Once the stone was fully integrated I placed the tip of my finger on the pommel and concentrated. Positive and negative cursed energies carefully mixed into a glowing white neutral energy that I fed through the weapon along the stone veins within it. Once outside my body the energy grew destabilized but remained contained within the stone veins. Once the weapon could safely take no more energy I moved onto the last step of creating it, properties and technique. Naturally I added [durandal] since durability is quite important. -
Other than that however I chose not to add any more properties to make more room for a technique I had wanted to put on my weapon for a long time but lacked the skill to do so with, growth. Specifically the sort with no real end in theory. Perhaps not the best idea before I go fight an ancient monster calamity but I don't do shit by halves. Creating the cursed technique for this sort of growth was incredibly complex. So complex in fact that I ended up sitting stationary well into the night as I pieced it together ever so carefully.-
The final result was a tiny speck of light floating between my palms that I pushed into the weapon on my lap. That small speck of light was so mind numbingly dense with energy in the form of the various restrictions and aspects that the technique had that I was fairly certain it would have become a special grade cursed spirit if I released it. The thing was I couldn't make the technique or level of direct power that the weapon gained very strong at all to create this technique. In fact the weapon itself may as well have been unaltered by the addition of the technique. -
The big difference was in the form of potential. Before the weapon could be reforged but that was it as far as improvement went. Now though? The weapon learned and changed over time to better fulfil it's function. It came across a hard surface it couldn't cleave? It grew sharper. It got bathed in dragon fire or exposed to sub zero temperatures? It became more tolerant of hot or cold. The growth of the weapon was now tied directly to the things it experiences and by extension my own experiences from here on out.-
The best part though was that the weapon could fix itself by being exposed to crafting materials since while [Durandal] makes a weapon unbreakable it does not make it erosion proof. If that were the case the Loki familia wouldn't need to spend as much on their maintenance costs after every expedition. Majority of those costs came from the first rate weapons they had being worn down in the dungeon to the point of almost falling into uselessness but never breaking thanks to [Durandal] on them. I stretched languidly as the exhaustion caught up with me and I yawned tiredly before going straight to bed not even bothering to change into sleepwear.-
When I eventually woke up it was noon already and I went to the kitchen to make me a quick feast of sausage, toast and eggs in large amounts before washing it down with some chilled cider. I immediately holed up in my workshop after that to work on the mask/helm I needed to make. For this I grabbed Amphisbaena crystals from both heads, fangs and scales as well as deep mithril and adamantite. The deep mithril and adamantite were alloyed together before being set aside while I fused the crystals, fangs and scales together into the usual eyeless full head covering shape my mask/helm usual had.-
I didn't add the usual stylizations though as I took the metal alloy from before and carefully layered it over the entire thing leaving it a shiny silver grey. Now I worked on the appearance of the piece by dulling the metal until it was black and lusterless. From there I copied my facial tattoos unto the mask/helm by turning those parts white in color for an intense contrast. Once that was done I started adding the properties and technique I had on all my mask/helms. All in all it actually only took me about an hour to create this replacement which made sense after my jump in my crafting DS and the acquisition of the Mystery DS.-
Finally came the less vital but most important task of creating a storage medium for the Knuckelavee drops. My usual loot sacks wouldn't work here as the toxins were likely acidic as fuck like all high level poisons tend to be but like way worse. To my surprise changing the spatial technique all loot sacks had was WAY easier than expected, suspiciously so. It wasn't just my crafting that went into this technique but a serious amount of research of a highly questionable and dangerous nature as well. -
So when I nearly effortlessly changed the parameters with no hiccups at all i was reasonably suspicious.
'Might be because of Mystery. Spatial manipulation is one of those things that likely fall under the things purview, which in hindsight explains why it was so fucking volatile without it.' I thought a little annoyed.
I had literally risked life and limb to figure out the loot sacks before and now a single DS made all that effort seem pointless, it was frustrating.
Still I could see the bright side of things as without that struggle my crafting wouldn't be where it is today. Deciding not to dwell on it anymore I left my workshop at around four or so and headed for the hostess to treat myself since I just needed to stock up on supplies for the journey. The hostess was busy with adventurers chatting boisterously as they ate and drank their fill. When I arrived there was a brief pause as they recognized me and went silent out of caution.
"Just ignore me, here to eat same as the rest of you." I spoke up with a smile that let them relax.
I didn't blame them for the caution as it was an unspoken rule that you don't mess with Ottar and as I have shown to be on the same level that rule got extended to me as well. There was nothing for it as it was just a price for reaching this point.
"Ignore them nyah. What can I get ya Alex nyah?" Anya asked as she walked up to me.
"Three specials and a jug of dungeon wine." I said with a grin.
"Got it! Be about thirty nyah." she said returning my grin.
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