System Change

Derek made it to the door leading to the basement while Silvi continued to perch on his shoulder. As soon as he opened the door, he could hear the pounding and clanging of a hammer on metal. The sound of the hammering was somewhat nostalgic for Derek, and it brought a smile to his face as he stepped down the stairs one by one. He made sure to close the door behind him so that the sound wasn’t able to escape the soundproof basement.

Finally, he made it to the bottom of the stair and looked over to where Brandi was working. Currently, the young smith was hunched over an anvil with a hammer in her hand, intently focusing on her work while pounding away on what looked to be a blade for a sword.

Derek almost laughed when he saw how the girl was dressed. From the bottom up, she was wearing a pair of well-worn boots, then what looked like a full set of dark purple coveralls—something he couldn’t remember seeing yet in this world. The coveralls were long-sleeved, and the end of the sleeves were covered by a pair of work gloves. I bet those coveralls were Malorie’s idea, and that they have tons of protection built into them as well.

They really are going all in on the purple void coloring for everything, aren’t they? First, the two new employees were wearing matching uniforms with the color. Now he was seeing their resident smith wearing the same colors, but in the form of coveralls. Derek’s smiled grew wider as he waited for the girl to finish what she was doing. He hoped she would be done soon, because there wasn’t a lot of time left before he needed to meet Avery and Tyron.

Brandi’s hair, for the first time since Thomas got ahold of it with the Mana Clippers, was finally somewhat grown out. It was still pretty short, but it had grown out at least four or five inches since the last time he saw her. Of course, her hair was very bedraggled, messy, and pushed back by the pair of goggles that she was—unlike what Malorie had said—wearing for eye protection.

As for the tools Brandi was using, they weren’t the same set that Derek was used to seeing. It looks like she finally started making her own sets of tools. Those look to be a much better fit for the current version of her. Obviously, the tools were basically the same as before. Only, they were smaller and fit the young girl’s form much better. However, her current tools were already well worn, and Derek suspected that it was almost time for her to be making another set soon.

But as he waited, Derek felt the time go by slowly. After a bit over ten minutes passed, he was thinking about leaving Brandi to her work and going to meet Avery at the Crown. However, just before he left, the clanging of Brandi’s hammer ceases and she raised the blade up in front of her eyes with a pair of tongs.

He watched as the young smith nodded her head, then placed the blade back down on the anvil. Finally, she pushed her goggles back, revealing the rest of her soot covered face. Derek inwardly laughed. It seemed that out of all the professions that she had access to, she preferred the smithing side. Just about every time Derek had visited her while she was in the middle of a craft, she was smithing instead of leatherworking or doing alchemy or something else.

“A new weapon?” Derek asked as he took a step forward.

Brandi looked over Derek’s way, then back to the blade, then, as if something clicked, her head whipped back in Derek’s direction and she yelled, “Derek!” At that, she threw the gloves off her hands and kicked off the ground—closing the distance between the two of them in an instant.

Derek soon found himself wrapped up in a huge hug. He actually felt much more pressure from the girl than he was expecting. I wonder just how high her strength stat is right now. Derek reached down and pat the young girl on the top of the head, just as he’d always done. “Hey Brandi,” he said. “Your eyebrows aren’t anywhere near as non-existent as Mal made them out to be.”

“That’s not funny!” Brandi said in a muffled voice from her hug. “You’re back?” Brandi asked as she broke the hug and backed away a couple of steps before looking up at him and rubbing her hand over her eyebrows. “For good? The dungeon is finished?”

“I’m back,” Derek replied. “I can’t say that I’m back for good because I need to go help Edgar and Alanah here in a bit. But I’m out of the dungeon, and I don’t think I’m going to be going to another time altered dungeon any time soon. Well, unless the time is backwards from how it was in the raid, then that wouldn’t be so bad. I also think I’m done with raid dungeons for the time being.”

“That’s good,” Brandi said as the tears that had begun to build up in her eyes when she first saw Derek finally fell down her cheeks, leaving a couple of tear lines in the soot covering her face. “This stupid war needs to be finished. Everyone’s so worried and depressed.”

“What about your sales?” Derek asked. “Isn’t the war good for those?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Brandi said. “I’m only one person. I doubt I would be able to keep up with the customers regularly, much less right now with the war going on. There is also a shortage of crafting materials…” She pouted. “Nobody wants to take the chance to gather materials while there’s a war.”

So that’s the real reason, Derek thought. He turned his head and looked at Silvi resting on his shoulder, then looked back at Brandi. Silvi only calls her a maniac because she crafts items and not food. Really, they are mostly the same. “I see,” Derek said. “I did bring back some pretty good materials for you to use, but I don’t have them on me right now to give you.”

“Really?” Brandi’s eyes lit up even brighter. “You always bring back the best materials.”

“I think you’re really going to enjoy what I have this time,” Derek then summoned Harbinger and held it out. “They were used to make this weapon—Void’s Harbinger—and the armor that I’m currently wearing.”

