???

What was that?

Bianca is still standing there, making a smug smile, like she thinks she’s clever.

Are you the dumb one? Why are you trying to act all cool? You didn’t do anything.

How am I supposed to make that much money so fast?... I’ll have to ask Bianca for her stone, I hope she can be at least this helpful, I won’t give her any cum if she doesn’t.

I look at her, still acting all smug “Can you lend me your <Penultima stone>?”

Bianca’s smug grin drops, and she looks a little confused “Huh? Are you dumb? Why would I do that?”

I start buttoning my shirt, it’s still open from before “I’ll need it to think a way to make all that money.”

Bianca frowns, but then she shrugs “You can use it if I’m not using it, but you can’t take it out of my room.”

I finish closing my shirt “Sounds reasonable.” I start walking again, I don’t really have the time or patience to play with her.

Bianca looks a little embarrassed and starts walking too, she seems down for some reason, and we don’t talk for the rest of the trip until we reach Timotei’s house.

 

* * *

 

Upon going inside, I don’t see anyone, so I look at Bianca and ask, “Can I use the stone?”

She still looks a little down but nods “sure…”

Bianca leads me to her room, it’s the same as mine and there’s not a lot to look at, but I see a flat stone in a corner, so I walk towards it, sit on top of it and close my eyes.

Woah!Icanfeelmythoughtsgettingfasterandfaster!Icanbarelyunderstandmyownthoughts,andittakesmeafewminutestogetusedtothis!

…

This thing is really intense…

But now my head has never felt more clear, and if my thoughts were walking before, they’re now running at an incredible but steady speed, like a horse.

And I can also feel the pain from my arm much clearer, how lovely.

Happy memories, happy memories…

Suddenly I find myself in a very familiar scene, I’m mating with Aurora again, the scene is playing very vividly, and I’m feeling all the sensations of the time we did it…

This is also something the stone can do? What an amazing trinket!

This was really wild, we spend the entire day just mating, and the both of us condensed!

Wait a second, the both of us condensed? I understand why I condensed, if Bianca’s juices are worth a pattern I wouldn’t be surprised if Aurora’s were worth one condensation, we did have a difference of one pattern at the time.

But why did she condense? It doesn’t make sense, my stuff was completely ordinary, if anything she should have gotten weaker!

It appears none of the people I traveled with are normal, how cool!

I haven’t had a chance to talk with Aurora ever since we got to basil, I should do that whenever I have the chance, but I probably won’t have many of those in the near future.

Let’s focus, I don’t have a lot of time.

The first thing I should think about is how to make the money.

Blacksmithing, right? It’s basically my only skill.

But how do I blacksmith without a workshop? I’m not a real journeyman, so I don’t have the right documentation to work in another blacksmith workshop…

Maybe I could make my own workshop? What would I need for that?

I brought my old hammer with me, so the most important things I would need are an anvil, a forge, tongs, and materials… of course there’s other tools I would like to have, but those three should be enough to start working with.

Maybe I could use monster materials? I once did a batch of nails with a few bones, metal-element monsters tend to have body parts made of metal. But I don’t think there’s many of those around here, the ones I know are in the area the nimbus eagle, wild slimes, root tortoises, and the thunder tiger…

Root tortoises! Maybe I could try to use the shell from those as a makeshift anvil?

But it's going to be hollow, right? I can't use it like that…

So what? isn’t it obvious to fill it? What could I use for that?

The black sand from earlier might work… it should support the shell well enough.

Speaking of, that black sand from earlier is mostly magnetite, right?

Maybe I can get iron from it… but it’s probably not going to be very high quality…

It doesn’t matter, I don’t have anything else to work with.

How do I get the iron though? I can try to make a bloomery, I don’t have much experience with those, but I’ve worked with them a few times.

I’ll need firebricks and some carbon… The forge should need the same materials too…

Something I also want to try is using the <Steam cannon> as a source of heat, or more specifically, only a part of the spell.

