Rory sat in his favorite spot, thinking directly before their forge. Since he’d outright replaced their old forge with the Stellar Forge, the rhythmic pulse, thrum, and hum of the construct had eased his mind, helping him think.

  His thoughts revolved around one thing in particular: the weapon he intended to make for Apostolos.

  He’s wasted as an archer, I’m sure of that.

  Rory hadn’t intended Apostolos’s new weapon to be a bow, but considering all the options was worth considering.

  He’s not bad with a spear. Still, I feel like giving him a spear when someone else is running around with the moniker ‘Spear’ is asking for trouble.

  In fact, Apostolos had been working on his skills as a mage over the last few years.

  A wand? No, wands are stupid. A staff, then?

  That… That wasn’t a bad idea.

  But.

  But it would be a waste of the unique trophy he’d claimed from the Architect Bane.

  So, not a spear. Not a staff… Hmm. A halberd?

  It felt closer like he was warming up to the correct answer. That said, the shape language wasn’t quite there.

  A scythe? I mean, its arm already looks like a scythe.

  He’d have to modify and shorten the appendage; it would be too large and unyielding if he just tried to stick it on the end of a stick.

  Of his ideas, it was the one that felt the most… right. A scythe could be used similarly to a spear, and with only a bit of planning he could probably figure out a way to also use it as a staff.

  Now, if he could even make a magical staff, it was a question Rory hadn’t yet explored, an answer that would come with trial and error.

  “A scythe it is,” Rory said, nodding to himself. Instantly, a green projection appeared, a three-dimensional model of what he would make.

  “No, too long,” Rory mentally flicked away the current image. Apostolos was tall, but he wasn’t that tall that he could use such an oversized version. Another version appeared, yet after only several moments of thought, Rory flicked it away.

  Rory scanned through the different models and ideas for two hours, briefly turning them over before dismissing them.

  With the suns setting, Rory sat still for several moments, simply admiring them. After several seconds of being entranced, it was as if a spark of inspiration struck him. Instantly, the most current green model in front of him distorted, changing to be precisely what he wanted. Staring at it, Rory felt the rightness settle into place.

  There. That’s the one.

  The current appendage of the Chosen Bane was nearly seven feet long, and Rory would need to shorten that. The shaft of the weapon he’d initially meant to be made of bloodwood, now Rory had switched ideas, a starry-steel haft replacing the bloody wood. Opposite the scythe head was a stouter blade, somewhere between an axe head and the head of a halberd. Unlike the scythe head, which would be made from the remains of the Chosen Bane’s arm, the halberd head was the same material as the weapon’s haft, albeit with a crimson-colored trim at the edge of the blade. Lastly, opposite the primary heads of the weapon was a dark-colored gem inlaid within the butt of the weapon.

  It was perfect, taking Rory’s breath away.

  Now I need to make it.

  Easier said than done.

  First off, the actual scythe head. Given that it would be made from the Architect Bane’s leftover arm, he wouldn’t have to do any special alloying or whatnot; in fact, Rory doubted he could. The real issue would be cutting, carving, and shaping the oversized appendage into something usable.

  The material that comprised the weapon’s haft and opposing halberd head followed. It would be an alloy between Stabilized steel and Stellar Matter. The issue was -two actually- was that first, Stellar Matter required a lot of raw resources to be dumped into the Stellar Forge. The second issue was the issue of the final alloy. Stellar Matter and Stabilized Steel would undoubtedly be part of it. Yet, Rory could feel it wouldn’t be what he was looking for, missing some third vital component, a catalyst.

  How did he know? With around a decade of crafting, shaping, forging, inscribing, and now gem crafting, Rory had begun to get a better sense of things, a sixth sense of sorts.

  That sixth sense told him he needed more if he wanted the alloy to match the rest of the weapon.

  Finally, there was the gem at the butt of the staff. It would be through it that Apostolos would channel Pneuma to cast magic through the weapon. Rory’s initial thought was for it to be a focus, a way to speed up Apostolos’s magic.

  How would he do that? Rory had no idea; it was something he’d have to test a new gem design to get working. What was certain is that Rory wanted the gem to be made of something higher quality than their current run-of-the-mill gems, which were recycled waste from their bloodwood tree farms.

  Sighing, Rory banished the green projection, locking it within his mind palace so he wouldn’t lose it.

  “Well, best not to get ahead of myself.”

  The ‘easiest’ piece of the scythe would be the actual head of the scythe. Standing up, Rory jogged over to his hovel, snatching his trusty knife, before seating himself next to their campfire. Picking up the arm of the Chosen Bane, Rory pushed his knife forward as he went to cut off the excess material.

  Cartilage? Bone? No idea. It has absolutely zero in common with anything I’ve seen before.

  Pushing aside wandering thoughts, Rory focused on his project, already thinking of his next steps when, of all things he didn’t expect to happen, his knife failed to cut into the material.

  “What the fuck?” Rory said, shocked. Ever since the improvements he’d made to the knife many years ago, it had been capable of easily cutting through even some of the hardest materials he’d had access to; the knife was solely for crafting, after all.

