Before retiring, Alari examined the items he had acquired. He started with the shortsword: it was made almost entirely of wrought iron, which was likely why it had warped after some use. The edges were of dubious quality, made of low-carbon steel, only a modest step up from iron. Because of the poor materials, the blade was thicker to compensate, resulting in poor balance.
Alari considered the improvement he wanted to make: if he could improve the material, he could also refine the shape to be more functional. This would greatly improve the weapon's lethality by making it sharper and more balanced, while also improving durability and preventing warping. He knew many metal alloys that would be a significant upgrade, but he didn’t want to waste mana on exotic materials that would only be a marginal improvement. Instead, he began transmuting the entire blade into a modern steel alloy. The spell should have a minimal transmutation cost if he included the required carbon as charcoal.
With his limited throughput, the spell took a few seconds to activate, indicating it cost a few percent of his mana. When it was done, there was a noticeable improvement: the blade looked more even and consistent, without grains or lines where it had been forged. It was uniform, something impossible for blacksmiths to reproduce.
Now that the blade was made of a superior material, the stubby design was unnecessary. Using Alter Shape, he visualized the blade thinner, but significantly longer. Unlike his Transmute spell, the Alter spell started to take effect as soon as he began to channel mana into it. The metal stretched and molded itself, as if it were putty shaped by his mind. It took longer than the transmutation of the metal, suggesting this was actually the more mana-intensive part of the process. When the change was complete, the blade had lengthened significantly and would be classified as an arming sword.
With the general shape now to his satisfaction, he focused on the edges. It could be far finer, but tapered so the edge had enough support and weight behind it to avoid deforming or chipping. Pushing the limits of his mental control, he shaped it to be as fine an edge as possible. While this required a good deal of concentration and mental visualization, the amount of mana was minimal due to the small amount of matter being shaped. That meant the channeling took almost no time at all. He lightly touched the edge to feel its sharpness and recoiled immediately. Despite only lightly touching it, the blade had sliced his finger open, a droplet of blood pooling out. Fortunately, with the blade being a transmuted material, it was essentially sterile.
Despite being made of perfect steel, this fine edge had drawbacks: it wouldn’t last; it would dull or chip after minimal use. Fortunately, he had a plan for that. Using the second property of Alter, he visualized hardening the edge. Without magic, every property had a tradeoff: diamond was so hard that it was almost impossible to scratch, but it was also brittle and could easily be smashed. His spell had no such tradeoff; it simply improved the material. Focusing on the edge, he made the slightest of improvements. Once again, the mana required was minimal due to the small mass he was working with. Keeping the target firmly in mind, he iterated on the same material, repeatedly hardening it slightly. He noticed that the cost per cast increased with each subsequent use. This meant that improving a property became exponentially more difficult the further it was from the material's base property.
When even a minuscule improvement started taking a couple of seconds to channel, Alari decided it was good enough. Wanting exact measurements, he used Identify on the edge and the spine and compared the two. On a one-to-ten hardness scale, the base value of the steel was around a seven, while the edge was just over an eight. In comparison, the wrought iron was likely around a four, and a ten would be diamond. As a final step, he hardened the entire blade by a small amount, making sure that it wouldn’t scratch when the flat of the blade scraped against armor or another blade. It was mostly a cosmetic improvement, but Alari had the mana to be a bit vain.
Satisfied with his result, he carefully set the blade aside. Sensing that he had concluded, the system awarded him a rush of experience.
Artificer level up 0 to 2: +2 TP
Talent Points Available: 2
Alari was surprised; he had made the item for practical purposes and hadn’t expected to get experience. He reread the property of his Class that gave him experience. It stated that he gained it based on the artifact's value. Given he had leveled twice from creating the sword, he concluded it was extremely valuable, especially when he remembered that reaching level ten was considered an outstanding lifetime achievement for the average peasant. Thinking back to the other uses of his magic, they had been improvements to raw materials and currency. Therefore, the item needed to be somewhat functional for the system to consider it an artifact.
