Now that our spirit adventure was truly complete, it was time for me to get back to the daily grind I was on. Starting with making the mana spring I promised to make.
It wasn’t that difficult, I mean making a spring that is kind of like an open air bath is simple when you can just cheat with HomeBase, not to mention all the magic I have access to through the spirits. As well as Paulina, she also helped.
And since I have access to a ton of mana through the flowers around HomeBase, I didn’t really have to worry about that part either.
The only real problem was mixing mana with water, especially how much mana would be safe, but we worked it out. And since the mana spring does use Spring of Rebirth as a base, it will also heal anyone in there, so if you accidentally injure yourself, the spring will heal you right up.
Spoiler [collapse]Alice and Lua had practically been living in the spring since I completed it, having three two hour sessions in it each day to improve their mana circuits. It might be a bit excessive, but it isn’t harming them, so I won’t stop them.
The superior spirit of water, Thalassa, also really enjoyed the spring. It really made her mellow out quickly and she is a lot less insane after bathing in the spring. Because of that, Lua often summoned Thalassa to bathe with her, before the two of them would have a practice session on Spiritual Water Magic.
At the same time, Ninatia, the superior fire, really didn’t like the spring and asked me if I could make something similar but with flames instead. I was a bit hesitant, as this felt like another potential torture thing, but I did come up with a use for it.
See if I combine Pikeru's Circle of Enchantment with something like Ookazi or Tremendous Fire, I could make flames that don’t actually burn you. Which might sound useless, but if you stand in flames, you will gain experience towards the Fire Resistance skill. At least that is what Laura can tell from the System info she has access to.
SpoilerSo if the flames that don’t do damage work, I can make a place where you can train that skill. Sure I could just use skill orbs for basic skills like Fire Resistance, but it is always good to have options and Ninatia asked for it, so it isn’t a waste even if no one but her ends up using it.
… Admittedly, it might also help with my dragon training. I mean, dragons resist fire, right? So if I want to dive deeper into the draconic skills, maybe having some Fire Resistance would be good.
Would help me to not burn myself when I use dragon fire.
Cailie was another interesting case. Mainly in that she was running out of mana faster than … I was going to say myself, but that is only because my mana pool is kind of massive nowadays.
It was just that basically all of Cailie’s new skills took up large quantities of mana, while she really didn’t know how to properly manage it yet. She was learning and she may even get the Fast Mana Recovery skill soon, but in the meantime, I gave her a bracelet that connected to the HomeBase mana storage so she could pull mana from it to refill her mana pool whenever she wanted to.
Sure it is just a bad patch, as it does kind of prevent the acquisition of Fast Mana Recovery, as I’ve learned firsthand, but for now, it is more important that Cailie learns to use all of her new powers.
… Except maybe Create Wind Spirit. She has already been warned by Anemoi not to go overboard with that skill, as creating too many spirits can be a decrement. I think Anemoi even gave her a limit on how many she was allowed to make, but I’m not sure what it is.
As for other things, well, I learned some interesting things when I was looking for the domain of Time and Space, so I had another device I wanted to make.
I wanted to make a more permanent version of my Dimensional Telescope that I used in the spirit world. One that I could use to locate good summonable monsters in the ‘summon dimension’. And if I do find something I really want, with Pan’s help, I should be able to summon it and try to make a contract with it.
The telescope will also help Unika do the same, and while she cannot summon Pan, she can just ask me to summon Pan to help her with her random summons. And if I learn how Pan’s power works, I might be able to modify the summoning magic circle so that it can target specific monsters in the summon dimension.
… But with the good came some bad. Well, it isn’t really bad, but I did learn something.
The demon dimension. It is basically just like the summon dimension, but filled with monsters that are a lot more … demonic than the standard monsters. They also seem to be quite a bit more powerful.
Because of that, I did a quick search on the books I had copied from different places to see if I had anything on demon summoning, but I didn’t have much, other than it is outlawed in the three Kingdoms.
