Chapter 54 (Patreon)

With the interference of the corrupt military squad dealt with, Jiran was able to exchange the remaining fourteen Tier four cadavers at the gate. He also claimed the reward for clearing the lair. In total, they walked away two hundred and seventy gold wealthier after the hard day’s work.

Jiran confirmed the coin count using his mana body and then immediately handed the hefty sack to Mayalyn.

Seeing her confused face, he explained what should have been obvious.

“You need your own money. Besides you’re the one who killed them all. You’ve earned this through your own actions, Mayalyn.”

She clearly couldn't understand what was said, but Jiran was confident she understood enough of his intentions. Her confusion cleared and was replaced by a bright and beautiful smile.

They maintained eye contact for a few seconds longer than normal. Both enjoyed their own particular mix of emotions. Mayalyn felt overwhelming gratitude and comfort born from his support and strength. While Jiran experienced profound pride in being able to empower such an amazing individual.

Their moment was interrupted as a groundshake shook the surrounding area. At least that’s what it sounded like, as Mayalyn’s stomach erupted in protest at the lack of food after such an arduous day.

Her face flipped from a happy smile to shocked embarrassment. Jiran laughed good-naturedly and led her down the main street toward the smells of freshly cooked meat. He didn’t stop Mayalyn as she jumped in front of him and paid for their very late breakfast.

“Do you want to go shopping again?” Jiran asked while pointing at the hole in her sleeve.

“Yes, shopping!” Came her exuberant reply.

Not thrilled with the idea of another shopping excursion so soon, Jiran sighed and followed along as she led him back to the same district from the previous day.

He was surprised when her first stop was not the boutique but instead a nearby smithy supply store. Inside, they found a large number of fine tools specifically for crafting.

While he was examining a set of bone shears, Mayalyn had found a pack from somewhere and was stuffing it full of one expensive-looking item after another. When she was satisfied, she took the hefty sack to the proprietor.

The man was all tough, leathery skin, and enough metal piercings to appear like a walking suit of armor. He eyed her suspiciously as she took out each item and placed it in front of him.

Jiran was shocked as the two immediately began to bicker over the prices. Seeing an adorable girl yelling at a hardened old merchant wasn’t completely out of the ordinary.

But Jiran knew she probably didn’t understand a single word he was saying, and she was just as incomprehensible with her thick lilting accent. Yet they continued the back and forth as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

I guess bartering really is its own language.

Entertained, he decided to watch the drama play out, it was obvious at a glance that she didn't need his help at all.

After multiple rounds of back and forth, they settled on a price. Mayalyn reluctantly placed half the items she had picked out back on the shelves and handed over almost all of her money.

Jiran watched as she peeked inside the nearly empty coin pouch with a grimace. A determined glint in her eyes quickly replaced her melancholy though. When she picked up the heavy sack of delicate metal tools and walked toward Jiran, she smiled confidently.

Mayalyn didn’t even glance at the fancy clothing boutique from yesterday as she headed out of the shopping district and back toward the inn. They passed the inn as well and ended up at Krikk’s shop where her steadfast march finally came to an end.

In the basement, she pulled out each tool and found a suitable location for them one by one. Jiran counted nine in total. He could tell from a glance what some of them did, but others were a complete mystery.

His attention was riveted to the new barrels full of ores stacked along the wall. He focused his aura’s senses on each individual chunk, gauging the quality and quantity of the metals trapped within.

Giddy with excitement, Jiran dove into creating more material for his experiments. His first priority was reducing the mana drain of creating the hexagonal super-materials.

Several new ideas for improving the process had been percolating in his brain since the first success. He tested them one at a time, rapidly burning through his mana.

The largest increase in mana efficiency came from reducing the size of each grain of metal dust. He compressed the grains between two perfectly flat layers of pressure. Then rubbed those layers against each other to grind down each grain to a much smaller size.

By the time he was done, the dust was so fine he could barely see it.

The next biggest contributor to mana efficiency was having a clean environment. By pulsing his aura across the floor, walls, and ceiling, he dislodged every excess particle of dust and swept them into the forge and up through the chimney.

Jiran was interrupted from further reducing the contaminants in the room by Mayalyn. She stood next to the forge and anvil, eagerly shifting her weight between her feet while watching him.

“Help me with now, latest I help yous.”

“Help me with this, then I will help you,” Jiran corrected.

She nodded impatiently, clearly more interested in making something than working on her Imperial.

She’s improving so quickly, it’s only been a few days since she couldn't say a single word. This girl is freaky smart.

When Jiran approached, she handed him two chunks of ore while she held an empty bowl.

"Make hot fire."

He tossed the ores into the furnace and caught them in his aura. With a gradual increase of mana, he forced the temperature inside to grow even hotter, until the ores turned into a soupy liquid.

