Chương 415: (408) 6.22. Table for Three?

The next few days went by just as quickly as the ones before. After grabbing some much-needed food with Shia, and making one of the Big Three Chefs so happy he nearly broke down into tears when The Roamer of all people decided to visit his restaurant rather than the ones run by his competition, Vin went right back into magic practice. Now that he had the spell Comprehend Languages under his belt, it was time for the actually important part of his plan. Creating an artifact with said spell imbued into it.

Here was where Vin ran into a couple of hurdles. For starters, while he'd done plenty of research into the subject of creating artifacts and had even made a few of his own to give to Abby and the guards, those had all been tier-0 artifacts. Jumping straight from those up to a tier-2 was a bit of a bold move even for him, so Vin decided to take things a bit slower for a change and work on a tier-1 artifact first, just to build his way up.

Though even with that idea in mind, he quickly discovered upon shattering one of the tiny gemstones Scule had given him that a tier-1 spell couldn't quite fit in the same vessel as a tier-0.

"I don't have that many gems in here, for the record," Scule muttered as he fished a few more gems ranging in size from a pea to a small coin out of his cape.

"Just try not to break any more, alright? And don't forget about my request." Ironically, the Rogue of Poisons' request had been for Vin to make him an artifact built around Neutralize Poison. Reginald was able to share all of Scule's abilities thanks to their Magical Bond, including his poison immunity, so Vin wasn't entirely sure what Scule had in mind for such an artifact. But if that was what Scule wanted, that was what he would get.

It at least gave Vin a target to strive for, and he got to work trying to ever so delicately cram the tier-1 Neutralize Poison runic formation into one of the new gemstones. Creating a separate pool of mana for the formation to latch onto wasn't too difficult, though it did take quite a while. If Vin tried to speed up the process, he risked shattering the gemstone entirely, which meant he had to slowly and steadily feed it a stream of mana until it contained just enough to hold the spell.

Once the spell was in place it would drain the ambient mana from the air to power itself, but it needed a little seed mana to get started. Squeezing the tier-1 formation into the gem was the truly tricky part of artifact creation, and it took Vin an entire day to pull it off, only shattering two more gemstones in the process, forcing him to start over from scratch each time.

Creating artifacts was by far the hardest thing he'd done regarding magic, and the more Vin worked at it, the more he came to an unpleasant realization. He didn't like creating artifacts. Recreating runic formations and learning brand-new spells was fun! Feeling the active mana thrumming within his soul as he finally cracked a spell he'd been working on for ages, or weaving together formations to form a spell that was all his own, never got old to him.

But the creation of artifacts was just so industrial and boring. Slowly spooling mana into a gem one bit at a time… Carefully forcing an entire runic formation into the hard structure of the gem… It took him a full day of painstaking, meticulous, boring work to create Scule's requested artifact.

While Vin was proud of himself for pulling it off after only a few failures, the last thing he wanted was to start trying to make a tier-2 artifact that would require him to functionally do the same thing all over again, only for longer. While the process ended with him having a brand-new magical artifact that hadn't existed before, the spell contained wasn't brand-new to him.

He knew he was helping others and that his artifacts would undoubtedly be incredibly useful, but even with that knowledge in mind, it was a serious struggle to keep at it. But Vin had promised Shuvo he would help with the language issue, and he'd already come this far. Not to mention there was at least one surprise he'd discovered.

While Vin's Artifact Extraordinaire passive didn't make the artifacts he created any more powerful than ones created by someone else, unless he was the one actively using them, it did have the added benefit of allowing Vin to reduce the time it took him to create repeated artifacts quite significantly. It was almost like the passive retained the sensation of how he'd crammed the runic formation into the prepared gem, allowing him to do it far faster the next time, if he so wanted.

That meant if Vin could just bite the bullet and get Comprehend Languages into artifact form, he'd be able to do it far faster and easier in the future. And he had a feeling Shuvo was far from the last new face he'd be bringing into Edregon as time went on. Again and again Vin shattered the gemstones he'd been provided, growing more frustrated with each attempt.

Most of the passives and Capstones he'd gained through his time on Edregon that helped with learning new spells didn't lend themselves to artifact creation, which meant he was primarily relying on nothing more than his focus attribute. And seeing as he really didn't want to be doing this in the first place, he kept finding himself rushing, which led to him making stupid mistakes, which led to failure and having to start the whole thing over again.

