Speaking with Ruru during our little fishing trip motivated to do sothing I should've done much earlier.
It was ti to learn about the wonderful world of enchanting!
I had hundreds of cores that were dutifully extracted from goblins, boars, scatter bats, sli, draingi, and araneae. I even had one from Glog, talborn Prince of Goblins—the boss that dwelled within the Mines of Gamor.
Honestly? Now was, by far, the best ti to get a handle on that since we had ti to kill. And it wasn’t like we had any severe commitnts other than waiting. But right as I left the Deerfolk and his ward, my activity log indicated the mana from the clone I had made was only just now returning to . And with it ca the mories and feelings of what it did with Tilde.
Wow... She wasn’t kidding...
The images and visuals flashing through my mind were like a movie, and without even thinking about it, I reverted my crotch to Murag’s penis. The front of my shorts felt tight, and I quickly wrapped the waist cloth around my lower body to act as a skirt while hurrying to the mansion. The AI told Sekh was in the training room with Tilde and Niva, so I walked to the second floor after entering and stared over the balcony. In the ti it took to do this, my erection had co and gone, leaving flaccid.
Sekh was in a combat stance with her shield at the ready. Her armor was lying nearby, and she was training in only her tunic as a fountain of sweat littered the floor. With a focused expression, nocturnal flas curled around her shield and slowly enveloped it until it was like a wave of tornt. It looked like this was an exercise in manipulating [Black Fire] because large circles of the training room were covered in ash and burnt marks.
The conflagration blanketing her shield continued to spread until it ford sothing like a tower shield with a pointy end. Sekh lifted and slamd it into the ground. The shadow flas started to trail out from the impact until they had created a circle three feet in diater. At that point, everything within that boundary was set ablaze in a tyrannical inferno devoid of any light. It was like the very flas of a dark, void-like reality were swallowing this world piece by piece.
“[Black Fire: Immolation]!!!” Sekh continued to channel the technique even while her footing beca wobbly and uneven. Pained expressions covered her face. Perhaps it was too much strain because the blaze promptly vanished in a shimr and left behind a reminder it was alive in the form of ash. She dropped to one knee and violently gasped for air. I hopped down from the balcony and rushed to her, extending a hand.
“My liege... How... How long have you been watching...?” she asked with bated breath, coughing for a few seconds while I rubbed and patted her back.
“Just for a minute or two. Are you alright? Don’t overdo it.” I refused to let her go because I wanted to hug and pat her head. Sekh said when she was in her pri, she could create a fla circle dozens of miles big because [Black Fire], and its evolved forms, were more like an extension of her body. Unfortunately, Sekh didn’t retain that ability to freely manipulate it. But since she once knew how to do it, it was carved onto her soul. So, it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ she would relearn it.
It was ‘when.’
I looked around at the damage she’d done and asked if she felt better, to which she replied with a genuine nod. “It’s technically my house, I guess. What happens to it is up to . Co on, let’s go take a bath.”
After grabbing Niva’s wheelchair, we all went up to Susize’s room and quickly stripped down to enjoy the oh-so-relaxing paradise that was her bathroom. This ti, though, we put Aello’s housewarming gift to use. Sekh asked about my day while I washed her back with the pink cloths.
“It was worthwhile,” I replied. “Niva, I’ve got good news.” She looked at with a puzzled expression and a face full of white suds. “Enap finished Arguna’s arm, and he’s started on the leg and foot. And Ruru is making an elixir for you.”
“Aaaahhhhh...” The cloth escaped her weakened grip as tears slipped down those cheeks, washing away a thin line of foamy soap. She waved her arm, and more sounds ca out of her mouth, but there wasn’t anything cohesive. Still, I knew she was indescribably happy. And quite possibly full of emotion.
“I’m happy for you, Niva,” Sekh said, lifting her arms so I could wash the front of her body. I gingerly took more ti than necessary because I wanted to be sure everything was extra soapy. It was fun getting more intimate with her body through touch alone. So much so that she stood up, grabbed a cloth, turned around, and we washed each other while gazing into each other’s eyes. It was sensual and sexy, but we never progressed past that point and had sex. But she did wrap the washcloth around my penis and balls and ascertained they were extra clean before finishing off with her mouth. I held her head with my hands and rubbed her cheeks when I ca in her throat. Licking her lips, she smiled like a divine beauty when I pulled her to my chest and hugged her tightly.
