Wish upon the Stars chapter 1116 (Patreon)

The first thing they had me do when we reached the forge was strip. I was wearing boxers, obviously, but it still wasn’t a pleasant feeling being almost literally naked on an actual battlefront. At the very least, I wasn’t cold or anything, because the heat from the forge was perfectly suitable for keeping me warm.

“Alright, so, you have seventy two materials here,” I said slowly. “But how are these supposed to represent my demons exactly? I assume that’s the goal. But you don’t have a list of my demons and their abilities, so how were you able to choose materials to represent them?”

He walked over and opened a box. “I didn’t,” he clarified. “I got a few stable elements based on the obvious demons you’ve shown in public, but for the most part, these are unstable mutagenic reflectors.” At my uncomprehending silence, he sighed. “It means they’re reactive elements that reconfigure themselves to reflect the energetic properties of whatever they’re exposed to.”

I blinked. “Oh. That explains how you got so many of them with only a thousand points. I take it the actual materials would have been more expensive?”

“Depends on the material,” he shrugged. “But for the most part. I trust you remember how this process goes?” His voice was sly and amused, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. He didn’t have to enjoy the impending pain so much. 

“I do, but I’m not sure that we should do this here,” I looked around, measuring the space mentally as I tried to figure out the best way to do this. “If I can bring this forge into my Domain, would you be able to do the crafting in there? I’m just getting this feeling that it would work better that way.”

He blinked. “I…well yes, that would probably work perfectly. Assuming your Domain can withstand such a crafting at B-rank.”

“Don’t worry about that,” I told him with a chuckle. “My Domain is sturdy as hell.”

Zeke nodded. “He’s right. It’ll hold. He’s not supporting it alone. And forging a Domain Anchor inside the Domain itself will strengthen the connection. Projecting it isn’t a problem, but he’s been running into problems with secondary manifestation. Trying to incarnate more than a few of those demons causes undue strain. Not to mention the reactive materials require reactions. Channeling them one by one is inefficient, if we bring him inside to work he can have the demons react with their materials internally.”

“I take it you’re a prop based crafter?” Donovan asked with interest.

Zeke waggled a hand, “I can do a fair bit with hand tools. But at higher levels, ritual is just more convenient, especially for larger projects.” At my curious head tilt he explained. “At a certain level of proficiency, different crafting disciplines tend to bleed together. I’ve mentioned this to you before. My Voltomancy includes several subdisciplines, and one of those is formations. Working with souls is tricky and dangerous, and formation crafting is all about precision and setup. It minimizes risk.”

“I’m guessing this is recent?” I asked curiously. “I remember you working on masks by hand when I was a kid.”

“A-rank was when I started making changes,” he acknowledged. “Mythic crafting skills are…complicated. Regardless, I think I can help improve this suit of armor. And more than that, I’m planning to create a new mask for you to complement and stabilize it.”

I blinked at that. “Really? I thought this one would continue to upgrade as I did? You built it sealed right?”

“You haven’t noticed yet?” he chuckled. “I guess I should be glad you don’t get hit in the face much. I made that mask at B-rank, the same rank you’re at now. It’s long since reached the limitations of its growth. I never expected you to improve at such a staggering pace. Even for an Ascendant it’s unbelievable.”

I felt a rush of pride at that. It felt good to be acknowledged by someone as impressive as Zeke. “Alright, well then I’ll bring this all inside. Give me a minute to get this setup.”

Closing my eyes, I reached out for the forge and all the tools in the room and pulled them with me and the two crafters into Gehenna. We appeared in the throne room, in an empty space in the center, and I glanced around at my court as they watched from their places surrounding us, all clearly excited by the visitors.

Donovan looked around with interest. “Fascinating,” he said slowly. “This place feels far more solid than it should. I’ve been in plenty of Domains, though I haven’t condensed my own yet. This doesn’t feel like the Domain of a B-ranker.”

“He cheats,” Zeke shrugged. “First of all, he formed the damned thing at C-rank, which means his B-rank Impact reinforced it when he ranked up. He also did something else I can’t put my finger on. It’s new. Besides, he has a soul weapon that helps prop the place up, that’s it over there.” He gestured toward the tree manifestation of my staff.

Donovan stared at it for a moment. “Some kind of hybrid reincarnation tree? Those are rare as hens teeth. The more time I spend around you the less sense you make, boy. I’m even more convinced you need an anchor for this now.”

“It’ll stabilize it exponentially better than the current setup, even after the tree ranks up,” Zeke agreed excitedly. “Three points of stability will be more solid. I can’t wait to see what you’re capable of after both upgrades. Now, this armor is your creation, so why don’t you take the lead. My mask crafting needs to be interwoven through your process, which means I’ll need to piggyback on your session.”

