Imperious, Chapter 022 - Becoming an Engraver 2 (Patreon)

There was a kind of joy Anna got out of working on her new profession. It was a practical problem, one with solutions that one could get to simply with enough practice. There were no people to deal with, points to argue, conversations to navigate, it was just her, her materials, and her skills. Every time she used her skills it was another step forward on her progression. Every time she overcame a new hurdle it felt like an accomplishment. She had a clear goal in mind as well, to restore the guardian core.

In the moments while she was working she was able to forget about the fact that there was an apocalypse going on outside. That there were slaver devils stalking the forests looking for her right at this moment. That her mother was somewhere so incomprehensibly far away that she could never in a hundred lifetimes reach her and bring her home. Here, with her work, even her heritage was at rest. It burned and boiled in her veins now and then as she had breakthroughs and accomplishments, but it was more like it reveled in her growth rather than urging her towards her next killing spree.

Anna felt the plate in her hand begin to dissolve and smiled as the essence worked its way through her body. She’d grown more accustomed to the sensation now and could even concentrate on it a little, get a feel for where it moved and why. It was strange, essence felt like it belonged in her body, that it should just fill something inside of her. Yet whatever that thing was didn’t exist, there was nothing for it to cling to and so it simply followed her blood vessels until it arrived at her other hand and an outlet, the vessel.

Essence was soothing, she’d concluded that after the first hour or so of disenchanting. It also felt like it moved through her body in the same way that mana did. Yet while mana was like fire, essence was like water. She quickly became convinced that they had a role to play together but she had no idea where to even begin figuring that out. In short, disenchanting felt really good. 

She pulled her hand away from the vessel and inspected it. The swirling white mist inside had condensed and filled it to the brim. There was no more space left but there were plenty of bits and bobs to disenchant. Realizing she’d have to use the essence now before she could work any more at her skill, she got to her feet and did a few rounds practicing with her mace. She’d taken to experimenting with her footwork and how she moved rather than focusing on her swings, stances, and attack patterns. Her gut told her this was the way to go.

After a little over an hour she went into the storage room and began collecting materials for the next part of her training program. The materials for analysis were the plates as well, but these had clear runes carved into them. Anna could even tell what some of them did just at a glance but knew that the point here was to use the skill and develop it. She dug through the plates for a little while, largely uninterested in the really simple ones as they felt kind of pointless thanks to her experience. Finally, she found one with three runes set up in a circuit.

She read it for a moment, following the pattern and how the mana channels passed between each rune. The starting point was a fire rune, one she really wanted to incorporate into a spell at some point. After that was a burst and then stabilization rune. She rubbed her chin, considering what the plate did when it was activated. Finally she settled on a guess, “Hmm… probably used to make a campfire. Turn it on and off with a command. No idea how long it’ll last before it degrades though,” She muttered to herself before concentrating on the Analyze Engraving skill.

Unknown Magic Item Identified!

Firepit Plate (Common-Grade)
This enchanted plate creates a small useful flame above it that lasts until it is deactivated. Reusable. Uses remaining 300/300.

She barked out a laugh, “Hey! First try!” She said proudly before she was startled by a warmth at the back of her head. She blinked rapidly and checked her skills. Analyze Engraving had raced all the way from base to Mid rank in an instant! She sat back and pressed her finger to her temple in confusion. “What the fuck?” She blurted out, “Why?” She looked at the plate and turned it over in her hand. “It’s a complicated plate, three runes, tough for a newbie based on what I’ve read,” She pursed her lips, “Is it because I knew what it did beforehand and Analyze only confirmed it?”

She squinted at the plate again, “Wait… was this that old man’s strategy all along? Was I tricked into an accelerated learning program?” She snorted out a laugh, “One more point for the Golem Master.”

She licked her lips and started scrounging through the remaining plates. There were dozens around the same difficulty as the firepit plate. Some of them she quickly came to learn did ridiculous things like produce a pleasant illusory smell or blew hot air at short range. Hair dryer? There was even one that could be affixed to a piece of clothing to make it light up and sparkle. They were ridiculous exercises in what runes could do when combined with one another but the more she analyzed them the more she realized she’d underestimated just how flexible a rune could be. Distance between other runes, the effect of the following rune, the material the plate was made out of, all of it influenced the outcome in subtle ways.

That realization boosted her skill again, pushing it to high rank. It also lead her to the conclusion that the analyze skill was giving her information beyond that of what appeared in the windows. It gave her insight to the makeup of the engravings and most importantly, their condition.

She couldn’t help but respect the man that had designed this place, “This guy knew exactly what he was doing. From the books he picked to the crafting materials,” She shook her head as she set down the last plate and rubbed her temple. “I wonder…” She looked up from her latest mess and towards the dias where the guardian core was. She got up and walked over to it before placing her hand on it and a flood of information rushed into her head.

Inert Guardian Golem Core (Rare-Grade)
The core of a high quality guardian golem, this core has been rendered inert after being damaged in battle. It is unusable in its current state. There is significant damage to the internal latticework that will require maintenance, the core will also have to be reactivated with a full charge of essence to return it to a self-perpetuating state.

She pulled her hand away with a jolt, wide eyed as lines and runes and symbols jumbled about in her head for a moment before they seemed to fade a bit. She shook her head, “Holy shit,” She breathed and looked down at the core in awe, “This thing is way beyond me. There are runes in there I’ve never seen before in any of the books,” She paused and frowned, considering for a moment. The runes weren’t really damaged, just the internal connections. Some had been burned out while others were just broken.