So instead I asked Paulina about it, and while she didn’t know much, she did know why it was banned. And it all comes down to how you make contracts with demons.
In short, you have to sacrifice something for a demon contract. Weaker demons take sacrifices like you permanently losing 500 HP from your status, or stuff like that, whereas stronger ones take humans as the sacrifice.
There wasn’t much historical information Paulina knew, but there was a case where a small country in the north performed a demon summoning where they sacrificed fifty people to call forth a demon that would kill an S-rank monster for them.
I’m not sure if that was worth it, but honestly speaking, it may have been. I mean, an S-rank could easily kill more than 50 people, so… it isn’t the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.
But yeah. Considering the sacrificial nature of demon contracts, I can definitely see why the people in charge would want to ban that magic. Because if they don’t, some power hungry person is just going to gather a bunch of sacrifices to make a contract with a powerful demon and no one wants that.
But enough about summoning. I’ll work on it with Unika later when the non-card version of Dimensional Telescope is ready.
My next stop was actually in the Factory, and I was there with Wilma. That is because there was something I really wanted to try.
I heard from Gaia that since I have both her and Ninitia’s blessings, I should be able to call forth the superior spirit of metal, Athena. And since we do have a piece of star titanium that we haven’t yet turned into a sword, I think having the help of Athena would be invaluable in that process.
And maybe getting Wilma her blessing. I know Gaia didn’t give out hers to Wilma, because Wilma’s magic skills weren’t up to par with Gaia, but maybe Athena will see it differently.
“... Alright. I guess this is worth a shot.” I muttered. “As a holder of Gaia and Ninitia’s blessings, I call for the superior spirit of metal. Summon Metal Spirit.”
As I was in the Factory, I couldn’t feel the mana pull of using the skill I don’t have. But on the other hand, I could just barely feel the feeling I get when someone without a System Support comes into the Factory.
It just is so easy with the dragons. They are big and bold when they enter, practically yelling from the door. I’d never miss one of them coming in.
But the spirits are so quiet. They barely make a sound, almost like they just quietly open the door, step in and close the door behind them.
Luckily for me, after just a bit of waiting, a new avatar formed near me in the Factory.
She was a tall female, decently muscular but not as much as Gaia. Her hair was on the shorter side and bronze brown in color. She wore a metal breastplate, had armored boosts, bracers, a bronze helmet and she carried a huge circular shield on her back. She also had a war hammer strapped to her hip.
Honestly speaking, comparing her to Wilma makes the two look very similar. Other than the obvious hair color difference and the fact that Wilma has a beard. … And I guess also the fact that Wilma’s shield is a tower shield, while Athena’s is circular.
“... Hello. Just to confirm, but you are the superior spirit of metal, Athena, right?” I asked the spirit.
“I am.” She answered, her voice sounding very regal and just a bit commanding. “And you are Brian Wood, correct?”
“Yes. That would be me.” I confirmed. “I’m sorry for calling you with the authority of your parents, but I wish to have your assistance.”
“That depends on what you are trying to do. And don’t think you will get my blessing just because you woke up my parents. They and I are not the same.” Athena said.
“Alright. And no, I won’t be asking for it.” I said. “Wilma, would you explain it to her?”
I let Wilma take the stage and explain her intentions and the limitations we had.
“Star titanium. Quite the piece of metal you managed to find.” Athena seemed impressed by what we were working with.
“We didn’t find it, we made it.” Wilma corrected.
“Made it? Where did you learn how to do that?”
“We experimented. Combining materials from an Ursa Major with titanium that Brian made with a dungeon.”
“That wouldn’t work.” Athena said.
“I wasn’t finished. And yes, we did learn it doesn’t work, so we added some stardust. I’m not 100% sure what it is, but it is some sort of compacted form of mana.” Wilma explained. “So by combining those three things, folding the titanium on itself while adding the Ursa claws in between the folds, we turned titanium into star titanium.”
