Chapter 163 - Frustration and Focus

"Phew."

Releasing a quick, short breath, Rynold repeatedly tapped his hammer down on the table. However, he wasn't hammering anything in particular.

No, he was impatiently waiting for the Spirit of Fire to finish heating the metal to the ideal temperature. Which, unfortunately, took a much longer time than Rynold cared to wait for.

"Huh."

The tapping suddenly stopped as Rynold looked at his storage at the side of the room. He walked toward it for the first time in a few hours and thoroughly searched.

Aside from the large selection of rare metals, Rynold had always found the Mana Crystals lacking in comparison. Considering how hard Mana Crystals were to find, though, Rynold didn't voice his complaints.

"Anything come into your mind?"

The Spirit of Fire was quietly tempering the alloy going to be used for Rynold's new creation.

"Nothing," Rynold answered as he continued to look at the shelves, "Just thought it was weird how I can't find a use for most of these things."

Rynold wouldn't care to admit it, but he had often felt like he wasted most of the resources provided for him. Throwing things out when stuff didn't work. Sacrificing materials to test his creations that only ever failed.

Like it or not, Rynold was wasteful.

"It's fair. The resource consumption for a beginner craftsman for any art requires significant investment, even more so when the novice has no master to follow. Learning on one's own takes an indefinitely long time to prosper."

The Spirit of Fire had a point. Learning things from scratch without any reference would take a crazy amount of time and effort to succeed.

Nodding in agreement, Rynold couldn't help but wonder if he could have done things any more efficiently. His frustrations were a result of his failures.

Simply by glancing over the heaps of scrapped failures, Rynold would often spiral because of how wasteful he was. Hell, there might even be a time when he was frustrated for a full week. Not that he could remember because frustration tended to warp his concept of time.

Regardless, Rynold continued to glance over the precious stones that were on the shelves.

The ones they were trying to use for the new creation were lightweight and extremely malleable. Therefore, he needed to compensate for that by adding some tough elements into the mixture.

That, in theory, should work.

"Hmm..."

Grabbing up a precious-looking crystal on one of the shelves, Rynold proceeded to analyze the material in his hand.

'That's weird,' Rynold thought as he moved the crystal to view it from a nearby light rune. As the light passed through the crystal, Rynold felt stumped.

The crystal itself was translucent in nature, while the texture was rough and sharp on Rynold's fingers. Even when holding from a flat-looking side, Rynold could still feel some tiny needles.

But, what was interesting about the crystal was when the light shone past it. Within the crystal itself, Rynold could spot some cracks from within. It may not be anything much, but Rynold was interested in how these cracks were visible to the naked eye.

Rynold didn't have much experience with any precious gems or crystals. But, something about this thing in his hands didn't seem... normal.

"What's that?"

"You don't know?" Rynold, surprised that Prominence Alpha couldn't identify the crystal either, presented it to the Spirit.

"No clue," it responded, "Maybe it's just for decoration."

"Then, doing this should be fine, right?"

Without sparing much thought, Rynold acted impulsively. Mana released from his hand and went directly into the crystal. Rynold had activated his Mana Infusion.

But, what had happened next surprised both the Spirit and Rynold himself.

Normally, infusing some Mana into an item that couldn't handle it would make the item implode from the inside. It was normal for such a thing to happen. And, this was precisely the reason why Rynold made items with Mana Crystals inside of them.

Oliver's [Dreadful Rending]. Chris's [Flowing Exhume]. Two great successes in Rynold's rather lackluster history.

However, the crystal in his hands wasn't a Mana Crystal that could do those things. Normally, Mana Crystals would have lingering traces of Mana within the crystal itself.

But this particular crystal didn't. Nor did it explode from the infusion of Rynold's Mana either.

No, the crystal embraced Rynold's Mana altogether. The small cracks that Rynold saw before started to mend by themselves as if feeding on Rynold's Mana to heal. Not only that, but the thing greedily absorbed the Mana too.

'The hell?'

The rate of absorption was at the minimum. But it didn't seem like it would stop anytime soon. Luckily, Rynold's Mana pool was relatively big.

"You plan on stopping that anytime soon?"

"Yeah, soon," Rynold answered, "But, do you have any clue as to what this might be, though? I think it's a pretty valuable item. As to what it's doing here, though, I have no idea."

"At best, I can only give my assumptions," the Spirit of Fire answered as it watched from inside the forge.

"Well," Rynold added, "I honestly don't think that I can tell you anything important. This thing... it feels like it's one with my Mana. I can't explain how, but it certainly feels like it's an expansion of my own Mana Core."

At first glance, the crystal didn't seem like anything special. In fact, it looked like a decoration piece of some rich guy's house. But now, Rynold's Mana seemed to be in tune with it perfectly.

"Whatever that thing is, it's yours."

Rynold watched the crystal glow with low blue light. Then, Rynold proceeded to test the crystal in his hand by stopping the Mana Infusion.

"Yeah, it's definitely mine now."

