Seeds of Discordia

Liam stared at Uncle Naro and the weapons that were beside him. While they each looked well-crafted and the designs were amazing, he wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by going over techniques. It was one thing with the meat cleaver like weapons, but the War Axe and Hammer? He knew he didn’t have the stats to properly wield those yet.

“As much as I appreciate learning new techniques, I don’t think I’d be able to swing the War Hammer or War Axe properly,” Liam stated.

Uncle Naro let out a loud laugh. “You’re right about that, but you won’t be swinging these types of weapons.”

Liam’s brows creased as he stared at Uncle Naro. “What do you mean? Then why did you bring them out?”

“Because these weapons fit me perfectly,” Uncle Naro stated as he gripped the handle of the War Axe and War Hammer.

Sure enough, both weapons looked like a normal hammer and axe in his hands. Compared to Liam’s hands these weapons were perfectly suited for him. That was when Liam understood what Uncle Naro meant. He looked back at Uncle Naro and said, “I don’t have any weapon skills in any of these weapons nor do I have my own.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Uncle Naro stated. “While you have a cleaver for cooking, I don’t want you using that for fighting since its bad form to use a weapon to cook with. Also it isn’t suitable for fighting. I have some Crude Quality ones I picked up for you to practice with. The same for a Battle Hammer and a Battle Axe more appropriate for your size. Don’t want you using a dagger or a sword in place of an axe.”

Still confused, Liam asked, “Thank you, but can I ask why do I have to use those three weapons in particular? My daggers and my sword have been working fine when trying to cleave through enemies and I didn’t have any issues with my sword when I chopped through a tree during a fight once.”

Uncle Naro let out a sigh as he listened to Liam. “As great as that is, you must understand something,” Uncle Naro started, his tone changed to a teacher-like one that didn’t want to burst a students bubble over something they were proud of. “You are a Crafter. As great as it is that you’re able to do that with those weapons, they aren’t the right tools for the job.”

“The right tools for the job?” Liam questioned.

“Yes,” Uncle Naro said. “Tell me, would you try to smith a weapon with a sword?”

“No,” Liam frowned. “For starters, the sword wouldn’t help you mold the ingot. It might help thin it out, but then you’d also ruin your sword that way.”

Uncle Naro nodded. “Would you use a hammer to chop a tree?”

“No. I mean, if you swing hard enough you could knock the tree over, but the resource would be in bad shape,” Liam answered.

“Exactly,” Uncle Naro replied. “Are you seeing what I am saying?”

Liam thought about it. he was right. There was always a right tool for the right job, but they weren’t talking about crafting, they were talking about battle…After he thought that Uncle Naro’s words from earlier replayed in his mind. You are a Crafter.

Crafter’s weren’t exactly fighters in the sense everyone understood a fighter was. No they were creators, gathers, and sometimes they were destroyers. While their abilities were meant for that, Liam had a short time to learn ways they could be used in fights. Just like abilities were great for certain situations, the tools meant for those abilities and skills were the same. They were meant to be used in those specific kind of situations when needing to use those abilities.

Uncle Naro saw the look of understanding starting to grow in Liam’s eyes. To help further hit his point home with the younger man he asked, “Tell me, when you used Cleave with your daggers or sword, were their times it didn’t work, or you felt a lot of resistance?”

 Liam’s eyes widened as he recounted the times he did experience that. He didn’t quite understand it during those times. He had written them off as if his abilities wasn’t high enough to get the clean cuts, but now that he was talking to Uncle Naro he started to believe it that maybe there was something else causing the issue.

“That look tells me that you have,” Uncle Naro started back up. “That is because of two reasons. One is, what you probably already thought, the level of your Cleave skill. The other is the tool used when applying the skill. Sure you can use a dagger or a sword to cleave through something, but if you use a Cleaver weapon then you’ll have an easier time. Make sense?”

Liam nodded. “It does…” After he said that he had a thought suddenly appear. “If that is the case then am I supposed to learn how to switch from weapon to weapon and know when the best time to do it quickly during battle?”

Uncle Naro smile widely. “Yes. Now you might be wondering how you would be able to do that since it would require you to take time to open your inventory, place your weapon or weapons on hand then pull it out. However, there is a way to by pass all of that. Another benefit of being a Crafter.”

Liam’s eyes grew with interest as he asked, “What is it?”

