Battlefield Reclaimer, Ch 45: Gem Silver (Patreon)

“Tell people the church blessed you with that star as a sign of the truth.” Krana added, as she studied Sam. “That you’re a good person and such. It won’t help if they attack immediately, but if you get a chance to talk first, it’s worth a shot. Persuade and Preach can help as well, if we’re all together.”

Sam nodded at her in agreement. It seemed like the problem with the guards had been solved in an unexpected way by Ayala’s new subclass. It had given her the right ability and authority to persuade Yeres.

As for the ability she had used on Yeres, Preach, it was probably similar to Persuade. It wouldn’t have worked if the guard didn’t want to believe her on some level, and it really just made him more open-minded to the idea. Her position as a Priestess and as part of the church was enough to influence him.

It meant Yeres cared a lot more about trusting the church than he did about Sam’s appearance. If he had been raised as a ward of the church, it explained a lot of things. Either way, it was a glimpse into the influence of the church.

It seemed like the guards were dealt with for now, so what he needed to do was some intensive crafting. If he could make that illusion amulet, he could avoid all of this trouble in the future.

Even if he could show off the Guardian Star and make up a story about a curse, he’d still have to survive an instant attack in the first place. He didn’t want to have to constantly defend himself, keep his temper, and explain himself to everyone over and over. It sounded horrible.

Showing the star, combined with Ayala’s influence, had been more effective than he’d expected. It was nice to be on the side of the church for once, even if it was temporary. He was still planning to stay far away from them, but it was a good enough story that it should work in some situations. He wasn’t going anywhere near Ayala’s father or other high-level individuals. Who knew if they would agree?

“Let’s start on the illusion amulet then, while we wait for Ayala and the guards to recover,” he suggested. Ayala was pale now and had gone to sit down on the side of the room, with his father helping her. She had used a lot of mana just now. Something tugged at him and before Sam knew what he was doing, he was walking over to her.

“Thank you,” he said gently, as he bent down next to her. Her eyes were closed and she looked exhausted.

“I think you’re a good person, at heart,” she said slowly, without opening them. “You don’t deserve to be attacked like that. We also have a contract.”

The words were kind and a little business-like, and Sam nodded as he heard them. She still deserved his thanks. There were a lot of ways to handle something, but she had taken care of the problem in the best way he could think of. Even if it was part of the contract to protect him, and the trade had been unlocking her class, he was still going to remember it.

She was kind at heart. That was rare.

“Still, thank you,” he said, as he patted her on the shoulder and then walked back over to his work table. The way she’d dealt with the guards had taken a lot of pressure off, so now he could focus on more important things.

As he sat down, he pulled out his book of designs, comparing the image inside to the three-dimensional model that he was constructing in his mind. There were no mistakes in it, but with the more life-like model in his thoughts, it was easy to see exactly how many areas were missing from the drawing.

He had dozens of new runes from what Krana had drawn in the image, but there had to be at least as many more in the finished version. The complexity made him wonder if the inside of the amulet also had runes engraved into it, and how it was done.

He could probably use his aura to engrave runes on the inside of something..., but it would take a very clear focus. He wouldn’t be able to use his stylus to help smooth out any fluctuations in his essence.

The design had good and bad news in it. The good news was that he could learn a lot from studying it, which would help to advance his skill as an Enchanter. The bad news was that he clearly wasn’t going to be able to make the real thing. All the same, he was going to do everything he could.

He took out a piece of chalk and began to draw on the table in front of him, adding and removing runes, as he started to create a new model. He needed to extract the key runes and simplify the amulet down to something that he could make. In the future, as he became more skilled, he could continue working on it, incorporating new insights.

Ayala was going to need a couple of days to get Lesat back on his feet and to make sure that Yeres’s wound was healed. There were also some red lines from the spider’s attack on his father’s skin, but those were already swiftly fading to white. In an hour or so, they’d probably be gone.

It meant that he had a little time to craft.

---

Sam was surrounded by the hum of Earth mana behind him as he melted a lump of silver coins in Krana’s crucible. He’d borrowed it and relocated his worktable next to the Earth mana pool. Now, he was trying out an idea he’d had to infuse the coins with more energy. He’d already tested the theory out on a small chunk of silver. It had taken a few tries, but he was fairly confident in it working this time.

He’d noticed a significant problem with the illusion amulet design, which had led him to this step. A normal silver base couldn’t channel enough mana to power all of those runes. It would break, probably explosively, or at least fizzle out and melt. Whatever the original amulet was made out of it, it was not normal silver. That thought had led him into a series of experiments, of which this was the latest.

His conversations with Krana and the pointers she’d given him over the last couple of days had also helped him to significantly expand his knowledge of materials and of crafting in general. It also made him want to go and spend some time with the dwarves, since it seemed like their understanding of crafting and enchantments was more similar to his than to the items he’d seen from Ismela. Krana had shown him some of the items she kept on her, and there was a level of understanding in the way the runes there flowed with the items that was absent in everything else he’d seen from Ismela except for the dimensional bags.

