As it would turn out, a week was a tad ambitious by Rory to understand how to bridge the gap between making crafted gems and implementing them into gear. What he thought would take no more than a week soon ballooned into a month-long experiment, endless trial and error for which the cost of failure was -you guessed it- more crystal shards exploding in his face.

  In Rory’s defense, there was an issue that had taken a rather long time to consider.

  That issue? Item Grade.

  One gem socketed into an uncommon-grade object? Easy.

  Two into an uncommon grade item? Go right ahead.

  Three? Explosion in your face.

  Four? Double the explosion, double the fun.

  At that point, Rory understood not to bother trying five gems and returned to the drawing board, attempting the same with common-grade items.

  One gem into a common grade item? Easy-peasy.

  Two? Back to more explosions.

  That on its own would have been an easy problem to uncover and solve, but then he’d also come to learn where exactly you socketed a gem mattered. Even further complicating the entire process was that some gems failed for no reason whatsoever.

  By the end of the month, though, Rory finally felt as if he’d gotten the hang of it after burning through a rather prodigious amount of manufactured crystal. It was a reserve they’d built over the years as a byproduct of the monster sacrifices and the excess matter from their physical bodies being processed into the crystals.

  Yet it wasn’t for waste. A month and he’d mastered -or at least gotten a good grasp of- gem geometry as it pertained to where exactly to socket a gem into an object, how many gems could be socketed into an item, equal to its relative grade, and lastly, how to bind the socketed gems together.

  Because, of course, it wasn’t enough to socket gems into an item and call it a day. Oh no, Rory needed to go further and create a principle that allowed the socketed gems to either work individually or interface with one another. It wasn’t just as simple as adding the gems; he had to bind them together with almost imperceptibly fine lines carved into the object in question, the necessary patterns to bind the gems reminding Rory somewhat of the Nazca lines of Earth.

  Upon completing a twelve-hour session of intense concentration, Rory held up the test item in question, moderately pleased everything had seemed to work when a notification appeared before him. His mood quickly went from moderately pleased to an exhausted rush of relief and joy.

  “Apostolos!” Rory called, looking around in confusion for where the young man was.

  “Yeah?” Rory heard a call out from beyond the walls. Apostolos jogged into their camp only a few seconds later, a look of mild concern on his face. “Something wrong?”

  “Where were you?” Rory quizzed, uncertain of why Apostolos would have been outside the camp.

  “Oh, in a tree. Turns out, the higher up I am, the more efficiently I draw in sunlight.”

  “That… makes sense.” Rory acknowledged, mentally jotting down a note to himself to build a watchtower that Apostolos could use instead.

  “Anyway, you needed something?”

  “Well, not quite. More like I succeeded.”

  “I thought we already went over this a month ago?”

  “No, I really succeeded,” Rory said, shaking his head before gesturing toward Apostolos. “Take a look for yourself.”

  Lapidarist of Beholding Stars

  Rarity: Aberrant. Skill Level: Low.

  “A new skill!” Apostolos cheered before noting several things all at once. “Funny name. Also, what the heck is aberrant rarity?”

  “Well, it went through a skill evolution almost instantly. Originally, it was just ‘Gem Crafting,’ and its grade was rare. Then it updated, and boom, you’ve got this.”

  “Wasn’t that what happened with your version of Runic Inscription?”

  “Yeah, I think because of being the founder of a new form of crafting or whatnot, Eon just hands out a free upgrade, or maybe it’s based on a technicality. After all, I am the foremost master of the field, the number one genius. As for aberrant, I think it’s the grade between Rare and Extreme for skills.”

  “Oh, nifty,” Apostolos said, borrowing Rory’s favorite word.

  “Nifty indeed,” Rory said with a shrug.

  Apostolos went back to reading the skill in full now that the mystery of the skill's strange grade and the naming convention had been explained.

  Lapidarist of Beholding Stars

  Rarity: Aberrant. Skill Level: Low

  The art of gem crafting is a difficult skill, even for those with a keen eye and sharp mind. You have gone beyond the realms of ordinary gem crafting. What you shape are not mere gems; instead, what you fashion are like stars to behold from within the palm of your hand. Grants enhanced convergence point visibility. Due to the intricate understanding obtained from extensive study of the gem world, Lattice Affinity awarded.

