As the next two weeks stretched on, I grew into my new schedule of building the Soul Forge. I had changed my schedule after the first two days of working in the mornings, and being absolutely exhausted the rest of the day. So I had taken my paper with my schedule out and made a new one for building my house in the Soul Forge.
Get up and do warm up exercise/training.
6:00-8:30
Breakfast.
8:30-9:00
Study/Research.
9:00-12:00
Lunch.
12:00-12:30
Blacksmithing.
12:30-3:00
Building.
3:00-7:00
Supper.
7:00-7:30
Shower.
7:30-8:00
Get in bed.
8:00
The major changes I made were the blacksmithing time became shorter and pushed to right after lunch, building took the place during the time I used to do blacksmithing and I removed my nightly study, so I could get to bed while I am tired out from building.
My new schedule worked out really well and I finished the flooring in the first three days, the walls during the five days after that and finally the roof/floor for floor 2, the ramp and the lights during the four days after I finished the walls. It doesn't look great right now, like a new house, but I should be getting some furniture and the like soon. I also removed the ‘Materialized Matter’ mark that was all over everything over the course of the following week, which was substantially easier than when I tried earlier in the month.
During the time I took building my interdimensional house in the Soul Forge, I had actually made my first weapons. Two daggers with blades made of steel with wooden and leather handles. Along with small hidden sheathes for them I had placed under my new leather jacket I had recently got for this exact purpose, to be able to bring them with me no matter where I go comfortably without anyone knowing.
Their rank wasn't much to boast about though, only Medium Common grade. Just kidding! Medium common from non-mortal materials was incredible for an absolute beginner who just started like me! I earned a total of thirty Ring Gold for them as well, so I was pretty proud of them.
I also started training how to fight with them, which was slow going. That was mostly just because I have very little idea what I am doing though and no one to show me how I am supposed to do it…
As for abilities, I finally unlocked the Blacksmithing Lv1 passive ability when I made my daggers and I leveled up Speed reading to Lv2. The changes for speed reading were immense as my reading speed grew by roughly ten percent, but Blacksmithing only helped a little, making me able to make things a little faster and with more precision, like maybe five percent better.
But now that you are all caught up, let's get back to the present.
I looked around my new house, well technically the first floor of it, with satisfaction. It was finally done, just waiting for my furniture and things for me to move in. I was currently in the entrance hall and was thinking about what I am going to be putting on the second floor. I do want to have something like an arena, but it is going to take a while… Especially if I do add in an elevated obstacle course above it.
You know what? I am going to do it anyway. I only have just over two weeks before school starts and I need something to do. I might as well just get started. I eventually decided after standing uncertainly for a few seconds, turning to the ramp to my left and starting to walk up. As I walked I thought about which design I had thought up I would use.
I could just go full Greek and build a small amphitheater with a row of raised seats… You know what, let's build on that… What if I make a Greek theatre but I make it into a hemisphere instead of a cone shape and only make three rows? That could work… I like it! It is decided then, I will take inspiration from the Greeks.
I then stopped suddenly on the first landing. Wait, why was I heading up the ramp? I need my materials first!
I pivot around and jog back down the stone ramp, heading for the material sample rack that I had placed in storage… On pretty much the opposite side of the Soul Forge…
I jog through the entry hall and into the hallway, into the room on the far end of the hallway on the left. My storage room wasn't very full, only my material storage rack was currently inside, so I continued to jog up to it and took a few seconds to decide on materials. Marble seems like a good choice… you know what? I think I will go all out and get that gold bar now, and put gold inlay into it. Flex my riches to the little guy…
I almost laughed at that, that was pretty much exactly what Pearson said to me in school while flexing his gold watch in school.
“Ha! Beat this, you stuck up prick!” I said out loud, while opening the System Store and checking my Ring Gold balance, seeing my hard earned seventy Ring Gold with a frown. “Ok, seventy Ring Gold isn't that much…” Then I smile and open the material screen and click the Gold Bar button, causing forty of my seventy Ring Gold to vanish and a Gold Bar to appear in my hand. “Yes!” I shouted, holding the Gold Bar in one hand and raising it into the air with a cheer “Beat this! It feels good to be rich!”
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I then frown, “I really need to find a buyer… I will go around the city and look for a pawn shop tomorrow.” I decide.
Well anyway, let's get back to building. I start to run my Spirit Energy through the MD ring and then the glimmering golden bar in my hand. I concentrate and start to form the shape of the material attachment rings, feeling the invisible energy move and struggle against my will of its form. All my practice with the MD ring wasn't wasted though, as after three seconds, I had arranged it into the correct shape and gave the command to materialize leaving all three material sample rings to appear in the air in front of me. Where it fell on the ground with a metallic thump.
“I keep forgetting about that…” I groan as I bend to pick it up. As soon as I stood back up again, I grip the gold material ring and I start to wipe the materialized matter mark, pushing a torrent of Spirit Energy into the small ring, removing the mark in about thirty seconds.
I set the gold bar onto the ground of the storage room and placed two sections of the gold sample onto a tube in the metal sample section of the shelf, keeping the gold material sample in my pocket for my new arena.
“Hum… I should make the benches a little more comfortable than it would be with just stone…” I say, thinking about what to do. “I could just make the actual bench part marble with the gold inlay, and make a sort of cushion with fabric and foam. You know what? Let's add a modern twist to the benches and make them like what you would see in theaters, where they are like padded chairs with a back and an arm rest between seats.” I decide and take a look at my fabric samples on the shelf and decide on a nice deep red fabric that is labeled ‘Red velvet’
“Nice and soft, I think that this will work ok.” I say after looking at it for a second. And for the foam I chose a sample of polyester for it, because I remember something about it being a good choice for pillow stuffing from my old world.
