“Guilt is just a construct of the mind,” Rory muttered. He was pacing, as he often did. Based on his estimates, today would be the day unless something had gone terribly. He’d sacrificed a bushel of caerbannogs, and devasted an entire generation of the monster rabbits, yet it had seemingly paid off. His tree had rapidly grown over the last two weeks, and just the day prior, it was the size of a small grown tree, around ten feet tall and 98% corrupted.
Today would be when it reached 100%, leaving Rory to wonder what he would find. For all he knew, it could be some thrashing monster, a living tree ready to devour him.
Well, to be fair, trees are alive.
With that solid reasoning, Rory left the interior of his camp, reorienting toward his growth site. Within the ritual plot, a tree stood out, brazenly different from the rest of the orange-colored rainforest-style trees that dominated the landscape. Its bark was white and calcified like bone, with cracks leaking reddish sap. Crimson-colored leaves grew from its branches, and the entire thing looked closer to a Q-tip than the other trees. It reminded him of some of the trees he’d seen in some documentary about Madagascar.
Baobabs, I think they were called?
Shrugging, Rory put the question aside and took a deep breath, preparing himself.
????- Juvenile
Rarity: Uncommon
Once a natural tree, the ???? was created through artificial essence alteration involving countless sacrifices and essence infusions. Seeped in the life forces of living things and drenched in bloody essences, the ???? has a high affinity for physique-interfacing. The bark of the ???? is brittle but durable and has many potential uses for either crafting or alchemical purposes.
“Thank god,” Rory sighed, relief flooding him. The corrupted Sol’s Glory was finally fully transformed and recognized as something new. “Just needs a name…”
Thinking about it momentarily, the answer came to him as the interface description updated.
????- Juvenile
Rarity: Uncommon
Once a natural tree, the ???? was created through artificial essence alteration involving countless sacrifices and essence infusions. Seeped in the life forces of living things and drenched in bloody essences, the ???? has a high affinity for physique-interfacing. The bark of the ???? is brittle but durable and has many potential uses for either crafting or alchemical purposes.
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Bloodwood- Juvenile
Rarity: Uncommon
Once a natural tree, the Bloodwood tree was created through artificial essence alteration involving countless sacrifices and infusions. Seeped in the life forces of living things and drenched in bloody essences, the Bloodwood has a high affinity for physique-interfacing. The bark of the Bloodwood is brittle but durable and has many potential uses for either crafting or alchemical purposes.
“Originality be damned,” Rory chuckled.
It wasn’t his most creative naming convention, but it was fitting, given what had gone into creating the new tree. Rory wasn’t too surprised that the rarity was still listed as Uncommon. There was a wall between uncommon and rare that none of the other rarities or grades seemed to have. Perhaps the wall only grew with each tier, and it was only at the rare tier that it first became truly noticeable, but Rory wouldn’t know for sure until he was at the point where he was looking to create things beyond the rare tier, to begin with.
Still amused with himself, his smile quickly faded as a new problem presented itself.
“How am I supposed to cut this thing down?”
After seven axes and a hell of a sore back, Rory finally brought the juvenile bloodwood down. The first thing he did was replant a shoot from the tree. Now that he had successfully cultivated a bloodwood genotype, he wouldn’t need to go through corrupting more trees.
Hopefully.
Whether it would still require monster sacrifices had yet to be seen, but that was a problem for Future-Rory.
Present-Rory was preoccupied with trying to understand the bloodwood better. Just beneath the outer bone-like layer of bark, the interior wood had a surprisingly spongy texture-
Sort of like meat.
-with a rather thick red sap flowing through it. It wouldn’t be mistaken for flesh, still recognizable as wood, but there was no denying the similarity.
All right, agenda time.
Now that he had cultivated and harvested his first bloodwood, he had a catalog of things to consider.
1. His new bow. The entire point of this long project was to develop a material that he could use for crafting a new, potent bow.
2. The idea had come over the last two weeks, watching the outer bark of the rapidly corrupted tree harden into a bone-like material. As the description of the bloodwood had stated, it was quite brittle, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still usable; it would just take a bit of tampering and experimenting.
3. Physique-interfacing. Whatever that was, Rory wouldn’t pretend he wasn’t interested. The fact that it had gone out of its way to mention it meant that it was likely something special.