After that, we just decided to rest and relax. I transford back into my sli form and lazily floated across the surface. When I was near Niva, she reached out to find , then softly patted even while tears clouded her eye. “You’ve done well to recover thus far, Niva. Just a little bit longer, okay?” she nodded once more and touched a hand to her heart. Eventually, I floated back towards Sekh, but Tilde decided to take a ride on like I was a turtle. But I couldn’t complain about anything, really.
But I did tease her about what she and the clone did. Her cheeks took on this adorable, cute blush, and she pounded the top of my slimy body with her little fists.
Suppose I have a new-found affection for her. Fuck, I love her so much. And Sekh, too. They’re the best companions a girl like could ask for.
The plan was to have dinner before we moved on to what was surely going to be a lengthy endeavor, but I couldn’t wait that long. With a few pots of water on the stove, I sat at the table with Sekh, Tilde, and Niva and pulled out a couple of goblin and boar cores.
“Okay. If you want to enchant sothing, it must be blessed. Blessing grants an item enchantnt slots dependent on the level of your enchanting skill. You’re at Lv. 1, so you get one slot. But that one slot isn’t restricted by anything. If there was a monster core with complete immunity to the elents, the shittiest shield could receive it. Because it’s not about the item's quality,” Tilde said. She explained further and covered every little detail.
Blessing an item requires materials related to that item and a certain amount of mana. At lower-quality gear, the requirents were easy to fulfill. For example, Sekh’s armor only needed items obtained from a boar to bless it. The actual process was also simple, but it required an enchanting table. Usually, they were made from tal or wood with a high amount of mana conductivity. A table varied in the number of cores it could support. So only had enough slots for two, while others had hundreds, but each one interlinked with each other via mana circuits that looked like the bus lines on a computer chip. The reason why? You had to mix the skills embedded within the cores to get to the more powerful enchantnts.
Let's say I had three cores that had {Slash Resistance}, {Pierce Resistance}, and {Crushing Resistance}. On their own, that would occupy three slots. But when placed on an enchanting table, the three would combine and beco a generic {Physical Resistance} enchantnt that only took one slot. On the other hand, you could upgrade enchanting tables to have it always impart a skill, which would make it a freebie.
Tilde said the most expensive tables added an extra slot, so equipnt with 11 slots wasn't impossible.
But enchanting wasn’t a poor man’s hobby. A low-quality table ran a few dozen gold. Even the mid-range cost more than a peasant made in a dozen lifetis. You could rent them, but that still took a lot of money.
Luckily, I was living in the ho of a High Elf that valued preparation, so it didn’t take long to find one hidden away in the storage room. And as expected, it was one of the ones that were at the top of the line.
And it weighed about 900 pounds while being six feet long and four feet wide. Sekh and I had a hell of a ti trying to bring it to the kitchen table. So much so that I had to shapeshift into Glog, talborn Prince of Goblins, for the extra muscle.
Honestly, the table itself looked magnificent. Decorated with gold and rubies, the table's background depicted what must’ve been Susize and Aetos flying high above Vredi Forest when they were far younger. It was like a tale told within a single painting, and the Susize inside felt connected. Without missing a beat, Sekh removed her armor and placed it in the middle of the table. A nu appeared within my vision with the required items to bless it. And by it, I ant the armor as a whole. The helt, chest, bracers, gloves, greaves, and boots were separate items that each required individual blessings.
And I did not have enough, so I settled for blessing the breastplate. Boar hide, boar tusks, boar cores, and boar at were examples of what I needed, but I only needed seven items. Tilde said there were tables that could use cores as substitutes for blessing, but this wasn't one of them. Had I wanted to bless the whole set, it’d require over 40 materials, and I didn’t have that. After satisfying the condition by pulling out seven boar parts, they transford into colorless mana and danced around the breastplate before being absorbed into it.
