A few weeks passed slowly, and it was extremely boring. School was as it ever was in Yancy, strict with a very large amount of work. It would have been more boring if I didn't have my training to do, or Percy and Grover to hang out with however. Or if it wasn't so funny to see Nancy, who now had large splotches of bright pink in her red hair.

The detention that I got from that little prank hasn't really been that bad either, it was basically just some light reading that cut in on my training time that day.

Time kept moving forwards though, school and my own training making most days a blur. But my training had shifted a bit after my prank, and I had realized that my instinctive knowledge of technology and mechanics in general was actually more of a powerful gift then I thought that it was when I had first modified the hockey phaser. As for what caused it… I want to be sure before I say anything, so I don't get my hopes up. I think that I am right, and my thoughts did make a lot of sense though.

But because of what exactly I was able to do… it did give me an idea of what I should try to train and so I set aside some time to make some designs of things, then I started to build some of them. Building and constructing things was surprisingly easy for me, especially with practically unlimited resources. The things that I started to make and design were more practical then my hair dye drone, so it was slightly less fun however.

I had made a few fans as a start, with the blades and base made from thinner aluminum that I shaped in the smithy, and the electrical mostly made slowly in sections with the Ring of Creation and some small constructs for shaping some parts. I don’t really know why I decided to design and make fans, but I got as far as my seventh before I decided to start something a little more useful, so I started to think about anything that I really wanted to make.

It was more difficult than you would think, but I did come up with a small list. Almost everything on that list were things that I would have to wait to try to even think about designing, but there were quite a few things that I wanted to try to make that I could at least attempt to design and construct. Like a motion detector, that I was currently trying to make with huge help from a bunch of videos that I watched. It was a difficult process, but I was roughly half way done making something that could potentially work. Maybe it is a little advanced for now, but I am getting there.

Disappointingly, I didn't get another skill from my technology designing, but I think that it is counting to the Builder passive that I had because I got it to level four along with Speed Reading a few days ago.

Besides the additional direction that my training was taking however, not much had changed. I had a small but more or less steady flow of Ring Gold from the school ‘quests’ which I was still saving up for something new later. My Spirit Energy was close to peaking again, so I was getting ready to enchant a new ring in a few days.

The only real problem that I was having, was an increasing amount of odd looks and questions from Percy about where I disappear to in the afternoons. I didn't tell him what I was doing, mostly just not answering. That didn't really help at all however, and just made things slightly worse because he stopped asking me but was still suspicious. It made me kind of guilty to be honest…

But I couldn't just tell him, so I couldn't really do anything about it and I did try to take my mind off of it with training. The grind is always the peak method of ignoring your problems.

So that brought me to today, which is the day that I was going to be enchanting the next mythril ring.

Because of the growing number of rings that I was making, I made this ring with an engraving to make it stand out more. The ring that I finished was actually High Uncommon, which was expected but still a bit disappointing that I couldn't break out of the Uncommon rank without enchanting yet. The design was a little simple, a mythril band with an engraving of swirling patterns with little stars that looked like they were flowing along with the wind. It was a simplistic engraving however so it didn't actually look that great compared to what I had thought up.

I hadn't decided what to call it yet, so I decided to name it after I enchanted it.

The enchantment was… a little iffy. The point of the enchantment was to let me see different types of energy, like electrical, the mist, and both spirit aura and energy wherever it was. The only problem with that, was that I didn't exactly have a firm grasp on energy in the first place and I had to basically take a shortcut to make different energies basically just light up a bit from the perspective of the wearer instead of an actual energy vision or sense. It should work for detecting energy’s though, so I don't get caught off guard by magic, tech or monsters that I couldn't see with my eyes, like an X-Ray vision on steroids.

So with my carefully crafted enchantment in hand, I started to enchant it as I have done several times before.

The process was as intense as it had ever been, but luckily I managed to finish it quickly and I opened up my status screen while laying on my back to help me recover while groaning a bit.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I looked over a notification and I nearly sat up in surprise, but I stopped as soon as I felt the mussels on my back flair in pain. “I got forty RG for that?” I said quietly in mild surprise, a mix between understanding and disappointing. I got more from a higher quality thing, and I got ten less RG than when I made The Constructor so it's worse than that. Though I was understanding because… to be honest my enchantment wasn't that great.