Nodding along with his list, Rory snagged some thicker branches; the still relatively young tree hadn’t produced any overly large branches, limiting his choices. Eye for Potential quickly sorted which branch was likely the best choice, and thus Rory set it aside, intending to practice with some of the lesser branches first.
It said something about the toughness of an uncommonly rated material that even his exceptional crafting knife, for the first time, found a modicum of resistance as he began attempting to carve and whittle the branch. Undeterred, Rory whittled away, the spongier wood taking far more focus and deliberate effort to work with. Hours passed as Rory worked, the branch appearing more and more like a proper bow stave. Only as daylight was beginning to fade, Rory pulled away from his work, examining his carving.
Solid. Looks good, no apparent issues.
It wasn’t meant to be his actual bow; it was more of a practice run, so Rory didn’t bother with anything more difficult or complex than a standard recurve bow. Grabbing a bowstring, with two weeks to wait, he’d prepared several specialty bow strings made from carefully processed tendons. Stringing the entire thing, Rory examined it for several seconds, thinking about what runes to lay upon it. In the end, he went with a simple acceleration rune, as once more, it was only meant as a practice run of making his real bow.
Inscribed Bloodwood Recurve Bow
Grade: Common
A basic crafted bow of uncommon rarity material. A standardized inscription has further enhanced it, allowing for enhanced arrow flight speed. Due to the nature of the base material, it gains a small degree of self-repair when infused with life-aligned essences.
“Alright, not bad,” Rory said with half a smile. On its own, the bow wouldn’t have warranted the many weeks of work that went into obtaining the materials involved in its crafting, but it was only proof of concept.
Its ability to self-repair without any specific inscription or Akashic record is interesting. I might have to consider that more in-depth.
Out of curiosity, Rory test-fired several arrows, noting how the bow felt. In truth, it wasn’t significantly different from any of his earlier bows. His skill as a craftsman hadn’t been elevated by any significant degree since he’d made his prior bows; only the materials and abilities he had access to had changed by any significant margins. Yawning, Rory stretched his arms overhead, darkness minutes away.
“An entire day for one bow… I can do better. Tomorrow, that is.”
Satisfied with his work for the day, Rory clambered into his small hut and laid his bow on the cabinet-like protrusion within before promptly falling asleep.
It would take another week of work before Rory finally held his magnum opus. During that time, he experimented with different ways to prepare and work with his current materials—his first attempt involved drying the wood and testing what would happen. On the one hand, it made the resulting bow capable of firing arrows with much more power, but on the other hand, if overtaxed, it would have catastrophic results, exploding in painful wooden shards.
Another experiment had been crafting a longer bow, and while there weren’t any immediate issues with the result, something didn’t feel quite right. It was clumsier to wield; thus, he’d tossed the idea.
His fourth bow was exposed to Essence Spark the entire time he worked with it. In the end, it had the opposite problem of the bow where he’d dried the wood; it was so spongy and soft it felt like it had no power.
His fifth bow, and the last of the branches he could use for experimenting, was styled like his first bow, except rather than ending with a simple runic inscription, Rory had opted to leave the bow ‘blank.’ The result had been something he hadn’t seen in some time.
Akashic Bloodwood Recurve Bow
Grade: Common
Akashic Record: Blood Hound
A basic crafted bow of uncommon rarity material. It contains an Akashic Record that grants a small degree of mid-air trajectory alteration when fired at a wounded target. Due to the nature of the base material, it gains a small degree of self-repair when infused with life-aligned essences.
“Huh, it’s been so long since I last saw an Akashic Record that Eon went and changed how it’s shown,” Rory said as he examined the effect. In the past, the descriptions had referenced the Akashic record but never outright had a separate listing. “I wonder if it’s because, with runic inscriptions, those are planned, so it doesn’t need to explain the effect?”
Whatever the reason, Rory was happy to see one for the first time in ages. In fairness, he hadn’t given a chance for any of his items to have Akashic Records ever since he’d begun working with inscriptions; the two seemed to be mutually exclusive, or at the very least, the process for making them play nicely with one another was one Rory hadn’t yet invented.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Why did Rory bother to test whether the material would grant an Akashic Record? The answer was simple.
His eye had become hellishly itchy for the last few days.
On Earth, Rory would have assumed it was nothing but allergies, but in all his time on Aelia, he’d never had an issue with his allergies, seasonal or otherwise.
