Upgrades Chapter 82 (Patreon)

The Thousand Sunny quickly sailed out into the clear beautiful waters of Melen with our ship passing by the fishing vessels that were fishing in the safe zone of Lake Melen.

"Woah... It feels so funny with the ground rocking beneath my feet hehe." Materia giggled happily as she held onto the barrister with all but literal stars in her bright blue eyes.

I gave a slight chuckle as I responded easily. "Be glad you aren't the type to get seasick... As the waters of Lake Melen can be a bit rough at times due to all the water coming out of the Dungeon." 

And wasn't that something awful to learn. Sometimes when the dumbasses back in Orario couldn't or didn't bother to deal with the Amphisbaena boss monster, the extra one that would spawn over time would be forced into the large underwater tunnel leading to Melen with a horde of monsters following behind the Amphisbaena.

A slight hum rang out as Eris gingerly walked over to the edge and I saw her hand hold the barrier firmly and I realized something.

'Even if she has that weird magical echolocation... I bet to her, all she sees right now, is a yawning void below us filled with specs of light that are monsters that are swimming through the void beneath our feet.' I thought with a shudder at the imaginary image it brought up.

"So what kind of magical items do you have to play with?" Materia asked curiously as she looked back over to me.

I brushed a hand across my face as I spoke. "Well Magical Item creation can be a bit... Weird, when you go to make something, sometimes the items come out weird unless you have an extremely firm desire of what you want to come out of the process of making a magical item."

Lo and behold... I took out one such example of such a magical item. "For example, I sometimes like to use a spear for its longer reach and other reasons. So I decided to use several lizards and snake joints to make a spear that could extend itself forward."

Materia made a loud 'Oooh' noise of glee as she looked at the red flesh and bone-like spear shaft in my hand as I wore a wry expression. "Unfortunatly... The extension aspect of the magic will only work if I massage the magic and muscles that make up the spear."

Eris choked with her coughing as she realized what I meant. "You have to... Stroke the spear to make it grow."

I gave her an utterly devastated look as I nodded sadly. 

So I threw that piece of junk back into my inventory and coughed before I continued as Materia had the cutest of blushes enter her face as she finally got what Eris meant.

"Anyway, magical item creation... Can be a little weird at times, like I also made a whip that increases the magical regeneration of whoever is struck with it by a factor of how much damage the whip did." 

I shook my head as I forcibly moved my mind away from my 'failures' "Alright! Hmm, how about you play along with this?" I spoke as I took out the magical repeating crossbow I took inspiration from the Van Helsing movie to make.

"It's a magical crossbow, you can set it to shoot singular more powerful arrows, or with a flick of a switch it will shoot the arrows in a stream even if the arrows are weaker." I tilted my head to the side and continued.

"It also uses the user's magical energy to form the arrows within, so it's a good way to train your magic stat if you don't have your own magic spell." 

Eris strode over and inspected the crossbow without taking it from me and after a moment. She raised an eyebrow and asked. "Was this particularly difficult to make Jake?" 

I thought back and shook my head as all it took was the base materials the empty magic stones that would give it the magical absorption ability while I had to keep in mind the idea of the crossbow in question.

Though... It's upgrade quests as a magical item weren't exactly going to be anything Materia or anything could trigger so I wasn't worried about her or others getting them.

"Hmm. Having a dozen of these would be great for the Hera supporter adventurers who ride with us into the deep floors of the dungeon." Eris mused and I blinked as I didn't really think that far.

As I was just thinking that trying to find arrows in the Lake of Melen was just going to be a bitch so I made the magical crossbow.

"Materia, go ahead and use it." Eris spoke Materia bounced over while the 'blind' woman looked over the edge of the ship and said. "We already have some company scrambling to get onto the ship anyway."

I nodded and then went over to the controls of the ship and with a flip of a switch the large plates on the ship slid down to slap the water with a loud crashing noise.

Which would allow the monsters to climb onto the plates and out of the water.

"Uhm Jake, can you show me how to hold and us this?" Materia asked as I came back over and was about to hand over the large crossbow over.

And I froze as I realized that Materia had literally zero idea how to handle gun-shaped weapons. Hell, the whole idea wasn't really a thing here in this world so I carefully handed over the automatic crossbow and helped her hold it correctly.

"You need to hold it by the handle on the bottom near the end of the barrel, and make sure to brace it against your shoulders... Here let me help." I spoke as I came up behind Materia and with her soft form pressing into my chest, I wrapped my arms around her.

My hands gently moving hers into the correct position, I carefully lifted and angled the crossbow so she could properly look down its sight, and as I put my hands on her waist, and spoke softly. "Gotta stand up straight, don't lean forward Materia.

I felt her shiver with her leaning back against me as I heard Eris snorting behind me making me smile wryly as I realized this was probably a bit much so I gracefully pulled back and saw on the edge of Materia's face was a pout as I stepped around her to point at the turtle monster that had clambered up onto the ship.

"There Materia, go ahead and try to hit the turtle with the singular more powerful arrows."