Fabricator v2 - Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Junishiro sat in front of his crappy little forge surrounded by a half dozen full charcoal bags, discarded newspaper, and broken pieces of metal that he thinks are probably steel. After waking up, he'd spent the first half of the day using his 'Loot Compass' to find more stuff and buying bags of charcoal from different places. It was pretty cool that some regular grocery stores carried the stuff. He'd also scrounged up another five thousand yen, though most of it was already spent on the charcoal and some food. He also bought some metal skewers and some meat. He had charcoal, why not grill something while he was at it?

He got started by tearing up some of the newspaper and clumping it up in the cast iron pan he'd drilled holes through yesterday. Once he had a ton packed down to act as kindling, he dumped some charcoal on top of it. He picked up his cheap plastic lighter. Someone had thrown it away when it had just a tiny bit of fuel left. No way in hell would any place sell him a lighter. It took a few flicks of his thumb to get it to work and light the paper on fire.

While he waited a bit for the charcoal to get going, he arranged his tools. Those being his conjured hammer and the thick metal plate he'd dragged over to act as his anvil. It was a couple of millimeters thick and mostly flat. He was too scrawny to move anything else around so his idea of an engine block anvil was out. Resting on the 'anvil' was a decently long piece of rebar. He couldn't remember if rebar was just iron or steel, but in this case it didn't matter a whole lot. He planned to use the rebar to make a pair of tongs. Next to the anvil was a broken metal container filled with used engine oil that would be used for quenching stuff later on. Not the best, but it would do for now.

Once the coals in the force had caught, he grabbed the blow drier attached to the hose and channeled some mana into it. The sudden influx of extra air causes the coals to immediately get significantly hotter. Probably not as hot as actual coal would be, but enough for his purposes. He grabs the rebar with his other hand and sticks it right into the fire.

It takes him two hours, five full bags of charcoal, and all of his mana, twice, but he can't keep from smiling as he looks at the super crappy, mostly rusty, poorly shaped, but functional pair of tongs. It's the first thing he's ever made himself like this and he's pretty proud of himself for it. It was also strangely comforting and relaxing to be messing around with hot metal and a hammer. It felt... right and fulfilling. It was like he'd accomplished something significantly more impressive than what he'd actually done.

He sets the tongs down and grabs a smaller scrap of rebar to toss into the forge. He didn't have the tools to make a ring like he wanted, but he could make a bracelet... a wide bracelet. Wide enough to have enough space for him to carve the necessary runes into. The next item was going to be his notice-me-not bracelet. The effect would be pretty weak and definitely only work on regular humans. Anyone with even a small amount of mana would see through it with ease. It was also pretty flawed. If he did anything to stand out, even something as small as poking someone with a finger, he would be noticed. On the bright side, as long as he didn't directly interact with anyone, or do something too outrageous, he would be practically invisible.

Seriously, with the bracelet on and charged, he could walk into a grocery store, fill a cart with food, and walk out without paying. No one would say anything since nothing he would do would be too outrageous. However, he could definitely not do the same thing with a bank vault. People just walking into a vault would definitely raise way too many flags and break the effect. Still, it would let him get away with petty theft and that would be something very useful for him to have. That, and avoiding police officers trying to drag him off to school or an orphanage. Fuck that noise.

Once the piece of rebar is nice and hot, he plucks it out of the forge with his brand new tongs and starts hammering on it with his mana construct hammer. The hammer was kind of odd to use at first. It weighed very little since it was made from just mana, yet it struck with the same force as a solid steel hammer the same size would have. It made no logical sense! Something that light shouldn't hit that hard! But, that was just how magic was so he accepted it and got used to the light hammer doing good work.

Getting used to the oddness of the hammer was a good thing though, he needed it for what he wanted to do. To make his notice-me-not bracelet, he needed to turn the metal he was working with, be it iron or steel, into mana forged metal. To make it 'mana forged' he was required to channel mana through his hammer while pounding the metal. Each hit with the hammer would deposit some mana onto the surface layer of the metal. Once the whole surface was covered, he would then have to fold the metal and pound it together to 'weld' the mana in between the layers of metal. It was kind of like how the old sword smiths would fold their steel to spread out the impurities and strengthen the steel. Except he was spreading out mana.

With his mana being eaten by the blower for his forge and the mana forging, it would take him a fair amount of time to forge just the bracelet. There was an upside to all this work though.