In fact, I probably don’t have any allergies anymore. It's too bad there isn’t any peanut butter; I always wanted to try a peanut butter sandwich.
So, why had his eye begun to itch terribly the more he worked on the bow? Eye for Potential. Its functions weren’t always logical, but neither was anything anymore, so he’d presumed it was trying to alert him to something. His growing familiarity with the material was crucial for how Eye for Potential had even picked up on it in the first place; it didn’t grant free knowledge of things he had no sense of.
Thus, trying to make sense of just what Eye for Potential was picking up on, Rory briefly toyed with the idea that it might be related to Akashic Records, and the moment the thought crossed his mind, the itching stopped.
A day later, he’d held his first Akashic Record weapon in months.
Out of test materials and now the owner of several new bows, it was time to put everything he’d learned to the test.
Waiting until the next day, Rory had begun near the break of dawn, carving his chosen branch with a much more practiced familiarity. He dried the wood, but only slightly, while at the same time infusing the tiniest bit of essence into it. It seemed contrary, the drying of the wood when blood essence made the bow far spongier, but there was a method to his madness. It wasn’t specifically the blood essence he wanted to infuse into the bow; it was already plenty saturated with that, but the ‘foundational’ affinity that his improved Essence Spark skill had as a passive bonus. Had he infused the bow without drying it, the bloodwood would have become too spongy, like one of the earlier bows.
Hours passed as he worked. Unlike the prior bows, intended as regular recurve bows, Rory specifically took extra time near either end of the bow stave as he meant to add pulleys for a proper compound bow. It was slow, deliberate work, but Rory needed to be sure of his creation, or he’d be forced to wait several more weeks to grow another sizable bloodwood. The pulley had been surprisingly simple to fashion. Using what little metal he had left, he’d fashioned them by pouring them into small molds and then sanding them down with rather crude-looking sandpaper made from ground obsidian pasted to a small, thin piece of wood. It was yet another example of something that shouldn’t have worked on Earth. You’d need properly aligned and accurate machines to ensure the metal didn’t settle wrong, but in this magical universe, it was as if the metal knew for what purpose it was being used and that it wanted to work with him, resulting in only a sparse few blemishes that had needed sanding.
Once the arms of the bow were finished and the pulleys and cable system had been added, utilizing his abundance of monster tendons that had been specifically prepared for such purpose, the bow was all but finished.
All that work, and just like that, I’m done. Honestly, it feels a little anticlimactic.
Rory waited several seconds once he’d finally finished, wanting to give the universe or perhaps Eon -whichever oversaw Akashic Records- time to recognize that he was done. He wasn’t sure if that was needed, but he’d figured it couldn’t hurt. Waiting for a full ten count, Rory finally examined the bow.
Akashic Bloodwood Compound Bow
Grade: Uncommon
Akashic Record: Blood Legacy
A well-crafted bow of uncommon rarity material. It contains an Akashic Record that grants the ability to channel Pneuma and vitality into the bow, massively increasing the attack potency. Due to the nature of the base material, it gains a small degree of self-repair when infused with life-aligned essences.
“Hot damn,” Rory whistled as he examined both the text and the bow itself, really taking it in for the first time. He hadn’t realized it as he worked on it, but he could see why the bow was rated as uncommon grade instead of common. Whether through magical means or just from days of working with the material, he’d gotten much more practiced; there was a natural curve to each knife stroke, an artistry that hadn’t been there before. To an untrained eye, there wouldn’t have appeared much difference, but to Rory, it was like night and day, an ordinary knife versus a chef's knife.
It was also the first ever uncommon grade item he’d made himself. Would Big Momma have been capable of pumping out far more firepower? Almost certainly, unless Blood Legacy was outrageously more powerful than he thought was possible. Yet Big Momma -as much as he loved the former oversized railgun- had been a crudely made cheat code, abusing knowledge from their old universe in tandem with magical principles to create a bastard of war. It was basically held together by magical duct tape, bubblegum, and shoelace; its strength had nothing to do with the materials or craftsmanship.
This Blood Legacy bow, though? It was ordinary, just a bow. It wasn’t blowing things apart with the lovechild of physics and magic. What made it special was everything that went into making it, his skill as a craftsman evolving as he’d worked, utilizing more powerful materials that had taken weeks of blood, sweat, and more blood.
