Chương 50: Staging

Upon returning, the first thing I do is plop down on the bed. After dispensing a few head scritches onto a certain fox, I start to read. Vaguely, I am aware of the sun rising and setting outside my window as I rip through the books I bought. They may be normally sized on the outside. But they are still magical books, and thus they are able to contain much more information than one would think.

A part of me does wish for some sort of fast reading skill, but I feel like that is too different from any of my specialities to acquire. Sure, I am no slacker when it comes to reading. Heck, I even enjoy it when it is about topics relevant to me. But I am also not one to just sit in a library for my entire life and become a scholar. Despite my lackluster speed, I learn quite a lot, especially from the book about crafting. The thing isn't solely tailored towards smithing, but it does have a section about it.

Most of it is generalities that apply to any form of crafting, though, and those are by far the most helpful. Despite me having a strange class. The more I read, the more I realize how much of a boon meeting Claire was. It takes most people a decade or more to be able to use crafting magic for the first time. Accounts vary though, and many prodigies of equally prodigious teachers do manage it their first time. In other words, I am very special. Moving on from that part, it is largely just about techniques.

How to manipulate energy more efficiently, guiding what imbuements you want more specifically, and even how to lower the chance of curses. It seems that for every positive imbuement at initiate tier or above, there is always a slight chance for a curse. As one gets higher up in the tiers, they become more frequent and far more impactful. Acting as a sort of counterbalance to how powerful imbuements can be. The book does mention that various things can lower the likelihood and severity.

Such things include; careful wording during the imbuement process, as well as various steps in purifying materials before crafting. However, by far the most important thing is to be prepared. With any crafting class, the first step is to understand what you wish to do, and prepare for it. You must make sure your tools are ready, equipment set, materials selected and ready for processing. As well as harder things like attuning your domain properly, and strengthening it as much as possible.

Speaking of domains, I move onto that step of the process. Reading is nice and quite insightful, but practical knowledge is also important. Sinking into meditation, I activate Fundamental Domain Anchoring, and an interface appears before me. I select the area I wish to include in my domain, roughly three meters in diameter this time. I would do it larger, but the hotel room is quite small, and it is probably good to have a smaller domain that I can pick up and move around easily.

Plus all I have is an anvil for now, and seeing the requirements for a forge, I am going to have to do some hunting before that. Mana drains from me at a ridiculous rate, and I hold a mana potion in my hand. But it seems that my reserves have grown enough and for the two minutes it takes, my mana reserves are sufficient. There are techniques to speed up domain formation and such, but for a small domain like this I simply don't need to use them. That stuff is for the massive domains, like forming a city.

As really that is all that a city is, a really large domain–with a few fancy bits added on, of course. I am nowhere near powerful or aspirational enough to form a city though. This little domain will be sufficient for a while. Exiting meditation, I stand up and walk over into the center and pull my anvil from storage. It hits the ground with a dull thud that startles Luma a bit from where she is napping in the window. The first time I used the anvil, I crafted it right into the domain, so it was already linked.

But this time I have to place my hands on the anvil and pulse quite a bit of mana through it. The process is quite simple, just mana intensive. Within ten minutes I finish and now my equipment is all set up again, ready to craft things, almost. While I could use it now, there is one last step that Claire had me skip before: attunement. Very simply, I want to make the domain stronger, while also infusing it with certain mana affinities.

These affinities will be gathered up in my craft and used to make it just overall stronger. Oh, and as for what I am going to forge? Armor, of course. Weapons are cool and all, but I have had far too many close calls. The only reason I am alive is my quite liberal usage of healing potions, and Luma's abilities. While those do work, armor is important. Currently I am still using the stuff that the goddess started me with. At my current level, the stuff is so weak I might as well fight naked.

As amusing as that might be, some armor is much needed. So I sit down on the floor in front of my anvil and start thinking. Armor is quite complicated, for many reasons. First, you have different types. On one hand, one can go for superheavy full plate armor, providing maximum protection. However, that often limits mobility and while this world's magic does negate some of that, the negatives are still there. After all, just because one is stronger does not matter.

As more powerful alloys and metals in this world get really heavy. When browsing the market I saw some material stats that were just frankly absurd, like some of those bars would have been heavier than my old workshop. Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I do fight in close combat, so I do want armor that is a bit heavier. Not full plate across my entire body, as I do want flexibility. As I think about this, images start to form in my mind.

I recall the countless suits of armor I have created. One would think that something like swords or daggers would be my most common request. But it is always armor. Which makes sense, if you are going to splurge on something magical, defenses are the most logical. A sword that can summon lightning is useless if a random grunt can just shoot an arrow through your skull. So I will design something that will keep me safe, especially from unseen attacks.