First, he was definitely going to get physically stronger from all this manual labor. Once he got himself sorted out he would definitely be sneaking into a gym on a regular basis. He was thirteen, an excellent time to start working out and giving himself a good starting base for his strength. While not as much as his Essence of the Blank, his Essence of the Artificer would let him grow stronger than a normal human. How else was he supposed to work with the tougher materials? Even with a proper inscribing tool, carving into stuff like dragon scales was going to be hard as hell! According to his knowledge those scales should be harder than diamonds! At least on the older and stronger dragons.

Second, it was working out his mana core. Draining his mana to low levels and letting it refill was the tried and true method of getting magically stronger. Just like with a muscle, 'flexing' his core by draining it was a good workout for it and it came back a little stronger every time. Granted it was a teeny tiny increase. Seriously, with all the times he's drained it so far he'd estimate his core had only grown by two to three percent. Still, if he kept at it, he would gain more over time. Especially once he started to directly infuse items with magical effects.

Third, he was practicing his... profession? Might as well be. He was practicing his Artificing and learning how to do the things inside of his head as he went. Being apprentice level meant almost exclusively had book knowledge. Being an Artificer required mountains of knowledge before you could even get to making your first magical item. Rune items didn't count because any jackass with an inscribing tool and a book to copy from could do the lowest tiers of rune work. No, as an apprentice level Artificer he just had a ton of knowledge and lacked practical experience. Hammering out his notice-me-not bracelet was similar to what any master might have had him do to make his first item and become an official apprentice.

Junichiro looked over the hammered out piece of rebar and smiles to himself. It actually feels really nice to be doing this. Sure he's a hot, sweaty, sticky, and tired mess already, but it feels worth it. He quickly sticks the metal back in his forge, adds more charcoal, and powers on the hair drier turned blower with his mana. Granted, things might have been easier if he was granted a Sacred Gear, but he was thinking about how to take care of that. If his guess was right, given the date, he has a few years before the story events began.

There was nothing he couldn't accomplish in a few years. His first major goal? Steal Ddraig from Issei. Even if he couldn't come up with a way to create a Sacred Gear extractor himself, there was at least one other method. It'd be exceedingly easy for him to make the four fallen angels in Kuoh into his bitches and have them rip out Issei's Sacred Gear and give it to him.

He honestly didn't care if Issei lived or died. He might have been entertained by Issei's antics when the guy was just an anime character, but in this reality? Nah man, Issei was a complete and total stranger he had zero connections to. Issei's life, or death, meant nothing to him just like the tens of thousands of people dying every minute meant nothing to him.

Getting his hands on Boosted Gear would be nice, but his next goal was finding a way to scan Kiba and get a copy of Sword Birth. Boosted Gear was phenomenal for unbridled power, but he wanted a primary Sacred Gear with flexibility. Elemental Swords? For sure! Kiba made a sword that could absorb elements, Junichiro couldn't help imagining what a suit of armor made of elemental absorption swords would be like. Could he make swords that could absorb and release kinetic energy? What about swords with conceptual abilities?

Then he couldn't help wondering what would happen if he applied his Artificer knowledge to the swords he created. Could he conjure swords with fully completed and perfectly rendered rune sets to enhance them? What about the materials the swords were made of? Surely they weren't all simply made of steel. Could he conjure mana forged rune equipped enchanted swords? Just the thought of possibly being able to do something like that made him giddy!

Of course, he also wondered about the shapes of the swords. Could he make rings shaped like swords? Braclets shaped like swords? Other assorted jewelry and items? A swords shape was pretty distinct so as long as it could be recognized as a sword, did it count for Sword Birth to make it?

There was just so much possibility with Sword Birth that it seemed like the perfect Sacred Gear for himself. Of course, that meant he needed to learn how to actually use a sword, but that was a minor issue. There were plenty of dojo's he could sign up at and take classes to get the basics. Then, once he took the Essence of the Blank he would have limitless potential to grow stronger. There were plans he would need to make for that too.

Junichiro let out a contented sigh and relaxed, “So many projects. So many ideas.” He glanced at his makeshift forge and frowned, 'I'm going to need to get creative if I want better tools and materials to work with. Steel from this junkyard will work for a while, but I'll eventually need more expensive materials like gold, silver, and gemstones. Not to forget about the other shit I can make. Maybe I should hunt down a meth lab somewhere? They'd have all the chemistry crap I need for Alchemy to make some potions.'