In my activity log, I was alerted to the successful blessing and acquisition of a new title.
New Title: [Novice Blesser]
Okay, so it seems like there’s a hierarchy to crafting titles. I got [Novice Blacksmith] back when I first started forging with Irisa. I still haven’t gotten the second tier, yet. Makes sense, I guess, since you really gotta put in a ton of effort.
“Okay, so that’s taken care of,” Tilde said, pointing to the breastplate. “Remove everything but that. Then start taking out the orbs and putting them in the slots. Rember to use [Analysis] to see what skills they hold. Or you can use the AI to help you filter by offensive, defensive, or utility enchantnts. And you can add additional filters if you want, so you can sort them by level, when you acquired them, what monster they ca from, and stuff like that. Proper use of evolving [Biological AI] ans you gotta work it like a dog.”
I rembered what Tilde said about combining multiple enchantnts, and I played around with them. It seed the goblin cores focused on enhancing physical defense and physical attacking. The scatter bat provided protection against ailnts and debuffs. The slis, however, increased your regeneration of mana. Likewise, the spiders improved piercing damage and offered resistance to poisoning.
It was clear to , and Sekh backed up on this, that the best option was increasing her defenses. I had the appropriate cores to acquire {Physical Resistance}, so that was my goal. Tilde, however, stopped . “This table is enchanted with the ability to remove an item’s enchantnt.” I didn’t see why that was so important until she grabbed a core that improved crushing damage. “Before you do anything, use this.”
“Okay, but I don’t know why,” I replied, placing the core onto one of the divots. A nu appeared in my vision asking if I wanted {Crushing Damage (Lv. 1)} applied to the breastplate. I confird it. The core dissolved into pure mana, which traveled along the mana lines on the table to the piece of equipnt. It flashed for a mont, and I acquired another title.
New Title: [Novice Enchanter]
“It is now possible to recreate the enchantnt {Crushing Damage (Lv. 1)}, my lord,” said the AI, who blood into existence in front of .
“Yep! When you break it down, an enchantnt is literally just a set of specific instructions locked within a core, and the AI can lock onto those instructions and copy them. However, it requires a shit load of mana to brute force it this way. And I an a lot. Even a Lv. 1 enchantnt will drain you as you are now, and don’t even try to do a Lv. 2 or Lv. 3. Speaking of which, there is very little difference between a skill and enchantnt of the sa na. So, if you had the skill [Fire Resistance (Lv. 3)] and enchantnt {Fire Resistance (Lv. 7)}, they would not add together. Instead, you’d receive the effects of the one that’s a higher level,” explained Tilde. “Oh, this goes without saying, but the AI keeps track of each level of an enchantnt. You’ll still be able to enchant sothing with {Physical Resistance (Lv. 1)} even if you know the Lv. 3 version.”
When I opened my Status nu, I saw a separate button to open the enchantnt nu, and yes, there it was. “You know what you must do. Save the cores that have {Slash Resistance}, {Pierce Resistance}, and {Blunt Resistance} until the end so you can get {Physical Resistance},” said the fairy.
Tilde was hinting at using all my cores, and I did. I quickly discovered that if I used all available slots on the enchanting table, the nu that appeared was my best friend. It removed the guesswork from this rather tedious process. But it wasn’t all bad because I also learned you could make {Physical Resistance (Lv. 3)} if you had enough fodder material with the required skills. It was like assimilating a hundred thousand goblins to max out [Spear]. Well, almost. It was the sa difference.
Tilde said it was much easier to just put in the effort to find the monster cores with the higher ranks of the skills I needed rather than trying to work my way up from the bottom. In her words, there wasn’t an enchanting table with tens of thousands of core holders. In the end, I had quite a few enchantnts populating my nu, including one that increased all physical damage. It was Lv. 2, but it was still a generic buff. Unfortunately, Sekh’s mace required iron to bless, and I was totally out. But other than that, I had enchantnts that offered resistance against venom, poison, and the bleeding debuff. My goal of eventually making our casual clothing as tough as armor remained out of reach for the ti being, but I was going to eventually accomplish that.
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