System Change

“Oh! Come look!” Brandi said excitedly as she held the pair of boots up. “These are going to be soooo awesome!”

Intrigued, Derek walked over to Brandi and examined the boots without taking them from her. “They… look like metal boots,” Derek said.

“They are!” Brandi replied. “But that’s not what makes them special… look here.” Brandi turned the boots around where the heels were facing Derek. “I was able to shrink the fire cores from the golems down, and I put one in each of the boots.”

“And what does it do?” Derek asked.

“When you charge the cores with any mana, it stores it and converts it to fire type. It’s the same process as with the elemental swords that I made,” she explained. “But I got the idea for these boots from Jacks and his son.”

“And what idea is that?”

“Well… you know how everyone wants to be able to move around in the air or fly?” Brandi asked and Derek nodded. “But not that many people are able to get classes with a skill like that, and the skill scrolls are super hard to find and expensive.”

“That’s for sure,” Derek agreed.

“Well, I asked around… well, I asked Roman, and he asked around… and there aren’t many other ways other than those. Ms. Savannah’s aid is able to create talismans that allow him to fly, but those are one time use only, and even then, if he sells them, they cost way too much.”

“I think I see where this is going,” Derek said as his eyes went back to the boots and looked them over once more. “You’re making equipment that… imitates Jacks’s and Jake’s ability to travel through the air? The little explosions that he does.” Derek recalled when he and Edgar went to rescue Jacks and Rayna from those half-elf fanatics, and Jake followed.

He wasn’t as fast as Edgar or Derek, but Derek saw the way he used the small explosions to keep to the air and even propel himself forward. Jacks was able to do the same thing, though he was a bit better at it than Jake was. Well… I guess he ‘was’ a bit better at it. Jake could have caught up to his father by now.

“Yup!” Brandi bounced. “See here.” With her pointer finger, she traced multiple runes that she had inscribed into the pair of boots. “They are all small explosion runes. It took me forever to get the layout right, but now, whoever uses the boots should be able to finely control the explosions. It’s much easier for Jacks because he’s using a skill and can cast it at whatever angle and power he wants. I wasn’t able to do that with the boots, so I had to make up for it with the quantity of runes.”

“So, you feed the mana into the mana core, then the runes draw the fire elemental mana from the cores and cause an explosion?” Derek asked. “Do you need the mana cores to do that?” His own boots didn’t have mana cores in them—at least not that he could see. All he had to do was channel the mana into them, and the skill would go off—wiping out dozens of enemies at once.

“You don’t need the cores. It just makes it a whole bunch easier to use with the cores,” Brandi said. “With just your mana, the explosion rune itself has to convert it into mana suitable for activation—which is fire mana. That takes time and consumes a ton of mana. With the cores, you bypass the conversion, making it almost instant, and it’s able to consume a lot less mana from the cores.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “So the boots wouldn’t be efficient enough to use without the cores. That’s why we don’t see many boots that rely solely on runes in stores.”

“That’s not to say that there aren’t any, though,” Brandi corrected. “I was talking about it the other day with Carrie. He said that he gets requests to make them. If it’s someone with a fire element class, then you don’t have to worry about the conversion of mana. But we don’t see them in stores because they need to be specially made to suit the person who’s going to be using it.”

“I see,” Derek said. Carrie was the dwarven blacksmith with a shop close by. He was the person who gave Brandi her first set of smithing tools. If it came from him, Derek believed. In fact, it was the same with his Void’s Harbinger glaive. Tyron had basically attuned the weapon to him, and it took a really long time—part of that was because of Derek’s mana regeneration and Greater Meditation, though. “That makes sense.” He nodded. “But those boots… they are for general use? Anyone can pick them up and use them?”

“Hopefully,” Brandi said. “The Great System seems to think they are a good product—based on the amount of experience I got for completing them. But we won’t know for sure until we test them out.” She looked at Derek with sparkles in her eyes.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Test them out, eh?” He smiled. “I take it you want to go do that now?”

“Can we?” she pleaded.

“I’m actually surprised you took the time to explain everything to me,” Derek said. “If I were in your position, I would have already been out the door and on my way to a clearing somewhere.” He chuckled as he saw Brandi’s smile grow wide. “Besides… I think your mom will like the idea of you getting away from your forge for a while.”

“But I do get away,” Brandi countered. “I talk with Carrie… I talk with Roman—though not as much now that I’ve changed my class up some. I still stop by and help with the alchemy some to keep up appearances.”