  And yet, for the first time, it had met its match.

  Dumbstruck, Rory could only stare for several seconds.

  You’re kidding me.

  Shaking himself free of the stupor, an exhausted sigh escaped from Rory.

  “Alright, step zero. Upgrade my knife.”

  Placing the keratin-like appendage back down, Rory instead examined his knife.

  Thankfully, unlike many of his other projects, Rory found the thought of upgrading the knife far more manageable. The last time it had been improved, it had used ordinary enriched iron. He could use Stabilized Steel at this point, yet Rory figured he could do even better.

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  In fact, it gives me a chance to explore ideas for the new alloy.

  “What I’m missing is that little extra kick. That oomph factor.” Rory mused, thinking. The easiest way to give something more oomph had been to over-saturate it with Pneuma, as he had done with his unstable blood weave.

  It couldn’t be that easy… could it?

  Retreating into his mind palace, Rory attempted to model it. In only a few minutes, Rory found himself grinning.

  It’s that easy.

  Sure, straight Pneuma wouldn’t work in the alloying process, yet if he could concentrate it into a physical form and then add that into the mix, that would work.

  He already had an idea to do just that. The first was through Aisormba. When distilled and concentrated, it would leave behind tiny crystals of pure concentrated Pneuma. That alone wouldn’t be enough, but it would be a good start.

  I think that used to be called fractionation. Honestly, I’m not sure.

  Once the aisormba had been fractionated, resulting in tiny little pneuma crystals, Rory would add onto them. Using a room gem in conjunction with placing the tiny pneuma crystals within their bound circle, Rory hoped to concentrate and expand upon the little crystals, growing them into larger crystals of pure Pneuma.

  Which is probably going to burn through a damn lot of Pneuma.

  Only once he had those larger crystals would he reduce them to a powder, then add that powder pneuma to the alloy of stabilized steel and stellar matter.

  Would it work? Only time would tell.

  “Oh, Apostolos, perfect timing, come here quick.”

  Rory waved to Apostolos, who’d just returned from… somewhere, probably the Maw.

  “Something the matter?” Apostolos questioned, looking beaten and battered but otherwise alive.

  Yeah, definitely the Maw.

  “I take it the Maw wasn’t treating you well?”

  “That damn spider monster stabbed me through the gut, tossed me through a wall, and then ‘bit’ off my leg. At that point, it was obvious I wasn’t winning, so I just ran, I didn’t feel like wasting time making a new Radiant Ember,”

  “Smart thinking,” Rory acknowledged before changing the subject, “Alright, well, do me a favor. Hold these and channel Essence Spark through ‘em.”

  Handing several nearly transparent crystals to Apostolos, Apostolos stared down at the clear crystals.

  “Are these what you’ve been up to the last three weeks?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “And you’re not going to tell me what they’re for?”

  “Damn straight,” Rory repeated with a smirk.

  “Fine,” Apostolos sighed. He returned the crystals in only half a second, dusting himself off from his non-existent effort.

  “That was quick,” Rory said.

  “At this point, channeling a bit of my affinity takes a heartbeat when it’s something as small as those.”

  “Well, I appreciate it,” Rory said, staring at Apostolos expectantly.

  “What?” Apostolos questioned.

  “You can skedaddle now.”

  “Are you chasing me off?”

  “Damn straight,” Rory repeated for the third time, winking at Apostolos with an evil glean in his eyes.

  “Bleh. You’re a boring old man anyway.” Apostolos snorted as he stomped off, playing along.

  Snorting, Rory watched him leave before glancing down at the tiny crystals he now held. A slight golden light flickered within them.

  “And that’s everything,” Rory whispered, quiet enough that Apostolos wouldn’t hear. During the growing process of the pneuma crystals, Rory had the clever idea to split them into two. The first half would be aspectless, unaffected by any non-neutral aligned affinities. The other half would be aspected with solar affinity, coming from Apostolos himself. It was those few solar affinity pneuma crystals that Rory planned to use to alloy the metal that was specifically meant for Apostolos’s weapon.

  Heading to the Stellar Forge, Rory snatched a pestle and mortar from a toolbox near the forge. Dumping the affinity-neutral crystals within, he ground them until they were reduced to a fine powder. Pleased with his work, Rory walked closer to the forge, inspecting it.

  Hmmm. I think there is enough, at least for the knife.

  There wasn’t any interface telling him as much; it was just a pure gut instinct gained from the skill the forge had been derived from.

  “Good enough for me,” Rory said with a shrug. Grabbing a pair of extra long tongs and a larger chunk of stabilized steel, Rory pushed the metal toward the Forge Heart, the small glowing star contained with the futuristic-looking magi-tech. Resisting the gravity of the small star, Rory watched as the metal began to heat to a cherry-red glow and then let it get even hotter. Waiting until it was glowing with an angry white sheen, Rory dragged the metal away. Resting it on an anvil nearby, Rory mentally pulled on the star as a wisp of coronal mass was drawn free. Pulling harder, Rory retrieved roughly a large phone-sized blob of stellar mass.

