NOVEL NEXT Chapter 36 – Claws
Quickly deactivating the crystal, Emily returns to her desk. She pulls out one of the water crystals, along with a new collection tray, and follows the same process as before to engrave the activation rune. After crumbling the first gem due to using slightly too much mana, she looks at her system mana and machina values before deciding to meditate for a while.
Filling up her resource reserves swiftly thanks to the Technomancer’s Breath’s increased efficiency, she soon returns to carving crystals. This time she succeeds with the water crystal on her first try. She moves back to the steam generator to test, placing the water crystal into the centre of the empty water tank and activating it.
The moment she does, water pours out of the crystal, quickly filling the tank. Realising a slight problem, she reaches her arm through the water to deactivate the crystal before the tank overflows.
I should modify this generator first.
Making a quick decision, Emily turns around and walks back to her desk again. Turning her notebook to a blank page, she begins drawing up blueprints.
After a short while of nothing but the sound of a quill scratching on paper, Emily looks at the blueprint before her in satisfaction.
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Blueprint created: Steam Source {Gen.0}
[Steam Source {Gen.0}]
[Type:] Magic Steam Generator
[Tier:] 1
[Rank:] F
[Description:] A simply remodelled steam generator running on mana crystals.
[Effect:] When activated, generates steam
_____
It’s not E-rank, but it will do for now.
Standing up, Emily grabs the chunk of white iron from the drawer and takes it to one of the new machines, a large block of iron with an exposed jagged blade suspended vertically in the centre. Leaving the white iron on the machine’s cutting platform, Emily quickly moves to the steam generator, opening the heating chamber and reaching in to activate the fire crystal within. The moment it activates, she retracts her hand and shuts the chamber, watching the heat and pressure readings increase in the system.
Returning to the large machine again, she reaches for the steam valve on the back to turn it on before pausing. Turning around, her gaze falls on the mass in her bed, rising and falling in a slow rhythm.
She slept through a hacksaw, but it’s probably mean to test her with a bandsaw.
Turning off the steam generator again, she sheepishly returns to the bandsaw to take the white iron back. As she reaches out to take the metal though, a thought occurs to her so she continues moving past it and places her hand on the bandsaw.
Releasing a spark of machina, a familiar connection forms with the saw, and a full three-dimensional breakdown of its internal workings quickly settles in her mind. Looking at the delicate mix of gears and belts within, Emily decides to memorize the machine's blueprint for future reference, and the moment she does, a system window pops up.
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Blueprint created: Steam Bandsaw
[Steam Bandsaw]
[Type:] Tool
[Tier:] 1
[Rank:] F
[Description:] A basic bandsaw powered by steam
[Effect:] When activated, cuts through any material held to the blade.
_____
Convenient, it seems to respond to my will with blueprint creation considering I didn’t get the elevator blueprint yesterday. I should take a trip into machineworks at some point and take scans of all the tools there, maybe reset afterwards so I don’t have to explain anything to Ed.
With this thought in mind, she happily moves around the room, taking scans of all her new machines and saving their blueprints for future use and modification. Settling back at her desk after, Emily opens her notebook to another blank page and lifts her quill.
Now, time to create my masterpiece!
Filled with excitement, she pulls on her ideas from her trip to the city the day before, and her new bank of knowledge from the machines in her room, to start drawing a new blueprint. Several hours later, after agonising over the design and even restarting several times, she’s left with a pleased grin and a new blueprint sat in the notebook before her.
It’s not perfect, but for a first prototype, it’s good enough! I should be able to get it done in time for my class tomorrow if I work fast.
Checking the time, she sees there are still a few hours left till Juliana should be waking up for breakfast. Unwilling to disturb her sleep, Emily settles on the floor at the end of the bed and falls into the spellweave.
***
A couple of hours later, Emily returns to her room alone after breakfast, having told her friends she will be unavailable till tomorrow morning.
“Right, time to get to work!” she exclaims excitedly while casting her gaze across the new machines waiting to be used.
She turns on the steam generator and grabs the white iron, taking it to the bandsaw. Finally flipping open the valve on the back of the machine’s body, the suspended blade tears into motion. Carefully, Emily raises the white iron to the blade and slowly pushes it through, cutting off a thin strip. After placing down the remaining hunk of metal, she splits the strip in half widthways and then turns the saw off.
She moves to another machine, this one appearing like a miniature workbench with a large abrasive disk jutting halfway out. Twisting the valve at the back of the machine, Emily watches the disk spin to life. Placing one of the metal strips onto the metal surface in front of the disk, she slowly presses it against the disk, watching as the uneven edges are quickly cut away to reveal a smooth, squared side. She repeats this four times, making the strip into a neat cuboid, before angling the metal and sanding the end down into a point.