“Well…” Derek said. “Both of those things are work related. Carrie is literally a blacksmith, and Roman was technically your alchemy teacher. I guess testing the boots can be considered work related too, but at least it will be fun work-related activity. And the others can join, too. What do you think? Maybe Malorie would like to feel what it’s like to be able to travel in the sky without relying on anyone else.”

“Sure!” Brandi agreed.

After that, the two headed back upstairs to gather everyone. In the end, only Malorie and Jacks decided to come along. Jacks wanted to see how much like his own skill the boots were, and Malorie just wanted to make sure that her daughter didn’t blow herself up. It seemed like Brandi had failed to mention to her the comical amount of times she had already blown herself up—if not, Malorie wouldn’t have been so concerned… probably.

As for Silvi, she couldn’t care less about how Brandi figured out flying. She summoned her pot lit and demonstrated her amazing flying techniques for all to see, then smugly went back to her kitchen to continue with whatever it was that she was doing.

Rayna just chose to stay back for no particular reason. She, too, already had the ability to fly with her wind skills, so it wasn’t exactly exciting for her, anyway. Rudy still had stacks and stacks of contracts on his desk that he was working through, and said he didn’t have any free time to go watch. Derek could definitely understand that.

He even asked Bones if he wanted to go, but the skinny man preferred to stay inside Savannah while it was still possible for the Assassin’s Guild to be hunting him, and he didn’t want to bring any direct danger to Malorie or Brandi by going out with them. Besides, his place for now was inside the shop, perfecting his butlering abilities.

So, the four soon found themselves at the gate leading out of Savannah. Derek usually didn’t go in and out of the city using the proper means, but since he was with others this time, he figured he might as well actually go through the entrance.

He and the others didn’t have any trouble leaving, as Natalie had apparently already made him well known to the city’s entire guard staff. In fact, they didn’t even bother asking for any papers and notified him that they wouldn’t have to pay the re-entry fee once they came back. It pays to be strong, he thought as he led Brandi, Mal, and Jacks outside.

Half an hour later, and the four had made it to a clearing far enough outside the city that they wouldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t exactly something that exactly needed to be secret, but Derek figured that it might as well be—especially if Brandi planned to market and sell the shoes later on. He had thought about taking them to the Adventurer’s Guild—to one of the training rooms—but he figured that they’d need more vertical space than one of the rooms could provide, and there were too many eyes in the outdoor training area.

“Okay,” Derek said, motioning for everyone to stop. “Does this seem good enough?” he asked Brandi. He made sure to find a place with nice, not overly hard ground for when her face inevitably found the dirt.

Brandi looked up at the sky and then nodded. “This is perfect. A lot of space to move around.”

“Great,” Derek said. “Would you like me or Jacks to give the boots a try first? Just to make sure they work well? My body can definitely take any ‘accidents’ that may happen.” One of the accidents he was talking about was if the boots fully exploded and took off a foot. He knew from experience that he would have no problem regrowing his own limb.

“Of course not!” Brandi huffed. “I made it for me, so I’m going to test it.” She bent down and began to remove her shoes and replace them with her new pair of boots.

“Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with them?” Malorie asked.

“Nope!” Brandi answered as she slid a foot into one of the boots. “That’s why we have to do testing. Just ask Roman—it’s the same way for alchemy.”

Derek shivered at the thought. He was, after all, one of Roman’s guinea pigs when it came to testing his potions. Though, testing blacksmithing gear seemed less random. Unless Brandi wanted to see if a pair of armor could stop a Drill Shot from Avery or something—if that was happening, Derek would insist that he be the one to wear and activate whatever defenses it had.

“Just… be careful,” Malorie pleaded as Brand finished putting on the second boot.

“I always am,” Brandi said, and Derek had to do his damnedest not to crack up or speak the contrary.

“Your eyebrows say different,” Malorie said, taking the words right out of his mouth.

“That’s just because hair is easily destroyed,” Brandi countered. “The rest of my body is much stronger. Isn’t that right?” Her eyes met Derek’s.

“She did breakthrough the first threshold in endurance today,” Derek replied. “So her body is stronger than your average person at her level.”

“I also broke through in strength and dexterity,” she said.

“All three? Already?” Jacks chimed in for the first time. “What level are you, exactly? No… wait… don’t answer that. That’s none of my business. Congratulations.”

That was another reason that Derek brought them where he did. Not only did he want her to test out her exploding boots, but he also wanted to see her skills that she received with the Offensive Powerhouse achievement—especially the anvil one. He also wanted to see if her Multi-Strike skill worked with it, because if it did, then dropping an anvil like that would be a deadly ranged area of effect skill.

“Thanks!” Brandi said to Jacks, then hopped up off the ground. “Okay everyone, stand back!”