NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Chapter 6: Blacksmithing x Magic
The author writes to you, here with a new chapter I hope you enjoy it, leave comments.
A few weeks have passed since the crystal eye incident. I've only gone out to the city to buy food and supplies. I've stayed in this place, where, by the way, no one really comes. What I've managed to do is build proper tools for the forge: a large steel anvil along with a set of three hammers for blacksmithing and jewelry-making, a sharpening stone that works with magic, and a grinder (though they essentially do the same thing), metal tongs, heat- and cut-resistant gloves that I made from leather and carbon fiber, which I took from car seats. I also got oil and water for tempering, as well as smaller tools like sandpaper, polishing brushes, and others.
Of course, the most important thing I made was a large furnace for one person, three times. The first time, it worked a few times until I accidentally overheated it, and it exploded; that was dangerous. The second time, it couldn't withstand the deformed fire, and the internal part was damaged after just a few uses. The third time, it turned out much better: I made it with stone foundations, anchoring it to the ground and reinforcing the internal part. Its dimensions are three meters tall and two wide. Obviously, I used magic to make it faster and more durable. It was built by liquefying stones, water, steel, and sand with plaster. Where did I get all of this? Simple matter transmutation, nothing too fancy like turning lead into gold or converting stone into metal—just transmuting dirt into stone and the plaster from sand. Honestly, more than complicated, it was time-consuming, but these kinds of tasks allow me to experiment more with my powers. The metal I took from some random car.
Anyway, once I built the ideal furnace, I began forging with much more care, not just swords, of course. I obviously built a set of light armor. The armor isn't anything impressive or flashy, it's just made to protect my limbs. The hardest part to make was the gauntlets and boots, the latter because I didn't know how to make them, so I had to remake them several times. The gauntlets were tricky because of the metal protection for the fingers, as they are small parts, and I need to improve in that area. I also made a war hammer because, although swords are fine, I need to remind myself that gem monsters seem to be quite fast, and hammers can deal more blunt damage.
At night, I practiced my powers, once again testing the limits of what I could do with them, and I wrote everything down in my books to have ideas for later. The first thing was that when the first furnace exploded, I got injured in the arms—nothing too serious, just some burns and bruises from the shrapnel. So, I tried to use my powers to heal myself with a "spell," but it didn't work. However, I felt that if I changed my approach, maybe I could heal them with a different method. I tried, and failed about twenty-six times, because what I was doing was attempting to harness the concept of "healing." But it felt like something was missing from that, and feeding it with deformed power failed. I mean, I felt like I could do it, but I was missing something important for that spell. So, I left it and changed my approach to something more "biological." I tried manipulating my own bioenergy to heal myself, using deformed power as a guide and my knowledge of biology, like cell division and basic stuff—not really complex, just an increase in healing speed.
This resulted in my arms healing in a couple of minutes, though I was left with a slight feeling of hunger. With this, I realized I could use soul power to control biomatter, which led me to consider what else I could achieve with this ability and what else I could "control." I tried some minor alterations, like making my nails grow, and it worked. Then I experimented with skin color, altering the concentration of melanin in my skin. I understood that what I used to alter my biology was based on: deformed power guiding bioenergy and biomatter according to my understanding of it. Discovering this made a smile spread across my face because the potential of this is high: it's basically biomancy, but to use it, I would need to know what to modify and how to do it. So, I'll have to study biology later because what I know is only basic high school knowledge. With that in mind, I restored my skin and nails to their normal state.
With my thoughts in place, I used the formula for biomancy to perform low-level matter transmutation or manipulation, so to speak, though I hope that changes in the future. I quickly realized that this same formula could be used to overwrite reality on a small scale. The formula is actually quite simple: psychic power x intent + knowledge + understanding = spell (altering reality). However, if you inject more deformed power into the equation at once, you can skip the knowledge and understanding. And, if you have more of the latter two, you can use less psychic power. This discovery is incredibly useful to me. I used this knowledge to attempt to create runes to enchant my items because runes are powerful in most stories and incredibly useful. To summarize the experiment, I failed miserably.
What I did when trying to create runes was create a symbol and assign meaning to that symbol while infusing deformed power into it during its creation. Surprisingly, it worked until it failed after a few seconds. That was a huge headache because I couldn't understand why it failed. Since it was more of a prototype, I only created a rune language with about ten words; I put them in a notebook as if it were a grimoire (less than a page, considering it's just 10 words). As an experiment, when I put a rune with the meaning "Reinforcement" on a test sword, what was supposed to happen was that the sword would become more resistant due to the rune's magic. While that did work, when I stopped supplying power to the rune, it collapsed, causing the sword to contract until it broke where the rune was.
As this is trial and error, I tried again, maintaining a constant power flow, but this one also collapsed, though it lasted longer than the previous one. This is what gave me a headache. Initially, I thought the rune collapsed because the connection between my deformed power and the rune was cut, and the remaining power in the rune didn't know what to do, so it collapsed in on itself. I tried other runes like "Sharpness, Flexibility, Heat" to see what would happen and if the collapse method changed. The method didn't change, reinforcing my theory. However, I discovered that if I didn't place the runes on anything physical but instead wrote them in the air and launched them at something while putting more magic into the rune, I could apply the rune's effect to the object for a measly three seconds without damaging the object. This led me to inject more power into the rune to observe the effect. This had the great effect of increasing the rune's effectiveness, but not its duration.
To give you an example: I used a "Reinforcement" rune on a sheet of paper, pushing the rune to its maximum capacity. Then I tried to cut the sheet with a knife and ended up damaging the blade—a steel knife. But in essence, the runes are now a somewhat usable prototype as a surprise resource in battle or as an active skill. Anyway, I'll have to research more to make the effect permanent. When that happens, I'll write a complete runic language based on programming, because? I'm already familiar with it, so it's better for me.
As for my telekinesis, it's strong: about 10 to 15 tons if I focused solely on telekinesis. The ability is very versatile; with it, I was able to create a repulsor shield, which will be very useful in the future. I also experimented with pure deformed power to create shields and pseudo-material objects like energy shields or weapons. It worked well, but the objects lacked substance and ceased to exist if you didn't supply power to them. It was a success, if I may say so. As for telepathy, I haven't had anyone to practice with. Meh, I'll do it later. I also created illusions with deformed power, but they're very fragile: a hit from someone strong, and they fall apart. But for now, they serve their purpose, as they don't require much concentration.
In any case, with the understanding I now have of my powers, I feel comfortable enough to interact with the gems. I said this as I headed to the city with my armor on and my trusty hammer. People didn't look at me strangely while I was on the street because I had an illusion placed over myself.
As I was arriving at the commercial part of the city, the day was cloudy and humid—nothing unusual. Until I heard screams of fear from the nearby street. There, I could see what looked like a living doll? a living costume? shaped like a box of fries, really creepy, with that plastic smile and bulging veins all over its body—it looked sick and horrible. The creature's "hair" acted like tentacles, trying to grab people, while a pink-haired girl with a pink shield stood defending the people to give them time to flee. But the monster was strong and had more limbs than she did.
"Why does something always happen whenever I go out?" I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "It doesn't matter; I have to help," I said out loud as I dodged a table the monster threw