After doing the same with the other strip, she shuts off the steam valve and moves back to the generator, taking a handheld drill from under the workbench with her. She connects the drill’s steam hose to a barbed fitting next to the generator and lowers it to the centre of the heating chamber before pausing.
If I try to drill into the chamber without lubricant, I’ll kill my drill bit.
She quickly closes the valve connected to the drill and opens the heating chamber. Reaching in through the intense heat within, she deactivates the fire crystal and removes it from the chamber. Leaving the chamber open to cool down, she moves up to the water tank, removes the crystal within, and drains all the excess water.
After checking the steam gauges for their pressure and finding it high enough to use her drill still, Emily quickly weaves her hands together, casting the grease spell. Only supplying a small amount of mana, she just coats the bottom of the tank with the liquid before ending the spell. Satisfied with her preparations, she turns the drill back on and carefully drills a hole through the tank to the front face.
She repeats this in the heating chamber, then she collects a set of files and carefully files the hole into matching the shape of her two white iron nails. Sliding one of the nails into the hole and nodding in satisfaction at the snug fit, Emily moves to grab welding tools as a thought occurs.
Can I use fire magic to weld?
Happy to test her theory, she holds the nail in with one hand while slowly drawing burning hands’ magic circle with the other. As the spell activates, she focuses it completely on one hand, managing to prevent the other from igniting at all. Raising her orange glowing hand, she carefully traces the connection between the nail and the generator with rapt attention, smiling as she sees the metals quickly fuse, forming a neat seal.
Perfect! It looks like the strange metal-eating properties of my mental image affected the properties of my spell without any need to change the magic formula!
She quickly moves to the second nail before her spell runs out, firmly securing it in place as well. Finally, she replaces the fire crystal in the heating chamber with the activation rune facing down, touching the point of the metal nail. Then on the outside of the chamber, she expectantly sends a spark of mana through the nail.
To her relief, the crystal inside activates instantly.
Good, it worked. Now I just need to add proper fasteners to hold the crystals in place and I can move on to creating my new toy. I’ll need to make a quick trip back to Threads for some leatherworking supplies too…
Emily excitedly gets lost in her craft, losing track of time as her blueprints become reality.
***
The next day at 8 am, after another sleepless night, Emily’s focus is broken away from inspecting the completed creation before her by a familiar knocking pattern on her door. She opens it with a tired smile on her face.
The moment Juliana sees her, her eyes open wide in shock.
“Emi when was the last time you slept?!?”
“Before we went into the city together,” Emily answers with a slightly guilty tone, aware of her state.
The heavy bags under her eyes and the unkempt state of her hair clearly give away her lack of self-care during her creation process.
“Do you have any lessons today?” Juliana asks while taking her arm and pulling her towards the transportation rooms.
“Just hand-to-hand combat in the afternoon.”
“Good, then after breakfast you’re taking a nap!” Juliana says firmly, allowing no room for argument.
Emily cracks a small smile and silently nods her head.
***
That afternoon, after sleeping the morning away, Emily enters the training hall fifteen minutes before class is due to start. Looking around, she spots Agnes standing at the edge of the room, looking over one of the weapon racks full of short blades with her signature greatsword missing from her back.
Walking over to her, Emily calls out eagerly:
“Hey Agnes, can we spar quickly? I have something I’d like to test.”
Looking over her shoulder at Emily, Agnes raises a brow and asks calmly.
“With daggers or not?”
“I’m already armed, so grab whatever you want,” Emily answers with a cocky grin, enjoying the look of confusion and intrigue that grows on Agnes’ face after she looks Emily over and fails to spot her weapon.
Agnes turns back to the weapon rack, and quickly takes a dangerous-looking blade, half the size of Emily’s arm, into her hand. They both move into an empty space and face each other while lowering into their combat stances. Agnes stands with her free hand raised before her and the dagger in her other hovering around her chest pointing towards Emily, and Emily stands with her feet spread apart and both hands raised before her, open and empty.
“The spar ends when either of us calls it off, or one of us can’t fight back,” Agnes says slowly, her gaze narrowed on Emily.
The mages in the hall notice their stances and all fall silent, turning to watch the coming fight with interest.
Upon seeing Emily nod in agreement, Agnes smiles and calls out: “Begin!” while leaping forward to close the distance.
Watching Agnes approach, Emily releases her breath, focusing completely on the blade quickly coming towards her as her perception slows. Seeing a slight twitch in Agnes’ wrist, Emily puts her faith in her new creations and raises her right forearm to guard the side of her face. As she predicted, Agnes sends her knife in an arcing line towards her face, and the quickly moving blade slams into her raised arm.
All the watching mages look on with anticipation, but instead of the sound of flesh being cut as they expected, they hear the harsh sound of metal scraping against metal. The blade cuts through Emily’s sleeve, exposing the bright glint of metal underneath.