“Understood,” Donovan said pensively. “In that case, line up the most powerful of the demons and have the rest set out the boxes of material at these points,” he scribbled down a quick diagram and passed it to me, and I immediately passed it on to Dom.

The lesser demons started to spread out, carrying the boxes to specific places. Meanwhile, Donovan took out his blue leek and began smacking demons one by one, feeling out their energy as he had done to me all those months ago when he made the seal.

He got through them relatively fast, and as he finished checking each one he sent them to a specific box. Apparently the adaptive materials worked best for specific constitutions, because he was very exacting in their placement. Once that was done, he approached me and smacked me several times with the leek. I was pretty sure he didn’t need to do it so much but, I wasn’t going to complain if it got me a new set of gear.

As he was working, I saw Zeke kneel down and take out a bag I’d seen before. It was the black canvas bag he kept his masks in. He started digging around inside, pulling out bottles and pieces of wood and metal and glass. Finally, he stood up and walked briskly to a few of the boxes, setting thirteen materials on top of the thirteen boxes near the most powerful demons. When he was done, he nodded at Donovan, who walked over to the forge in the middle of the room and began to stoke it. He added my armor into it as he worked, piece by piece, and I couldn’t see what happened to it as he did.

It took about fifteen minutes to bring it to temperature, though I wasn’t sure if that was because it was a great forge or because of Donovan himself. Once it began, he walked over to the nearest demon, placed his hand on top of the box…and then stabbed him through the hand.

The demon, namely Dantalion, hissed as the knife punched through his palm and into the box. Donovan withdrew the knife, carried the box over to the forge, and then threw the whole thing inside. He tossed the knife to Dan. “Take this around the room and stab each of them the same way I stabbed you. Then have them step back.”

Dan looked at me, and I nodded, so he hastened to obey. As he did, the forge flared ominously, black smoke billowing from the mouth of it. Donovan turned and tapped his leek on the side of it and then began conducting with it like he was directing an orchestra. As he moved, the black smoke swirled and funneled down, condensing into an image of me. As I watched, black metal flowed out of the forge to begin to cover the smoky figure. 

Donovan tapped again, and a line of smoke shot out of the figure, spearing into the bloody hole in the top of the nearest box. The smoke glowed orange as a blaze of heat poured down it, and another stream of smoke shot out. One by one, they connected, until seventy one streams of smoke connected every box in the room. Donovan swung the leek at the smoke, and with a blaze of blue electricity it was gone, replaced by that same long handled ballpeen hammer. He hauled back and struck the figure. Once. Twice. Three times. On the third strike the first box exploded, and a cloud of molten metal flowed down the smoke tendril to join the stuff beginning to coat the figure.

Before it could go much further, I heard Zeke begin to mutter. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the light in the room flickered. Shadows danced and spun along the walls as all thirteen mask ingredients caught fire at the same time, the light from them exploding towards the head of the smoke mannequin.

Donovan sped up, striking faster, and the room became a blur of shadows and flames and smoke as the two crafters intertwined their process, blending and melding the ritual crafting to create something more than the sum of its parts.

My demons had fallen to their knees, faces pale, not from the stabbing but from whatever the materials had absorbed from them through the blood connection. Whatever it was, it wasn’t something easily shrugged off.

Finally, after what felt like an hour, Donovan whirled his hammer one last time and smashed it into the back of the smoke figure. It exploded forward into a cloud of rushing smoke. The smoke consumed me, covering my body and face, wrapping me in a suffocating cocoon of stifling heat, and then, as quickly as it had started, it was over. I was fine. I couldn’t even feel the mask on my face, though I could see the new armor adorning my body.

I triggered Double Trouble, turning to face the illusory copy of me, and froze. I looked…terrifying. A midnight black suit of intricately articulated plate armor gleamed across my body, traceries of gold, silver, and bronze worked through the plates in complicated traceries that reminded me of a cross between enchanting symbols and circuitry. Flickers of the various powers of my demons danced through the shining filigree like sparks over exposed wire, there one moment and gone the next.

The mask was a shining porcelain facial construct with no eyes or mouth, inscribed with almost microscopic black symbols that had been filled in with some kind of black resin. The designs were more artistic than magical from what I could tell (which wasn’t much), but they looked fierce.

“It’s done,” my uncle said tiredly as he walked up to clap a hand on my shoulder. “Now we just need to see how it works. But before we put it through its paces, I think we should shore up the third leg of this tripod. I think it’s time that we contact your Master of Challenge and ask her about the progress of that wine.” I stared at my image for a few more seconds and then nodded. I couldn’t wait to see exactly what my staff was going to become after its rank up. Only one more piece of the puzzle and then I would be ready. I couldn’t wait to take that entrance trial. I would be ready for anything.