Altair realized that forging was more difficult than he had initially thought. It wasn't that he looked down on the profession; he hadn't practiced it before.
Up to that point, he had broken several steel ingots, but he hadn't used orichalcum for fear of ruining it. Steel would serve for the moment to improve his skills.
He had spoken with Lily and expanded his knowledge a little. The possibility of making the Sacred Gear intangible was still far off. But he could link it to his soul. Lily gave him the option of using it, in addition to its obvious function, as a catalyst. Altair did not plan to forge anything extravagant or complicated. He wanted a staff, like Merlin's, or a new magic wand.
He already had a wand, so he would have to create something else, but he wasn't sure whether it would be a staff or another weapon. The staff seemed the easiest to make.
Altair thought about the possibility of linking the Sacred Gear to his inventory. That way, it wouldn't mix with him, but would be an external weapon. But that left the door open for theft.
"Kalawarner, bring another ingot," he asked his not-so-beloved assistant.
The fallen had survived Serafall's interrogation and remained as a domestic servant in her house. The other two fallen were handed over to Azazel to take care of. Of course, they were thoroughly interrogated first.
"Here it is, Lord Black," the woman said reverently as she handed over the ingot. Then she took her place in the corner gracefully, without any further comment.
'If only Katerea were that obedient,' he complained in his mind. He could order her to be nice and stop acting like a jerk, but he wanted to see if he could get some loyalty out of her without forcing her. Besides, Katerea was usually more verbal than looking for physical ways to cause harm.
He put the metal in the fire and waited a few seconds. The magic sped up the process. He had started practicing that very day, after talking to Lily.
First, he hammered the metal until it could be bent over itself, a process he would repeat when forging the orichalcum. Then he flattened it again, causing both ends to fuse. Then he repeated the process over and over again. If he hit it too hard, he could break it, and if he applied too little force, they would not join properly and would come apart.
Finally, on the eleventh attempt, he managed to create something decent. A normal blacksmith would take hours for a single effort, waiting for the steel to heat up and then hammering it, but Altair had a fire that could bring the steel to red-hot in seconds, and magic.
"Another one," he said into the air. Kalawarner moved quickly to fulfill his order.
This time, instead of simply hitting it and bending it, he began to inscribe runes before each bend. He didn't do it by hand, but with his wand, which would make them temporary and without much power.
Boom!
On the fourth bend, the steel exploded. It probably couldn't withstand the magic. Or was it because of the number of runes Altair had inscribed?
Altair started with an absurd number of runes.
"Another one," he said again.
For the second attempt, he left fewer runes, only two for each double. In the end, he managed to reach 100 doubles without any problems. The problem? The runes he applied did nothing.
Altair left the hammer for a moment and took a piece of paper. It wasn't the best material, but it would work for a few runes.
He tore the sheets into eight pieces and drew an identical sequence of runes on each one. He stacked them, and they exploded.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Kalawarner put her hand to her chest in shock.
Altair had worked with runes before. When a sequence was incompatible, they usually stopped working, but the explosion was something new.
That was why runes were a rather complicated branch of magic. It was not enough to inscribe the same sequence of runes to create something. If you wanted to create an artifact, you had to take care of the interactions between each different sequence, as well as the ability of each sequence to support other identical sequences.
"Clean everything up, Kalawarner," he said as he left the forge.
The devils were extremely fast at building. The forge had been commissioned and completed on the same day, in a matter of minutes, as if they already had a pre-made one.
Altair had to modify the sequence of runes he had created.
When designing it, he had considered the interactions it would have when drawn horizontally alongside other identical ones. Still, he had not considered what would happen when they were stacked, as in the case of the forge. Usually, if the runes were tolerated horizontally, vertically would be the same. This was one case among hundreds.
"Altair-kun," he heard a voice call him as he returned home. Sona was watching him from a distance. "Are you... okay?" The girl walked quickly in his direction.
He didn't know where the question came from; he felt fine, not even the forge had drained his energy.
"What are you talking about?"
"Your clothes," she pointed, "they're... torn." She blushed as she looked away.
"Ah, that was it." Human clothing couldn't withstand a chaotic sequence of runes.
Altair led Sona inside the house. She had come by a few days ago, when he had just moved in. She came, took a look around, and left, like a routine inspector.
"Is there a reason you're here, Sona?" he asked as he entered his room.
"Wh-wh-what are you doing?" the girl stammered when she saw him naked.
"I was asking a question, Lady Sitri," he said shamelessly as he finished undressing. He could avoid being an exhibitionist in front of her, but it wouldn't be as much fun.
Sona turned away, as if to give him privacy. Only in front of her was a giant mirror that reflected Altair. She covered her eyes with her hands, shaking her head from side to side, trying to calm down.
"I wanna watch you?" she asked.
"Ah, sure, you can wash me," he replied, as if he misunderstood her words.
"NO, NO, NO, NO! That's not what I meant," she said as he dragged her into the bathroom.
Altair entered the huge bathroom. The polished stone chilled his feet. He could see a huge Jacuzzi on the right, an addition that had not existed in the house before, commissioned by him and finished by the super-devil builders in a matter of hours.
On the left was a shower enclosed in a glass cabin, more for quick showers than for the fun times he could have in the Jacuzzi.
Altair headed for the shower first. He washed away the sweat and grime with hot water. Then he went to the Jacuzzi and stepped in without a care. The Jacuzzi had a deep end and a shallow end, where Altair decided to sit, his chest above the water level.
"Aren't you planning on getting in?" he asked Sona.
She was doing a perfect imitation of Drax the Destroyer's attempt to be invisible. 'I wish Marvel were something here,' he thought, a little regretfully.
"Me?" she pointed to herself, her brain slightly short-circuiting.
"Just get in, Sona," he said. She obeyed, walking in his direction. "Are you going to get in with your clothes on?" he asked.
That seemed to be a turning point for her. She stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath. She had let herself get carried away up to that point, but she couldn't afford to do so anymore. She had to put a stop to him and his stupid piece of flesh, huge and throbbing.
Sona felt a chill run through her body with great intensity. She hugged herself, and her skin could feel where she should have been touching the fabric of her body.
"Altair!" she called out to him. The boy hid his wand behind his ear—a terrible place to hide it. "You're shameless!" she said.
"Blue looks amazing on you," he replied, shrugging his shoulders.
Altair transformed her clothes into a blue bikini. It wasn't revealing, but she hadn't expected to be naked in front of him.
"I came to set boundaries," she said.
"Carpe retractum," she felt as if a lasso had been thrown over her, then found herself flying toward Altair.
He caught her with incredible gentleness, his hands lost in her skin as he sat her on his lap. The water was warm, and Sona found it quite comforting.
"No," she closed her eyes when she felt Altair's hands on her body.
"What boundary do you want to set, Sona?" he asked, his voice a soft murmur that made Sona squirm. She decided to turn her back to him so she wouldn't have to look at his face.
"Oh," she turned over on his lap. "That... isn't your wand, is it?" she asked, feeling something pressing against her back.
"No, dear, it isn't," he replied. He guided her hand to Sona's neck, caressing it tenderly.
'Onee-sama, save me,' she whispered as she leaned against Altair's chest.