"Need breath, more flow."

Jiran opened two holes for air to flow through his aura, resulting in flames flickering across the metal as the impurities were burned away.

"Add this," she said while handing him a small bowl of black and brown flakes.

"Too hot, now cool, add more."

He continued following her instructions as she guided him through multiple rounds of heating, cooling, adding, and flushing.

Several minutes later, a bright red liquid metal hung suspended in the air.

Mayalyn took out a pair of red-scaled gloves, a small scoop, and a round file.

"I shape, you held, understand?"

Jiran nodded and adjusted his aura so she could easily move through it to reach the blistering hot metal.

With the gloves protecting her hands, she skillfully manipulated the thick liquid. Jiran did his best to manipulate his aura to copy her movements.

They ended up having to go back over each part of her creation several times until she was satisfied. Jiran was glad she didn't lose patience with his bumbling attempts to match her smooth and steady motions.

In my defense, if I'd known she wanted to make a scalpel from the start it would have gone a lot smoother. Next time I'll have her draw out what she wants in advance.

When the small scalpel with a solid connected handle was nearly cooled, she snatched it from the air and ran her rounded file over its blade. Jiran watched as the edge of the blade grew sharper with each passing of the file.

Once it was as sharp as she could make it, she began scraping lines and symbols all down its length.

By the time she was done, a work of art rested in her palm. Jiran was flabbergasted at the quality. He had not seen anything so intricate or pristine outside of his memories of Earth.

That looks like it was tooled by an advanced machine, not the delicate hands of a pretty teenage girl.

She handed it to him then walked over to his side of the room where she pointed at one of his freshly created layers of material.

"You make this hug, um, top. No. How to say sopralatha?"

"You want me to cover this blade in a layer of graphene?"

Holy crap that's genius!

"Mayalyn you're brilliant!" Jiran yelled while jumping past her and kneeling in front of his newest materials.

Jiran was so absorbed in how he could implement her idea, he barely registered her question.

"What brilliant?"

"Smart, intelligent, genius," he couldn't remember her using similar words so he pointed to his head and then gave her a thumbs up.

“Good thinking, good head, smart.”

He explained himself distractedly, not thinking much of his words but her reaction jolted him out of his train of thought like a wagon driven off a cliff.

Mayalyn was crying and furiously rubbing at her cheeks. He would have thought he hurt her feelings but the huge smile plastered on her face contradicted that idea.

Fat tears continued to fall and her legs eventually dropped out from underneath her. She sat on the floor for several minutes as her emotions ran away from her.

“Thank you,” She finally squeezed out the words between sobs.

“No ever call smart, always stupid Maymay, foolish Maymya. Thank you, Jiran.”

A powerful spike of empathy assaulted him as her words sank in. He moved to sit beside her on the floor and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

With the support of a comforting touch, repressed emotions of home and family flooded out of her weakened defensive walls. Her tears returned stronger than ever and great heaving sobs shook her small body. All the while Jiran gently rocked her side to side.

Eventually, she regained control of herself and stood up. She moved to her side of the room and began drawing something on the desk.

Understanding she needed some space, Jiran went back to his own project. His excitement quickly returned as he remembered what he had been about to do.

Using parchment, he outlined a perfect replica of the scalpel, minus the blade, and filled it with his new grains of ultra-fine, ultra-pure dust.

With the greatly reduced mana cost, he was able to easily make twenty layers that perfectly wrapped around the entire scalpel. Each coating of material was chemically bonded to the layers above it, rather than being drilled through as he had done with his dagger.

Finally, he made the layers for the blade. He tapered the material as well as possible so the finest point of the blade only had a single, atom-thick sheet. Less than a millimeter of distance up the blade were two layers, then four, until the halfway point was the full twenty layers thick.

“Mayalyn, it’s done. Do you want to test it?”

She timidly approached him with eyes downcast until she saw the dull sheen coating her creation. Whatever she had been thinking or worried about flew from her mind as she grasped the tool.

Eyes shining with excitement, she tested the blade on a piece of parchment. It slid through the thin material as if it wasn't there.

She picked up that cut piece and turned it sideways. The parchment was only about one and a half millimeters thick yet the scalpel sliced the paper clean in two without the slightest resistance.

She then used the blade on several solid metal ingots, it sliced through those with only minimal effort as well.

Jiran had stopped watching her as she moved on to testing the blade's resilience by beating it with a small hammer.

Jiran was fully focused on the plans for his next creation. Something that would allow Mayalyn to fight beasts two tiers above her.

If she ever wanted to walk through the empire without hiding, she would need to be far more powerful than she was now. She would need the red density.

However, that could only be collected by killing a foe two tiers above you without help.

It was time to make a weapon the likes of which neither of his worlds had ever seen.