“Wow,” Brandi said as she turned the glaive over in her hands and examined it closely. “This level of smithing is amazing. Whoever made this for you… just wow.”

“Yeah, it was Tyron Blacksteel, the smith known as The Walking Forge. For one of the Void Beast meals at the auction, he said he would craft a new glaive for me. Then, we ended up going on the raid together, and when I got the materials, he made Harbinger right then and there,” Derek explained. “He’s a great blacksmith, but I’m sure you’ll catch up to him soon enough. Then you are going to have to worry about crafting all my stuff.”

“That will be no problem. As long as you bring the materials. Deal?” Brandi smiled as she handed Harbinger back to Derek.

Derek stored Harbinger away and said, “Deal!”

“I’ll also have to repair your equipment, too,” Brand said as she motioned to the knee that took one of the Starfury Leonarus’s star attacks head on. “Your armor just doesn’t look as good as it should when you have parts of your bare leg showing.”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “If I weren’t so busy, I’d see about having Tyron fixing the armor. But for now, I’m about to go help Alanah and Edgar, so this is much better than nothing.”

“When do you plan on leaving?” Brandi asked with a slight frown.

“I need to meet Avery in a few minutes,” Derek replied. “But when I get back, I want to talk about how you’ve been progressing and everything else you’ve been up to while I’ve been away.”

“I’m doing so soooo good!” Brandi said. “You won’t believe it.”

“I look forward to seeing,” Derek replied, then sighed. “Oh, by the way, what is the ‘Elemental Sword’ that those kids up front were talking about?”

“Oh.” Brandi jumped in excitement as she ran over to one of her worktables and opened a drawer. Then she pulled out a storage ring of her own. After that, a sword appeared in her hand and she brought it over for Derek to inspect.

Derek took the sword in his hands and turned it over a few times while closely examining it. It was a nice, sharp sword with a blade about three and a half feet long. The blade of the sword was set into an almost typical cross-guard, however, where there would normally only be decorations and gems for nobles and the like set in the guard, there was a small blue gem-like stone set in the middle.

After that was the rest of the hilt. There was a regular grip, like he’d seen in most swords, and a small pommel on the end. After turning it over one last time, Derek used Identify on the weapon.

Elemental Sword (Water)

Durability:

250/250

This Elemental Sword is a weapon created by an aspiring young Blacksmith. With an original set of runes and a certain uncommon material, the young smith has found a way to store mana of a certain type (water) into the sword, allowing users of the element (water) to cast elemental (water) based skills without drawing on their own Mana Pool.

Elemental (Water) Charge: 6500/6500

“Wow,” Derek said as he turned the sword around in his hand again, then bringing the hilt of the sword closer to his eyes for further inspection. This really is one of the mana cores, just much smaller. “Were you able to take a piece of the core and use it to create this… mana battery?” Derek asked.

“No,” Brandi smiled. “That’s the whole core!” She seemed very proud.

“What?” Once again, Derek looked harder at the small blue gem set in the hilt. “How did you manage that?”

“It took a lot of work, and in the end, I wasted a bunch of the water mana cores, but I was finally able to create a set of runes to shrink the core while maintaining a good portion of its mana storing capability,” the smith explained.

“Oh? 6,500 extra points of mana isn’t bad at all. How much of the core’s capacity did it retain?” Derek asked.

“It should be just over forty percent. Most of the mana cores can hold around 15,000 points of mana. I’m still slowly working on my runes and increasing the capacity. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get one hundred percent one day. But I think that’s a long way away.”

“This is a fantastic product, Brandi. Great job!” Derek praised, and he meant it. He had also had the thoughts about using the cores as sort of mana batteries, but he had no clue how to do it. Brandi actually took what he was thinking and made it possible. “There’s so much you could do with this. I’m looking forward to seeing what else you come up with.”

Brandi beamed at Derek’s compliment. “Thank you!” Derek handed her the sword back, and she put it away. Finally, she frowned slightly. “How much longer until you leave?” she asked with a pout.

“Not long, unfortunately,” Derek replied. “In fact, I should probably head out soon.”

“Be careful!” Brandi said, then embraced Derek once again.

“I will… I will.” Derek pat her on the top of her head again. “But I guess I really should get going. I’ll be back in no time.”

“Fine…” It seemed hard, but Brandi was eventually able to peel herself away from Derek. “Just hurry.”

“I’ll try,” Derek said, then smiled. “By the way. All that material I said you could have…”

“Yeah?”

“It’s with your mom. You can tell her that I said you could go through my storage items and get what you want out of them.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Derek said. “Be careful with them, though. I’m not sure you’re at a high enough level that you should be working with them yet.”

“I will! Don’t worry!”

With that, Derek and Silvi left Brandi standing in the middle of the basement, salivating at the thought of getting her hands on such a great material.

Malorie’s going to kill me…