Grand Saint Alloy

Making a consumption variant alloy turned out to be very easy. The metal was brittle compared to ordinary tower steel, but it was as simple as shoving most of his metal essence into the furnace with a bar of normal metal. The construct melted and mixed with the normal steel. Unfortunately, having a foreign law, especially one from a nonmaterial branch diluted its resilience.

Tristan inspected the new weapon, it looked exactly the same, he needed to test the efficacy, “Is anyone willing to prick their finger with this to see if it works?”

Everyone glanced at the mushy remains of the canvas wall and took a step back. No one wanted to have that happen to them. Tristan sighed, that was fair enough, he was the only one who knew that this metal was filled with consumption, not decay. While he was not sure he would be a good standard, as he would be resistant to his own essence, he would not be getting any volunteers.

So he pricked his finger and focused on the reaction inside his body. It was very lackluster. There was no pulse that converted and absorbed the surrounding essence, instead, it simply consumed any metal essence that came into contact with it. This would make the bolt harder over time and would slow his essence regeneration. If he let it absorb metal essence for long enough, Tristan expected that the metal head would become an ultra-hard super metal. This would work on the elemental lord’s kern, but it would not be an instant kill weapon on a being completely made of essence. It might not even work on anything lacking metal essence, as the core of consumption was converting materials into growth.

“Let’s try one more time,” Tristan sighed handing the bolt off to one of the butlers, “This thing will only slightly hamper a metal kern.”

Doil nodded, “Of course.”

The man was terrified that Tristan would melt him into a puddle. Tristan chose not to inform him that he lacked the requisite essence to melt him. Things with a will tended to resist alien forces, meaning it would take substantially more to melt Doil than it did to melt his tent.

Tristan collected decay alloy in the stone smelter and placed a metal bar into it. Fortunately, nothing started rotting, Doil did not seem like a man qualified to receive tools refined from mythical beast hide and bones. It intrigued Tristan to find that his alloys melted faster than the steel around it. He was aware that different metals had different melting points, but he had not expected his to be so much lower than common steel. Tristan made a mental note to try with his regular essence without an alloy mixed in.

Doil removed the metal and scraped the impurities that had floated to the top before pouring the metal into a mold. They had made it out of packed sand and the original basic steel head of the bolt. At first, Tristan had been disappointed that such a method was used. He had pictured the man hammering away at it for hours, but the head was not like a sword where the flexibility and rigidity had to be balanced. It did not need to even keep its point, as it only needed to be used once. It took what Tristan expected to be a multiple day process and completed it in just over three hours.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” A new voice asked.

Tristan turned to find Luke and Shale standing just inside the tent. Shale was trying to wipe the tent goo off of his feet. Tristan motioned to Butler One to hand over the bolt and he obliged.

He was about to explain its properties when Doil fell to his knees, “Please save me, this devil has taken my labor and wants to eat my soul. I have a wife and kids, please.”

Luke gave the man a confused look and glanced up at Tristan, then a mischievous smile grew on his face, “Have you done any service for him, or,” his eyes landed on the still cooling steel bolt head, “taken any of his blood? If you have, sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

Doil face paled. Tristan actually felt a little bad for the man, but as he still had his soul, there was little harm. Also, Tristan did intend to pay him the value of the two bolt heads, he was not going to rob someone just because they were rude.

“Anyway,” Tristan said, “I wanted to mix consumption into the bolt head to see if we could make a weapon to drain the elemental lord’s kern. The other one has decay.”

“Neat, does it work?” Luke asked.

“Barely, I’m not sure how much effect it will have on a high-tier enemy and it most likely only works on metal essence,” Tristan explained, “I have no idea how the other one will work.”

“Well keep experimenting, I am here to have Shale chaperone you,” Luke said, “He should still be able to stop you if you get murdery.”

Tristan looked at Luke skeptically. They both knew that was not true. Earth and Metal were the most durable elements, but there was a reason why metal chisels were used on stone blocks. Now that they were in the same tier, the simple fact that Tristan could use a force and Shale could not would tip the balance in his favor, even if Tristan’s was less useful for combat than Luke’s.

“I know you’re way better than you used to be, but I don’t think you have quite hit the level of an elite yet,” Shale said.

His confidence was earned and from his knowledge, Tristan was still only halfway through tier two while Shale was high tier three. Tristan shrugged, it was not up to him, however, that did not mean he should be rude to his babysitter.

“Thank you for your time, Shale,” Tristan said.

“It is not the first time I’ve played nanny for important figures,” Shale said, “And it is only for a few days.”

Turning back to Luke, Tristan said, “Have a quick trip, I would like that elemental dead as soon as possible.”

“I’m just along to make sure that Hadrid does not scam Siren, so I suspect that after a few minutes of name-calling, we will walk out with our weapon,” Luke said, “It should take two days when it's all said and done.”