“... Impressive.” Athena muttered. “I need to look into this ‘stardust’ as I didn’t know of it.”
“I can introduce you to my expert.” I offered.
“That would help. Thank you.” Said the spirit. She then turned back to Wilma. “As for this little project, considering the material you are working with, I am willing to help with it.”
“T-Thank you.”
“But don’t think this is me giving you my blessing.” She quickly stated. “This is a test for you. If you impress me with the blade, you can have my blessing.” Athena said. “If no, then do not call for me again.” She said to me. “Mister Wood?”
“Just Brian, please.” I said.
“Brian. May I stay here for a while to work on the plan with the dwarf lady?”
“Sure. Do you need me or can I go work on something else?”
Athena looked at Wilma for the answer and Wilma just said she got this covered, so I returned to the control platform so that I could work on the dimensional telescope.
I don’t know how long it took for Wilma and Athena to come up with the full battleplan, or maybe I should call it the forging plan, largely because between the spirit world adventure, being in the Factory, and now me using Time Magic to accelerate my own thinking while I work on stuff, my sense of time is all messed up.
They also had to alter the plan a few times as more spirits wanted to come and help with the project, so the initial plan wasn’t the final plan.
But eventually Wilma informed me that they have the full plan, including all the monsters they’d need, all the spirits that would help and so forth.
So the spirits left the Factory and the two of us returned to the real world, where Wilma went to explain the plan to Karl.
And two days from now, we will be forging a star titanium sword.
nro_8 So for those that didn't read my comment that I left in the anniversary special and aren't on discord (hint, you can join. I'll leave the link below), I did decide to push back the release of chapters for the rest of this month by 1 day. So that is why this chapter is '1 day late'. The next two are coming out on the 27th and 29th at 4pm GMT. The release days will go back to normal come March.
Spoilerhttps://discord.gg/7W3XYX3hkh
[collapse]
Now that our spirit adventure was truly complete, it was time for me to get back to the daily grind I was on. Starting with making the mana spring I promised to make.
It wasn’t that difficult, I mean making a spring that is kind of like an open air bath is simple when you can just cheat with HomeBase, not to mention all the magic I have access to through the spirits. As well as Paulina, she also helped.
And since I have access to a ton of mana through the flowers around HomeBase, I didn’t really have to worry about that part either.
The only real problem was mixing mana with water, especially how much mana would be safe, but we worked it out. And since the mana spring does use Spring of Rebirth as a base, it will also heal anyone in there, so if you accidentally injure yourself, the spring will heal you right up.
Spoiler [collapse]Alice and Lua had practically been living in the spring since I completed it, having three two hour sessions in it each day to improve their mana circuits. It might be a bit excessive, but it isn’t harming them, so I won’t stop them.
The superior spirit of water, Thalassa, also really enjoyed the spring. It really made her mellow out quickly and she is a lot less insane after bathing in the spring. Because of that, Lua often summoned Thalassa to bathe with her, before the two of them would have a practice session on Spiritual Water Magic.
At the same time, Ninatia, the superior fire, really didn’t like the spring and asked me if I could make something similar but with flames instead. I was a bit hesitant, as this felt like another potential torture thing, but I did come up with a use for it.
See if I combine Pikeru's Circle of Enchantment with something like Ookazi or Tremendous Fire, I could make flames that don’t actually burn you. Which might sound useless, but if you stand in flames, you will gain experience towards the Fire Resistance skill. At least that is what Laura can tell from the System info she has access to.
SpoilerSo if the flames that don’t do damage work, I can make a place where you can train that skill. Sure I could just use skill orbs for basic skills like Fire Resistance, but it is always good to have options and Ninatia asked for it, so it isn’t a waste even if no one but her ends up using it.
… Admittedly, it might also help with my dragon training. I mean, dragons resist fire, right? So if I want to dive deeper into the draconic skills, maybe having some Fire Resistance would be good.
