NOVEL NEXT Chapter 102 - The [Blind] Helmet
The etching wasn't the Enchanter's best work, not by a long shot. The [Reflect] enchantment pattern is difficult to apply to a round object like a helmet, and the [Blind] enchantment that James had access to was optimized for knives, and normally would only be adapted for things like arrowheads or swords. Not the helmets of visors.
Certainly not on the same item as a Light Enchantment.
As foolish as it sounds to attempt to apply two opposing elements at the same time, on the same item, James had never been taught how to layer enchantments. Trying to enchant one at a time would have failed outright. Although difficult, doing the enchantments together was the only method with even the slightest hope of success.
It makes a better story to say that, driven by desperation, the Smith put his all into the enchantment and strained and with the last bit of his strength, he managed to complete the enchantment.
But the Smith himself contradicts this version of events in his letters, the copies of which can be found in any decent university. Injured and tired, he didn't give it his all.
He was a level nine Enchanter.
Certainly he lacked in training and education and technique and method, but he was not lacking in magical ability to brute force enchantments. Not at this level.
Additionally, he describes the pattern he used as not particularly heavily tiled, and the [Blind] enchantment pattern was simply etched onto the visor as best it would fit around the holes he had punched into it, with minimal adjustments and no tiling whatsoever. Even with the multiplicative difficulty increase of dual-enchanting and using entirely oppositional elements, he was able to complete the enchantment.
With a force of will and a chunk of his mana and a flash of light and shadow, the enchantment was completed.
[Appraisal]: Blind Helmet, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 10/10, Enchantments: Reflect (10), Blind (10)
The helmet overall became reflective like a mirror, as usual, but the visor turned pitch black and matte, not shiny like the rest. He put it on, and the first thing he noticed was that he couldn't see.
As expected.
He raised the visor, however, and found that he still couldn't see. He also noticed that, unlike his shields, where he would have to consciously use the [Reflect] enchantment by channeling his mana through it, the helmet drained his mana automatically, and he couldn't stop it even when he tried. Both the [Blind] and [Reflect] enchantments were just always active when the helmet was worn.
He took the helmet off and packed up his enchanting tools and headed down the stairs to the point where he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, and put the helmet on.
He could see. Barely, but he could see. It was like looking through fabric, or a very heavily smoked piece of glass more so than how the world looks in near pitch darkness.
James proceeded down the stairs. The light apparently continued to grow brighter, even beyond the already blinding level, because he became able to see more and more until, eventually, he reached the bottom of the staircase and a short tunnel away was the fifth floor of the Dungeon.
With only slightly obscured vision and wearing his poorly repaired Fire Armor, the Smith stepped forward and found a cavern that, save for the light level, was similar to the first and fourth floors of the dungeon. The floor was hard packed dirt, and the walls and ceiling were rock, but white rock with lots of tiny crystals in it, all glowing and reflecting light endlessly.
It was a world without shadows.
The room was wider than it was deep, some thirty yards across, and twenty yards deep with a tunnel entrance at the far end. No monsters were present, but James immediately put down his warding stakes, blocking off almost half the right side of the room. As he filled the stakes with magic power, he felt them resonate with something in the air, the ward snapping into place a little faster and a lot stronger than normal.
James paused a moment. Was this lux-essence?
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With the ward in place he turned to the walls, finding small veins of all the main types of iron. Here was blue, and next to it was brown, and regular iron, and over there were little veins of green and red as well. All of them positively glittered, but there were two more discoveries that greatly lifted the Smith's heart.
First, was several trickles of water flowing from cracks in the wall.
[Water Identification]: Pure Water
The previous floor hadn't had any water sources at all, and the floor before that only had fresh water. James had stocked up on Pure Water before leaving the first floor to come down here, but he had known it would run out eventually. That, and the lack of brutal heat meant that even though it was too bright, he could create a basecamp here.
The second find was, for once, something of which James with his limited experience could recognize the value.
Large, shining veins of White Iron Ore.