According to Krana, there were other metals out there, with everything from mithril, to embradium, argentine, ebonstone..., and a lot more that he had never heard of before. The names went on and on. Apparently, nearly every facet of the world could come in a dozen different variants, depending on what type of mana or elemental attunement it had.

Even Krana didn’t know what metal the original amulet was made out of, only that it looked like silver. That narrowed down the possibilities, but there were at least two dozen options, even if you excluded the rarest ones. There was also the possibility that it had been plated with something that looked like silver, while the base itself was different.

He couldn’t solve that problem, so he was doing the next best thing. He was trying to make mana-infused silver. Theoretically, if he attuned the item with his aura and infused it with enough Earth mana, it should give the base silver an opportunity to change into a higher-energy state.

Now, the coins were floating in a small pool of Earth mana and his aura was flowing through it as he heated them. He wasn’t using a normal flame this time, but his personal aura, which was letting him control the process precisely. The Earth mana had its own heat, like lava, but the metal had come originally from the Earth and was still part of that element, so it didn’t melt in it that easily.

The crucible was more special than he’d thought, engraved with runes for durability and mana diffusion that helped to keep the energy contained inside. Otherwise, it probably would have fallen apart. As he heated the crucible, he kept a careful watch to make sure that the hum of the Earth mana was blending easily with the silver. His aura flowed through the mixture constantly, purifying out anything that didn’t belong as he worked to smoothly incorporate the mana into every part. At the same time, he was pouring his essence into the item’s creation, adding as much energy as he could.

Sweat beaded along his forehead as a result of his concentration.

As the mana continued to mix evenly with the silver, he pulled out the next part of the process: a sapphire that had come from Ismela’s equipment. He had already purified the gem with his aura, preparing it for enchantment, and now he dropped it into the mixture, letting it melt into the pool of silver and mana.

It was a risk to add new variables, but as long as everything stayed primarily Earth-aligned, the properties should be complementary. Gems were often used as a focus for enchantments, since their structures naturally held elemental affinities, more than most things in the world.

The sapphire was particularly useful to him, since it combined a bit of Fire with the Earth. Its color was also close to his own shade of essence, which might not matter, but it had called to him more than the ruby he had.

Based on Krana’s explanation, if he could merge the silver with the crystal structure of the gemstone, it would create a new, mana-infused substance called gem silver. Apparently, it was a fairly common crafting technique for better enchanted items.

If the merger succeeded, the gem silver would be much more durable than regular silver and able to take more mana, which would give it a higher enchantment potential. It could also hold smaller runes on it, without the risk of high mana levels causing them to collapse. Weaker materials needed more space between the runes to prevent that from happening.

The only problem was that the intensity of heat and mana required to melt the gemstone and infuse it into the silver was much higher than that of the silver itself. There was a risk of burning the silver away.

That was what the Earth mana around the silver was for. It was acting as a buffering solution, allowing the process to take place. It was also infusing its energy into the silver, raising the enchantment potential of the metal even more, along with adding more unique properties that existed in the Earth mana itself, like an innate stability from the Earth’s blessing. There might be something else along with that, but it was a difficult thing to control.

When he asked Krana about the best ways to use the mana, she had told him to just try it, and then a few myths. Apparently, the Earth mana was so rare that it was nearly impossible to find someone who had any real practice with it, but the legends suggested that items created with it sometimes had unique abilities.

Like his father’s hammers. As Jeric had demonstrated on the warlord, the Song of Seven Earths was more powerful than most enchantments.

Without Krana’s guidance, there were a lot of things Sam would have missed when it came to using the Earth mana, but since it was here, he was going to take full advantage of it. The pool of liquid around his amulet was about the same amount as in one of his crystal spheres, around 300 drops.

It was enough Earth mana to blow the cavern around them apart, and several times more than he’d used in any project so far. Fortunately, it was extremely stable.

His crystal blue flames swirled through the mixture as he kept a careful eye on it, slowly increasing the heat until he felt the sapphire begin to melt. It didn’t melt away all at once, but in layers, and he felt the substance flowing away into the silver and the Earth mana all around it.

As it happened, he felt the three substances merging into a new pattern, something that felt like crystalline silver in his mind’s eye. The silver was taking on the properties of the sapphire and its structure was changing. At the same time, the Earth mana was flowing into it, binding itself around the structure to support it.

All through that, his aura was flowing into the material too, just like it had for the acid worm amulet. He wasn’t sure exactly what was happening with the process, but he could feel it becoming a little bit more like him as it took on a touch of his personal energy. Krana thought that it was some type of personal attunement, which was fine by him.

A little while later, Sam’s eyes glowed as the sapphire finished fusing into the silver and the Earth mana surrounding it began to swirl. The level of liquid mana began to drop as it sank into the metal.