While absorbing the impact with her arm, Emily thrusts her left hand forward in an open palm towards Agnes’ chest. Agnes notices but doesn’t move due to the difference in reach between her knife and Emily’s palm. The moment her arm reaches full extension, Emily lets a grin creep onto her face as she hooks her pointer finger around the wire attached to her thumb and pops her hand backwards.
Agnes' instincts warn her just in time and she leaps back as a blade fires out from Emily’s sleeve. Looking down, she sees a small bleeding cut on her ribs, and a manic grin forms on her face as well.
“What an interesting weapon,” she mutters quietly before slashing her knife down towards Emily’s chest.
Emily deflects the knife with her exposed blade while stepping forward to close the distance between them, her wrist blade’s reach still slightly shorter than Agnes’ long knife. Unwilling to give up her advantage, Agnes keeps attacking Emily while stepping back. Struggling to close the distance, Emily gets caught by a few shallow slashes and chooses to take a step back.
Circling Agnes from a distance, Emily decides that catching Agnes by surprise is no longer possible and quickly engages the second wrist blade. With both blades extended to their full twenty-five-centimetre reach, she quickly steps forward and thrusts her right hand towards Agnes’ chest while driving her left up and towards her ribs.
With the flick of her wrist, Agnes deflects the first blade as she steps forward to meet Emily. Before the second blade can make contact with her, she swiftly reaches her free hand forward and knocks Emily’s arm, sending her stab wide.
Emily tries to recover her arms but soon freezes as she feels the cold steel of Agnes’ knife against her throat.
“I give,” she says with a small sigh.
They both relax and separate with matching grins.
“That was a good spar, and those blades are fascinating,” Agnes compliments her while staring at the exposed metal through her cut sleeves.
“Thanks,” Emily says proudly while bringing her hands up to reset her weapons and gazing at their system description.
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[Claws {Gen.0}]
[Rank:] F
[Stats:] +1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Agil
[Description:] A set of basic spring-loaded wrist blades.
[Effect:] Provides armour to the forearms and extends blades from the wrist when activated.
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She grabs a small groove on one of the blades and pulls it down while pulling on the release string with her other hand until it slides comfortably back into its housing. As the blade bottoms out, she lets go of the release and a small click sounds as the blade locks into place.
While retracting the other blade, Emily notices a low murmuring coming from all around and looks up to see everyone in the room crowded around her and Agnes, talking to each other while stealing glances at Emily.
“Tsk,” Agnes clicks her tongue with a frown before muttering something under her breath and stomping her foot on the ground.
As her foot slams into the ground, the earth shakes and walls of dirt shoot up to form a dome around both of them. The noise from outside cuts off the moment darkness falls over them.
“There we go, now we can talk in peace,” Agnes says casually.
Kind of hard to talk when I can’t see you.
With a frown, Emily quickly weaves a few hand signs and casts light, tossing the formed ball of glowing mana up to the peak of the dome.
“I see the rumours about your magical talent weren’t exaggerated after all,” Agnes comments with a sly grin, staring at the glowing ball of light.
Whoops, I forgot to chant… Ah well, I’m not planning on hiding my gesture casting.
“What can I say, I’m a girl of many talents,” Emily responds casually, playing off her mistake.
“Speaking of, can I see your weapons?”
“Sure,” Emily agrees easily, pulling back her right sleeve to reveal the mechanisms below.
From her elbow to her wrist is a fitted leather bracer, fastened with a set of straps at the side. On top of her forearm are two thin plates of smooth titanium with a split down the centre, covering a collection of springs and wires underneath. The wires follow a few small channels around her arm to join the underside, where a delicate metal housing conceals the blades within. Extending from the end of the housing is another small wire, connected to a ring on the thumb without enough tension to activate The Claws unless the wire is pulled upon by something else.
“It’s beautiful, did you make them yourself?” Agnes asks while carefully turning Emily’s arm over to inspect the entire weapon.
“Yes,” Emily answers proudly, happy to have someone appreciate her work.
Finishing her inspection, Agnes releases Emily’s arm and looks her in the eyes, her emerald eye glowing with the fierce light of passion.
“I want you to make me a set,” she says, raising her hand and gesturing for Emily to wait when she starts to object. “I like to collect unique weapons like those, don’t worry, I won’t sell them on or reveal how they work to anyone else. And in return, I’ll give you some private lessons to teach you how to use them properly.”
The moment she offers to help, Emily thinks back to their spar.
I could use the help, I’ve never dual-wielded weapons before, let alone ones awkwardly in line with my arms.
Considering it for a few moments, she soon agrees with a nod.
Ah well, these are only the prototype anyway, it can’t hurt to make her a pair.
“Perfect, I look forward to teaching you more,” Agnes says with a wide grin that sends a shiver down Emily’s spine as she drops the earthen dome around them.
Oh Goddess, what have I got myself into?