[NR] A Title To Use - Chapter 628 (Patreon)

Jason frowned in concentration. It had taken him longer than he had expected. His calligraphy was, honestly? Quite decent by modern standards. However, that means for someone using a mechanical pencil and a decent eraser.

Thankfully, while not as simple as an eraser, you can erase mistakes on vellum. You just need to get some really fine sandpaper or similar and then sand the mistake off of the vellum. At which point, you can go and try again.

Of course, since this is a subtractive method, even more so than an eraser can be, you better not make a mistake too many times in the same spot. Jason had to have a double dose of caution though, because after writing out all the black ink sections, he then had to go back over it all and do the red bits.

There wasn’t as much need for red ink, the color being used as more of a way to emphasize parts of diagrams. Still, it was important to the overall design. Now, though, the writing section was complete.

So why was he still so deep in concentration? Simple enough, he was now working on the bookbinding process. The first step he took was pre-punching the holes in every page. This was simple enough, though it did require a leather punch, which he thankfully picked up back in town.

For the cover and spine of the books, Jason carved a simple design with a very plain title. “Exhaustive Guide on the Crafting of an Immovable Rod by Jason the Willful Survivor”. He had waffles back and forth on what title to use between that and “Core Genius”. In the end, though, he decided that the core title revealed a little too much about him.

Though this did make him think more on what he would go by in the future. Last names aren’t uncommon, most natives having one and all of the native nobles have at least one though generally more. However, it is also common for people to just go by one name and a title.

And while “Willful Survivor” is a decent title, it is not what he would normally go by. The title just happened to fit more of what people would expect from an author of such a book without revealing too much. For instance, “Immortal’s Prodigy” would reveal his having contact with primordial powers. Besides, most of them are way too wordy or high brow. Because really? Immortal’s Prodigy?

No, after going over his list of titles, one stands out to him. While the reason he gained, it doesn’t quite line up as much as Jason would have liked. The title, “Combat Monk”, hit the nail on the head for what he portrayed himself as. Though he could always cross his fingers and hope for a title related to cultivation. At least, one that doesn’t reveal his access to concepts.

In fact, the more Jason looks over his titles, the happier he is that only a single title of his choosing is potentially visible. The titles section of his character sheet had really collected some secrets. And since he was there in the first place, Jason took the time to switch his equipped title to Combat Monk.

Jason shakes his head and sets the matter of titles aside. Maybe later he can go out and hunt down a better title. After all, kingdoms are always throwing in some competition or another and a simple “Champion of [kingdom]’s Annual [competition]” would be respectable enough. Well, as long as it is a respectable kingdom. There are more than a few out there that literally sell such titles and even grander ones to vain young masters, both native and traveller. It’s like a form of new age diploma mill.

That’s for the future, though. In the present, Jason has just a few finishing touches before his manual is finished. He had passed up on using gold leaf for the lettering, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t stand out. So instead, he had a different method in mind.

Before carving the title on the cover and spine, Jason had applied a wax coat to the leather and now he was brushing on some fancy adhesive. It was kind of like super glue, but formulated so it wouldn’t work on wax and it took an hour to cure. More than enough time to do what he wanted.

Now, Jason could have done a much simpler job as he was going to use the same inks for this. Except he wanted a bit of sparkle to it. So using the ink after it dried, Jason created a powder into which he mixed some powdered gems.

The black received a touch of amethyst, while the red received ruby dust. Which wasn’t all that expensive to source. Less than a silver was spent, partly because so little was needed and mostly because it was from the chips cut off of rough gems. As for which was applied where? Simple enough, the main part of the title needed to be visible and so received red, while the attribution got the black.

Now, Jason wasn’t sure how this would work irl, but in NeoRealm he was able to powder things quite sufficiently and when applied to a test but of leather, looked quite fetching. The black ink with an undertone of purple seemed to be constantly shifting its shade and sparkled magnificently. As for the red? The actual ink was more of a dark red, but the addition of the ruby dust managed to lighten it up and the sparkles seemed to make trails through the letters as light hit it.

Satisfied, Jason took a heated rag and carefully wiped off the wax used to prevent the adhesive from sticking. Then it was a simple matter of applying a few coats of a special wax specifically for leather. And with that, the book was done.

And oh hey, there’s a ripple spreading out from the book in the world’s energy field. Jason definitely wasn’t going to be able to hide its creation. Even if he hadn’t been planning to in the first place.