Arwin didn’t say anything for several seconds. He wasn’t sure how to properly acknowledge the gravity of the situation glistening in the words before him. Sure, there was a chance that anyone who got a Challenge had the opportunity to increase its difficulty, but when he paired this with the ssage he’d gotten for the [Decapitated] Achievent, pretending the sh was anything but sentient would be delusional.
If the sh is aware of … what does it want? Did sothing about catch its interest and cause it to give the Challenge, or did I get the Challenge because I already had its interest in the first place?
The sh didn’t respond. Its golden letters shimred before Arwin, waiting for him to make a choice. He didn’t know how much it knew or if it could see into his actual thoughts. It had to be able to tell his desires to so degree – but, if it was aware of his internal debate, it didn’t seem to care.
Okay. Issue at hand first. My reward was an item. Probably so sort of crafting material. If I accept the offer to up the Challenge, I’ll definitely get a shot at a better reward. But… if I fail after increasing the difficulty, I’m probably losing the reward I could have gotten and possibly failing the Challenge as a whole.
Arwin chewed his lower lip. Preparation for the Wyrms was going pretty well. He was pretty sure that they were on the right track… but if their suspicions were right, there were two Wyrms.
Even if one was weakened, he’d felt the strength of the monster firsthand. It was no re Journeyman 8. It had Titles. No matter how much they prepared in the ti they had, the fight would be incredibly dangerous.
Any advantage he could get could be huge. He didn’t have ti to go out and get more materials again, so getting sothing from the sh could make a big difference. If it was powerful enough and he managed to work with it, there was even a chance he’d get Achievents or go up a level.
It was a risk.
It was one that he was willing to take.
“Let’s do it,” Arwin said, steeling his nerves and nodding. “What’s the change?”
Shimrs of golden energy swirled through the air above Arwin. Sparks flew out as a small circle ford and he took a step back, holding his hands out. A small leather bag fell into his palms.
It was followed by a small bar of grey tal and an equally sized bar of white tal. Arwin caught all of them, fumbling to make sure he didn’t drop anything, and glanced up just as the portal faded away.
I got my reward anyway? What happened to the –
Craft a bracelet that exclusively possesses the [Steelskin] trait in under 3 hours.
[Steelskin]: Activating this item will turn its wearer’s body to steel and freeze them in place at the continuous cost of magical energy.
“Ah, shit,” Arwin said, hurrying over to his anvil and setting the materials the sh had granted him down on top of it. The sh really didn’t like waiting around. It was heartening that it had given him everything he suspected he needed to make one trait in particular, but that didn’t help all that much when he had absolutely no idea how to choose the traits his equipnt got. The sh had always done it for him.
He hurriedly undid the knot at the top of the small bag and peered inside it. There was a murky white gem, a pointed tooth, and a small plate that looked like it had been sothing’s carapace.
Before he could get too caught up studying the small pieces, Arwin looked to the two tal bars. The gray one strongly resembled a very refined version of Roughsteel. He hoisted it – the weight was about the sa. It seed to just be so form of basic tal.
The white one was a lot lighter than he expected. He tapped it against the anvil, drawing out a lodic hum. Running a finger across its surface revealed it hadn’t been dented. The tal was definitely sturdy.
“Okay,” Arwin said, setting the materials back down and forcing himself to take a mont to think instead of just jumping into his work. He wasn’t going to accomplish anything by panicking. “Two pieces of tal. Three assorted… thingies. Between these – and – I should be able to intentionally make the [Steelskin] trait.”
He dug through his mind in search of any common aspects that could be correlated to the traits he’d gotten in his previous gear. The actual material he worked with obviously influenced the end result.
Zeke’s helm was proof of that, as was the Maristeel’s water-influenced traits. That wasn’t all of it, though. His own desires had played a large portion in the results as well – naly, with Lillia’s armor.
The hell is the relation between those, though? I can set the general feel of the item. That’s not too hard. But how do I ensure a specific trait, much less avoiding the bad ones? I’ve got sothing like a 75% chance to get a detrintal trait… but that might be only when I’m following the sh and not working for myself.
His answer was sowhere in the materials before him. He just had to decode it. Arwin reached into the leather bag and pulled the gem, tooth, and carapace plate out. tal was clear enough, but he had less experience with the bits and bobs.
Arwin sniffed each of them to see if there was any magic within them, but they had no sll. They were just… things. His brow furrowed and he laid everything out on the anvil, drumming his fingers against his thigh.
“It’s got to be sothing to do with the random shit,” Arwin mused to himself. “There’s no relation between them as far as I can tell.”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
He picked the gem up and studied it closer. It didn’t even look particularly valuable. It vaguely resembled murky milk, and not in an appealing way. It was rough and jagged. If he’d seen it on the road, he would have stepped right over it.
The tooth didn’t look any more special. It was clearly from a monster of so sort, but that hardly narrowed anything down. The gray piece of carapace was the sa. They were just mundane items.
Then again, I’ve made magical weapons out of literal scrap. Maybe that’s the problem? Do I need to use higher quality materials and really focus in on what I want the result to be? I’ve never had a specific trait in mind before.
If that were the case, Arwin was pretty confident that the white tal was better than the gray. He picked it up and tossed [Soul Fla] into his hearth, then placed the tal within the crackling fire.
He’d clearly gotten the assorted pieces for a reason as well, but he couldn’t tell if any of them were rarer than the other. After thinking for another few minutes, Arwin chose the gemstone. It matched the tal and looked like it was probably the rarest of the lot.