  “Okay, first off,” Apostolos spluttered as he finished reading the skill. “That sounds way too poetic for a skill,”

  Welcome to my world. Rory thought to himself. Many of his higher rarity skills were just as esoteric sounding like a philosophy major overly self-assured in their own intelligence had been given the right to write the description of all skills with a grade of rare or higher.

  “Second off,” Apostolos continued. “Did you just get a bonus affinity for free from a skill of all things?”

  “Guess so,” Rory said with a shrug. “I suspect the base version of Gem Crafting comes with the enhanced convergence point visibility, and the fancy version of the skill gives Lattice Affinity.”

  “And what the hell is a Lattice Affinity?”

  “Dunno,” Rory said with a shrug. “If I had to guess? It probably has something to do with how crystals are constructed of endless lattice structures if you look at them closely. How does that translate to an affinity? No idea, going to need to experiment.”

  “And here I was, thinking I was beginning to catch up in the affinity department.” Apostolos sighed. “Yes, Apostolos, Solar Affinity is cool. No, Apostolos, I will not grab another affinity only a few months after you’ve finally gotten an affinity that isn’t plain old neutral.”

  “Are you… whining?” Rory had to hold back a chuckle, enjoying the bitter expression on Apostolos’s face.

  “Yes, I am,” Apostolos said, folding one arm over the other. “You’ve got three now.”

  “Two, technically.” Rory amended. “Blood and now Lattice are the only actively usable affinities. The Foundational affinity is just a passive bonus. I don’t actively have it myself; it’s built into my version of Essence Spark.”

  “Semantics,” Apostolos said, rolling his eyes. Only a second or two later, the young man sighed, his scowl changing to a smile, unable to continue his overplayed annoyance. “It’s pretty awesome, though. You created another new skill, an entirely new crafting field.”

  “Yeah, well, for how many damn crystal splinters I had to pick out of my face, I deserve it,” Rory said, wincing at the memories.

  “By the way, why didn’t you just put some sort of safety mask on?”

  “Couldn’t block my view. Even the slightest disruption to my vision made detecting the convergence points within the gems impossible.”

  “Okay, and why didn’t you just cover the lower half of your face then?”

  Rory opened his mouth to speak before slowly closing it.

  “You didn’t think of that, did you?” Apostolos sighed.

  “No. No, I did not.” Rory frowned as he said it.

  “Forest for the trees.” Apostolos snorted, amused. “Visions of grand plans, and yet no sight of the small, inconsequential things.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Rory yapped, waving his hand like he was wafting a noxious scent away. “Point is, I’ve got official success. Meaning, it’s finally go time, or almost.”

  “Almost?” Apostolos questioned, eyebrows raised.

  “Well, I still need to actually make the new gear. Then I’ll be ready. What about you? Have you finally figured out your Ember thing?”

  “Yes, actually. A week ago, I finally materialized one.”

  “Oh, really? How’d you manage that?”

  “Well, first, I fully restored my Spiritual Body using Solar Regeneration. Then, I lopped off a piece of my Spiritual Body.”

  “Right, I remember all those steps,” Rory said. “So, how’d you figure out materializing it physically?”

  “Well, I just sorta… did.”

  “You just ‘did’? What do you mean by that.”

  “I dunno,” Apostolos shrugged. “I just did. I stopped thinking about it like a system to break down into individual steps and just sorta… went with it.”

  “You just went with it,” Rory said, incredulously staring at the young man. “You don’t have any more insight?”

  “Well, if I had to try to parse it into words, imagine I took that piece of my Spiritual Body that was removed and condensed it into a single tiny spark. I held that ‘spark’ nice and tight until fwoomph!” Apostolos shouted, throwing his hands apart in a flailing gesture.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “What the hell is ‘fwoomph,’ and what does that even mean?” Rory questioned.

  “You know, like when a fire suddenly swells and explodes instantly? That! The moment I couldn’t hold the spark any longer and it exploded freely, I used that momentum to eject it from me. The moment it escaped, I imagined the flame locking down like it was frozen or crystalized. Huh, in hindsight, maybe your gem-crafting idea rubbed off on me.”

  Rory was still unsure as to what exactly Apostolos was saying. As best Rory understood, it was a lot like making a permanent version of a Pneuma construct -which already was impossible- but instead of Pneuma, it was using a spliced-off portion of his apprentice’s metaphysical-but-still-physical body.

  None of it makes sense, but sure, whatever works.

  “Where do you have your ember stored?”