With newfound motivation, he turned his attention to the knife. Like the sword, its base material was wrought iron and was in dire need of repair. A part of him wanted to push his capabilities further, to mold it into a priceless artifact. However, he decided to temper his ambitions; he had intended for this to be a utilitarian item. He didn’t want to draw attention by using a perfect blade as a kitchen knife.
He started the process as he did with his sword, transforming the blade into perfect steel. However, when he reshaped it, he didn’t change it drastically; he wanted to keep the length similar to what it had been. So, instead of putting the extra material into a longer, thinner blade, he imagined a more slender blade of the same length, keeping some heft to the dull edge. Since the excess matter needed to go somewhere, he visualized a pseudo-second object that was simply a ball of steel. It wasn’t an actual second object; the spell construct seemed to resist that idea, so a thin strip of metal connected it, reminding him of the packaging for metal miniatures from his previous life.
Once he had his intent in his mind’s eye, he channeled mana into the spell, watching as the metal distorted and unnaturally reshaped itself. The effect was even more dramatic: the metal seemed almost liquid as portions sloughed off, only to reform into a ball. That came at the cost of increased mana per unit of mass, though the total cost was still less than the sword. While the change was occurring, the forming material seemed to be in a different state as the separate ball remained affixed. Only when the spell finished did the object break apart. He then reincorporated the thin piece of metal back into the knife for cosmetic reasons, since the mana cost of that shaping was negligible.
For the single sharp edge, he once again focused on honing it. This time, he made sure it was less severe; he wanted it sharp enough to accomplish his tasks with ease, but he didn’t want it so sharp that an accident would claim his fingers. Similarly, he hardened the edge to prevent wear, though to a lesser extent. It likely wasn’t necessary; it would be trivial for him to sharpen the edge with his shaping, but less maintenance was still preferable.
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Artificer level up 2 to 3: +1 TP
Talent Points Available: 3
Alari could tell that it had given significantly less experience. He likely only got a level since he had been close to leveling. The entire crafting session had taken him a couple of hours and about half his mana Capacity. However, most of the time had been spent designing and planning the steps he needed to take. If he repeated the steps, it would likely take less than half that time.
Not wanting to waste mana, and knowing he would eventually want more steel, he converted some of the scrap iron. He tried to incorporate that steel into the small marble-sized ball taken from the knife. As he suspected, the spell didn’t work until the two objects were touching, which allowed him to consider them one object. This time, he was holding the material being changed and noticed several things: the weight was nearly instantly the sum of the two objects' weights. Stranger yet, he couldn’t feel the changes in shape despite seeing them occur within his outstretched palm. It was as if the shape was ambiguous or undefined until the spell completed, existing in both pre- and post-shapes simultaneously, a Schr?dinger's ball of steel.
When the spell finished, he could once again feel the ball, which was now around the size of a golf ball. His internal clock told him there were still several hours before he typically went to bed. Unfortunately, with his mana now near the one-third mark, he decided not to use his spells. Instead, he poked around the system screens, choosing to mark potential purchases.
Of the skills, there were several he was interested in purchasing, most related to his spellcasting. With two points in Arcana, he decided not to focus on that for a while. Instead, he would rather spend them on a more specific version of the Skill. Transmutation was the Skill that gave him a greater understanding of the branch of magic he was specializing in. Since it was more specific, it would have a greater effect on the areas in which it applied. On the opposite spectrum was Thaumaturgy, which wouldn’t provide any immediate benefit, but would help him comprehend magic at a more theoretical level. His hope was that it would allow him to find new areas where magic as a discipline could be improved.
Channeling was a unique Skill, allowing him to see slight gains in his efficiency with mana: reducing wasted mana, and improving throughput and precision. However, he suspected the gains would be minuscule in all areas. Seeing the Skill, he also realized something else: because it was a Skill, there was a baseline to improve. That meant he could effectively increase his magic capabilities by training in some esoteric way. Unfortunately, the revelation didn’t get him any closer to understanding how he could do that.
