World Filter

Lisa, Nathan, and Patrica only left an hour later as they all went over how they could get Patrica’s allies out of the religious district, nothing was decided but they did come up with a few alternatives. It would be up to NAS to pull off the bulk of it, especially since it looked like the three of them were not going to be here in the next couple of days.

Lisa left with Patrica and Nathan in tow, her usual blazing exit burning their cornea.

It was only once they had left though that quiet descended on the roof. By now it was late in the evening and Mark was thinking of going to his room to work more on his magic but Jonathan stopped them.

“Guys wait, I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping me with a personal project this evening.”

Sam glanced at Mark because Jonathan never asked for anyone's assistance if he could help it.

“Sure Jon, what do you need?” Sam asked.

Scratching the back of his neck Jonathan spoke sheepishly.

“I was hoping to do a bit of tinkering in the workshop this evening and I’ve hit my limits as to what to do next, I need a fresh take. Jude and George have tried but they’re also at a loss.”

Mark knew that other than fighting the workshop was one of the places Jonathan liked to spend his time. While they were perfecting spells he liked to create prototypes, a lot of which went into their crafting sales.

Mark agreed readily because he’d always liked the idea of crafting but never had the chance to tinker. The three of them stepped off the edge of the building and controlled their descent so they landed on top of the workshop's roof.

Entering through a window Jonathan had left open for this very reason, they landed in a somewhat busy room. Flying had become decently common at this stage, more than half the casters had the ability, and at least a fourth of Aura users.

The room was similar to how Mark remembered it but the people here were far fewer than in the daylight hours. Mark spied Jude sleeping on a couch tucked into one of the corners away from the forge. Even though it was quieter in here at night, that did not mean there was no noise. Mark could hear the pitter-patter of hammers on hot iron, yet the guy seemed unbothered even when forge vented steam or one of the workers in here shouted at the top of his lungs.

The place never seemed to rest.

Jonathan led them to a worktable that looked identical to all the others, except for what looked like a mangled pair of pliers and a twisted blade held in place by a clamp.

“Okay so this is my most recent failure, right now I’m working on inlaying power into an already crafted item. So during the forging one can put power into the material and the more you do the better the base product. After that, you can also seal more power into the crafted item and this is where one would usually power the rune on it. At least as far as we can tell.”

Mark listened to Jonathan's explanation and it seemed like both steps were important. The rune or inscription used seemed to direct what the item was capable of, but if one didn’t have a powerful enough base item the rune would rip it to shreds.

When Mark had brought the runes from his old staff they thought they finally had enough of an alphabet to make something resembling a condit.

The problem came when they tried to create a base strong enough to handle the inscriptions. Most just warped under the power of the charged runes.

“So my thoughts were two-fold either we make the rune weaker and get an inferior product or we make the base stronger. But right now this is the limit of what I can create with my stat distribution.”

Jonathan held out a small neat dagger.

Mark got a prompt from his lazy system a couple of seconds later.

Burning poker (Bronze)

Item lvl: 21

Resistance + 52

Aura + 20

Description: A product of [Jonathan Wilson], feeding this blade a stream of Aura will cause flames to burn across its surface.

Mark was immediately impressed, obviously, there were stronger weapons out there, but the fact that Jonathan could create something like this was proof that their skill was growing. Mark didn't know what methods it took to make it, but Jonathan still looked proud.

“Course, it's useless to sell right now, as I still need to work out the kinks.”

Mark was confused until he saw Jonathan send some Aura in and the dagger ignited. The problem was as the flame began to lick up the blade it moved beyond that and washed over the handle too until the whole thing was burning in Jonathan's hand.

“Yeah, I figured out how to make it burn, but directing it to just the blade is still impossible. I can always change the runes on here later but for now, this is the limit” he said as he sheepishly scratched the back of his neck. Completely oblivious to the fact that his hand was submerged in flames.

Sam tried to keep a straight face as Jonathan continued to burn himself, but she waved him to stop the demonstration as she spoke.

“For people who might want to trade it, their Aura probably won't be high enough to ignore that downside, unfortunately.”

Jonathan nodded extinguishing the flame and Mark couldn't even see a singed singed hair.

“Right so you see my dilemma, and from what we can tell the schematics Mark brought in for a conduit would require an extremely powerful base, we just can’t make what we need right now.”

Mark and Sam ponder Jonathan's problem for a bit.

“You said you could change the rune on something? What about changing the rune on a system item? Like altering its design but keeping the base the same?” Mark asked

Jonathan nodded.

“We can give that a try but in most cases, it’s not necessary as from what I can tell, most items that can handle a conduit, already do.”

Sam’s spine straightened and a smile crept onto her lips.

“There’s a very simple answer to this you know. You should have asked us sooner.”

Both Mark and Jonathan looked over at Sam waiting for her big reveal.

“Well you need a stronger base, and from what you’ve told me the base created is derived from your attributes, or at least the energy you can bring to bear. You need to balance all three to keep the item stable, right? So then why don’t Mark and I become your other attributes?”

Jonathan frowned, but Mark saw where she was going with this.

“When you made this dagger what was your limitation?”

Jonathan looked down at the dagger.

“I ran out of Prana to match, as it was my lowest attribute, sitting at a little over one fifty.”

Mark was surprised his Prana was that high, but he kept working on Sam’s idea.

“If that’s the case then what will happen if I provide all the needed Prana, and Sam the Mana? We’ve done it before in pairs, so why not all at once? You would just have to lead us though.”