  “Oh, that’s easy; it’s in my place,” Apostolos said, pointing to his tiny little hut, more traditionally ‘homey’ than Rory’s weird tree-based hobbit hole.

  “Good enough,” Rory said with a sigh, still shaking off the incredulity he’d felt toward Apostolos’s explanation. “So, here’s the plan. Now that I’ve finally obtained a proper skill, I will begin remaking my gear, intending to utilize it alongside gem sockets.”

  “Do you need to make new gear just for that? Can’t you add the gems to your old stuff?”

  “I could, technically, they do work retroactively, but it helps when the item has been designed with gem crafting in mind. That aside, there is another reason I need new gear.”

  “What’s that?” Apostolos asked.

  “Strength. Duking it out with a tier-six is going to be anything but easy. Therefore, I’m facing this with a different mindset. I don’t need gear that will last me well into the future. I need gear to see me through the other side of a battle with a tier-six monster, not to last for years.”

  “Temporary equipment?” Apostolos seemed shocked. He was unused to Rory tackling things in such a transient mindset. “Wait, isn’t blood weave already technically temporary?”

  “In a sense, but I’m aiming for something even more so the case.”

  “And you’ve got ideas?”

  Rory smiled, an expression reminiscent of the Cheshire cat.

  “Damn straight I do,”

  “You’ve served me well,” Rory sighed, holding his old bow high overhead.

  Then, without another word, he tossed the entire thing into the raging inferno within his forge.

  God, that hurts to do.

  Intent mattered when crafting items, and for what Rory was attempting, he needed an intent that had been galvanized by years of permanence, a balancing of the scales, or an offering to the fundamental truth that all things would vanish with time.

  Thus, the sacrifice of his bow. Within the inferno of his forge, the wood making up most of the bow was scorched into little more than ash, which then intermixed with the tiny bits of metal that made things such as the bow’s pulleys. Letting what little metal there was pool together into a small ceramic cup, he quickly withdrew the ceramic with a pair of tongs.

  Staring into the cup, Rory felt an ache in his heart. His once proud bow, which had allowed him to overcome the floor boss of the first floor of the Maw, was now reduced to a small slurry of molten metal.

  It’s for a greater purpose.

  Using the molten metal, Rory quickly poured it into a small cylindrical mold. Once that was done, he dunked the mold into a vat of liquid, retrieving it seconds later as it cooled. Rory retrieved the cooled cylinder from the mold and turned it between his fingers.

  A proud bow, now relegated to nothing more than the sight of a new bow.

  Leaving his forge behind, Rory sat down at the campfire next. Laying next to his spot was a nearly complete bow, only missing the final component, a sight.

  Needing only a few minutes, Rory soon had the sight attached to the bow. Holding it up, he quickly examined it.

  Ephemeral Bow of the Bloodied Giant

  Grade: Rare (-)

  Akashic Record: Fell Bane

  A powerful bow built for a sole purpose. Not to slay countless adversaries and overcome innumerable obstacles but to bring a giant to fall. Due to the unstable nature of the bow’s composition, total breakdown shall occur at a maximum of one-hour post-first usage. Akashic Record grants massively improved performance against a single higher-tier foe.

  It was a beautiful weapon, not in a graceful elven sort of way, but in a chthonic fashion. The wood, bloodwood, of course, seemed to twist inward as if trying to cannibalize itself. The metal struts were a vibrant scarlet color, Crimson Steel with a tiny splash of Crimsonite alloyed in. The metal was still considered Crimson Steel, but Rory had known it as just a tad more potent than ordinary, given the twitch of his eye as he’d made it. Even the bowstring felt powerful, a fleshy sinew that could have only come from a high-tier monster.

  As for why it was a sub-grade rare?

  That was due to its unstable nature. A stable version of the same weapon Rory was confident would make the cut as his first proper rare-grade item. In the future, it would be a test for him to craft a replica of the bow, albeit stable.

  As for why it wasn’t stable, that was primarily because of how he’d managed to empower the entire thing forcibly. At every step of the creation process, Rory blasted the materials involved with his blood affinity, which still wasn’t enough to satisfy him. Afterward, Rory placed the individual parts within their bound circle and forced the space between atoms to become suffused with enriched Pneuma.