“It is called a Crafter’s Tool Belt,” Uncle Naro stated. “It’s something that I made and not many know about.”

Liam’s brows scrunched. “If that’s the case then how would I be able to make one?”

Uncle Naro chuckled. “I will show you one of these days, however, that will involve you getting leatherworking and leveling that up along with your Tailoring. For now I you can use the one I will make you.”

Liam’s eyes brightened at that.

“However, you will only get it after you get the Weapon Skills, Axe, Cleaver, and Hammer to level ten each,” Uncle Naro informed.

Liam again grew confused. “About that, I was wondering…I use those types as tool for crafting…why don’t they level when I use them during crafting?”

“That’s because you are still a beginner. Once you have reached the intermediate ranks in both crafting and Weapon Skill of the weapon associated with the craft then you will be able to level them up that way,” Uncle Naro answered.

“Why though?” Liam asked. “That sounds like a waste of time. Do all crafters do that?”

“No. Not all. Just those serious about crafting,” Uncle Naro said.

Liam nodded. “Okay, where do we start?”

Uncle Naro smiled. “We will start right now. Go ahead and grab this.” Uncle Naro pulled out a Crude Quality Meat Cleaver like knife. “I know you have the Cleave skill from the Chef Craft. I want to go over some techniques with you that could possibly help when trying to cleave limbs apart.”

Liam and Naro spent a few hours working on the three Weapon Skills he was tasked to receive and level up. He had reached all three to level five which made Liam happy. He practiced the motions for Cleave over and over from different angles. Once he reached a comfortable familiarity swinging it, Uncle Naro threw in a curve ball by showing him a Cleaver Weapon Art Skill called Slice and Dice.

Liam had to try and follow the movements with his eyes and was surprised that he wasn’t able to. Uncle Naro explained that it was a movement that wasn’t supposed to allow the target to follow unless the target had really high Perception. Liam had prided himself for that sub-stat being one of his highest ones, but after the demonstration of the move and being told that, he was reminded that he was still not that strong.

After spending hours of practicing the movements over and over, he felt like he had gotten it down and was surprised when Uncle Naro clapped and told him he had done it. He then told Liam to practice it and level that Weapon Art Skill so that way it would be easier to use later on. That was when he had to inform Uncle Naro about his…predicament.

Uncle Naro was surprised when he was told about how he couldn’t receive Weapon Art Skills in a normal manner. Than he had to practice the moves over and over to get the muscle memory down right. Instead of looking at him like he was wasting time, Uncle Naro seemed intrigued. In fact, he was ecstatic about this new way of doing it.

This new bit of information, however, did change his training menu he had for Liam. Not by much, but enough that any new Weapon Art Skills he had planned for Liam to practice were going to need more time for him to learn and get the muscle memory down for them. The spar he had planned for Liam was now postponed for a later date after he learned other Weapon Art Skills for the Hammer and Axe.

The hammer he was given to practice with was a one handed one with a short handle and a double blunt end. The size of the blunted ends were almost similar to the hammer he used for Blacksmithing except that hammer was slightly smaller. As for the Axe, it looked almost like a hatchet. There was nothing special about it. Both were Crude Quality and didn’t have any cool designs. For right now he didn’t need any cool looking practice tool. He did, however, start to get ideas of how he could make one of each through his Bone Forging. Especially for the Cleaver.

During that time, the others had practiced their respected interest. Artem practiced his Water Focus Point trying to get it to level ten. He had reached that target point not too long after Liam reached level five in his Axe Weapon Skill.

Roman decided to spar with Avery. He worked on his Unarmed Combat Weapon Skill reaching it from level fourteen to level sixteen. Avery focused on her Rapier Weapon Skill, getting it from level fifteen to level seventeen. They were both surprised how hard it was to level their Weapon Skills. Liam could understand. Even throughout all the battles he had so far, his Dagger Weapon Skill was only at level nineteen. His Throwing Weapons Weapon Skill was the closest thing to it, and it sat at level seventeen.

Ariyana worked on her Charm and Plant Magic. Both were at level fourteen when she started before they reached level fifteen. She was excited when they reached that level because she had received a new ability in both of them. In her Plant Focus Point she had received the ability called Pod Shooters. Pod Shooters was an ability that created three plant-like creatures with the flower crowns formed in a way to shoot little stone bullets. They were stationery, but they were flexible and if they landed an attack the damage done was decent.

