Jett licked his lips in anticipation. With a grunt he brought the stone down onto the plant’s stem.
A dull metallic thud came from the contact point and the stone chipped a little. But the plant stem didn’t come out of it completely unscathed either. A little scratch and a slight bend marred the otherwise pristine, silver flower growing from the rock.
He picked up his stone again and heaved it above his head. With another grunt he brought it down again, the stone crashing into the same spot and bending the flower a little more again.
How do those wolves eat them anyways? I’m sure they are cheating somehow, he complained inwardly.
Despite his annoyance, he kept slamming the stone into the plant. The mana treasure was one of the ingredients he wanted for his crafting session, the metallic mana it held being a necessity for what he wanted to do.
As for why he was using a stone and not his sword: He still wanted to use his sword afterwards, and while there weren’t many things in the early days of the Tutorial that could damage a Tutorial weapon, trying to cut a metal mana treasure was one of them.
Several curse filled grunts later the stem finally snapped and he gleefully picked up his treasure. He twirled it around a bit and observed how the white, shiny petals of the metal flower broke the light and scattered it in a way that made it seem more like crystal.
Pretty little thing.
He then proceeded to cut off several strands of his, already quite tattered, clothes and wrapped them around the sharp metal leaves of the flower, so that he wouldn’t cut himself while carrying it.
Alright, two more to go!
****
Jett laid his mana treasures out in front of him. Next to the metal flower lay his two latest additions: A fiery red mushroom that was giving off small wisps of smoke and a patch of yellow, glowing moss.
The next part was the hardest. Actually crafting something.
The crafting discipline he had had in mind was the easiest to accomplish, given his circumstances. In fact, it was probably the only one he could try to do at this point in time.
In the back of his mind he worried a little that, even if it was possible for him to craft a System recognized item that early, it would never be achievable by anyone else. In that case he would be the only one capable of getting an early start with crafting, and he wasn’t sure if that was enough to turn the tides for humanity later on.
Eh, it’s a future Jett problem. Or technically past Jett problem? Anyways…
He pushed those thoughts aside and decided to focus on the task at hand.
Between the mana treasures and him lay a roundish, flat stone. That was the base material for his item.
He took his dagger into one hand and held the stone steady with the other. Then he put the metal tip onto the stone and carefully started scratching marks onto it.
His dagger screeched across the stone, only leaving white lines on it and no visible indentation, but that was all he needed.
This continued for several minutes. The end result was three concentric circles on the stone, followed by multiple lines at various places as well as smaller circles and even squares with weird symbols in them.
If anyone was asked what it was supposed to be, many would probably guess right: It was a magic circle.
Or rather, the sketch of a magic circle.
Blowing off the dust on the stone, he picked up the metal flower and then laid it onto the stone. The mushroom he laid next to the stone, almost burning his fingers while picking it up.
Those two items were pretty much a necessity for what was to come - the moss he only picked because it had been the closest treasure to the mushroom.
Okay… let’s see if this truly works.
The crafting discipline he wanted to pursue was now quite obvious. At least to anyone who knew anything about crafting. It was magic array creation, sometimes also called formation creation, which in itself was a subset of rune magic.
And the reason he thought it would be the easiest to accomplish was that, while it usually required more ingredients than other disciplines, once you had the ingredients, the rest was easy. You only needed some knowledge and skill, and knowledge he had accumulated plenty over the years.
The only issue left was skill. Jett still wasn’t sure if he could pull it off while being ungraded and only with his Copper I Mana Shaping skill. But he would find out very soon.
He aligned the cut-off end of the flower stem with one of his scratched lines and then picked up the mushroom, quickly cutting it into several pieces which he all laid next to the stone again.
Then he took a small mushroom piece and placed it over the flower stem end.
Alright, focus now. We need to be quick.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing his mind on the upcoming task.
After a few moments he opened his eyes, held his hand over the stone and the stem of the metal flower and cut open his wrist.
Blood pulsed out of his veins and onto the stone, giving off slight sizzling sounds as it touched the mushroom piece.
Then he activated his Elemental Mana Shaping skill.
Elemental Mana Shaping - Active - Copper I You are attuned to the elemental forces inside and around you, making it easier to shape and bend them to your will. Effect: Activate to influence and shape elemental mana. Efficacy is drastically reduced if shaping mana outside of your body.
The reason he was pouring blood over his treasures was the same reason Bloodmancers liked to spray their own blood around: It still somewhat counted as part of your body, especially if it was still physically connected to your blood flow, making it easier to use skills that had a penalty for controlling things outside of your body.
Using his skill, he carefully pulled on the mushroom, attempting to draw out the fire mana inside of it, closely observing it for any visual changes while doing so. When it looked like it was drying out, he pushed towards the metal flower, then squeezed and started spinning. None of that he could feel, only relying on his experience with Mana Shaping and any visual feedback he could get.
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He kept it going until he could see part of the stem melting, the fire mana successfully invading the metal flower. Doing his best to keep the metal and fire mana mixed, he slowly pulled along the marks, a thin tendril of liquid metal following his pull.
