Immediately following breakfast Cher takes Nette's place, assisting Gene with the lycans, hoping to pick up as much as she can from the shadow queen. Once the academy remodel is finished, the two shadow lancers plan to perform rituals that will increase our security and amplify the learning potential of all within the walls of our fortress. Bloom has wandered off to take care of some personal matters. Nette, Glimmer, and Noth break away to practice mind magic.
Noth has not bound an affinity yet and is convinced that mind mana is precisely what she wants. However, she needed a source of pure or mind mana before using the energy. Glimmer presented the solution of Nette dumping large amounts of her mana into rune rocks, allowing Noth to bind the power.
Glimmer, on the other hand, wants to learn some mental abilities by using her mirror skill. Light mana is sounding more and more interesting the more we talk with Glimmer. I'm already set on binding life mana if I can. The life energy feels like the right balance for how much I'm invested in death mana. Where life mana offers balance, light provides versatility.
With runes and rituals, I can hack away at any problem making my life a piece of cake. Or so that is my hope. If I had all these light runes back in my cave at Base Camp, I would have been living in luxury. As cool as my bone piping was, not having pipes and getting water is classy living. The lack of flooding threats alone would increase home security levels. Back in the cave, I always felt like I was one messy bear fight away from flooding my home and damaging the natural stone flooring. Cracked stone tile is not classy.
Sure, I'm practically my own water source now. It is different, though, having to be your own water supply as opposed to having a water supply. Plus, if I have a stone that always provides water, perhaps I can drop the water skill that is locking up one of my absorb slots and pick something like earth manipulation. Life will be in absolute easy mode. Freak, if I can learn the mirror skill, I can learn even more life skills that will make living a luxury.
My mind floods with theories on possible spells and skills that will let me live as lazily as I want; I nearly forget about the task I'm supposed to focus on. I let myself linger a little longer on fancy living ideas before reeling in my thoughts and concentrating on the rest of the loot I looted recently.
Most items come from the last fortress Gene and I raided and the recent fight with the demons. All the things from the horde's main stronghold were dissolved in the fog of death, and in both of the goblin raids, we focused primarily on food before we had to run. The bugbears were different since we had time to thoroughly search the fortress. I absorbed many plain armor and weapons, putting my black iron scales on the precipice of upgrading to a new material.
The most noticeable weapon is the ruby red sword we took from the bugbear death knight. The great sword is massive. Fortunately, I don't have to put items in Gloom's pocket to store them in the pocket dimension. I more or less just have to will the things into the intended pocket, and the target is stored away. If it weren't for that convenience, there's no way we'd been able to get away with as much food as we did.
Ruby, the sword I'm holding, feels like no other blade. The sword was masterfully crafted. Though it's massive, about the same size as me, the sword feels appropriately balanced. I let my hands tighten around the thick grip. My right hand is gripped below the straight cross guard, and my left is above the pommel. Even the handle is massive, and my hands feel a bit misplaced. I don't let that stop me from admiring the blade.
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A few practice slices later, I'm convinced it's a great weapon but not a proper fit. However, I don't let that stop me from investigating further. Mostly I scrutinize the design of the blade and practice replicating it as much as I can with my own summons. Until now, I've been using my instincts and inferior swords to base my creations. With Ruby as my model, I create a finer sword. It is not close to the quality of Ruby, but it's still an improvement.
My perception scans the blood-red sword when I finish my physical inspection. The runes along the hilt and the blade begin to glow, and I begin to intuit their meaning. Ruby is enchanted with runes that cause the sword and the wielder to become more powerful with the more blood it consumes. My intuition doesn't tell me much more than that, leaving me to believe it is a berserker effect or something. I won't honestly know until I use it. However, I don't plan on using it. The large blade will suit someone like Fury or even Bones.
I create a sheath for the Ruby using my leather summoning skill and put the blade to the side. The next significant item is the bow I got from Bloom. Giver, the name of the bow, glows golden with life energy. Life energy buds from the bow, and I get an odd feeling when my body tries to repair what isn't damaged. It doesn't take long for the misplaced energy to turn into a temporary boost to my vigor. Arrows fired from Giver can either be used to heal allies at a distance or cause an explosion of volatile life energy on targets depending on the wielder's intent.
Compared to Bo, Giver has more firepower. What Bo lacks in power, it makes up for subtlety. If I were to carry Giver around, the moment I pop out of shadow, the bow's glow would give my location away. Not only that, but I can also stow and summon Bo at any moment, and it is a great walking stick. I never intended to keep Giver for myself, but now that I think about it more, it makes more sense for Nette to have Giver than Gene for the same reason why the bow isn't a good fit for me.
Hopefully, I can convince Bloom to help us create a bow that will be perfect for Gene. The shadow shaman adamantly refuses my offer to give her gifts back. Gratefully, I'm stuck with the valuable items and constantly find myself tinkering with my tools.
Moving on from Giver, the next is a lute. There is nothing extravagant about the lute. It looks to be in excellent condition and the dark brown wood has a glossy finish. All the strings are functioning and seem to strum as they should. I have no clue what I'm looking at if I'm being honest. For all I know, it sounds good. Though I doubt it offers any practical function, I'm sure Bones, our only bard, will find a way to use it. If stringy music replaces horrible lyrics, giving him the lute will be an absolute win. Who knows, maybe some runes can be added to it to make the music extra pretty or something.
I continue to rummage through our items. Several elemental swords add flaming, icy, or lightning damage. There're a few bows that do the same. One bow is of excellent quality. Even though it has no enhancements, I put it aside to give to Gene. By the time I make it through the swords and bows, Bloom returns to help me sort through the rest of the equipment. Two whips, a magical hammer, and a life staff are also accounted for. The weapons are enchanted, but none of them are assigned a name.
More than anything else, we have cores. I've never run into this before because my death energy passively absorbed the beasts I've slain in the past. Still, when you kill an enlightened beast, they leave behind a core. The stronger the enlightened being, the stronger the core left behind. Bones' minions have been bringing in cores from all the slain, and now we need to inventory them and decide what we will do with all this power.