Chương 528: Craftsmanship

We returned from the fog pillar's domain, and re-entered the village with a pile of new materials. Felix had turned over the third of the fog pillar's body he had already managed to retrieve, and in exchange, he had gotten three full crates of materials. Felix returned to the other craftsmen of the settlement, and they spent several hours working out some kind of final agreement on what the materials would be used for. I couldn't help but smile at the thought.

Felix had already created one amazing item that we could use when we ended up fighting for more lives. The splinter had already turned into an incredible weapon. Now, we had a good chance of having at least one more powerful item with us when we returned. With any luck, perhaps we'd even get two or three. Especially since, according to Felix, the fog pillar had given us two really good materials that he had managed to bargain for, in exchange for his participation in this whole mess.

The next few weeks were spent in a flurry of materials, blueprints, and motion… at least, for the craftsmen. For the rest of the village, we entered a period of quiet and stability. With the aid of the fog pillar, we no longer needed to worry about the fog banks attacking us. Anytime they got close to us, they were wiped out by the fog pillar's attacks, and now the only place villagers regularly travelled that wasn't covered in fog was the farming area.

Since the farming area was situated near the edge of the fog pillar's domain, and the fog banks were now mostly getting killed on the western edge of the mist pillar's domain, we didn't actually end up encountering very many fog banks in the farming area - although those of us who were combat-able still patrolled the area regularly. Finally, after three weeks of rebuilding items, preparing for our next expedition, and setting aside materials for the future, Felix showed off his new creations.

In total, he had made two items for the Market. The first item was a mist-based summon, since the fog pillar had traded Felix a good number of mist cores and cloth puppets. Felix had apparently taken inspiration from that, to create a summoning-type item. Item: Merciless Weaver Effects: After infusing a large amount of binding essence, animates a single cloth puppet into 'the weaver.' The weaver will use binding essence to entrap and devour a certain enemy within the threads of fog, fate, and mystery.

This will slow down the enemy, apply various stat debuffs, and eventually outright kill weaker ones. The weaver itself is a summon-type entity, and can be killed by its target or other forms of external interference. It has a Fortitude stat of approximately 20 (grade 2). Merciless weaver has five puppets in total. Puppets cannot be restored once they are destroyed. Once the fifth puppet is ruined, this item loses all abilities and reverts back to regular cloth.

Each activation of a puppet lasts for 24 hours, before ruining the puppet. Note: enemies with resistance to any of these types of attack are unlikely to be affected. Maintenance: None (Item does not restore itself upon return to the Market or protect itself against dimensional travel.) This item was a bit different from a lot of the other ones we had prepared for the fight for more lives, in that it requires a big infusion of binding essence before it did anything.

That was a noticeable downside, since most of our other items could be used immediately and came with their own batteries. Of course, since each puppet lasted for 24 hours after essence infusion, it wasn't that big of a deal. Felix could just activate the puppet, then spend some time regenerating his essence. The item was perfectly usable for our needs. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The other thing that Felix had created was a bit more unusual, in that it wasn't a consumable item at all. Instead, it was a gift for Anise, in a sense. It was an item I hadn't even realized Felix could create, but that didn't make its effects any less impressive.

Item: Wand of Ethereal Mists Effects: Every time the user channels a mist-related spell through this wand, their understanding of that spell, and the proficiency of that spell, will increase much faster than if they tried to learn the spell the regular way. Maintenance: None (Item does not restore itself upon return to the Market or protect itself against dimensional travel.) This item didn't really directly boost our combat abilities at all - instead, they boosted Anise's learning speed.

However, since it seemed increasingly likely that we would survive the end of this encounter with the mist cyclone, we would probably have a comfortable period of time where we could train afterwards. This item would feed into Anise's ability to 'level up' her spells really well, and give her the biggest possible advantage, not just in this world, but in future worlds as well.

Of course, it only worked for mist-related spells, but since Anise had been really interested in spells outside of more obvious fire and force manipulation spells recently, mist made a good addition to her tool kit. I also felt that if she could summon a big army for us, just like the fog banks we had been fighting during our time on the island, that could make it much easier to gain more lives. It was a good item, even if it didn't directly contribute to a fight the way Felix's other items did.

Felix and Anise naturally added those to their item sets. Felix dropped {Swordbreaker} for the {Merciless Weaver}, while Anise dumped her {Sword of the Lost Phoenix's Embers}. Apart from the Market related items, Felix and the other craftsmen prepared other supplies for the actual journey back to the valley. They got a few more containers ready for Felix's use, to bottle up the rest of the Cyclone using his feat.

They got armor ready for everyone, which I ended up putting on over my {Lake Gazer's Dress}, since more layers of protection never hurt. They also recharged everyone's swords. Wearing solid, heavy armor for the first time honestly felt quite strange. I was rather used to having lightweight armor that I barely even noticed - but the armor put together by the craftsmen of the village this time was closer to chainmail than anything else.

I found it a little annoying when I tried to move around, but since I didn't actually dodge around very much in battle, and the mist monster summons were mostly physical attackers, I couldn't really argue with the craftsmen. It would definitely help during the actual fight. Once our preparations were complete, we started heading west. It was time to finally clear out the valley, complete our side of the deal with the fog bank, and hopefully secure the future for our settlement.

The four of us were part of the settlement's group, along with the ten Swordsmen and Veritum. Accompanying us was a group of fifty fog sprites, who were to act as our guides and as distractions for the enemy. As we moved through the trees, I noticed that there were noticeably fewer fog banks than before. There were still occasional fog banks patrolling the forest, looking for food, and ripping into animals in the forest - but they were far harder to find. More interestingly, the fog banks seemed less than before.

It was as if something deep within them was missing - something that went beyond life force, essence, or their body. Since I had seen the fog pillar's palace, I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what it was. It was the concept of mist itself. I had already realized that the mist palace had a certain underlying eldritch weight to it when we spoke with the fog pillar, but now, I could tell that there really was something conceptual underlying the entire island's ecosystem.

Otherwise, the fog pillar wouldn't have gotten stronger the moment Felix stole a third of the cyclone - instead, it would have gotten stronger once we finished making a deal with it. Whatever was going on with the conceptual side of the island, I found myself increasingly curious about what it all meant and how it fit together as we moved on.

I couldn't help but wonder whether, after all of this was over, the fog pillar might be willing to spend some time teaching me more about the conceptual side of reality in exchange for some other materials or something. As a partially eldritch being, I had some understanding of how the conceptual side of reality worked, but my ability to manipulate the conceptual was still somewhat crude. The impact of missing some of their conceptual side on the fog banks than expected. They were slower. Weaker. Dumber.

It was as if in every respect besides their life force, they had lost something vital to their existence. Soon, we reached the valley where the fog banks were hidden. It was time to end this once and for all.