Chapter 115 (1/2)

Sam swore and slammed his fist down, denting the metal of the work table. Tossing the failed engraving to the side, he looked broodingly at his hands. It was just too difficult to Engrave with his mana pool. He couldn’t persist for the entirety of the process, and when he ran out of mana, the engraving suffered for it. Sam hadn’t even finished this version, and he knew it would be inferior to his previous attempt, which was poor at best.

What was most annoying was that most of his morning had been spent putting the fear of god into the new crafting recruits. They didn’t take the system seriously enough. They basically thought that the world had monsters now, but all was mostly the same other than that. Just put the effort in, and create the equipment.

But it wasn’t. For whatever reason, there were certain actions that the system recognized. You had to observe those, and learn to use them to your advantage.

For example, Sam had discovered early on that hammering in sets would increase the quality of a produced item. If you hammered 11 times, took a break, then hammered 11 more times the entire forging process, the item might be an extra stat point higher at the end. If you just hammered normally, you wouldn’t receive this benefit.

Similarly, putting a freshly made weapon into clean spring water would improve its quality over a weapon that was plunged in dirty water, and then cleaned later.

There was no scientific reason for these actions to have actual, quantifiable effects on the forging process. But they were symbolic gestures, which the system recognized. Whereas prior to the system, people who were superstitious were looked down upon. But now, in the crafting corps at least, such little rituals were regarded reverently, as a point of pride. Only with them carefully observed would the best quality product be created.

Regina had wondered, long term, what sort of effect that would have on the mentality of the crafters, but Sam just shrugged. That was a lot less important than making quality weapons and armor. Sam was much more concerned with what these rituals would become. They were simple, small things now, but as they became more elaborate, it was possible that they would manifest themselves as a skill.

Of course this was only a pet theory of Sam’s, and he didn’t have enough time to test it. But a brief discussion with Clarissa had given him some hope. She seemed to think it perfectly obvious that such things should happen, and then she had hurried off to practice using certain hand motions or incantations along with her spells.

In order to make sure the day wasn’t a complete waste, Sam briefly considered practicing more Bone Shaping, but discarded it. His mood was too volatile right now. What he really needed was-

Then he blinked, then frowned, then smiled. He might not go for it, but… if he did…

If Randidly could take the time to learn Engraving…

Gleefully rubbing his hands together, Sam ran out of the forge and off north of Donnyton, looking for his newest, unknowing, student.

****

Time flowed quickly past. Randidly was numb to it, only following the constant cycle of rot and ash. The more he watched, the more Randidly grew to suspect something was missing. The cycle continued unabated, but Randidly had a strange feeling in his chest. If he could find the source, and push towards it…

It could have been a minute, it could have been a year. Time melded and stretched. Grass grew, rot came, ash burnt it all away. Then there was nothing, for a time.

Then the grass grew.

In his chest, the feeling of wrongness grew stronger and stronger, until-

Randidly blinked, looking up at the sky. Something had pushed him down onto his back, knocking him out of his trance. He straightened, but then fell back down, surprised by the weakness in his limbs. Wincing, he struggled to his feet, Lyra standing with her arms folded in front of him, her mouth in a thin line.

“Don’t do that again.” She said coolly. “If you leave Agony on while you are in that state… Your regeneration is monstrous, but it isn’t that monstrous. Do you know how dumb it would be if you died because you forgot that you had left the skill that burns your health on? Fucking dumbass.”

Randidly opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He could see the worry in Lyra’s eyes, and he felt rather dumb for forgetting about his skill. Even now, he could feel his strength flowing back into his limbs. It was almost a nostalgic weakness, one he had not felt in a very, very long time.

He hadn’t felt like this since that first day, when the world changed, and he was casually brushed to the side by a ram, reducing his health to nothing instantly.

But he had gained two skills from that situation, Iron Skin and Meditation, which had been invaluable for his survival early on in this system world. For that, he would be forever grateful to that ram’s ass. Randidly chuckled in spite of himself as he raised a health potion to his lips.

Lyra scowled furiously. “Funny, is it? Well fuck you. Go find Mrs. Hamilton, she has your training schedule. We will see how much you laugh then.”

Several minutes later, Randidly frowned down at the training schedule given to him by Mrs. Hamilton.

“Is there a problem?” She inquired sweetly.

Randidly slowly shook his head. “No… I suppose not.” The first two days were continuations of what they had been doing thus far. It would be difficult, but manageable. After that, there was a bump in difficulty each day, culminating at the end of two weeks with what Mrs. Hamilton believed was his “full potential.”

The difficulty was that Randidly would not be looking at notifications or using PP in that time. Therefore, the increases would come purely from his skill gains and from mental endurance. Perhaps the first increase would be manageable, but the 2nd… and then the 3rd increase in difficulty… all the way to the 12th…

“No.” Randidly said again, this time much more confident. He would walk the path before him to see where it led him. There was no point in worrying about it now. “There’s no problem-”

“Ahem.”

Both Randidly and Mrs. Hamilton turned, to find a dusty Sam standing in front of them. Without waiting for any real response, he plucked the paper from Randidly’s hands, and then studied it for a while, scratching his chin.

“Hmm… A lot of physical and mental strain…” Sam muttered to himself, eyes flicking up to Randidly. “This… this might not be possible… well…. If you had a hobby…”