In her Field of Charmed, her Senses Focus Point was what reached the level and gained a new ability called Depth Scramble. The ability Depth Scramble reversed the depth perception of the afflicted target. If they focused on something that was close to them they would think its farther, and a farther target looked closer. It lasted for five seconds, but every second being afflicted by that could mean the difference in a battle.

Mercer worked on both his Bow and Ice Magic. He would create a few icicle targets and then try to shoot them from where he stood. He raised his bow from level twelve to level fifteen and his Ice Focus Point from level fourteen to level fifteen. As he waited for his mana to recharge he also practiced his Violin practice as well. Even though he didn’t raise that, Liam could tell he had been practicing it a lot while he was away.

Gimmel took out his three Toxo Puppets and practiced moving them one by one before trying to move all three at the same time. He had a hard time moving them all but was able to get them to crawl. It was a big difference compared to when he moved them one by one, but it was progress he said. He didn’t reveal to them how many levels he had gotten, but it was enough for him to meet the quota since he was able to eat with them.

Blair on the other hand had a hard time with her choice of focus. She decided to practice her Gravity Focus Point. She wasn’t able to get her Gravity Magic up two levels, but with her channeling Gravity Mana she was able to get that from level five to level seven. Uncle Naro said it was still impressive and allowed that since she would need to level that more to get better use of her Gravity Magic. She wasn’t happy, but even she knew that Gravity Magic was hard to level up.

That night after dinner, Liam decided to do some crafting. He decided to use his Mobile Crafter for Blacksmithing and had a separate table where a batch of Minor Minty Health Potions was brewing. He had found out that leveling his Potion Making category in Alchemy was now a lot harder than before if he had done it in single vials. Mass creating them in the cauldron was now his new way of making them to help his leveling in the category. It was going to be slow, but making bigger portions was helping compared to the small amounts he was doing beforehand.

As they were being worked on, he decided to try and put his idea he had on making a Cleaver with his Bone Forging. The first one he made was so horrible he re-smelted it and didn’t bother showing anyone what it looked like. His next few attempts weren’t any better, but he noticed the slight improvements here and there. However, no matter how many times he tried during that night he couldn’t get it right.

When Uncle Naro asked him what he was doing, he looked at Liam and just laughed. Feeling embarrassed, Liam was beginning to think his idea was not possible. However, after Uncle Naro finished laughing he told him he would first need to practice making the weapon through regular Forging. After he was able to make a few he would then be able to make a usable one through Bone Forging.

After making three Cleaver weapons through regular forging and leveling his Forging from level thirteen to level fourteen, he decided to call it a night. His cauldron full of Minor Minty Health Potion mixture also done, he poured them into vials and labeled them with his Branding. Avery, Ariyana, Mercer, and Artem decided to go back to the inn while Liam, Blair, Gimmel, and Roman decided to pitch a camp with Uncle Naro where they were.

After Liam placed his tent up, he pulled out a small Yooperlite Stone lamp he hung inside his tent and worked on reading the Mana Type Knowledge Theory Books Mercer had on him. That was until he knew everyone around fell asleep. Once he had confirmed they were all asleep he switched to work on his Shadow Manipulation.

As he practiced his Shadow Manipulation he found it to be harder than what the book had stated. He went back to the book and read over the chapter explaining the ability a few times. Each time he went back to the book and tried to manipulate the shadows around the tent all he had got was a few quivers before they flat out refused to move. He still couldn’t figure it out and decided he was missing something.

He figured he would try something different and started to channel his Shadow Mana. After channeling the Shadow Mana, he decided to focus on a small section of shadows that was in the corner of the tent. It rippled a few times as he focused on it. He then sent some of the Shadow Mana he had channeled towards it and to his surprise the small bit of shadow shoot towards the palm of his hand.

Eyes wide open, Liam stared at the small blob of shadow that had landed on his hand. Testing it out, he flipped his hand upside down and saw the blob of shadow stuck to his hand. He flicked it to the side of the tent, and it shot out and splattered where he had sent it. It stuck there like a piece of goo.

Intrigued by this, Liam decided to get a closer look at the small shadowy blob. He went to poke it and to his shock the blob slowly extended into the form of a tendril and poked his finger back.