It probably took him far longer than the process should have, but after three solid days of painstaking work, Vin stepped out of his bedroom with a necklace dangling from one hand and a broad frown on his face. He had actually taken breaks to eat and walk around here and there to cool off any time he got too frustrated, but it felt as though he'd been cooped up in there for ages. The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I've done it, and I'm never making a tier-2 artifact ever again!" Vin blinked as he realized the apartment was completely empty. Grumbling to himself that nobody was around to commiserate with him, he tucked the necklace into his pocket as he strode over to the apartment number Linda had given him the other day when he'd stopped by to ask where Shuvo had ended up. Not even bothering to look at the name plates, Vin walked up and knocked on the door.

His frown vanished as it was opened, only to reveal an equally surprised Thomas.

"Thomas?" Vin asked, surprised to find himself face-to-face with one of the three formerly missing Earthers he'd rescued from the clutches of the ranker king. Thomas was a Student, and a mute one at that. He was fluent in sign language, but couldn't utter any actual noise." Vin!

"Thomas smiled, his fingers flashing as he eagerly motioned for him to come in." What brings you here? Checking up on your student?"

"Shuvo is living here?" Vin asked, quickly putting two and two together. He couldn't imagine Jess the easygoing Jewelry Crafter or John the paranoid Watcher were either of the two Earthers who had expressed interest in learning magic, which only left one other.

"You're the one Linda mentioned wanted to learn magic?"" Yep! Shuvo and I have both already finished up with the teaching artifact from Sakis," Thomas explained." Hold on, let me get him." Happily jogging over to one of the bedroom doors, Thomas pounded on it. A moment later, Shuvo stuck his head out.

"I told you, I don't understand your weird hand—Master!" All but stumbling out of his room, Shuvo hit Vin with the curious double salute his people used, looking like he wanted to say something but unsure as to if he should do so. Letting out a sigh, Vin decided to save him the hassle.

"Sorry I brought you here only to all but abandon you for the last couple of days. I know I told you we weren't going to have the master-student relationship you wanted, but that wasn't really cool of me to do without saying anything. It took me longer than I care to admit to make this for you, but I hope this makes up for things." Pulling the necklace out of his pocket, Vin handed it to him.

With trembling fingers, Shuvo accepted the necklace, staring at the gleaming white diamond in the center before tying it around his neck. As soon as it was on, he cleared his throat.

"And this solves the language issue?"" Hah, I actually understood that!" Thomas signed excitedly, getting a gasp from Shuvo as the elf's eyes widened.

"And I understood that!" Shuvo exclaimed, staring at Thomas' fingers in shock.

"It's definitely a rush suddenly understanding a foreign language for the first time," Vin said, their joint expressions of bewilderment enough to pull him out of his foul mood as he found himself laughing.

"As much as I'd like to say let's get started with the complex magic lessons right here and now, I've been shirking my duties for almost a week now, even if it was for the benefit of Terra in the grand scheme of things. I want to go touch base with the council and make sure I'm not needed to check up on anything before we get into our lessons. I'm going to leave the two of you with the most simple runic formation I know as a starting point.

If you've already finished up with Sakis' training artifact, you should be more than capable of recreating it within your mana pools. Chat with one another and help each other out if you get stuck." Getting excited nods from his two newest students, Vin quickly traced Sense Magic out in the air for them both. He hadn't taken the time to learn what kind of mages the two of them wanted to become, which made that a good starting point.

With the glowing runes left floating above the table with enough mana to last a few hours, Vin took his leave, pausing on his way to the front door. One of the bedroom doors was open partway, and without intending to, he'd gotten a glimpse of the interior. Where he clearly spotted Jess, the crafter with a specialization in jewelry, lying upside down on her bed. Her long hair and hooped earrings were dangling down toward the floor, but she didn't seem to notice that or his presence.

She was far too invested staring at Sakis' training artifact held lazily in one hand. Not wanting Shuvo and Thomas' excitement in the common room to break her concentration, Vin silently cast Mage Hand and pulled her door shut, thinking to himself as he did so. Seeing as Shuvo and Thomas shared an apartment, it only made sense that Linda had simply arranged for the important artifact to be delivered to the apartment itself rather than either one of the two prospective students specifically.

Vin had recognized the look of intrigue on Jess' face all too easily, as it had been the very same one he somehow knew had been plastered all over his face when he'd first gotten his hands on that artifact back on his second day on Edregon. If he had to come up with a way to describe it… Fanatical obsession would be the closest he could think of. Well isn't that an interesting surprise, he thought, heading out of the apartment and making his way to town hall.

It was still too early to make any definite assumptions, but after coming to terms with his newfound hatred of artifacts, if there were any one person in all of Terra he'd be more than happy to teach magic to, it would be the woman already skilled in making jewelry. If she wanted to learn magic and figure out how to create her own artifacts… Vin would do anything in his power to ensure she got all the help in the world, if only so he wouldn't have to.