  The positive was that the weapon had an aura of strength unlike almost anything he’d ever made -those few ‘others’ were part of the same set, so that didn’t really count. Its aura of strength wasn’t just physical; it felt like it transcended, entering the world of the conceptual and magical.

  The downside of the bow was that it was so suffused with Pneuma that the bow would, of course, self-destruct only an hour after he first used it.

  It was a trade-off Rory didn’t just consider worth it; it was a trade-off Rory believed was downright necessary, as he harbored no misconceptions about the power differential between a proper tier-six monster and himself.

  The bow wasn’t his only new creation. Holstering the weapon behind his back, Rory entered his hovel, where several pieces of equipment had been set upon his bed. If you ignored the rib-like ridges running along its midsection, the first looked like a standard blood weave cuirass.

  Ephemeral Cuirass of the Bloodied Giant

  Grade: Rare (-)

  Akashic Record: Fell Bane

  To face a giant, one must come prepared to face their mighty blows. Trading permeance for potential, total breakdown shall occur at a maximum of one hour after receiving an attack. Akashic record grants massively improved performance of base functions against a single higher-tier foe.

  The matching leg armor had much the same description, referring to facing a ‘giant’ and how they were very explicitly only usable for a maximum of one hour. Using his alloy of Crimson Steel and Crimsonite, Rory had fashioned a rib cage-like armor and then crafted standard blood weave around it. The matching legs, while lacking rib-like ridges, instead had protrusions like engorged metal veins running up and down them.

  Aside from the details of the armor itself, each had two gems embedded in it. The cuirass had them located at the base of his neck and the dead center of his lower back, nearly invisible grooves flowing between them. The leg armor had them socketed on either side of his pelvis, just above where pockets would be on casual clothing.

  As for the type of gem? The first gem was a gem Rory had called a ‘burning’ gem. Unlike what the name implied, it did not involve fire in any capacity. Instead, it was a gem whose sole purpose was to expedite the rate of destruction of whatever it was attached to, burning up like a candle wick. In an everyday item, it was nothing but an inhibitor or liability. Within blood weave armor, which had the special effect of ‘burning’ itself up to empower the user, the gem would theoretically allow for an accelerated and increased boost.

  The second gem was a gem Rory had become familiar with making, a barrier gem in each. When activated independent of its matched gem, it would summon a barrier made of pure super-dense Pneuma. The benefit was it was extremely powerful against magical attacks.

  The downside was it shattered like a glass pane when hit by physical attacks.

  Which is where the paired effect of the matched gems came into play. By activating both simultaneously, the burning gem would utilize the stored essence within the enhanced blood weave armor to physically empower itself by manifesting that energy as a physical barrier within the very armor itself.

  Potent, but not without cost. Rory estimated that he could get anywhere from three to five minutes max before both armor pieces broke down when running at full blast.

  The armor wasn’t the only thing that had received two matching gems; his bow had the same gem types slotted. When used in his bow, the burning gem would allow him to fire shots with a similar effect to his old Blood Legacy. The barrier gem inside the bow didn’t make a barrier. Instead, it allowed the arrows shot to penetrate magical barriers more easily, the arrows coated in a thin invisible barrier of its own. Finally, when used together, the arrows became far more efficient at piercing physical defenses like thick armor.

  A potent combo, but with the downside of an extremely short shelf life if used at full blast from the get-go.

  Moving on from his leading equipment, on his pillow was a helmet—of sorts. It was futuristic-looking, almost cyberpunk in style.

  Or, for the more musically inclined, it looked as if Daft Punk had been permitted to design the tactical helmets of some country’s military.

  AT Tactical Helm Mk. 3

  Grade: Uncommon

  An enclosed helmet constructed of Pneuma-hardened glass and Crimson Steel, inscribed with runes for Air Scrubbing, Visual Scrambling, and Sound Dampening Effects.

  Unlike his leading equipment trio, the helmet was intended to be more utility than outright power. While he hadn’t encountered monsters that utilized poisonous fumes or visual attacks, the knowledge that such monsters existed in Earth folktales and mythology had prompted Rory to prepare for such cases. Within the helmet, another two gems had been socketed, the standard barrier gem and a slightly more conceptual gem, ending with the final convergence point of ‘Room.’

  On its own, the room gem did next to nothing. When used with the barrier gem, it could manifest a stationary null space, further reducing the dangers of sound, audio, or gas-based attacks. Testing for that had been burdensome, as neither Rory nor Apostolos had any attacks or skills revolving around such elements.