White Iron was the very expensive material Jared had forged into a sword for the Lord's son, back in James' home village.
The material that worked well with any enchantment, as far as James knew at the time.
Author's note: James would learn about the limitations of White Iron with Dark type enchantments later, during this short stint of formal education in Enchantment.
[Ore Identification]: White Iron Ore, Lux Essence
James wondered how strong a [Reflect] enchantment he could manage with such great materials, but at the moment he wasn't set on using this location as his basecamp, not without a little more exploration. No point in using his limited clay and sand to build a forge and smelter in anything less than the optimal spot on this floor, especially since the next might be as bad as the third and fourth floors had been.
His heart fell a bit at the thought of trying to forge with his ruined right hand, but only momentarily. Even damaged as he was, he still had a passion for trying to create the best items he could, a drive to reach his limits and surpass them.
And then a monster sauntered into the room like it owned the place.
It looked like an oddly large kitten to James, white with slightly off-white stripes and a slightly disproportionately large head and paws, but still nearly two feet tall. James froze and pushed a little more mana into his ward, and the kitten monster caught sight of him standing there in his red armor and dark-visored helmet and froze as well.
They stared at each other a moment, both caught off guard, and then James raised his Red Iron Round Shield and poured mana into the [Reflect] enchantment.
The kitten monster hunched its back and puffed up its fur and hissed, then snarled at such a high pitch it almost sounded cute.
And then with a flash of light that was blinding even through the Blind Helmet, it leapt forward and bounced off the ward, taking a small chunk out of James' mana through his connection with the warding stake nearest him.
But the ward held.
The kitten rolled over awkwardly and sat down, looking almost embarrassed, and shot him several glances before jumping away, approaching, jumping away again, and eventually it sat down and started grooming itself.
James was stunned, frozen in place. He had thought he was used to fast monsters. He could track dive bombing bird monsters, even hit them out of the sky. But that?
It was less than a blink from start to finish. He had completely lost sight of the monster when it lunged and he could only see it again when it was all the way on the other side of the room, after bouncing off the ward.
And there was another problem.
His ward didn't encompass the tunnel entrance back up to the previous floor.
He hadn't been planning to stay here very long, and hadn't expected the monsters on this floor to be so fast.
After several minutes of standing there, tense, watching the kitten monster groom itself, he finally lowered his shield. Immediately the kitten monster refocused on him, but it didn't leap. Just watched to see if he would leave the ward.
James shuddered.
Why would something so terrifying be so cute?
Still, it didn't seem like it was going to pounce repeatedly until his mana ran out. And he was getting tired of standing. He put down his shield and pulled out a pickaxe and mined out some of the vein of White Iron Ore and some stone as well, a boulder to sit on and another on which to place his anvil.
He looked back and met the kitten monster's eyes, and it snarled at him again.
Well, he would see if it eventually wandered off and gave him a chance to reset his wards.
A day later, the kitten monster hadn't left at all. It would occasionally doze off, but the minute James moved it would wake up and go back to stalking him.
James was starting to grow concerned about his food stores again when finally something changed:
Another monster entered the room.
This one was a pure white serpent monster, a full foot in diameter with white glimmering scales that dazzled even through his Blind Helmet.
The kitten monster crouched down, wiggled cutely, and then pounced with a flash of light.
The serpent monster didn't stand a chance.
It hissed and writhed but the kitten monster's fangs and claws glowed with blinding light, leaving afterimage streaks in his vision as it snapped and slashed at the serpent, tearing through its scales like paper and carving it to pieces.
The blood, at least, was red like normal. The only color in this nearly pure white world. It caked the kitten monster's fur as it ate half the serpent, keeping an eye on James the entire time, and then it spent a good hour grooming itself.
It showed no signs of leaving.
With a dull feeling of resignation, the Smith realized that he wasn't getting out of here without fighting the kitten monster.
Keeping an eye on the kitten which was also keeping an eye on him, he started pulling out boxes of clay and sand. Time to set up base camp and forge another set of armor.