Chapter 40
"Tongs."
"Here you go," said Logan, handing the smithing implement to Senna.
She took it without looking up, nodding as she worked. "Now hammer this while I hold the end steady."
Logan nodded and followed her instructions.
Crafting is level 12!
"Great, I'll take it from here," Senna said, nudging Bromlin's axe along the bench. The armorer had fled the town already, and Senna had received an open invitation from the man to use the forge.
She retrieved three monster cores from a pile set aside by Cassandra and placed them within the forging assembly. Logan watched with rapt attention as she fastened the bindings, adjusted the positioning, and set the entire piece into a large, rune-inscribed machine. It hissed, steam venting from its seams as it prepared for the enchantment process.
Senna pulled a lever, causing the assembly to shift. The three cores were locked into a suspended centrifuge, a heavy counterweight spinning them into a controlled vortex of raw energy. Thin lines of power spiraled into the forging mold, drawn in by the engravings along the smithing hammer's head. The glow intensified as the machine worked, the cores breaking down layer by layer, their essence folding into the metal.
Logan leaned in. "That's incredible."
Senna smirked. "Not bad, huh? Normally, a person has to extract the essence from a dozen cores to learn a skill." With her hands occupied, she pointed to the door with her chin. Cassandra had left with Alden to find a Core Expresser for that purpose. "But crafting," Senna continued, "works differently. The forge essence gets extracted, processed, then folded into the material, making it permanent."
"Meaning you could make an axe that teaches skills?"
"In theory," she said, "but the compatibility would be tricky, and it takes a master smith to bind an actual skill into gear. Even then, the skill only lasts while you're holding the weapon, so it gets pretty situational."
Either way, her efficacy impressed him.
When he said as much, Bromlin beamed like a proud brother. "It's because her Crafting is level 47."
"Make that 49," Senna corrected, grinning. "Gained a couple levels with this one. Not every day I get to work with monster cores."
Logan nodded, but his attention shifted as Cassandra and Alden re-entered the smithy. They each carried a small glass vial containing an iridescent liquid, swirling with faint traces of the cores' essence.
"Wow," said Logan. "That's all you can squeeze from twelve cores?"
Cassandra, who had taken on a proud smile at the beginning of Logan's comment, now frowned. "Remember, Logan, this is the normal process people use."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to sound egotistic or anything."
"Well you did," sneered Alden.
Logan raised his hands in placating defense. Alden had seemed jealous when Logan told them about his Core Cracker ability. He had to keep in mind his abilities were unique. If he gave the wrong reaction to someone, say, at the Adventurers' Guild, it might draw unwanted attention into the details of how he did things.
"Okay, let's all calm down," Cassandra said. "Logan meant nothing by it." She peered at the one core Logan had set aside before she and Alden ran their errand. "And you're sure you want to use that one rather than any of the newer cores you found?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
None of the new cores were fire-based. But considering he had an amulet that tripled the strength of fire spells, he thought it might be best to focus on getting the biggest return if they were going up against a horde.
Cassandra and Alden needed twelve cores each to extract enough usable essence into a skill potion. And those twelve cores had to be identical. Cassandra had looked longingly at some of the other cores, but she had gathered twelve radiant orbs that came from some monster called a Solar Wisp. Alden's set came from a Chilling Hull.
Cassandra had explained it to Logan earlier. "Learning a skill from monster cores forces you into using them as an affinity, unless you have no affinity. Then, you will get a basic skill. Most people avoid this method unless they have an affinity, because once you distill from a core, you can never learn from that particular monster again."
"Is there some kind of registry that maps out what monster cores produce which skills?"
"No. There are ways to identify with certainty what skill might be obtained, but that only happens in mass productions and controlled settings. It's not important right now, but it has to do with batches made at the same time from the same set and under the same conditions. Even then, you can't know what that batch created until the first skill is identified. There are tons of other limitations, but none of them apply here. We won't know until after we drink them."
Now that Alden and Cassandra had created them, they lifted the vials in a toast, and Logan clanked his core with them. They had all agreed only to take on one skill each to avoid excessive side effects. Taking on multiple skills through this method placed strain on something called the mana matrix. Logan still didn't understand it, but it had something to do with why mana felt like it bounced inside him when he had the Void affinity active or pulsed under the Life affinity.
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Cassandra and Alden uncorked their vials and swallowed its contents. For a moment, their eyes flashed with the respective colors of their vials' contents: Cassandra's the golden hue of her radiant essence draft, and Alden's blue for the frost tincture.
Logan, meanwhile, lifted the frostfire elemental core in one hand. His fingers flexed against the reinforced leather of his newly crafted gauntlets, the metallic knuckles catching the forge's light. Senna had only used a fraction of his earned scrap metal, and designed them with layered plating for extra durability. But their true strength lay in the 8-inch retractable blades housed along the back of his hands. A flick of his wrist sent them snapping into place, and he pierced the core.
Swirling fire-and-ice energy seeped through the cracks, and were drawn to Logan's chest like magnets and Logan's eyes opened wide.
Detecting affinity…
Life affinity found.
Congratulations! You have learned a new skill by absorbing a Frostfire Elemental core!
Invigorating Flame (Legendary), Level 1
+14 WIL
Looks like somebody learned how to share! Pour in mana, crank up the power, and turn anything (or anyone) into a force to be reckoned with. Imbues a person, creature, or object with a power multiplier correspondent to the amount of invested mana. This spell requires concentration.