A sense of pride rose in Rory as Rory gingerly held the bow.
Well, let’s give you a test.
Grabbing an arrow, Rory pulled the bowstring back. Everything felt buttery smooth, far smoother than the craftsman Rory had once been could have ever hoped to achieve.
Taking a deep breath, Rory sighted at a nearby tree, calming himself.
And here we... go?
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Rory awoke confused, a notification beeping above his face.
“A message?” Rory’s jaw hurt. He felt like he’d been chewing on gravel as he spat out the words. He’d never received a message before, but he didn’t need to see who it was from; only a single person on the planet could message him.
And that was the planet herself.
“I have no idea what you did, once again, to almost kill yourself out of the blue. I doubt it was your inscriptions, not after I warned you. At the very least, it doesn’t appear as if Eon had to save you once again; you only dropped down to twenty-three percent vitality, and it was by an even rate, no sudden stoppage indicating Eon intervened. If you’re going to keep almost killing yourself, I’m not going to bother checking on you every time. So, take this as my ‘Please stop almost killing yourself’ reprimanding that I would have given you in person.”
-Aelia
“Why does this format itself like a letter?” Rory questioned for a moment before shaking his head. “Because that’s how I instinctively think it should look.”
Rory rubbed at the back of his neck as he sat up, glancing over at the Blood Legacy bow.
“Right, so next time, don’t just full-throttle it from the get-go,” Rory muttered.
Much like when he’d nearly killed himself over-taxing himself with Ancestral Inscription, Rory had drawn himself too thin, and the effect had been devastating.
It wasn’t the only thing devastated, though. One glance toward the tree he’d been sighting when he passed out left his mouth ajar.
It had been blown apart like a cannonball had struck it. It wasn’t as destructive as his railgun, but it was close.
Does that mean I’m allowed to use my railguns again?
Only a second later, Rory shook the thought aside. That single shot had burnt through nearly everything he had to offer, and it was still weaker than a single round from his ordinary railguns.
Yeah, there is still a long way to go.
A part of Rory wondered if he would even bother using railguns when allowed again. While they abused the interplay between magic and physics to achieve immense power, they weren’t scalable; he couldn’t force more power out of them than the physics involved. Tier eight, when he estimated he could rival that sort of firepower freely and thus be unbanned from using his railguns, was a long time away.
Like, hundreds of years long.
It was an unnerving thought, as it really painted just how long it could start to take between ascensions. But more than that, it put into context that if Eon believed those tiers weren’t impossible to achieve, his lifespan must have increased dramatically. He was only in his twenties, yet by tier eight, he could be hundreds of years old.
Yeah, I’m putting that thought aside for Future-Rory to mull over.
The point was that by the time he reached tier eight, there was a non-zero chance that his railguns would be more hassle than they were worth.
Well, only time will tell.
Putting aside the thought of using his railguns again, Rory mentally checked off the first thing from his checklist.
After weeks of effort… no, that’s not even right—months of effort. After months of effort, I’ve finally got my new bow.
“All right, now what?”
He still had plenty of bloodwood to work with, and ideas began to ooze forth. Examining the brittle, bone-like bark, Rory suddenly felt motivated to, for the first time, really try to make some armor.
Now, what’s the best way to do that?
Sighing to himself, Rory readied himself, already well aware that these things were never a quick process. Blood, sweat, and, well, usually more blood were required to make even an inch of progress.
A week. I'll be happy if I can come up with something in a week.
----------------------------------------
Eight days. It wasn’t quite as fast as Rory had hoped, but it was close enough that Rory called it a rounding error.
As for what he’d come up with? Well, Rory examined a set of what looked like excessively thick athletic wear.
It could be thinner, but not bad.
Akashic Blood Weave Top
Grade: Common
Akashic Record: Physique Transfusion
A competently made hybrid skinsuit crafted from a mundane leather cuirass and threaded bloodwood fibers. Assimilated through the bloodwood fibers, the Blood Weave grants moderate kinetic redistribution and minor slashing and stabbing protection. When linked directly to the wearer, the Physique Transfusion allows the transferal of stored energies into the wearer, granting a significant attribute increase. Physique Transfusion is limited by the stored energies within the blood weave and will degrade as the energy is expended.