That leaves me with four material’s for the stands, gold, marble, red velvet and polyester, but I think that something for the floor would be good. Just the wood of the floor wouldn't stand up to a lot and maybe something that would cushion falls a little would be good. But what would I use?
I start looking at all my material samples, thinking about which material would be best.
A fabric would be the best for cushioning falls, but it wouldn't really work for a sturdy floor that could take a hit if it was thick enough to make a difference for falling… On the other hand, some sort of stone or steel would be best for taking the occasional hit, but if you fell on it it would hurt a lot… I wish I could combine it a little… Oh. I can.
I can combine stone or steel with a fabric, with the MD ring I can just materialize it partly inside each other. Huh, now that I think about it I haven't really found out what exactly materializing something inside something else does… I really need to do some testing on that.
Well, I can do some testing now I suppose… I should do that in my room though. When I am testing something I should check the time just so I don't accidentally go overtime.
As for my testing materials… I already have marble and polyester samples, maybe I could grab a steel sample and test those, so I can see if I could use something like I was thinking for the arena floor.
I seriously need to learn to think ahead a bit…
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Two hours later, I had found out quite a lot about the MD ring’s ability to materialize matter inside matter.
One of the first things that I had tested was what would happen to a marble if I materialized steel in exactly the same shape and positioning as the marble. At first sight, nothing happened to it, but on closer inspection I could see that the marble had taken a reflective metallic hue. The visible changes were far out shown as when I tested its durability and strength, I found out that it had taken some of the best qualities of the materials. You see, when I hit it with a hammer it was completely undamaged. I think that the marble and steel has created a new material that had a high tolerance to pretty much everything that I could throw at it. Also apparently it weighs an insane amount more than just normal marble.
It is important to know that materials have different strengths, tensile strength, yield strength, compressive strength and so fourth. So steel has different weaknesses and strengths than marble. And because of the size of the material not changing when another material is materialized inside it, I have a theory about what exactly is happening to the material. My theory is that the density of the material has grown making an alloy, because the materialized matter was created between the molecules of the marble.
This causes the resulting material to be more dense, which makes it stronger and heavier and it takes on the qualities of both materials. So with the marble and steel combination, it took on the different strengths and made the weaknesses of the individual material less pronounced and the final product to be a well rounded material that stands up to most pressures just as well.
That is really the only things that I had found out about or theorized for my first round of testing. I had tested a few more combinations, until I made an interesting discovery.
When I tried to materialize polyester into the steel-marble alloy, the entire thing literally dissolved into a fine, almost invisible small powder and exploded.
I was stunned at this discovery but after calming down and giving the command for all materialized matter to turn back into Spirit Energy, so I wouldn't breathe it in, I had a theory as to why it vaporized.
My theory is built off my first theory as to what happens when I materialize two materials, which is that the molecules appear in the space between the original molecules, and I theorized that it vaporized because there was no more room for the third materials molecules and therefore was under too much internal pressure which caused it to expand, shredding itself into particles in the process.
But really I have no idea. I don't exactly have something to take a look at what is happening at a molecular level.
And for my third and final test, I tried to use a combined material for a material ring. It was easy enough to try, and if it works right it will make the construction a lot faster, so I made a steel sample ring and then materialized the marble, making it into the marble-steel alloy. At first, it seemed normal but after picking it up, it weighed a ton. After putting it on, I tried running my Spirit Energy through it and found that as my Spirit Energy went through the material sample, nothing in particular was different that I could tell.
But disappointingly, when I gave the command ‘Materialize’ a chunk of steel appeared and fell on the floor with a loud thump. “I hope no one heard that…” I whispered, the thump was really loud…
Apparently either no one heard or no one cared enough to check what happened, because no one came to check.
“Why, did that not work though…” I muttered, looking at the chunk of steel lying on the floor. The second that I started really thinking about it, I realized how stupid I was.
“It takes the most abundant molecular structure! It can't copy a pattern of steel and marble molecules and so it took the most abundant, steel! Such a waste of time, if only I had really thought about it more, I would have remembered that!” I said scolding myself for not thinking through my test. ‘Dematerialize’ I gave the command to the ring, to clean up the hunk of steel and the pointless material sample ring.
After a few seconds of reprimanding myself, I decided that all of this testing was finished for now and I should start to work on a material for my arena floor.
After half an hour, I had come to a finished product, it started with a one foot cube of marble, and then I materialized three fourths (Heightwise) into the steel-marble alloy and then I added the polyester into the top fourth of the block and a miniscule bit above the block of marble.
This block that I ended up with turned out to be pretty much exactly what I wanted, as it was hard enough to take a good hit and was sturdy enough for running, but it was also softer and more shock absorbent than marble or steel making it better to fall on than either. It wasn't perfect though as I found out during testing that the first fourth of the block was weaker than just normal marble, particularly to slashes of my new daggers which left a good half inch gash. It is still quite an upgrade though and if it gets damaged to bad, I can always replace it.
I looked up from the block of my new creation and towards my alarm clock on my desk, which was turned towards me, the glowing lines telling me that my time for testing was up because it was six fifty four and supper was in six minutes. “Oh well… I can work on the arena tomorrow.” I say disappointed, before starting to clean up my room.