I analyzed the newly enchanted ring while holding it to my eye with shaky hands, noticing as I did that the red markings of runes along its body were strangely patterned to look as if they were also going with the flowing pattern I had engraved onto the ring.

Name: N/A

Grade: Low High

Abilities:

When worn, this ring syphons off a portion of the Spirit Energy of the wearer to power its other effects while it is being worn.

A wave of collected Spirit Energy Is sent from the ring and it marks several energy signatures it passes through with a mental marker in the form of a light that is only able to be seen by the wearer and is able to be seen through physical objects. This wave of Spirit Energy has an effective range of 10 feet.

Energy types that are able to be marked are: Spirit Energy, Spirit Aura, The Mist, Electrical and Divine Energy.

“Ah… I can see why the rating is lower… The amount of description kind of shows that the effect is pretty weak… But from what it says, I guess that it turned out ok?” I commented to myself while staring at the screen. I was glad that I had made the floor of the Arena so soft…

“Well, I guess I can choose the name now.” I said after I closed the system screen and I started to think. “X-Ray… Magical X-Ray… well, more like an Energy X-Ray… though magic could work. Maybe Mystical Ray? No… let's just shorten that to Mystic. Easy to say. I name this ring, Mystic.” I said thinking out loud, running my mouth as I thought without care.

‘I suppose I can see if it works once I recover a bit.’ I thought to myself before grunting and sitting up in the center of the Soul Forges arena, then stumbling to my feet and staggering off towards the exit to the Soul Forge.

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P.O.V. of Percy Jackson

Man… this school year was probably the weirdest or the coolest one I have ever had and it was just starting! First off, I was roommates with the weirdest guy. I am starting to think he might be some sort of mob boss’s kid or something too, because he keeps sneaking off every day and he won't tell me where. Then there are the things that he does seemingly out of the blue. First day here, this guy built a helicopter from paper, string and elastics somehow, then proceeded to throw a pen to deflect it enough that it didn't hit me when I opened the door. It was crazy! He was like a ninja.

Then a while later, a girl in our class, Nancy, started picking on him and me. He didn't do anything at first… then he whipped out a strike drone that he said he made, filled it with hair dye and dumped it on her head in the middle of a presentation she was doing. He didn't even get caught either. Just told to go to detention because the teacher needed someone to blame and it happened to be him.

It was at that point that I realized that Ardika was definitely a bit shady. The disappearing act he manages to do every afternoon was just the cherry on top.

I have been told I have had an overactive imagination, and I somewhat agreed internally, but this was honestly a bit much. I knew most of these kids were rich kids that were sent away from their rich parents, but I didn't understand why he acted the way he did. It made no sense. My theory of ‘mob boss’s son’ was honestly starting to feel plausible. Of course it could all be perfectly normal, he might just be good at building stuff, and he might just have a really good aim, and he might have brought his drone along from home, and he might just really like afternoon walks or something, but… I just didn't think that sounded believable.

On the other hand Grover was a bit of a rock in that regard, keeping me from ever fully believing all my theories with a casual joking comment.

I was on my bed in my dorm this afternoon. Ardika disappeared just over an hour ago as usual but I had some studying to do so I stayed in our dorm for some quiet space to myself. There was a latin test coming up, and I just could not get anything straight in my head. Why we even needed latin was beyond me. My head was buzzing a bit, and my eyes were skating over the mess of words and symbols in the textbook but I just could not understand any of this.

I leaned back on my bed with a sigh of frustration, tossing my book away with defeat. I will never remember why Sextus Propertius was important or what he did, beyond his name was a bit embarrassing…

My eyes wandered across the ceiling out of boredom as I lay on my bed. For all Ardika’s strangeness, he was definitely the most interesting and entertaining thing in this place. He had a good sense of humor, and was a pretty good guy in general. Though sometimes-

The door opened with a click, as it was unlocked from the outside and I sat up on my bed to take a look, only to be taken aback from the form of Ardika stumbling through the open door and almost banging into the wall as he shut the door with a thud.

I stared at him with concern, he looked… defeated almost. He was definitely pale as he turned his attention to his bed and he looked like he was sore and in pain as he stumbled into his bed and sprawled across it with a flump.

“Don't ask…” I heard his muffled voice say as his head was laying slumped onto his pillow.

I gave a sigh. Sometimes he does stuff like this that makes me wonder just who Ardika Ekia really was.