The <Steam cannon> is divided in three different parts in its construction, make a mana chamber, condensing water in it, and then boiling that water. And all 3 parts of this can be considered to be their own “little spells”, these are known as formations, and they are the building blocks of spells.

At least that’s my understanding of it, my knowledge of formations is not very profound.

Could I use the heat formation in the <Steam cannon> for blacksmithing?

When I use it for the steam cannon I only use it somewhere at the range of 200 and 300 °C, the temperatures I would need exceed 1000 °C, sometimes even 1500 °C.

I’ll have to try it out, if I can make it work I’ll save some time, and I don’t have a lot of it.

In the clan we had these things called <GrandFire source>, very convenient things for heating up metal quickly, I wish Master gave me one of those instead of the <Ice to see you>…

Tongs shouldn’t be too hard to obtain.

Firebricks and carbon should be the most difficult thing to obtain, I can only ask Timotei about it…

Ok so I have an idea on how to start blacksmithing, I’m sure that if I do this I can start making nails again…

not very valuable…

What can I do to actually make money?

It seems I put the cart before the horse…

I don’t have too much experience making weapons, or anything that isn’t nails, and the iron I get probably won’t be of high quality, I don’t think that even if I make iron swords for a year I’ll make enough, let alone in two weeks…

I could sell the ball that knocked us out, I don’t think it’ll give me the full 50 golds, but it’ll probably make a good portion of that.

But I’d rather not sell it unless I have to, right now there’s still some hope, just not a lot of it.

The man with the bronze jaw wasn’t with the <Sycamore gang>, and Felix said he died, so there’s only one reason he knocked us out.

He saved us from the Hog of hydragyrum…

One of the objectives I have is to return the favor to him some day, and I will probably need this sphere for that.

I don’t want to get rid of it just unless I really have to.

...

I could try to make artifacts, but I have no idea of how to actually make one, just a vague memory of seeing Master work on a pillar when I was younger.

How did he do it?

An image flashes in my mind, I see Master working on a golden pole, the pole is as tall as the room, and as wide as my hand, he’s making some sort of patterned engravings on it…

This is the scene when he was working on the core of the pillar? This stone is amazing…

I wonder…

I activate my <Body of steel>!

Interesting…

I can “feel” the pole, but wrong, somehow.

It’s like if I tried to walk around with a cloth wrapped around my eyes, I can kinda see light, but it’s really hard.

but I think it’s already amazing enough that what I’m doing works at any level, so I’m not going to complain.

Every time Master finishes a pattern, the metal changes, I don’t know how though, and then he fills the pattern with some sort of powder, and I feel the golden metal change again, but I can’t get any specifics beyond that.

I can speculate a little though, I think that the golden pole and the powder are being “linked” by the pattern somehow, I don’t understand how, but I do remember the pattern, I’ll copy it and I'll have to experiment with it.

I'll also need a chisel then...

But what can I use that’s like the powder?

…

Maybe I could try crushing the bones of a monster?

It’s the only thing I can think of, and that’s with this thing helping me…

Well, I already have to hunt a root tortoise, so maybe I’ll use its bones too…

 

* * *

 

I can’t think of anything else, so I open my eyes and stand up from the stone... everything is so slow now!

I immediately trip and fall on top of my bad arm...

Geh, I feel so horrible I almost cry...

I might vomit…

…

I manage to hold it up, and I stand on my feet again, I’m still very disoriented, but I should be able to walk.

I look around me, everything is a little blurry, but I notice that it became night at one point and that Bianca is already sleeping, she’s even snoring, it sounds kinda cute.

I hold myself on the wall, and walk out of the room, I notice Felix and Antonia are talking.

Antonia gets a little red and rushes to her room, while Felix is giving me a thumbs up.

I glare at him, I’m not in the mood now! “What the hell did you think I was doing?” My arm is still hurting, and the world is still very slow “Can you please help me to my room? I’m very weak right now.”

He keeps making his stupid grin “Sure. But you have to tell me what happened tomorrow in the morning!”

I roll my eyes, but he does help me get to my room.

I go to my bed, and quickly fall asleep.

I have 14 days left.