The tal soon heated to an appropriate golden-orange and Arwin took it from the flas, setting about hamring it out. It worked easily and it wasn’t long before he had it flattened into a workable plate. He split it apart, then picked up one of the pieces and ntally pried it to see if it was interested in being a bracelet.
To his surprise, the tal was completely impassive. It was as if it had no desire at all.
The sh must have given materials with no desires so they would do exactly what I wanted to make the Challenge a bit more manageable.
He certainly wasn’t going to complain. Arwin took a section of the tal and returned it to the fla, bending it into a circle. He placed the white gemstone in its center, focusing his thoughts on the [Steelskin] trait.
Minutes slipped by as he worked the bracelet into shape, firmly embedding the gem into its center. Arwin pushed energy from his palms into the tal as he shaped it. He took extra effort to make sure his work was asured and the final result was the best he could possibly make.
It took nearly an hour for him to finish his work, but he grew more confident in his results with every second that passed. It was, without a doubt, the best bracelet he’d ever made. Arwin added in so faint designs just in case the sh was picky about its results, then held it out before him as the heat faded from the tal.
The fruits of his labor were a shimring white bracelet with a murky gemstone embedded in its top. Swirling patterns ran down its surface and encircled the stone. Arwin grinned to himself as the sh wrapped around the bracelet.
“Well? How about that?”
[tal Bracelet: Rare Quality] has been forged. Forging a magical item has granted you energy.
tal Bracelet: Rare Quality
[Squandered Potential]: This item could have been sothing, but the magic infused into it failed to align with its materials and prevented its traits from fully taking form.
[Albuskin]: ???
“Damn it,” Arwin cursed. The bracelet’s trait was sohow even worse than the one he’d made before it – but his efforts hadn’t been completely wasted. The trait had vital information within it.
My magic didn’t align with the materials. It’s not just about using high quality tal, then. I also got a skin trait, so my intent was kind of working, but it wasn’t even the right trait. I’m approaching this the wrong way. I definitely should have used the other tal – that one looks like normal steel.
Arwin studied the failed white bracelet. It wasn’t just the tal. Sothing about the other materials the sh had given him mattered as well.
“What would a gemstone, a tooth, or a piece of plating have to do with this?” Arwin asked himself. “Could they just be pure distractions?”
He wouldn’t put it past the sh, but there was only one way to find out. Arwin picked up the other brick of tal and set it into the fire to heat. Then, once it was hot enough, he set about making another bracelet.
Arwin pushed magic from himself into the tal as he worked it and continued to keep his mind focused on the [Steelskin] trait. As he had the last ti, Arwin did everything he could to make sure the bracelet was made to the absolute peak of his abilities.
After just under forty-five minutes, a new bracelet rested in his palms. He held his breath as the sh gathered to judge it.
[tal Bracelet: Null Quality] has been forged. Forging a magical item has granted you energy.
tal Bracelet: Null Quality
[Empty]: The magic failed to take hold within this tal, leaving it as nothing but a hunk with no power.
The glowing words sputtered and vanished, leaving Arwin with a plain band of tal in his palms. He’d failed again.
“Shit,” Arwin muttered. “A new mistake this ti. I’ve never had that happen before. How would the magic fail to take hold?”
The urge to fling himself into making a third bracelet was strong, but Arwin shoved it back. He didn’t have ti to make two more bracelets, so the next one had to count. There was no doubt in his mind that he had all the information he needed to do this properly. He just had to figure out what he was missing.
The sh had infused normal pieces of tal before without any issue, but that had been when it had provided the intent and done most of the work for him. This tal didn’t have any desires of its own, so it couldn’t help him. The only variable in play was Arwin.
“With the white tal and the gem, the magic gets wasted, but it was still held. With the steel, it didn’t take hold at all. That ans the gem was what was holding the magic rather than the tal itself – or perhaps they were working together,” Arwin said to himself. His eyes drifted over his materials again as a piece of the puzzle fell into place. “I need a focus. It can’t just be any focus, though. It has to match the intent. That’s why the gem didn’t work.”
Or would the gem have worked if I used it in conjunction with the steel?
Arwin ground his teeth. He was running out of ti. He scanned over the materials again.
This tal can’t help house anything because it doesn’t have any desires. It’s just pure, plain tal. That’s a benefit because it ans it can’t put other shit into the mix, but a drawback because I can’t just rely on it to do the work.
It boils down to desire, then.
Arwin thought back to everything he’d made, and one piece in particular rose to the surface. Zeke’s helm had the strongest desire out of everything he’d worked with. It had shown him its path, and how all its experiences had shaped it. He’d seen the helm’s history, and it had practically forged itself with his hands.
A chill ran down Arwin’s back and his eyes flicked to the tooth and the carapace lying in wait on the anvil.
That’s it. Everything that goes into the item has to align. The tal I’ve currently got has no desires of its own – which ans I need to add sothing into it to hold the magic. Then that item has to work with the tal to achieve the final result. The white tal is definitely the wrong tal, and the gemstone is definitely the wrong material.
Arwin’s eyes flicked to the carapace. Skin – or about as close to it as he had to work with. That would fit the trait he was going for, and the gray tal would align with all of it.
“Let’s do this one more ti.”
He grabbed the carapace and a piece of the gray tal, bringing both to the fire.
Then he got to work.
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