Would help me to not burn myself when I use dragon fire.
Cailie was another interesting case. Mainly in that she was running out of mana faster than … I was going to say myself, but that is only because my mana pool is kind of massive nowadays.
It was just that basically all of Cailie’s new skills took up large quantities of mana, while she really didn’t know how to properly manage it yet. She was learning and she may even get the Fast Mana Recovery skill soon, but in the meantime, I gave her a bracelet that connected to the HomeBase mana storage so she could pull mana from it to refill her mana pool whenever she wanted to.
Sure it is just a bad patch, as it does kind of prevent the acquisition of Fast Mana Recovery, as I’ve learned firsthand, but for now, it is more important that Cailie learns to use all of her new powers.
… Except maybe Create Wind Spirit. She has already been warned by Anemoi not to go overboard with that skill, as creating too many spirits can be a decrement. I think Anemoi even gave her a limit on how many she was allowed to make, but I’m not sure what it is.
As for other things, well, I learned some interesting things when I was looking for the domain of Time and Space, so I had another device I wanted to make.
I wanted to make a more permanent version of my Dimensional Telescope that I used in the spirit world. One that I could use to locate good summonable monsters in the ‘summon dimension’. And if I do find something I really want, with Pan’s help, I should be able to summon it and try to make a contract with it.
The telescope will also help Unika do the same, and while she cannot summon Pan, she can just ask me to summon Pan to help her with her random summons. And if I learn how Pan’s power works, I might be able to modify the summoning magic circle so that it can target specific monsters in the summon dimension.
… But with the good came some bad. Well, it isn’t really bad, but I did learn something.
The demon dimension. It is basically just like the summon dimension, but filled with monsters that are a lot more … demonic than the standard monsters. They also seem to be quite a bit more powerful.
Because of that, I did a quick search on the books I had copied from different places to see if I had anything on demon summoning, but I didn’t have much, other than it is outlawed in the three Kingdoms.
So instead I asked Paulina about it, and while she didn’t know much, she did know why it was banned. And it all comes down to how you make contracts with demons.
In short, you have to sacrifice something for a demon contract. Weaker demons take sacrifices like you permanently losing 500 HP from your status, or stuff like that, whereas stronger ones take humans as the sacrifice.
There wasn’t much historical information Paulina knew, but there was a case where a small country in the north performed a demon summoning where they sacrificed fifty people to call forth a demon that would kill an S-rank monster for them.
I’m not sure if that was worth it, but honestly speaking, it may have been. I mean, an S-rank could easily kill more than 50 people, so… it isn’t the worst trade deal in the history of trade deals.
But yeah. Considering the sacrificial nature of demon contracts, I can definitely see why the people in charge would want to ban that magic. Because if they don’t, some power hungry person is just going to gather a bunch of sacrifices to make a contract with a powerful demon and no one wants that.
But enough about summoning. I’ll work on it with Unika later when the non-card version of Dimensional Telescope is ready.
My next stop was actually in the Factory, and I was there with Wilma. That is because there was something I really wanted to try.
I heard from Gaia that since I have both her and Ninitia’s blessings, I should be able to call forth the superior spirit of metal, Athena. And since we do have a piece of star titanium that we haven’t yet turned into a sword, I think having the help of Athena would be invaluable in that process.
And maybe getting Wilma her blessing. I know Gaia didn’t give out hers to Wilma, because Wilma’s magic skills weren’t up to par with Gaia, but maybe Athena will see it differently.
“... Alright. I guess this is worth a shot.” I muttered. “As a holder of Gaia and Ninitia’s blessings, I call for the superior spirit of metal. Summon Metal Spirit.”
As I was in the Factory, I couldn’t feel the mana pull of using the skill I don’t have. But on the other hand, I could just barely feel the feeling I get when someone without a System Support comes into the Factory.