Curious about what that could be, he spent one of his three points on the Skill. As soon as he confirmed his choice, he felt a tingling sensation throughout his body. He had the intuition that he was feeling the increased control over the mana. Unfortunately, the Skill didn’t come with any actionable information, other than a vague intuition of needing to sense the mana before he could better improve his control.
On the crafting side of things, there were also several options. Despite having only a single point in Engineering, he felt confident it was sufficient for a while; his baseline knowledge from his previous life meant his Skill was likely more effective overall than anyone else's. Enchanting, on the other hand, was not something he had experience with, so the increased understanding would be invaluable. However, he still felt like it would be some time before he had the necessary materials and tools. If he went a level more specific, skills for enchanting wands and staffs would be invaluable.
He even took the time to peruse the physical skills, though that was more out of curiosity than any real intent to purchase one. At the broadest level, he could buy skills such as Melee Weapons or Melee Fighting. The latter was more appealing, as it focused on footwork, positioning, striking, and blocking. However, like the Channeling Skill, it was so broad that the benefits would likely be minimal. A bit more appealing were the ranged options, since he preferred that over engaging people twice his size up close. Unfortunately, he lacked any such weapons at the moment, but that was something he intended to rectify soon.
However, one Skill stood out above the rest: Meditation. It had specifically been mentioned in the description of the Recharge Attribute as a way to increase mana regeneration. So, from an optimization-for-magic perspective, it was justifiable. If that had been the only tangible benefit, he likely would have forgone it, but it provided something else he badly needed: a way to cope with all the trauma he was going through.
In his previous life, he had used meditation to get through some tough times. For a while, it had even been a part of his daily routine, if only for a few minutes. At some point, that had lapsed, and he hadn’t picked it back up in this life. Even if he didn’t invest the Talent Point in improving it, he could still see the benefit to resuming the practice; after all, the Talent Point only improved and provided an infusion of knowledge.
He was in a unique circumstance: no one, as far as he knew, had died from a world with prosperity and plenty, and been reborn to a world where famine and casual murder seemed commonplace. Soon, he would add monsters and rifts to that terror-inducing stew. He doubted therapists were prevalent in this world, at least for the vast majority of people. Up until recently, he had barely been getting by; now, he was distracted by all the new spells and skills he had gained. However, in the quiet moments, when he had nothing particular to do, he could feel the self-doubt and loathing creeping back in like a malevolent fog. Worse, he was alone, not literally but in every way that truly mattered. Hopefully, he could learn to trust his team, but, for now, it was simply an alliance of necessity.
The final factor that pushed him over the edge was the pinnacle of what the Skill could do. His Class options had hinted at powers that came through enlightenment and a greater understanding of consciousness. While he wouldn’t abandon the arcane for the psionic, there were possibilities for them to coexist.
With his mind made up, he spent one of his two points to add the Meditation Skill. Various techniques and exercises were instantly imprinted in Alari’s mind, as if they were things he had always known. Along with that came a fundamental understanding of what meditation was: a state of being that arose from inhibiting the mind. This included his emotions, which were fundamentally just a more primal thought: a spark that ignited the fuel of consciousness.
Knowing he couldn’t achieve tranquility and serenity in the state he was currently in, Alari settled for breathing exercises. As with his spells, nothing disappeared; it was nearly as impossible to remove thought as it was matter. However, he could focus it, like a ray of light through a magnifying glass. He focused on the breath, allowing the fear and doubt to dissipate.
He continued simple exercises like this for hours. At first, his focus lasted only a moment, but gradually he improved. At some point, he slipped into a meditative state that lasted. It shattered when he felt mana, as if it were a tangible force that he could see and touch. He realized that he had been drawing it in with each deep breath, but it wasn’t the breath itself causing this; rather, it had been the mental state that came with it, creating a chain of causality. Judging by the fact that he had regained nearly twenty percent of his pool, bringing him back above half, it had been more effective than sleeping, though only marginally so. However, with more practice, he expected the difference would only grow.
