Chương 38: Refinement

For my second project, Mum gave me complete freedom to create whatever I liked. She even encouraged me to use all my engraving skills and knowledge to design something great. I didn't hold back. Instead of making another flask, I designed something entirely different, something beyond anyone's grasp: a large cask for fermenting alcohol. Jokes aside, a fermentation container would sell for a good amount of leafs, and that was all I aimed for at the moment, aside from gaining the learning experience.

I didn't even know how much wealth I would need to accumulate to make worthy gifts for everyone, but as with most things, the more the better. Diana's background as the daughter of an innkeeper and local ale brewer provided invaluable insights into increasing the utility of my product. Of course, she couldn't explain the technicalities needed to aid fermentation, keep the alcohol cold, or optimise other aspects of the brewing process, as her knowledge of runes was only a week deep.

However, she could share in-depth, first-hand experiences of all the challenges her mother faced while brewing. That was all I needed, along with a few more hints from Mum. It also made me realise how narrow my worldview was when it came to anything unrelated to essence and the magic of the world. I set that thought aside for now and poured all my focus into designing. It took me half an hour to finalise the design and another hour to carve the runes, as most of them were of the intermediate grade.

"Simple hardwood is enough for it," she advised, reviewing my design.

"Using metal or essence-rich wood for a simple vessel like this would be wasteful." Runes eroded faster on wood, not to mention that not all woods efficiently transfer essence. The ones that did costed far more than regular iron or steel. But Mum wasn't finished.

"Your design isn't bad," she said, sketching over my blueprint and refining it, making it even simpler before handing it back to me.

"But you need to consider usability and marketability as well." I stared at the changes she made. The rune formation was the same; she had simply distributed it evenly across the cask, leaving the upper part empty.

"Ease of use," she explained, "is an essential aspect an artisan must consider. Two artisans could create the same product, but the one with better usability would always sell more."

"What about carving the runes into wood?" I asked.

"Naturally, wood withers much faster than metal, especially when channelled with essence." Mum paused, giving me a significant look.

"I think it's about time I taught you the process of refinement."

"Like refining ores?" I cocked an eyebrow.

"And more," she smiled.

"I think you'll pick it up nicely." She demonstrated by picking up a flat beam from under the staircase. Since I could only manipulate sixteen essence threads, Mum wove the pattern using just eight threads at first before adding another eight to it. Diana saw nothing at all and would need a different method of learning, but that was still months away, as she was too new to all of this. As she showed me the process of refinement, I realised how incomplete my understanding had been.

Refinement required at least eight threads of essence in its elementary form, similar to the process of Empower and other Shaper forms. Thankfully, it didn't require the same intense manipulation as some of my other training, making the process feel like a slow crawl compared to the instantaneous nature of other shaping abilities. All I needed to do was infuse the essence weave into the material and slowly cycle it through, much like essence unification. This gradually refined the material.

A couple of dozen cycles were enough to bring the material to the first tier of refinement. From there, the process became more challenging. If you consider it, it's easier to expel the obvious impurities at the beginning. After tier one, impurities became scarce, making it much harder for a novice artisan to identify and remove them.

"The second tier requires about a hundred cycles of circulation," Mum said, "for a novice. I could do it with fewer cycles, but that would require more essence threads. Also, different materials require different processing times. Wood, for example, is more fragile than ore, so the process is more delicate and time-consuming." I'd assumed refinement was only for materials like ores, to turn them into fine metals or alloys. I was completely mistaken.

Take our house, for instance, built entirely out of refined and reinforced wood. I hadn't known about its construction before, but now that I thought about how it had withstood countless ashen storms, it all made sense. After giving me the wood to practise refinement, she moved on to teach Diana. I thought it would be something else, some exercise she could do to tune her control, instead Mum began to show her way of Refinement as well, startling me.

"I don't usually let students skip the basics," Mum said to Diana.

"But since you have Purification—which is like a more specialised version of refinement—you might be able to pick this up quickly." You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"What's the difference between the two?" Diana asked, furrowing her brow.

"Refinement is more basic and general," Mum explained.

"It focuses on enhancing one or two characteristics of a material. For wood or metal, it strengthens the material and reduces fragility. Purification, on the other hand, is far more specific. It's incredibly useful for alchemical purposes and for expunging toxins from the body.

"A master of Purification could refine materials as well, often better than someone skilled in refinement."

"I think I understand," Diana said, tilting her head. Mum handed her a piece of wood. For an Awakened, triggering their gift was almost second nature. For Diana, it was no different. As she used her eight orange threads of essence, they naturally wove into the pattern of Purification.

"Refinement is simpler," Mum told her, manipulating her own threads to alter her Purification weave. But each time she let go, it reverted to Purification again.

"I can almost visualise the difference," Diana muttered, her face a mask of concentration.

"But my essence seems unbendable no matter how much effort I put in."

"It's all about practice," Mum assured her.