It just is so easy with the dragons. They are big and bold when they enter, practically yelling from the door. I’d never miss one of them coming in.
But the spirits are so quiet. They barely make a sound, almost like they just quietly open the door, step in and close the door behind them.
Luckily for me, after just a bit of waiting, a new avatar formed near me in the Factory.
She was a tall female, decently muscular but not as much as Gaia. Her hair was on the shorter side and bronze brown in color. She wore a metal breastplate, had armored boosts, bracers, a bronze helmet and she carried a huge circular shield on her back. She also had a war hammer strapped to her hip.
Honestly speaking, comparing her to Wilma makes the two look very similar. Other than the obvious hair color difference and the fact that Wilma has a beard. … And I guess also the fact that Wilma’s shield is a tower shield, while Athena’s is circular.
“... Hello. Just to confirm, but you are the superior spirit of metal, Athena, right?” I asked the spirit.
“I am.” She answered, her voice sounding very regal and just a bit commanding. “And you are Brian Wood, correct?”
“Yes. That would be me.” I confirmed. “I’m sorry for calling you with the authority of your parents, but I wish to have your assistance.”
“That depends on what you are trying to do. And don’t think you will get my blessing just because you woke up my parents. They and I are not the same.” Athena said.
“Alright. And no, I won’t be asking for it.” I said. “Wilma, would you explain it to her?”
I let Wilma take the stage and explain her intentions and the limitations we had.
“Star titanium. Quite the piece of metal you managed to find.” Athena seemed impressed by what we were working with.
“We didn’t find it, we made it.” Wilma corrected.
“Made it? Where did you learn how to do that?”
“We experimented. Combining materials from an Ursa Major with titanium that Brian made with a dungeon.”
“That wouldn’t work.” Athena said.
“I wasn’t finished. And yes, we did learn it doesn’t work, so we added some stardust. I’m not 100% sure what it is, but it is some sort of compacted form of mana.” Wilma explained. “So by combining those three things, folding the titanium on itself while adding the Ursa claws in between the folds, we turned titanium into star titanium.”
“... Impressive.” Athena muttered. “I need to look into this ‘stardust’ as I didn’t know of it.”
“I can introduce you to my expert.” I offered.
“That would help. Thank you.” Said the spirit. She then turned back to Wilma. “As for this little project, considering the material you are working with, I am willing to help with it.”
“T-Thank you.”
“But don’t think this is me giving you my blessing.” She quickly stated. “This is a test for you. If you impress me with the blade, you can have my blessing.” Athena said. “If no, then do not call for me again.” She said to me. “Mister Wood?”
“Just Brian, please.” I said.
“Brian. May I stay here for a while to work on the plan with the dwarf lady?”
“Sure. Do you need me or can I go work on something else?”
Athena looked at Wilma for the answer and Wilma just said she got this covered, so I returned to the control platform so that I could work on the dimensional telescope.
I don’t know how long it took for Wilma and Athena to come up with the full battleplan, or maybe I should call it the forging plan, largely because between the spirit world adventure, being in the Factory, and now me using Time Magic to accelerate my own thinking while I work on stuff, my sense of time is all messed up.
They also had to alter the plan a few times as more spirits wanted to come and help with the project, so the initial plan wasn’t the final plan.
But eventually Wilma informed me that they have the full plan, including all the monsters they’d need, all the spirits that would help and so forth.
So the spirits left the Factory and the two of us returned to the real world, where Wilma went to explain the plan to Karl.
And two days from now, we will be forging a star titanium sword.
nro_8 So for those that didn't read my comment that I left in the anniversary special and aren't on discord (hint, you can join. I'll leave the link below), I did decide to push back the release of chapters for the rest of this month by 1 day. So that is why this chapter is '1 day late'. The next two are coming out on the 27th and 29th at 4pm GMT. The release days will go back to normal come March.
Spoilerhttps://discord.gg/7W3XYX3hkh
[collapse]