Make had paired up with Sam on multiple occasions, and Jonathan had used Sam’s help to create physical blades of his Aura. That technique alone had almost won them the battle against the ghasts that night.

When Jonathan got where they were coming from, an interested light entered his eyes.

“Okay, how do we do this?”

Sam smiled with that same hungry look she got when she figured out a new spell.

“Mark will link us up, and then we’ll match our energy to yours. Then you forge as you normally would, just don't forget to guild us.” Sam looked at Mark.

Nodding Mark created a link, as he did so, he also created a dozen ingots of both steel and iron. The Manifested stuff always seemed better when it was still charged with Mana, and seeing as Mark’s Mana was about to be used by Jonathan it could only help.

The [Telepathic link] fell over their shoulders like a well-worn cloak. A couple of minutes were spent matching their consciousness together, and then Mark matched his will with Sam and then Jonathan's.

There was a moment of hesitation as the three of them sent power back and forth, but it soon fell into familiar territory when they realized it was similar to [Mediation].

Without any issues, Jonathan went to work. Pulling half the bars of steel and moving it to the crucible, all the while they practiced moving their wills as one. When the time came for Jonathan to reforge the liquid steel into ingots, he poured them into molds and pushed his will forward. Mark and Sam stood on either side of him as they matched his speed, the moment their mix of power entered the steel, power began to vent out along with heat.

Jonathan affirmed his grip on the power and sent more in, this time it absorbed rapidly. However, with ample energy at his fingertips, he quenched the steel until it began to hum quietly.

Sam reached over and passed Jonathan a hammer while Mark grabbed a pair of tongs and got ready to hold the bar in place. Neither of them was familiar with the process of forging, but with the link in place, all Jonathan needed to do was show them what he wanted and they could respond.

Mark felt Jonathan's hesitation at this part, the first hit counted as much as the last. Or at least that's what Jonathan felt.

Neither Mark nor Sam rushed him, simply waiting to feel the next pull. When it came, there was a resonance, and as Joanthan’s hammer slammed down the glowing steel rang out in agony as too much power exploded through the room. Sound and chaos descended and the workers nearby jumped from their stations, Jude bolted upright from his slumber and looked around confused. The three of them frowned from behind a shield of air and force as they prevented power-infused metal from destroying the workshop. Jonathan’s annoyance at his failure leaked through the link, he knew immediately that he’d overcompensated his strength.

‘Again!’ Jonathan sent through the link.

They moved to repeat the process pulling more molten steel from the crucible, this time they had spectators but none of them wanted to go through the process of unmatching their wills at the moment. Jonathan quenched the steel again, as Mark fed the remaining bits of the failure back into the crucible to melt down.

This time Jonathan’s anticipation knocked them out of sync for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for the reduced power to fracture the steel.

‘Again!’

Sam poured the steel and Mark passed the tools Jonathan required, this time, when the infused hammer struck, the ingot absorbed its power. The second hit was the same, but the third had begun to cause continuous reverberations in the metal –something it hadn’t done before– as power bounced through the ingot. Causing each hit to have to be timed to perfection, this added layer of difficulty shattered the steel once more.

‘Again!’

Mark wasn’t certain how long they kept at it but with each ingot, they got a little closer. Jonathan slowly got the hang of matching his will to theirs, while he worked until each mistake dropped one by one.

Morning light had begun to flicker from somewhere above, bringing a purple light into the workshop. Mark felt sweat streaming down his back as the furnace doors opened again. Pulling the next batch of steel toward them.

Power quenched, and the hammer fell.

When it landed this time, a perfect hum of steel sang out into the room, followed shortly but the next. With each preceding hit a melody of metal rung out, as though calling itself into existence. The tempo began to pick up speed as the reverberations joined the song. Pretty soon the falls of the hammer went beyond what any human smith could manage, their speed pushing the choir of steel into a crescendo.

The three of them had fast become a blur of motion and energy. Physically neither Mark nor Sam could keep up with Jonathan but working in tune allowed them to make adjustments, getting the piece of steel into place before the next strike.

One would think that the blinding pace meant that they would be done sooner, but no, with every strike, and swell of power, the material grew denser, more resilient. Making future forging even more difficult. Eventually, they hit a limit on the current piece when they needed to reheat the blade, but Sam noticed the fire from the fore was no longer affecting the metal. She wanted to generate hotter flames but any kind of manipulation at this point would throw them off, so Jonathan called for them to complete it.

In the beginning, the power draw was nothing, so they could keep restarting, but this far into the process, it was guzzling energy like crazy, and it was only getting larger as Jonathan began to stamp in the runes along with finishing touches on the blade.

Then the biggest intake of power yet, came as Jonathan began to fill the lines with power and force the remaining heat from the weapon. The glow of steel hummed and fizzled as power sunk into the bonds of the metal.

The ringing continued for a while but it finally began to fade into silence after a minute or so. The three of them broke from their daze, released from Jonathan’s all-encompassing focus.

Mark had been blocking it out, but the workshop was alive with people, some at work while others just watched.

At some point, George must have arrived as both he and Jude were standing nearby, staring at the small instrument they’d made. Jonathan had chosen the shape because it was what he was most familiar with, and while it didn’t look impressive its attributes came through a moment later.

Threader’s needle (Silver - dagger)

Item lvl: 52

Resistance + 130

Aura +15

Mana + 15

Prana + 15

Description: A product of [Jonathan Wilson + Fastened] modeled after a world conduit. Due to lacking skill, most features were impossible to copy, yet it retains the ability to act as a conduit.