She glanced at the pop up and saw her own thoughts reflected in the updated flavor text. The skill really worked wonders. She knew exactly what she’d have to accomplish to fix it, she just didn’t have the practical experience. The biggest question was how to repair a pathway. The mana channels inside the core were so densely packed there was no way she was going to make new ones to bridge the gaps. That might throw off the inner workings completely. “Is there an erase function I’m not aware of?” She rubbed her neck. “Does having a skill at peak not necessarily mean it’s been mastered?”

That humbled her a little. She went back to the piles of damaged plates she’d scooped into the original boxes from her initial engraving training and picked one up that she’d at least managed to engrave something on. She closed her eyes and explored the material with her mind, sending her senses through it and her attention to where a particular line ended in the engraved steel. First she just tried thinking ‘erase’ and that did absolutely nothing. Next she tried to see if she could pinch the material back together but that only resulted in the damaged plate cracking in half with a small pop and snap.

She frowned, “No that’s not right, I can’t just make material out of nowhere. I need…” She turned to look at the rest of the scraps and in a rush of inspiration grabbed several of the steel plates and set them next to each other. She slapped her hands down on them and concentrated again, she’d never split her skill between multiple plates before and it was a bit jarring. What helped was that her main focus was the most complete of the group. She visualized using her skill like a soldering gun, burning the material from the broken pieces before carefully applying it to her target.

She felt one of the plates heat up beneath her fingers, trembling a bit. Instead of pulling back she doubled down. She knew she was right, this was how it was done. She scrunched up her face in concentration and felt the hot plate beneath her pinky begin to dissolve. Her mind traced down the failed line on the object of her work, she took slow, deliberate breaths as she kept her mind on the process, one millimeter at a time until finally she opened her eyes and looked down at her work. It was… bad. She could clearly see the melted metal filling the engraved line.

Even so, it worked.

Okay, so, I need to practice erasing lines now, once I do that I’ll move onto cores. I know what I gotta do to get it fixed. I’m so close. She clenched her fists and grinned, the heat in her veins spiking in triumph.

She spent the next two days working on erasing lines and repairing plates. It was far and beyond the most complicated application of the skill she’d found so far. Even worse, she got nothing out of it beyond a four to one ratio of broken materials to a fully repaired plate. Her skill had already hit peak and it wasn’t going anywhere. Yet she kept going, even breaking her tradition of swinging her mace around for a couple hours a day to get it down until she was confident she could even repair glass plates, the closest material to cores.

A day of rest came after that, Anna did nothing but lay there in bed and recover from the constant work. She’d pushed her mana tolerance pretty hard, nearly into the hundreds before she finally forced herself to stop. It was so easy to get carried away with all the progress she was making and had to focus on taking care of her body. She did manage to do a bit of light reading, though. There was apparently a core refinement skill but it had to be acquired under one’s own hard work and effort. Fortunately it was apparently something that was moderately well known as refined cores had a lot of uses beyond golem making so the process was spelled out in plain text.

That led Anna, finally, to the unrefined cores in the storage room the following day. She was confident as an engraver though she hadn’t worked on anything beyond the practice plates. Hell, she was excited to spend a little time on her gear and figure out how their enchantments worked when she had an opportunity. For now, she felt like she could at least take her first steps outside of the professions normal boundaries. She sat at her workstation with a single unrefined core in one hand and her other hand atop the essence vessel. 

“Okay,” She breathed, Concentrate on the essence within the vessel and open yourself up to it as if casting a spell. Easier said than done, but she was so used to the sensations by now that she managed to figure it out after a few minutes of trial and error. She felt a sliver of essence rise up out of the vessel and into her body. Direct the essence through your body and into the core, a small amount of mana is necessary to excite the core into refinement.

She moved it slowly, Do not add mana too early as it can cause a feedback reaction. Do not add too much mana, allow the essence to boil. She wasn’t sure what the book meant by boil until she allowed a tiny bit of mana into her body as the essence was nearing her arm. Suddenly it felt like the essence was speeding up, the cool smoothness starting grow excited and erratic. She gasped, frantically moving to put a bit more mana in as it raced towards the core.

BOOM!

Anna was thrown back off her chair as the core exploded in her hand, popping like a glass bubble and sending shards all over her body. She hit the ground with a thud, grunting in pain before rolling onto her side and clutching at her wrist. “Fuck that hurts! Ow!” She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut against the searing sensation in her skin. She opened watery eyes and checked her resources. Her mana tolerance had jumped five extra points and her health had dropped by fifteen from the injury.

She looked down at her mangled hand and sighed, “Another round of healing practice,” She mumbled to herself before sitting up and getting to work.

It took six more tries, six wasted practice cores, and six explosive failures, before she finally managed to get one of them to refine.

The result?

Blank Refined Core (Common-Grade)
This blank core has been refined by an engraver and charged with essence to awaken the energies within. It is now ready to be used as a catalyst in a variety of crafting professions.

New Skill Acquired!

Core Refinement (Uncommon-Base)
Using your skills as an engraver you are able to refine monster cores into a state that can be used for crafting. This process requires a small amount of mana and a ready source of essence.

She threw her fists into the air, “Fuck the hell yes!” It was a huge success. She finally had everything she needed to begin preparing to restore the Guardian Core and get back into the thick of it.