  Ultimately, it had devolved into simply shouting in his direction or waving over smoke and seeing if it could reach him.

  Past the helmet were a pair of boots, almost identical to those you could find on any serving military back on Earth. Unlike the rest of his armor, the boots were purely made of monster leather. While he was sure blood-weave boots would be helpful, the small size meant the essence they could contain was already limited. Furthermore, one of the best ways to get yourself killed in a fight was to stumble as your boots suddenly broke apart around your feet, adding the final nail in the coffin of whether he would use bloodwood to fashion his boots.

  Thus, made of standard monster-based leather and other mundane materials, the boots were capped out at common rarity, meaning only one gem socket was possible. That had, of course, been another barrier gem, made to work in tandem with the simple inscriptions inlaid with the soles of the boots, resistance to corrosive substances.

  Helmet, cuirass, pants, boots, and bow, Rory had only prepared one last item: a pair of gloves. They were thickly padded, with nearly an inch of padding above the knuckles; in the worst-case scenario, Rory could punch the shit out of something without fear of his knuckles breaking. Otherwise, the gloves had the same effects and gem as his boots.

  His gear was ready. The only thing he hadn’t changed was his cudgel-style weapon; Rory wasn’t even sure it was worth bringing, considering how bad he was with close-quarters combat. He was just as liable to chop his arm off as wound his opponent.

  Oh, wait!

  Almost forgetting what may have been the most important things of all, he quickly ran outside and back toward the bound circle platform where Apostolos was seated.

  “I had a feeling you might forget these,” the young man said, offering him a small pouch.

  “Appreciate it.” Rory nodded.

  “Can I ask, what are those anyway?” Apostolos asked, his eyes filled with curiosity.

  “An innovation thanks to your near-death experience.”

  “Really?”

  Rather than respond, Rory opened the pouch, revealing three small marbles.

  “First,” Rory lifted one of the marbles. “Ossified Blood Gem of Gradual Vitality,”

  “I take it that it heals?”

  “Bingo,” Rory said, placing it back within the pouch. “Using what I learned from gem crafting, I repeated the process with an ossified gem. Fun tidbit: Ossified Gems, for whatever reason, have less than ten convergence points, meaning any effect they have placed upon them through said convergence points will be extremely weak. The main reason for the convergence effects is to direct the energies of the blood gem to stitch up small wounds as I receive them, a heal over time for small wounds.”

  “And the next one?” Apostolos asked, pointing at the second of the three.

  “Ossified Blood Gem of Rising Spirit. Unlike the first blood gem, which directs its essence payload to restore small wounds, this one directs the body to increase blood production and blood flow, naturally stimulating your physical performance.”

  Rory was glad that the young man had never heard of Viagra, as he was sure there was no way a teenage boy could have avoided making the joke based on the description Rory had just given about the second ossified blood gem.

  “And the last one?” Apostolos pointed at the third and final gem within the pouch, the largest of the three by nearly three times.

  “An ‘oh shit’ option. If, and only if, I receive a life-threatening wound, you are to feed this to me if I’m unable to do it myself. It’s a mimic of the ossified gem I made for you that saved your life. Unlike you, I don’t need to bother with weird essence conversions or manipulation. Also, I forcibly condensed five ossified blood gems into this bad boy, only possible because they’re all made from the same source essence.”

  “What exactly does it… do, though?” Apostolos asked, eyeing the gem warily.

  “Its convergence effect is ‘shock,’ meaning if I take this, the effect will be… potent. Again, if you need to get me the hell out of dodge, you only give this to me if I’m going to die otherwise. Also, I would prefer to take it right before ascending to A6 for the best effect. So, if you need me to take it and I’m out of it, you must do your best to force me to push my ascension. Got it?”

  “Got it,” Apostolos answered, nodding slowly in affirmation.

  “Good,” Rory said before glancing upward. “Well, there is no such thing as a perfect moment. Only the current moment.”

  It was clear to Apostolos that his master, who always seemed in control -even when he got terribly distracted or made rather stupid jokes- was feeling genuinely nervous for the first time in… Well, ever, at least for as long as Apostolos had been around.

  “You don’t have to,” Apostolos offered, thinking back to his own near death at the hands -wings- of a monster well beyond his ability to tango with.

  “No, I do.” Rory finally said, exhaling slowly. “It’s time to go kill a tier-six.”