Sam’s hand rose to the side as his aura swept out, ready to pick up more mana to add to the mix, but after a moment the process settled down. The liquid mana surrounding the amulet had nearly disappeared. Over 90% of it had been absorbed.

At the center of the crucible, lying just under the surface of the mana, a pool of gleaming, sapphire blue silver was visible.

Attuned Earth-Blessed Gem Silver.

A prompt came and went, with a notification of experience gained for his Enchanter profession, but he ignored it.

“Time for the mold,” he mumbled aloud, as he turned to the next step of the process.

Now that there was a slight break, he was also able to look over and see what his father was doing. He’d heard him talking to Ayala while he worked, and it sounded like he was spending a lot of time asking questions, trying to get as much information about Osera and the route home as possible. At the moment, however, Jeric was carving away at a piece of stone, practicing a Mining skill. It looked like he was debating taking the profession to go along with his Prospect ability.

The guards were leaning against the wall on the other side of the cavern, talking to themselves, while Ayala was meditating, recovering her mana so she could continue healing them.

Everything was peaceful as he lifted the crucible and turned towards the mold.

Krana watched from the side, her gaze focused, as she kept careful track of everything Sam was doing. She’d taught him a lot of details, but she’d been extremely surprised at his ability. Every time she mentioned something, it was as if he instantly understood how it worked, and then he’d come back a few minutes later with a connection she hadn’t thought of.

She wasn’t an Enchanter, but if she had been..., he’d have been a wonderful apprentice. If he found the right teacher, then maybe in only a short decade or so, he would have the ability to really challenge the masters of the craft. There were dwarves who had been enchanting for centuries, even a few for a millennium or two..., but she’d never heard of anyone who had the sheer aptitude that he did.

He hadn’t explained his unique class to her in any detail, or what it could really do beyond being an Enchanter and a Smith, but whatever he had gained from it..., it definitely wasn’t a normal class. He didn’t seem to have any specific abilities that helped him create enchanted items, but in terms of the foundational skills and instincts, she’d never heard of anyone better at his level.

It was not a normal level of skill.

She’d never heard of anything quite like it. Normally, classes granted specific abilities and some information on how to use them. For Sam, it seemed to be the opposite. He didn’t get any specific abilities for being either an Enchanter or a Smith, nothing like the simple Enchant Metal or Infuse Material abilities she was familiar with, or even the more standard Enchanter line of abilities.

Gem silver could be made with either of those in a much faster way than Sam was doing now. A good dwarven Smith could have done it in an instant, practically by just crushing the two items together between his hands if his ability level was high enough. It was a common task for apprentices to make this sort of material.

Instead of those abilities, what Sam had was an incredible amount of underlying potential that came out at the slightest hint of an idea, but he still had to do all of the basic work to make it come to life. He didn’t even seem to be aware of how strange it was.

It was almost like he was just in tune with the flow of energy in the world and constantly experimenting to see what he could do with it. She’d seen him staring off into the distance a couple of times, and when she asked what he was doing, he’d told her he was listening for the runes of the world.

She just shook her head again, since she had no idea what that meant. Runes could be experimented with, but it was a dangerous practice. Sometimes, they were discovered as part of a natural formation, if the world’s energy flowed through a large amount of crystal or a natural area in just the right way to cause the energy there to move into a pattern that worked, but she’d never heard of someone listening for them before.

He was a strange human...demon...person, but it fit with the vision she’d seen.

Sam was unaware of Krana’s thoughts, but even if he’d heard them, it wouldn’t have bothered him much. He was getting used to doing his own thing.

The mold for the silver amulet was just in front of him, and he carefully poured the gem silver from the crucible into it. There was enough room that the liquid mana flowed along as well. It wasn’t water, and it didn’t cool the molten liquid down at all. Instead, it helped to keep it at an even temperature as it moved with it.

The silver flowed into the mold with a hiss of escaping steam as it hit the colder stone, and then it settled into it. The liquid mana floated on top, still covering it over like a pond, as he put the crucible back down.

He wasn’t adding any new heat now and, slowly, the gem silver began to cool. It was an extremely slow process compared to normal cooling, since the mana on top of it retained most of the heat. He watched it steadily, barely blinking, as the level of Earth mana began to drop. As the metal cooled and became harder, the crystalline structure of the gem silver was changing, which allowed more of the mana to sink in.

He’d estimated how much mana it could take, and then gone a bit above that to make sure, but he was still standing by to add more if necessary. An hour later, as the amulet continued to cool, he did exactly that, pouring a small handful of mana on top of what was already there. It was absorbing even more than he’d thought.

His aura swirled through it, keeping track of the process, as he continued to pour in his own energy. He could have tried using a monster core, but he had the feeling that it would only destabilize the process. Even if he’d had a permanent enchantment pattern to use, it didn’t seem like it would be a good idea.

It would only disrupt the purity of the gem silver.

Time passed as he continued to watch the metal cool and the pool of Earth mana slowly sink. Whatever the result was, this would be his finest creation yet.