Unfortunately, it wasn't like he could just walk down the street and find a meth lab. If a lab like that even existed in all of Japan, it was likely either in the hands of the Yakuza, or someone supernatural. Most likely the latter as many Yakuza families despised such drugs. Not all of them, of course, but a fair few. Say whatever you want about the murderous psychopaths, they had someform of honor.

He'd just improvise, like he had thus far.

The rebar was pulled from the coals and carefully hammered to fold it in half. He didn't have any flux powder to help with the forge welding, but that was alright. The layer of mana hammered into the metal would help it fuse with fewer issues. If he had more mana to pound into it he could make it fuse perfectly, but he had to be conservative with what mana he had. It was a risk, but if he focused more mana into the metal, he'd run out too quickly and it would take several days to finish the bracelet.

Junichiro continues the process of heating the metal, hammering mana into it, and folding it. During one of the breaks he's forced to take to wait for his mana to regenerate, he heads into town to pick up some dinner and take a quick bathroom bath using the bathroom in the local park.

It's not until the sun is setting that he finishes the bracelet. It's just a crude C shape covered in forge scale and hammer marks. Calling it 'jewelry' would be generous. But none of that matters, it's finally finished and ready for him to inscribe runes into it. Sadly, he has to wait until tomorrow to begin that work. With the sun going down he's losing the light and he refuses to use any other lighting. The risk of someone seeing light where it shouldn't be and calling the authorities on him was too great to take. Besides, he wouldn't even be able to use it until tomorrow anyway so he was in no rush to finish it right that second.

Juncihiro made sure to take care of everything and that all the safety measures he needed to take were dealt with. The last thing he needed is to somehow start a fire. He also needed to remember to check on the forge tomorrow when it was cool. Just to make sure it wasn't going to melt down on him too soon. The forge would fail sooner or later, regardless of the rune work. Best to keep a close eye on it so it didn't happen in the middle of his work. That would be bad.

-----Line Break-----

“It's glorious!”

Junichiro held his completed notice-me-not bracelet up in the air where early morning sunlight shone on it. It was far too tarnished to reflect anything. He'd gotten straight to carving the runes into the bracelet after waking up this morning. Breaking his own rules and not immediately going for breakfast. But it was fine, with this bracelet he was officially invincible!

…

To mundane people... As long as he had mana... And didn't do anything to draw attention to himself...

Whatever, it was a good first step and with it he could make some more progress and get things taken care of. His biggest hurdle... funding. He'd have to spend some time thinking about how to deal with that. He could scrounge as much as he wanted but there was no way that he could afford high quality materials even if he scrounged up every last dropped yen.

Thoughts for later.

He slipped the bracelet onto his wrist and channeled a small amount of mana into it, enough to last a couple of hours easily. The notice-me-not didn't take a ton of power, as long as it wasn't stressed by his actions. He immediately noticed the effect when he walked down the street. He could see how peoples eyes just sort of slid over him. Their unconscious mind did register his presence, but the magic of the bracelet kept their conscious mind from paying any attention to him. It. Was. GLORIOUS!

He practically had a skip in his step as he made his way towards his favorite breakfast stand. Getting the same thing so often wasn't something he would normally do, but he wanted to celebrate! He quickly arrived at the stand and smiled brightly as he slipped off his bracelet.

“Oh! I didn't notice you there young man. Back so soon?”

Junichiro grinned and nodded, “Yes, sir. My mom has been having these weird cravings lately and making me and dad fetch things for her. I guess she just really wants your food in the mornings.”

Junichiro shrugged in a 'what-can-you-do' manner while the vendor had a sly smile, “I see, so two orders again?”

Junichiro pulled out three thousand yen, “Mom said three, dad's eating with us this morning. I think mom is a bit mad at him for some reason.”

The vendor chuckled and was already at work for the order. It wasn't long before it was all packed and passed over to Junichiro, “Run off now and tell your mom 'congratulations' from me, alright?”

Junichiro gave the vendor a little clueless smile and nodded, “Sure thing!”

He barely managed to hold in his giggles until he was out of sight. He loved that excuse! Tell anyperson in the service industry that you were the gopher for a pregnant woman and they'd do a lot to help and wouldn't argue about anything weird you were buying. Especially not weird or unhealthy food as a kid.

Once he started eating, after slipping his bracelet back on, he pondered which stores he should try to hit for supplies before heading home. He definitely needed to make that amulet to help hide his mana before it got too much bigger. He munched on his breakfast while keeping an eye out for any hardware stores. Maybe he'd ask directions later. Might need to even take the train to find a place. Ah well, something to do after breakfast! He was definitely looking forward to the work though!