Randidly took a few hours to study Wendy’s new plans. The Spriggit woman had outdone herself, of course. Then he once more sat in a meditative position with several bars of the Black Gold that he had obtained for his arm floating around him. He watched the tumbling ingots carefully, seeing how they behaved when they were exposed to increasing amounts of Nether. His Nether Sensation wrapped around each bar of metal, watching for the smallest bit of corrosion.

Luckily, there was no reaction from the Black Gold. From what Randidly understood from the hastily scrambled explanation included with the materials, Black-Gold was the new top-end metal that Wendy’s company had developed. It was an alloy with actually nothing to do with gold, but it was the result of exposing a certain brass alloy to the Netherite now found within his Alpha Cosmos.

Obviously, Randidly couldn’t witness the material himself, but Wendy’s messages assured him that the metal was quite beautiful, a completely black metal with thin, branching golden lines running through its core without lessening its resiliency. The aesthetics of the metal didn’t matter so much to Randidly, but he did like the obvious connections to the golden veins his image physicalizations caused in his body. It might just be superstition, but he believed the combination would be a good one.

Assuming, of course, that he could finish the arm without any hiccups.

Congratulations! Your Skill Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart (T) has grown to Level 301!

Randidly began to steadily manipulate the bars of metal, sensing their heft and density. He even unleashed an attack from the Grim Chimera, watching the way the Grim Chimera’s claws were slightly impeded by the metal and weren’t able to rip all the way through. That earned a small smile from Randidly. It might not be to the point where it would be able to stand up against Velio Dunn, but after Randidly refined the metal, it would certainly be sturdy.

Honestly, if there was a material that could stop Velio Dunn, I’d cover myself in it and just be done with it, He thought with a twitching mouth.

But while Randidly continued to steadily use his Skills to push the limits of the metal, he began his preparations for the forging. He brought out both Neveah’s letter and Wendy’s schematics to study them carefully together. Because if either was flawed, the entire creation would fail. His acute senses could sense the presence of ink on the page, giving him a full view of the information he needed. He idly cut a divet into his chest with a nail, allow two large pools of blood to form on either side of him.

He couldn’t use his eyes to see which was emerald and which was crimson, but the negative and positive energy thrown off by the pools of blood were more than enough to keep them clear in his mind. He was even rather surprised to realize that the reason that his blood could behave so differently was because of mobilized emotion. He silently clicked his tongue and shook his head. Perhaps such an explanation should have occurred to him a long time ago.

Then he closed his eyes. Alright. Now… it’s time.

Randidly’s right hand flexed and his heart began to pound. He could feel the little humidity in the air of the shaft rapidly turning to steam around him as the heat radiated by his body shot sharply upward. Randidly activated Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix, increasing the strain on his person but also increasing the heat further. Without any external source of flames, Randidly intended to rely on the heat that his body generated to melt the metals.

Seemed a bit silly to try and build a kiln floating here...

Very quickly, Randidly ceased pushing his body to become a furnace, because he could sense the edges of Neveah’s letter in his hand were beginning to smolder. So he maintained that state of near combustion of the paper and swirled the steam and thin tendrils of smoke around him with Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart. There was just enough of a substantive barrier created by the Nether Ritual that Randidly could accelerate that gaseous mixture until it flattened itself into a thin barrier around the edges.

Within those rapid flows of air, the temperature rapidly cooled. But that as more steam drifted off of Randidly’s skin, the temperature gradually began to climb back upward within that dense gas layer. Randidly’s lips twitched. Very soon, the temperature in that hyperdense layer was going to climb past its previous highs. He just hoped it wouldn’t rip through his Nether Ritual in the process.

In the meantime, Randidly drew a metal ingot to his hand and began to practice the Engraving given to him by Neveah. With his recent improvements, the Engraving she had made for him was complex, but not overwhelming. After attempting the engraving four times, Randidly felt confident enough to proceed.

Congratulations! Your Skill Architecture of the Primordial Way (M) has grown to Level 312!

These useless notifications are really starting to get on my nerves, Randidly barred his teeth, then forced himself to calm down. Being distracted right now would only lead to regrets down the line the next time his arm faced a force that could shatter it.

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But before the Engraving came the metal refining. After storing away the scrolls for the Engraving and the designs for the arms, Randidly allowed the scalding layer of air to spread back out and fill the entirety of his Nether Ritual. As his body trembled, he forced his heartbeat to accelerate. His muscles began to swell slightly as his boiling blood surged throughout his body. More and more steam wisped off of him, to the point that he could sense the impending dehydration within his body.

Still, Randidly ignored the discomfort and pushed himself forward. His Willpower had been steadily been honed by the activities with emotions, giving it an unforgiving edge that he brought now to bare on himself.

Congratulations! Your Skill Stigma of the Stillborn Phoenix (L) has grown to Level 306!