Strangely enough, it seems that designing armor in this world also allows me to include chainmail and such. Normally that would be separate, but I guess I just do it all at once here. However, the types of armor are not the only complicated bits. After all, armor needs to be mobile. Joints and flex points, and also places where the armor will just crumple if necessary to mitigate fatal blows. The system makes this all much faster than in my old world.

I can still remember the weeks that I would spend drawing concepts for pieces. But now, I can just do it all in my mind! It is a bit weird to be honest. All of the complexity and thus fun is there. But the tedious and grueling bits are taken away. The blueprints start to form in my mind, solidifying as I iron out all the kinks. A helmet with no faceplate to maximize visibility and breath. A chestplate that wraps tightly around me, but with joints that are easily flexible.

They are weak points, sure, but ones more than worth it. The cuisses are done in similar fashion, though I am able to make armor a bit thicker. Thighs don't need to flex as much, after all. Plus legs are kind of important, I wouldn't want them to get cut off. My mind does slip a bit and I get a bit creative when it comes to the poleyns. There is no rule stating one cannot look good while also being defensive, after all. Plus the extra decorations do serve a function in making the greaves easier to attach flexibly.

As for the boot parts, I decide to forgo it. Instead, I will buy a pair of boots after earning a bit more money. I saw some that could enhance magic and such. While I may be a crafter, I am still new at all of this, and lack experienced teachers to guide me through this early stuff. So it isn't like I am going to solely rely on stuff that I make yet. Eventually though I will be making tons of stuff. For Luma and Dovey and any other allies I meet too, naturally.

As for the armguards, I actually do make them a lot heavier. With using a hammer, I often find it hard to block swords and stuff. So I design the armguards to act kind of like shields, allowing me to block weapons that manage to get into my guard. As for the hand bits, I decide that I will also find a pair of nice gloves. Metal just isn't that good at being flexible enough to wield weapons, at least without me putting in far too much effort. This armor is still quite basic, and I am not very good at crafting.

So I don't want to pour too much effort into something that I am likely to replace soonish. Taking all of this into account, I glance over the blueprint before me. As I do so, I fix a few problems that I notice. After several hours just sitting in meditation, I return to reality. With an understanding of what I am about to forge, now comes the attuning stage. The glintsteel that I plan to make the armor out of has a light affinity.

There are two monster horns I picked out for the helmet though, and they have a water affinity. I may not know many water spells yet, but I will certainly be getting some soon. Triggering the attuning skill, I can feel mana start to drain out of me. I slow the flow to just a trickle and set out seven mana potions in front of me, all of my reserves. Based on some math I found in the crafting book and a bit of intuition, this should be enough to upgrade the domain to initiate tier.

Thus multiplying the bonuses gained by a whole lot. With a deep breath, I begin pouring mana into the domain. As I do, the world around me comes alive. The air sparkles with power, and I feel the very fabric of the world changing around me, becoming more like me. I use my normal reserves just to get used to the process. But the second I take the first mana potion, I start to shift my mana. It is a bit strange, but I try to just make it more light-like.

Thanks to all the healing I have been doing, and just hanging around Luma, it have become reasonably familiar with light-affinitied mana. My process is by no means perfect, though. Most of the mana still comes out as my normal mana. But still, I can feel the domain changing, ever so slightly. Even a slight edge is quite helpful when forging equipment. I sit there for hours and just dump mana into the domain. Each mana potion lasts for about an hour with its passive regeneration effect.

My body doesn't really like drinking multiple back to back, and the effect of subsequent ones does get diminished. But these ones Claire gave me are quite potent, so I barely notice that part. At the second to last potion, I shift to adding water mana into the domain. This process is far less efficient, but once again, any bit will help. After all of my mana potions are gone, and my reserves thoroughly drained, I collapse backwards and lay on the floor.

However, seconds after I let go of the skill, a ding sounds in my mind.

'Ding', Domain has attuned to initiate tier. Mana mixture changed to 74. 51% typeless, 22. 60% light, 2. 87% water.

'Ding', skill has upgraded, [Fundamental Domain Attuning (Inferior)] -> [Initiate Domain Attuning (Common)] … expand to show four more skill upgrades. With the successful attunement, and even upgrade of all my domain related skills, I sigh in relief. Then I realize that the whole process was far too exhausting and that I really should've taken it a bit slower. One does not have to be a genius healer to figure out that passing out this often really isn't healthy.