."

"Because I need to enchant it in the middle of forging, doesn't that make it dangerous?"

"Not as much as you think. I will need you to be here during the whole process to make sure that when I am ready for you to start enchanting, we can get it done as quickly as possible. It might take a couple of attempts to get it right."

Considering this information, I can't help but agree that it will take a couple of attempts to get the timing right. Without delay, I head back to my workspace and grab the tools that I will need. Not more than five minutes pass before I am back in the smithy, ready to help where I can. Seeing that he has the same piece of metal as before, it has started to take the shape of a small dagger. Using a smaller item for this makes sense since we don't know how much metal we will use in this process. Slowly, I started to get the ore ready for its mixture. It takes me only a few minutes to get the mix to an acceptable consistency.

By the time I finish that, Uxa looks at me, and the piece is almost done. "Are you ready?”