Randidly couldn’t prevent his mouth from twitching in regards to the notification, but he ultimately ignored it. Then he cast his senses outside of his Nether Ritual, seeing if there was any movement among the Nether Beasts. Seeing that there was none, Randidly began to process of metal refinement.

Revelation of the Atramentous Threshold.

As Revelation energy filled his body, Randidly peered at the metal ingots floating in the air around him. He could sense their delicate loosening of their bonds as the heat tugged at them, but Black Gold was an extremely robust metal; this heat wouldn’t be enough to melt the bars. So he cackled without producing any noise and pushed the heat of his body upward. His heart was thunderously silent, shaking every inch of him with every beat, without producing the slightest noise.

As the heat rose, the Black Gold began to soften at its edges. With a knowing smile on his face, Randidly raised his right hand and made a fist. Hallucination of the Bloodless Heart squeezed the super-heated air around the metal ingot, increasing the heat even further as the air molecules collided with each other in a much smaller space. Where his source of heat was relatively static, he could only apply more and more pressure.

So his fist tightened. His Willpower flared.

He couldn’t see it happen, but he could feel it. The metal began to ooze and bubble.

After that, the destabilization began to accelerate. The ingot completely lost its shape under the tight grasp of the Stillborn Phoenix’s Skills. Then Randidly began to spin the molten metal, whisking away any slight impurities that he found within its material. His heart continued to beat, raising the ambient temperature within the Nether Ritual.

With a steaming finger, he pointed to guide the entire process of smelting.

The sphere of metal was brought through the negative energy blood, drawing out its weaknesses. Then Randidly thoroughly beat and purified it with blasts of gravity. Afterward, it was dunked within the positive energy blood, which strengthened its structure and reinforced it. Randidly’s heart continued like a perfect metronome, marking his progress.

When he was satisfied with the first reforged ingot, Randidly released it to float toward the top of his work area and started on a second ingot. Soon he had created a second, third, and fourth, but then he was forced to pause in his work. He could feel the Nether Ritual slowly beginning to tear and allow some of his precious heat to radiate outward into the surrounding space. Due to that strange heat, some Nether Beasts were drifting closer.

His annoyance spiked. Randidly cursed quietly and wove a second, larger Nether Ritual.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Ritual (A) has grown to Level 201

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Ritual (A) has grown to Level 201!

Halfway through the weaving, Randidly went through the motions of clicking his tongue and didn’t produce the slightest noise. He shredded his Nether Ritual and began again. Each of his flows of Nether was suddenly very purposeful. As he returned to making more common Nether Rituals after utilizing Engraving to make a Nether Core, he realized he had made some rather foolish assumptions when he earned the Skill that he now carried. Banishing those assumptions, Randidly began weaving again, aiming to mimic significance, rather than organic lines.

Organic lines were a byproduct of existence. They aren’t the ultimate goal.

Congratulations! Your Skill Nether Ritual (A) has grown to Level 201!

Since he was remaking the Nether Ritual anyway, Randidly made the final space about double its original size. It had occurred to him after melting a few ingots that it would be difficult to manage everything in his original zone. Soon, the second Nether Ritual snapped into place and once more sealed his activities from the outside space. The Nether Beasts who drifted closer could not find anything of note within the Ritual and steadily drifted away.

The Stillborn Phoenix seemed almost disappointed that it didn’t get to devour more Nether Beasts, for the moment.

Expanding the space obviously cooled the air, which meant Randidly had to spend a couple more minutes building up heat. And the previously melted metals hardened in that time, which filled Randidly with dissatisfaction. He gritted his teeth. But after concentrating on his heartbeat for a while, the temperature reached its previous levels. Yet Randidly suddenly thought this wasn’t enough; his Willpower flexed his muscles with such desperation his body began to shake.

I need… more heat…. As soon as sweat formed on his brow, it evaporated and was whisked away. His skin was red and inflamed. Yet he knew that even this-

Struck by sudden inspiration, Randidly released the tight reins he kept on his emotions. All his aggressive fury, his frustration with his own development, and that tingling madness that drove him into fights against Nether Beasts flooded out of his heart and filled his body. Images required both shape and emotion to achieve their strength. But even without shape, emotions had power. That was one of the lessons this experience had carved into his bones.

To his Nether Sensation, Randidly felt pink flames lick across his body. He let the aggressive emotions run wild, feeling the familiar, suffocating feelings of mental imbalance rising within him. Yet he didn’t slow down as he approached that barrier. He simply blasted past it, reducing it to splinters.

Randidly felt something within his Soulspace change, but he didn’t investigate the sensation closely. Under the influence of the wild emotions, he clenched his hand into a fist. The flames around his body grew in height. The isolated space became an inferno.

As the ingots floating in the air began to melt, Randidly began to laugh.