The blue glow didn't stop even after Rynold stopped infusing his Mana into it. Whatever the thing was, it had completely absorbed Rynold's Mana with no loss whatsoever. Furthermore, the Mana seemed to have remained inside the crystal as if holding on to it.

Setting the crystal aside, for now, Rynold pulled out the alloy that he had been waiting on all this time. From there, he then proceeded with the plan. Infusing Mana into his hammer, Rynold got to work.

Ding!

Rynold's first strike.

'C'mon. Make it work this time.'

Filled with newfound determination, Rynold continued to work. Sweat poured down his forehead as he continued to tap, shape, cool the small piece of metal he was working with. Rynold had to be successful this time around.

"It's hard to shape a thing into a barrel, especially something as small as that." Prominence Alpha noted as he watched Rynold work.

"Just watch me," Rynold answered confidently.

He had to work this small piece of metal into a tube. This was essentially the first step into making the item he had been so desperately making. However, Rynold almost always failed by tapping too hard on it. So, this time, he tried to regulate his strength.

'Alright, don't break this time.'

Inserting a small metal rod in the middle, Rynold brought his entire focus on what was in front of him. Pouring his very intent into the [Hammer of the Worthwhile], the Mana Infusion on it softened significantly.

"Okay," Rynold let out a deep breath before proceeding. From there, Rynold tried to work on the thing with extremely light and repetitive taps.

Minutes passed as Rynold continued to work. Meanwhile, the Spirit of Fire was watching him intently as the crystal glowed lightly in the background.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Soon enough, Rynold finished. The sweat on his brow was akin to how much focus and determination he put into this one little thing.

"Good work. Thankfully, your frustration didn't get the better of you."

"Don't celebrate too soon," Rynold said as he stretched his back a little. "We still have work to do."

Unfortunately enough, that was just the beginning. They were nowhere near done. The barrel was simply one part of the weapon Rynold wanted to create, and it was by far the easiest one to do at that.

"So, what now?" the Spirit of Fire asked.

Rynold paused to think. Looking around his small workshop for inspiration, Rynold's eyes immediately stopped at the small crystal he had left on the table.

"That's the trigger," Rynold said as he slowly reached forward and grabbed the crystal.

"It might fit your specifications for the new weapon perfectly, but then again, we don't know much about it," Prominence Alpha expressed his doubts, "It's a rather careless process. And, the unforeseen consequences might result in a loss of all our progress."

"Yeah," Rynold agreed without hesitation whatsoever, "But, this thing can hold power. And, judging by the look of it, my Mana remains the same even from within the crystal. Meaning; this thing is the perfect battery and conduit. We only need a way to output the Mana that's trapped inside."

Originally, Rynold wanted to use some intricate rune work that implanted Enchant spells on the weapon itself. All of that was to make the best weapon for Rynold to use and to adapt to any situation.

"In such a small amount of time, you've managed to think of such things. I'm impressed, truly. However, there is the small problem of fitting something that large to such a small device."

"Fair enough," Rynold answered, "Let me handle that part, and you handle the output. We need all hands on deck if actually want to finish this thing early."

With that said, the two got to work.

The Spirit of Fire looked around the shelves and the book that Rynold had borrowed in the search for creating a proper output. Meanwhile, Rynold willed his Mana into shaping the crystal that was in his hand.

Minutes turned to hours as the two continued to work on Rynold's ambitious project. And, soon enough...

"I found something," the Spirit of Fire spoke up, breaking the silence, "the weapon that you wanted to make is highly modular in nature, correct? Magic Users tend to use Grimoires for that specific purpose. Therefore, I suggest we look into the process of creating one and apply it to this device you are working on."

"Hm," Rynold answered without looking up. He was too focused on the crystal he was working on as it finally started to show exterior cuts. "That'll work. But I don't know anybody that knows how to do such a thing. Since Grimoires are considered rare and ancient weapons, I don't think there's anybody alive that knows how to make one."

Crack!

A small chunk of the crystal fell off into the palm of Rynold's other hand. He had successfully disassembled a small piece of it without breaking its properties.

"Okay, that's done," Rynold said as he placed everything down on a nearby table, "Grimoires are a good lead to follow, but we're going to need more information. I'll ask for a consult on this. So, in the meantime, try not to get into fights with anybody else, alright?"

The Spirit of Fire let out a low grunt as he agreed to Rynold's warning. Clearly, it was still upset that it didn't get to kill Oliver when the chance presented itself.

Taking that as a yes, Rynold left to find some people who would actually know about something like this. Which, as it stands, only two people would fit the criteria.

Hopping on his personal Floating Platform, Rynold went straight towards the Library in the hopes of Margareth holding the answer.

Thankfully, the blonde elf was awake when he arrived. However, she didn't have anything to offer Rynold as the creation of Grimoires was lost due to time. Nobody really knew unless Rynold asked for a favor from the gods.

With a somewhat disheartened expression on his face, Rynold left to find Phrystol. The dwarf would be able to provide a much better insight into the problem at hand. Furthermore, Rynold was fairly eager to explain the device he had such high hopes for.