Lucky Encounter

Stella woke up really early in the morning, now that she was out of the dungeon she could return to her morning exercise, she quickly changed clothes noting that she needed to buy some new ones seeing as she only had the outfit she was wearing when she came to Orario and some sleepwear that Loki had provided.

Making her way downstairs she noticed that not many people were awake and stealthily made her way to the back of the Twilight Manor where she saw a large open yard. After making her way into the backyard of the manor she started stretching and then did some basic exercises to keep her body in good condition. Shortly after finishing she saw Ais and Tiona looking at her, she decided to see what was going on.

"What were you doing in the field?"Tione wakes up pretty early but when she came down she saw Stella in the field doing what looked like exercising

"I was exercising? Was I not allowed to use the field?"Stella realized she didn't ask if she could use the field out back and hoped that she wasn't breaking a rule.

"What no of course you can use the field but why would you exercise if it doesn't improve your stats?"Tione assumed that Stella didn't know about how stats only improved when someone gained excelia.

"Oh so that's why you 2 were watching me."Stella was relieved that she hadn't broken a rule "well I don't really know how excelia works exactly but I think that it improves upon your base strength so I'm testing to see if this is true."

"I'm sure the guild has some records that I can use as a reference to prove my hypothesis. Plus even if it doesn't improve my abilities then I can at least use it to train my flexibility and keep a strong mindset."

"Huh I never thought about that, let me know if it does something and then I'll join ya!"Tione wondered if that was true while Ais wanted to try it out and see if she got stronger.

"We are heading to breakfast, want to join?Ais asked

"Yea, all of that exercise got me kinda hungry."

Stella joined Ais and Tione for breakfast, meeting up with the rest of the familia members. After enjoying breakfast Stella joined them in moving the materials to sell, however, they did not use the space bag in fear of more attention than they would already get.

Finn, Riviera, and Gareth went to turn the magic stones in, while the rest of the members went to sell the materials. Stella joined the 4 females after she signed up at the guild as an adventurer. Stella joined them after they finished turning in some special spring water for a mission they had picked up.

Lefiya and Tiona went to deposit the money and elixirs they had received while Ais and Tione went to get their weapons repaired. She decided to join them in getting their weapons repaired, maybe she would find a weapon type that stuck out to her.

As they made it to Goibniu's familia she could see how the blacksmiths were afraid of Tione. She saw as the head blacksmith cried after hearing about how Urga had been melted, she felt bad for the old man because she could sympathize with his pain after hearing how much he worked on it.

Stella watched as Ais went into the back, to get what she assumed would be her weapon repaired while the head blacksmith fainted. The smithy was pretty small, only having 6 forges with what looked like 5 workers, the head blacksmith and then his 4 apprentices.

After looking around her eyes laid upon a huge hammer it looked like someone grew the branches of a tree around a huge rectangular chunk of stone. The whole thing was slightly taller than she was, but something about it pulled her.

"Who made that hammer?"Stella was really curious about who would make such a hammer.

"Huh? Nobody did it just showed up here one day and none of us can lift it"said the head blacksmith

"Nobody even knows what it's made of, we couldn't even break a piece off even if we wanted to."

"Nobody can lift it? Heh, I'm sure my level 6 body could easily lift it!"Tione boasted

Ais had come back into the main room to see Tione trying to lift a hammer as big as her.

"Ais come help me! This stupid pile of rocks won't budge!"Tione cried she was really upset that even with her strength she couldn't move the massive hammer.

Even with the 2 level 6 adventurers trying to lift the hammer they couldn't make it budge. Stella couldn't put her finger on it but something about that hammer was calling to her. The 2 girls gave up and were about to leave when they saw Stella move over to the hammer.

"What are you doing Stella, neither of us could even lift the hammer!"Tione was angry at this hammer and wanted to get revenge but she couldn't even move it.

"I know I watched you both try to lift it, but something seems off about the hammer."Stella just felt something was off, it was familiar in an unfamiliar way.

As Stella grabbed the hammer she felt something it was the unmistakable feeling of vis she remembered the feeling from when she first used the origin node, there was vis inside this hammer!

Stella tried to move the vis in the hammer with little to no effect; she was able to get the hammer to budge but couldn't lift it. The blacksmiths and the 2 adventures watched as the girl was able to make it budge which was more than they were able to do.

Stella didn't know the flow of vis needed, so she wasn't able to get the hammer to lift but she knew a way to learn the flow, she needed to use her node eye. She took her eye patch off and felt the headache come, ignoring the headache and numerous colors she could see out of her eye she focused on the hammer trying to see the flow of vis.

Ais and Tione had never seen Stella like this before she was able to get the hammer move when even the 2 adventures together couldn't even do that. She had a crazed smile on her face after she tore her eyepatch off.

Her eye was indeed weird; it was a black sphere with the edges being a mix of purples. It slowly rotated, glowing an ominous purple color.

Stella had figured out the flow of vis in the hammer worked similar to a living being; it had its own heart in the head of the hammer and veins spread out to the edges of it. All she had to do was pump some vis into the heart and guide a small amount of vis down the veins before returning to the heart and after doing that a few times for the major 'veins' it started pumping on its own.

With the flow of vis properly working she tried to pick up the hammer and much to everyone's surprise she was able to lift the hammer with relative ease. It was a little heavy but nowhere near as heavy as it should be.

Quickly putting her eyepatch back on she turned to the blacksmiths who were staring at her wide-eyed.

"Uh, how much for the hammer?"Stella asked

"Kid, it's free after that display of whatever you did; it's free."The head blacksmith said

"But I didn't really do much, you sure it's free?"Stella was confused she didn't do much all she did was lift the hammer

"Kid, that hammer has been a pain in their asses for a week or 2. You freed them from looking at an immovable object."Goibniu yelled from the other room.

"Neat! Thank you!"Stella turned and walked towards her friends.

"You guys coming?"

Ais and Tione turned to Stella and joined her to leave.

"What did you do! Neither of us could make it budge but you were able to lift the thing without even breaking a sweat!"Tione exclaimed

"What DID you do?"Ais asked

"Oh, the hammer has magic I am familiar with, and using my node eye I was able to figure out how to use the hammer." Stella stated as if it was common information

"DON'T MAKE IT SOUND THAT SIMPLE!" Tione exclaimed

"Can I learn it?"Ais asked

"I think so but even I don't know how to use it, the eye and some past experiences with using it are the only reason I could even get this to work."Stella wondered if people from here could become thaumaturges.

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Word Count: 1480

If anyone has good names for the hammer or the eye other than it just being 'node eye' or 'hammer' that would be fantastic! Your suggestions and power stones are always welcomed!