“Well get going, troll,” Tristan grinned.

Luke tossed the bolt back to Butler One, and turned to leave, “One day I will troll everyone.”

They watched Luke leave for half a minute. Shale turned to Tristan, “What’s a troll.”

“I,” Tristan paused, he did not know. He imagined a small fat creature with bad hygiene that squatted in abandoned structures, but he had never had the assumption confirmed, “I have no idea. The alchemist uses the term interchangeably with turd though, so it can’t be good.”

Tristan turned back to what he was originally working on. Doil was off in a corner being consoled by his apprentice, so Tristan grabbed the file and the now cool bolt head. The metal was softer than the file, so it did not take long to remove the excess material. Everything went well until he placed the metal of the head against the shaft.

The wood started darkening at the point of contact. It was not instant, like with the tent canvas, but it was still visible. This would need a metal or stone shaft. Fortunately, Luke had just brought Tristan a warrior with an earth kern.

“Could you make a stone shaft in the same dimensions as this wooden one?” Tristan asked holding out the cupped end of the metal bolt head.

Shale was aware that the bolt head relied on the compressible aspects of wood to stay attached. Stone was not flexible so he created a stone shaft already secured to the head. It was quite a bit heavier than the old one, but it should be able to kill any living creature. The extra weight would stop it from flying as far but Tristan intended to throw it straight down with the help of a cannon. If the elemental lord could rot it would rot.

Shale observed the decaying shaft for a few moments, “I can see why people are terrified of you silver devils, if I didn’t know you I would call this evil.”

“How many of these do you think we will need?” Tristan asked.

“Zero,” Shale said, “The cannons are strong, but they failed to put down a tier five anima elemental, and we shot it twice. This elemental lord will likely be immune to them all together.”

Tristan grimaced, “So none of this mattered?”

Shale shrugged, “That is how all the worker caste members feel. Us warriors fighting mythical beasts they can’t do anything about. All they can do is wait and hope we succeed.”

“I lost my soul for nothing!” Doil yelled.

Tristan yelled back, “No, Luke was messing with you. I don’t normally eat souls.”

Shale quirked an eyebrow at the word, ‘normally’. Tristan was not willing to explain. Now that Luke was not shadowing him, he had other things he needed to get done. Primarily, he had to go talk with Eve, as she had been avoiding him for the last few days, though he was unsure if she was avoiding Luke or him.

“Thanks, Doil, “ Tristan said as he stepped out of the tent, “Have a good day.”

The smith did not respond, but his apprentice waved goodbye. Tristan could only imagine how exhausting working for Doil would be. He would rather fight a guard crab alone than apprentice with the man.

Tristan assumed that Eve would be with Grace cooking some food, so he went to the dining table. The miners ate outside, even in winter, but the cooking fire at one end of the table and an ordinary fire at the other kept things bearable, even though it was a little damp from the melted snow.

Thankfully Grace was there, steadfastly stirring her cauldron. With all the smiths and their helpers being on sight, she had expanded her customer base quite a bit. Unfortunately, she needed to focus almost exclusively on soups to feed everyone.

“Hey Grace, do you know where Eve is?” Tristan asked her.

Grace looked up, obviously not having heard him approach, “Well, good afternoon to you as well. Hmm, I think she’s out in the training yard swinging her sticks around.”

“Thanks,” Tristan said as he started over that direction.

“Tristan?” Grace called to him. He stopped and looked over his shoulder, wondering what she wanted, “Just remember, girls your age are like knives, handle them wrong and they’ll cut you, don’t give them enough attention and they will dull, but give them both and they will be someone you cannot do without.”

“Uh, thanks,” Tristan was not sure what advice Grace was trying to give him.

He was sure she was not being literal, as Tristan was highly resistant to cuts. On an emotional level, he would compare Eve more to pottery than a knife. She was full of compassion and when she broke it would all spill out. Still, he was not sure how that would impact him. Tristan supposed he would just have to find out.

He found Eve swinging around one of Siren’s practice rods exactly where Grace said she would be. Eve was sweaty and breathing heavily. It was an odd sight compared to the Eve that Tristan was used to being around.

After a few minutes of awkwardly standing around waiting for Eve to acknowledge his existence, Tristan decided to speak, “Hey, what are you doing?”

Tristan was no expert on sword forms, it was not a weapon many people he knew used. Siren used an axe, Luke used lighting, and Bruce and Eve normally used spears. Conni was the only one he knew who had a set of dedicated sword forms, even Henry mostly just worked with his life experience. It made sense that swords were rare, both axes and spears were better against mythical beasts.

Eve stumbled to a stop and stared at Tristan, “I’m practicing, what does it look like?”