It slowly sneaked along the track, the hints of metal from his dagger scratches aiding in keeping the amalgamation on track. Metal mana simply liked to converge towards metal.
Then it suddenly stopped and flowed to the sides.
Shit.
He quickly added another cut to his wrist, the blood flow having thinned too much to enable him to control the mana well. Then he swiftly picked up another slice of the mushroom and put it on the solidifying metal.
Gritting his teeth, he began anew with drawing out the fire mana and mixing it with the metal. Thankfully it quickly started melting again, but he had to retract it and redo part of the scratch again that the metal had overflowed from.
Then he finally started pulling it along the marks again, this time using his dagger to keep the blood flow more steady.
I hope I won’t bleed out before it’s done.
If he didn’t finish it in one go, the fire mana from the cut-up mushroom would dissipate too much and he would have to fetch a new treasure. Which would take ages, the next fire treasure was quite far away and he was pretty sure something would have eaten it by the time he made it there. The other treasures were fine, but fire mana was simply too volatile. If you damaged any fire treasure too much, it would leak mana immediately.
In short, he had to finish in one try.
I got this. I’ve done harder things.
He added another piece of the mushroom and moved up the metal flower when he noticed that his liquid metal was getting too thin. Then he melted down a new part of the flower and continued his work.
About halfway through he started to feel a little lightheaded.
He made the next cut on his bloody arm a little shallower, focusing even harder to make up for the reduced control.
Come on, keep going!
****
He blinked, his vision a confused blur.
Oh no.
With a start he tried to sit up, but a sharp pain in his head made him fall down almost immediately.
A long groan slipped from his lips.
Did I finish it?
He waited for a bit until his vision cleared up a little. Then he moved his head around until he spotted the stone he had been working on.
The mushroom is gone… I better have finished the array.
Cautiously he pulled himself up and shuffled a bit towards the stone. It was covered in dark crimson patches and dried up mushrooms, obscuring most of what lay below it.
He used his clothes to swipe over it several times, getting rid of the remnants and some of the dried blood and then looked at it again.
What greeted him was a silver, glimmering version of the magic circle he had scratched into the stone before.
It’s… yes! I did it!
A small wave of relief washed over him. He had almost feared he had to put in even more work into this project, but thankfully he was amazing enough to finish it in one attempt.
There were some very small mistakes in the silvery lines, some small dents making part of a line too thin or small bumps going over the markings. But overall it looked good enough in his eyes. Good enough to be a working magic circle.
He put the stone down and eagerly picked up the glowing moss, excited to finish the item and see if the System would accept it.
Putting it over a small, rune covered circle at the side of the three big concentric circles, he moved his cut covered arm over the moss and pressed his dagger against his flesh.
A sudden sharp pain in his head made him hesitate.
Hmm…
I did lose a lot of blood…
He studied his bloodied arm, which looked like it had been through a meat grinder and pulled back his dagger again.
Alright, point taken. Let’s use the other arm instead.
Switching hands with his daggers he put out the other arm and happily cut into his flesh again.
Less blood than usual trickled out of it but he still pressed it into the moss and concentrated.
The last task to make it a working item was quite easy. The hardest part had been to create the magic circle. Any magic circle needed a medium through which mana could flow and metal was the most common substance to use for that, especially metal that had already once contained mana like the one from the flower.
Of course there were special alloys and even non-metal substances with special attributes and whatnot that could make formation crafting easier or were even necessary for higher graded magic circles, but none of that was important right now.
All Jett needed was what he had just created, and now all that was left was to power it up with something.
That’s where the moss was coming into play.
Once again activating his Elemental Mana Shaping he pulled and guided the light mana trapped in the moss into the small charging circle of his array.
A smile appeared on his face as he saw the runes around the charging circle light up one by one.
When all the runes had lit up he stopped and lay down again for a bit from feeling really dizzy.
But he couldn’t contain his excitement and soon sat up again, his anticipation too high for a little blood loss to keep him down for too long.
He picked up the stone disc, turned it around, aiming it at the woods and then put his finger on another small rune.
The disc vibrated for a bit, the trapped mana flowing through the array, gathering in the middle, getting focused and amplified and then it all shot out from the array right into the woods.
The trees in front of him lit up with… light. The light mana from the moss was now getting concentrated and shot out all at once, which resulted in, well you guessed it, a large cone of light.
He had created a flashlight. A magical flashlight, but still a flashlight.
But more importantly, he had gotten a notification. No, multiple notifications.
Here we go!
His lungs filled with air as he took a long and deep breath.
Then he opened the notifications.
You have successfully created a Copper I item!
The first was a confirmation that he did in fact create a system recognized item.
Finding your Path
Without having chosen a path, you have nonetheless proven your worth and created an item of equal or higher grade.
Show that you are willing to commit to your new path and be rewarded with even greater prowess!
Quest: Create an item of equal or higher grade using rune magic [1/1].
Rewards:
Choose 1 from 3 Rune Crafting alignments.
Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.
Accept Quest?
The second was what he had been aiming for all this time.
He fell down on his back again, a big smile on his face.
It works.
He observed the sky for a bit before bumping a fist towards it.
“Fuck yeah!”