  Bingo.

  With the mass hovering over his hand, Rory directed it to lay flat on top of the still white-hot bar of stabilized steel.

  “And now for the elbow grease,”

  Putting aside the tongs, grabbing a hammer, and tossing on a forge apron, Rory began the laborious work of slowly pounding and folding the two masses together. Fold after fold, Rory pounded the mass together until it started to cool, in which case Rory would stick it close to the star once again.

  After an hour, Rory wiped at his brow, feeling that the two materials had been integrated.

  It’s ready.

  Reheating it one last time to a white-hot glow, when Rory retrieved it, rather than instantly set to folding in again and again, Rory snatched the mortar of crushed pneuma crystal and began sprinkling the dust on top of the bar. Reacting, the bar momentarily blazed with a solar flare of light before settling down.

  “Well, if that’s not a sign that I’m on the right track, I don’t know what is,” Rory grunted.

  Taking his time, Rory slowly worked the dust into the bar, reheating, folding, dusting, and repeating until, at last, Rory knew it was done.

  Grabbing the tongs one last time, Rory thrust the white-hot bar into a nearby basin of coolant, letting it rest even as the coolant remained inert. Unlike earth water, the stuff he used to quench his materials didn’t seem to bubble or boil, no matter how hot it got.

  Counting down from sixty, Rory finally retreated the metal bar from the cooling basin. Examining it, Rory was pleased to see the visible change. It was somewhere between white and grey in color, dotted with spots that seemed to twinkle like distant stars in the night sky.

  And now for the fun part.

  Name already in mind for the metal, Rory examined the bar.

  Stellarite

  Quality: Uncommon (+)

  Forged of a highly stable base metal, the mass of creation, and a spark of evolution. While forged from a dilute concentration of Stellar Matter, the resulting material is still potent. Said to be the metal of the stars themselves, Stellarite has extreme heat resistance and pneuma conductivity properties.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Rory grinned. It was always nice to see something work without excessive testing required. Non-issue of testing aside, the metal was extraordinary; it had officially taken the highest-grade material rank of any metal he’d forged to date, even passing out Crimson Steel, if only with the barest of nudge with its plus notation.

  This means that, in theory, it has what it takes to be a rare-grade material. It was probably held back by something like the quality of materials involved. If I had to guess, I’d say it was perhaps the stellar matter; the description specifically states that it was a rather unconcentrated sample.

  Trying to obtain a higher concentration of stellar mass would be a project for the future; even the diluted form was a massive resource sink with how much material it could guzzle up just to spit out a small lump of stellar mass.

  Satisfied with what he had for the time, Rory grabbed his knife, looking between the newly made Stellarite and it. Unable to think of any special runes or last-minute tweaks, Rory shrugged and brought them to their bound circle. Having already inscribed the runes he needed onto the crafting knife, Rory placed the two within the circle, the knife directly atop the stellarite. Now that the energy grid existed, Rory didn’t have to bother drawing the Pneuma forth like he had the first time he’d upgraded his knife.

  Oh memories.

  Think fondly of what was now something like a decade ago. Rory activated the circle as Pneuma rushed inside like an unsealed faucet. At the same time, the knife began to absorb the bar of metal just beneath it, shaking and glowing for several seconds until, rather anticlimactic, the rest of the bar was sucked up, leaving the same knife, now just a slightly off-white grey.

  Bloodbound Crafter’s Knife

  Grade: Common

  The tool of choice for nearly any profession, the knife is considered invaluable. The first knife of a fledgling craftsman. This particular knife has been directly bound to the blood essence of its crafter and has withstood its first advancement. How many more it will see has yet to be determined.

  -->

  Bloodbound Crafter’s Knife

  Grade: Uncommon (+)

  The tool of choice for nearly any profession, the knife is considered invaluable. The first knife of a seasoned craftsman. This knife has been directly bound to the blood essence of its crafter and has withstood its second advancement. Growing in strength, it can now cut through even the hardest of rare-grade materials and the like.

  “Perfect,” Rory said gleefully. The description changes were surprisingly flattering, now referring to him as a ‘seasoned’ craftsman rather than a fledgling craftsman. That aside, it explicitly referenced how it was now suitable for up to rare graded materials. While the leftover appendage from the Architect Bane had been listed as ‘unique,’ a rather… unique grade, Rory felt confident the knife would work. Even the utility of the upgrade aside, it just felt good to upgrade it after so long. Of anything he owned, the knife was perhaps the possession he’d had the longest since his arrival on Aelia; lord knew the old clothes he’d worn had long since worn down to ratty dishrags.

  Man, am I thankful for the knitting, sewing, and quilting skills. Alongside superhuman capabilities, it takes less than half an hour to whip up a new pair of pants or shirts.

  Still smiling, Rory glanced to where he had left the arm of the Chosen Bane.

  It’s finally time to handle that.