"Do it hundreds of times, and you'll get used to it." Shapers had the freedom to weave their essence into whatever form they wished, inside or outside the body. However, for a newly awakened, untrained Shaper like Diana, the initial instinct would always be to utilise the weave they had awakened with. In that aspect, I was fortunate, as the instinctual feeling that came with my gift actually helped with weaving as well as rune engraving—like how annoyingly aware I was becoming of things that weren't symmetrical.

[A new Way is accessible: Refinement I (0/10)]"What about reinforcement?" I asked, handing Mum the flat wooden board to inspect.

"Reinforcement is a bit more advanced," Mum replied.

"It takes much more control and Will. More threads too." She demonstrated by plunging her essence threads into the wood. Slowly, the refined wood began to shrink. Before our eyes, it became half its original thickness, its colour darkening to a more polished state.

"In theory," Mum explained, "reinforcement uses essence to empower the material to the desired state. It's not always about hardening wood or metal. Reinforcement can enhance the flavour of food, improve the quality of an essence crystal, or even optimise other characteristics. And it can be utilised more quickly too." She handed the wood back to me. Its weight was almost the same, but when we weighed it, we found it had gained a gram or two. What surprised me more was its metallic texture.

It wasn't exactly like metal, but it was as solid and durable as purified ore. With Mum's approval, I tested it by striking it with a hammer and barely made a dent on it. It was surprisingly resistant and tougher than unreinforced metal.

"Remember," Mum said, "refinement and reinforcement must work in tandem. One cannot function well without the other. If you reinforce a material without refining it first, it will retain impurities, making it fragile in certain places. Such materials can break unexpectedly or slowly deteriorate from within." She continued, "In fact, there's another process—condensation—that needs to be woven together with reinforcement for it to work effectively. All three are necessary to maximise a material's potential.

That said, you can omit condensation if resources are scarce.

"For instance, our house wasn't condensed properly because it wasn't necessary." Despite all her explanations, she didn't teach us the other two processes, saying that training in more than I could handle at once would be counterproductive. Although I felt like I could replicate what I'd seen. All I needed was to figure out an eight-thread elementary form of it first. But there was truth in what she said... refinement would take time to master, and without it, reinforcement was pretty useless.

Mum let us handle all the refinement work on the wood while she managed the other two processes before putting everything together into a cask. By then, it was already dark.

"Okay, let's end it here," Mum said.

"You can continue from there tomorrow." I didn't complain, as I was already exhausted from all the hard work to do well on the actual artificing, especially given how complex the process would be with my design. But at least everything was prepared for tomorrow. My task now was to walk Diana home, even though I was sure she could manage on her own. On the way, I found Eran practising swordsmanship. He trained twice a day regularly, though I rarely joined the evening sessions.

I ran over to the practice area, Diana in tow. I waited until he noticed us and paused his training.

"How's it going?"

"As well as you can imagine," Eran croaked, brushing a clumsy hand through his hair. The purple patch of bruised skin on his arms and shoulders didn't go unnoticed by my eyes.

"I still don't know what I'm doing wrong with my gift. On the bright side, I completed the second layer of Pain Tolerance. That's a good two points into my Fortitude." My expression faltered at his words. Even now, through my Fractal Sight, Eran's gift remained in that same jumbled state, spreading throughout his body. It was like one of the puzzles within my Arcane Knot, but ten times more complex. Mum mentioned that if Eran had awakened as a Shaper, he could have utilised the threads in other forms.

But with the Augmenter path, he couldn't use his essence threads in any other way. The only option he had was to persevere and advance to Noble class to awaken another gift.

"So, what did you make?" he asked.

"A flask that purifies water," I said with a straight face. Eran tilted his head.

"Neat."

"It's nothing fancy," I said, "but Mum gave me fifteen silver leafs for it. I'll show you later."

"Show what later?" a feminine voice called out from afar. I turned to see a figure walking towards us, carrying two massive duffel bags over her shoulders. Her braided brown hair swayed slightly with each step as she approached with a confident stride and a playful grin.

"How's it going, highlander country folks?" she asked, her question directed at me.

"Did you miss me at all?" I stared at her face.

"Who are you?" The girl—Rosalyn, my youngest aunt—glared at me. Her arms, more muscular than I remembered, twitched with the promise of violence I was too old to endure. As I feared, one of her bags dropped to the ground as she reached out to pinch my cheek, but I quickly dodged, stumbling backwards.

"All right, all right. I recognised you the moment I saw you. No need to make--- AHH!" But that wasn't enough to soothe her, as the violent girl unleashed her grievances on my poor cheeks. They weren't even chubby anymore.

"Is Aunt Emi with you?" I asked, rubbing my reddened cheek.

"No. You don't think I'm enough on my own?" she teased.

"That depends," I retorted, "did you bring any gifts?"

"You little ungrateful brat! I travelled halfway across the world to get here, and you ask if I brought gifts?" After another bout of cheek-pinching violence, she finally let go. But looking at the large bags she carried, I was sure there had to be a gift or two inside. Rosalyn simply didn't know how to show her love without violence.