Akashic Blood Weave Pants
Grade: Common
Akashic Record: Physique Transfusion
A competently made hybrid skinsuit crafted from mundane hide pants and threaded bloodwood fibers. Assimilated through the bloodwood fibers, the Blood Weave grants moderate kinetic redistribution and minor slashing and stabbing protection. When linked directly to the wearer, the Physique Transfusion allows the transferal of stored energies into the wearer, granting a significant attribute increase. Physique Transfusion is limited by the stored energies within the blood weave and will degrade as the energy is expended.
In the end, crafting armor from wood had proven shockingly difficult; the bark of the bloodwood was too brittle and had little bend, and the flesh was too spongy to make anything useful for protective purposes. Days of experimenting later, he’d had a different idea. Rather than create something purely from the trees, he would stitch together some basic leather and hide armor, which was mostly useless against more powerful monsters. After that, Rory decided to attempt a ‘corruption’ of the armor in the same fashion he had with the bloodwood trees. A few more days of trial and error later, Rory had established a method. First, he would shred the bark into extremely thin fibers before twining them into slightly thicker fibers. After that, he would take the inner flesh of the bloodwood trees and repeat the process of shredding them into thin fibers and twining them into thicker strands. With that completed, Rory twined the bark threads directly in the middle of several spongier strands. Once that was complete, Rory found himself in possession of miniature ropes roughly the thickness of his index finger. From there, it was a matter of poking holes into his mundane pants and cuirass and threading the grotesque ropes throughout. As he did, he channeled Essence Spark, saturating the entire thing. The final product was an ugly-looking mishmash of zombie-tree threads and leather, with a distinct slippery feel as if coated in an invisible layer of blood.
Well, it was technically the final product, as far as his involvement went. From there, he simply waited two days as the ugly amalgamation changed, writhing throughout the day as the bloodwood fibers assimilated the base gear, growing into a singular symbiotic existence, one part crafting, one part magic fuckery that seemed to aid all crafting within this universe.
Three days of experimenting, three days of crafting, and two days of letting the entire thing magically ferment. On the ninth day, eight days from when he’d first begun working on the project, Rory exited his hut to find the top and pants changed, reminiscent of athletic wear if knit together from rust-red fibers.
Which was where Rory was now, still examining the ‘armor’ that he had made. It wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but Eon recognized it as armor, so that was saying something. Furthermore, there was a matching Akashic Record. He’d been hoping it would gain an Akashic Record since his bow had, but the matching Record made him raise his eyebrows.
Is it because it was made as a set?
Physique Transfusion. It was simple enough to understand; it burnt up energy within the armor to boost his attributes.
“So, where does the energy come from?” Rory mused for a moment before nodding to himself. “Duh. Sacrifices.”
Plenty of lives, monster lives, had gone into fueling the growth of his bloodwood tree. What he was seeing with Physique Transfusion was tapping into some of that energy that had altered and grown the tree in the first place. It was probably what the original mention of Physique Interfacing had referred to.
“Nifty,” Rory said to himself.
Bow, armor. All he needed was something to allow for the ‘Linkage’ between himself and his armor.
It probably doesn’t hurt to be literal.
Not intending to spend another few days on that project, Rory latched onto his first idea, grabbing a small chunk of bloodwood roughly the thickness of his wrist. From there, he spent two hours hacking and shaving away at it until he had what resembled a bracelet, save for a single thin needle-like spike pointing inward. Scribbling several runes on the outer part of the bracelet, Rory held the swiftly made item up to eye level.
Physique Binding Bracelet
Grade: Common
A competently crafted bracelet made of bloodwood. When directly worn and stuck onto the body, it allows for simplified energy transfer between the user and an item crafted from the same bloodwood tree.
“Easy enough,” Rory said. Shrugging to himself, Rory slapped it onto his wrist. Wincing as the small spike entered his body, the pain faded a moment later as his body healed around the bracelet, nearly grafting it to his body. The runes lining the bracelet and the intent behind the runes were simple enough. Simply by giving the bracelet a tap, it would begin directly drawing the energy from whatever bloodwood item he wore that could transfer energy.
“Bow. Check. Armor. Check. Something to link it all together.” Rory shook his wrist, glancing at the bracelet. “Check.”
He was ready, or as ready as he could be.
It was time for a rematch.