NOVEL NEXT Zanpakuto
Nick was honestly rather surprised at how little changed from his race getting upgraded. Besides a minor cosmetic adjustment to his daedric body alongside a couple new abilities that he technically could have done in some manner before hand there was nothing really different. 'Now that I think about it hollows and daedra were very similar to begin with so I suppose a small transformation was to be expected.' he thought before moving his attention onto mastering the new style himself. Hephaestus had a headstart in this regard but Nick knew he had an advantage since he had a great many tips and hints with his system given knowledge that she did not.-
The guy who made this style was unbelievably knowledgeable and had left a great deal of this knowledge in the inheritance that Nick has. While almost all of it could be applied to the crafting process so much seemed off topic that Nick couldn't explain it to Hephaestus properly without showing it. For example that one could create a more powerful personal Zanpakuto by adding a part of themselves during the forging process. While the Asauchi was the same either way the bond between the wielder and weapon was tighter and more intimate this way.-
Speaking of Asauchi Nick also knew that it was possible to have fully manifested Zanpakuto spirits without owners so long as they were provided the energy they needed to exist. Ironically there was even a side note about this in the style where the guy who created it bragged about being the closest anyone came to learning the secondary release state of Zanpakuto that was called bankai long before the first person actually reached that point. The reason it was ironic was because despite this the creator of the style never even considered that a second release was possible before it actually happened.-
Nick couldn't blame him since from what he knew of the creation and imprinting process of the Zanpakuto learning the name of the weapon gave it it's true form which should logically be it's final one as well but it was not. The creator himself even left a comment on this stating how even after thousands of years creating Zanpakuto he hadn't fully understood every aspect of them as occasionally someone would find a new detail that was previously unknown.-
A good example would be the case of introspection in which a soul reaper would become so in tune with their weapon spirit that the two entities would fuse into one. The result was an increase in power by more than several fold if done correctly. The creator of the style did note that there was a trend in these discoveries as the one who found them always got a large boost in power. He also noted that besides bankai he hadn't been able to achieve introspection due to his attachment to each Zanpakuto he created. He simply couldn't devote his all to a single weapon as a craftsman which was a thing Nick understood personally.-
To most craftsmen their creations were almost like their children in that they were all made with loving effort and hope. There were of course emotionless craftsmen as well that only used pure skill and logic in their crafting but you could always see it as the products lacked that special something that came from caring about what you were doing. There was a reason those craftsmen never reached the peak of the art however as they simply lacked the passion to go beyond what was already understood and thus never found the wonders that lay in the unknown.-
Nick spent the next few months working alongside Hephaestus when he wasn't busy running the city or assisting Dumbledore with something. The goddess was openly flirting with him for most of that and even wore rather revealing clothes at points to tease him. A good example was when she wore a red bikini one of the days that covered the important parts but left everything else visible. Nick didn't get much work done that day as he was rather distracted the whole time. There was a few things that had changed from Zeus's return however during this time.-
The first was that the god had carved out a third of the planet for his own and had started forcing the people there to do his bidding. It was rough as quite a few were killed for defiance immediately as subservience was not a trait many modern people had. "The new Olympus empire" they called that area of the world now and it was avoided heavily. Zeus had also apparently tried making up for lost time and had taken several women , willing or not , as members of his harem and news of several of their pregnancies reached Nick and Hephaestus.