A fuzzy tingle danced along Logan's forearm as if someone was rubbing him with cottonballs. He tried to shake the sensation away, but it persisted under his skin.
"You all right?" Senna asked.
"Yeah," Logan said. "It just… ugh. It feels weird."
Alden's chest puffed as he inhaled deeply. "You can't expect to have managed control over your mana in such a short time. It's probably because you absorbed the essence raw."
Cassandra's eyes were closed, and she wore a pleasant smile. "I just received an Epic skill!"
"Likewise," said Alden. He might as well be on Cloud Nine.
Cassandra gained Luminous Rend, which dealt sustained damage by inflicting searing wounds on enemies. Alden learned Permaflect, which conjured a stationary pane of ice that remained immobile, even while midair, until shattered or a new pane was summoned. The larger the pane extended, the weaker its overall strength, although that penalty lessened at higher levels.
After them, Logan shared the details of his own new ability, leaving out the Legendary tag so he wouldn't dampen Alden's joy.
The forge let out a sharp hiss, followed by the dull glow of cooling metal. Senna opened it up and produced the refined waraxe.
"Aha!" Bromlin boomed, stepping forward as Senna handed him the newly forged axe. He let out a belly-deep laugh and clapped her on the shoulder. "This is a thing of beauty."
Senna smiled, but Logan saw a hint of disappointment in her eyes as she dusted away the burnt remains of a moonbloom pod she had placed on top of the axe. She had tried to infuse the ingredient into the process, but it had failed.
The dwarf turned and grinned from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "Who else wants to find a goble horde and test their new tricks?"
They all turned to Cassandra, who, in turn, looked to Logan. "Lead the way."
Logan led them out of the town, but as they traveled, he struggled with tracking. Feral Echo's ability to home in on vital signs wasn't particularly useful for tracing footsteps, so without Unrelenting Hunt's guidance, he was left relying on memory alone.
The thought of the dual side to his skills reminded him of a question he had flagged for a moment like this, when he was back with the team.
"So," he said. "Threshold perks."
"What of them?" Cassandra asked.
"How do they work?"
As they walked, Cassandra explained. "Each skill aligns predominantly with a specific stat. The strength of my wards, for example, is proportionate to my Willpower."
"I've noticed that, but my skills never say upfront what they work with. Some are pretty common sense, though."
She nodded. "That is one reason skilled trainers are highly valued. Their expertise can save you from missing out on a threshold perk."
"I could have leveled up my Crafting to 50 at the smithy," Senna said. "But I held back because I want to make sure my Intelligence stat is high enough for the second perk."
"You can hold back?"
"Kind of. Just using the skill will always improve it. But to get the real gains, you have to use it in ways you haven't before or if you're in a highly dangerous, rigorous, or technical situation."
Logan wondered how truthful she was being. If whatever she was attempting with the moonbloom pod had succeeded at the forge, she probably would have hit that threshold perk. He didn't press the thought, though. "How many threshold perks are there total?"
"Four," said Cassandra, "triggered at levels 25, 50, 75, and 100. The requirements become more demanding at each tier."
Logan thought of his skills over level 25 that never unlocked threshold perks. Climbing, Pain Resistance, Running… "What if you raise the base stat for the skill afterward?"
"The check only happens once," Cassandra said. "When you reach the specified level. If you are late to meet the requirement, it doesn't retroactively trigger."
Logan squished his lips to the side. "So I'll have a few duds in the mix, I guess."
Alden snorted with smug satisfaction. "You make it sound like anyone would bother to attain all the perks."
Logan pulled a face. "Wouldn't it be smart to aim for every perk you can get?" Of all people, Logan would have thought Alden wouldn't settle for anything less. In video games back home, it was the min-maxing approach. Making sure you met the minimum requirements to do something with maximum gains.
Alden let out a sharp laugh. "Sure, if you'd like to reach level 25 in all your skills sometime in the next fifty years."
Senna whispered to Bromlin, "Here we go," earning only a grunt of agreement.
Alden continued, undeterred. "The first threshold perk requires a stat score of 100 in the related attribute. First of all, prudent people invest a minimum amount in core stats to boost vital bars before they can afford the leisure to dump attributes into their specialized focus." He cleared his throat as he fixed his eyes on Logan. "Take Intelligence. Clearly we don't all prioritize it."
Probably for the best, before Logan could tell Alden his Intelligence was in fact one of his higher stats, Cassandra cleared her throat. "What Alden is saying is someone specializing in Strength won't waste time trying to unlock Intelligence-based threshold perks. Most adventurers focus on one or two core attributes. It also adds to the value of a diversified team."
Alden was still in a relatively good mood and Logan didn't want to make him turn sour by explaining his Exalted Kin race only required a stat score of 50 to unlock a threshold perk in a relevant skill.
Logan treasured the knowledge, though. Perhaps nobody else gained as many free points as he did per level, but if he planned it right, he could easily reach 50 in all stats before future Level 25 threshold perks hit. He might have missed out on a few, but he could prioritize at least Endurance before having any skills related to it reach level 25. And since he gained so much in Perception and Willpower with each level, he doubted he would have any struggle hitting all four threshold perks for any skills in those branches.
Something on the wind made Logan pause as he tilted his ear. "You hear that?"
They all stopped, listening.
A low, eerie melody carried through the wind.
"We're near the Cave of Cursed Music."