RuggyRuggy

Another 2-Part chapter. Originally, it was 5k words long. Expect Part 2 to be uploaded within 4-6 hours.

Schedule for next week!

I will try to have Chapter 47.5 ready for upload by Wednesday. If I can't, then we will go to Chapter 48, and continue from there.

(While I didn't intend to have so many R-18 chapters in a row like this, I hope it's fine.

And the overall upload schedule will change to 2 uploads per week instead of 3. That will lower the pressure on me quite a bit. I don't know how long we'll remain at 2x a week, though. If it's for an extended time, then I hope that's okay.

As for which days? I'm not sure yet.  Either Tuesday and Thursday, or Monday and some other day. Any suggestions?

Speaking with Ruru during our little fishing trip motivated me to do something I should've done much earlier. 

It was time to learn about the wonderful world of enchanting!   

I had hundreds of cores that were dutifully extracted from goblins, boars, scatter bats, slime, draingi, and araneae. I even had one from Glog, Metalborn Prince of Goblins—the boss that dwelled within the Mines of Gamor.   

Honestly? Now was, by far, the best time to get a handle on that since we had time to kill. And it wasn’t like we had any severe commitments other than waiting. But right as I left the Deerfolk and his ward, my activity log indicated the mana from the clone I had made was only just now returning to me. And with it came the memories and feelings of what it did with Tilde. 

Wow... She wasn’t kidding... 

The images and visuals flashing through my mind were like a movie, and without even thinking about it, I reverted my crotch to Murag’s penis. The front of my shorts felt tight, and I quickly wrapped the waist cloth around my lower body to act as a skirt while hurrying to the mansion. The AI told me Sekh was in the training room with Tilde and Niva, so I walked to the second floor after entering and stared over the balcony. In the time it took to do this, my erection had come and gone, leaving me flaccid.  

Sekh was in a combat stance with her shield at the ready. Her armor was lying nearby, and she was training in only her tunic as a fountain of sweat littered the floor. With a focused expression, nocturnal flames curled around her shield and slowly enveloped it until it was like a wave of torment. It looked like this was an exercise in manipulating [Black Fire] because large circles of the training room were covered in ash and burnt marks. 

The conflagration blanketing her shield continued to spread until it formed something like a tower shield with a pointy end. Sekh lifted and slammed it into the ground. The shadow flames started to trail out from the impact until they had created a circle three feet in diameter. At that point, everything within that boundary was set ablaze in a tyrannical inferno devoid of any light. It was like the very flames of a dark, void-like reality were swallowing this world piece by piece. 

“[Black Fire: Immolation]!!!” Sekh continued to channel the technique even while her footing became wobbly and uneven. Pained expressions covered her face. Perhaps it was too much strain because the blaze promptly vanished in a shimmer and left behind a reminder it was alive in the form of ash. She dropped to one knee and violently gasped for air. I hopped down from the balcony and rushed to her, extending a hand. 

“My liege... How... How long have you been watching...?” she asked with bated breath, coughing for a few seconds while I rubbed and patted her back.  

“Just for a minute or two. Are you alright? Don’t overdo it.” I refused to let her go because I wanted to hug and pat her head. Sekh said when she was in her prime, she could create a flame circle dozens of miles big because [Black Fire], and its evolved forms, were more like an extension of her body. Unfortunately, Sekh didn’t retain that ability to freely manipulate it. But since she once knew how to do it, it was carved onto her soul. So, it wasn’t a question of ‘if’ she would relearn it.  

It was ‘when.’  

I looked around at the damage she’d done and asked if she felt better, to which she replied with a genuine nod. “It’s technically my house, I guess. What happens to it is up to me. Come on, let’s go take a bath.”   

After grabbing Niva’s wheelchair, we all went up to Susize’s room and quickly stripped down to enjoy the oh-so-relaxing paradise that was her bathroom. This time, though, we put Aello’s housewarming gift to use. Sekh asked me about my day while I washed her back with the pink cloths.  

“It was worthwhile,” I replied. “Niva, I’ve got good news.” She looked at me with a puzzled expression and a face full of white suds. “Enap finished Arguna’s arm, and he’s started on the leg and foot. And Ruru is making an elixir for you.”   

“Aaaahhhhh...” The cloth escaped her weakened grip as tears slipped down those cheeks, washing away a thin line of foamy soap. She waved her arm, and more sounds came out of her mouth, but there wasn’t anything cohesive. Still, I knew she was indescribably happy. And quite possibly full of emotion.   

“I’m happy for you, Niva,” Sekh said, lifting her arms so I could wash the front of her body. I gingerly took more time than necessary because I wanted to be sure everything was extra soapy. It was fun getting more intimate with her body through touch alone. So much so that she stood up, grabbed a cloth, turned around, and we washed each other while gazing into each other’s eyes. It was sensual and sexy, but we never progressed past that point and had sex. But she did wrap the washcloth around my penis and balls and ascertained they were extra clean before finishing me off with her mouth. I held her head with my hands and rubbed her cheeks when I came in her throat. Licking her lips, she smiled like a divine beauty when I pulled her to my chest and hugged her tightly. 

After that, we just decided to rest and relax. I transformed back into my slime form and lazily floated across the surface. When I was near Niva, she reached out to find me, then softly patted me even while tears clouded her eye. “You’ve done well to recover thus far, Niva. Just a little bit longer, okay?” she nodded once more and touched a hand to her heart. Eventually, I floated back towards Sekh, but Tilde decided to take a ride on me like I was a turtle. But I couldn’t complain about anything, really. 

But I did tease her about what she and the clone did. Her cheeks took on this adorable, cute blush, and she pounded the top of my slimy body with her little fists. 

Suppose I have a new-found affection for her. Fuck, I love her so much. And Sekh, too. They’re the best companions a girl like me could ask for. 

The plan was to have dinner before we moved on to what was surely going to be a lengthy endeavor, but I couldn’t wait that long. With a few pots of water on the stove, I sat at the table with Sekh, Tilde, and Niva and pulled out a couple of goblin and boar cores. 

“Okay. If you want to enchant something, it must be blessed. Blessing grants an item enchantment slots dependent on the level of your enchanting skill. You’re at Lv. 1, so you get one slot. But that one slot isn’t restricted by anything. If there was a monster core with complete immunity to the elements, the shittiest shield could receive it. Because it’s not about the item's quality,” Tilde said. She explained further and covered every little detail.  

Blessing an item requires materials related to that item and a certain amount of mana. At lower-quality gear, the requirements were easy to fulfill. For example, Sekh’s armor only needed items obtained from a boar to bless it. The actual process was also simple, but it required an enchanting table. Usually, they were made from metal or wood with a high amount of mana conductivity. A table varied in the number of cores it could support. Some only had enough slots for two, while others had hundreds, but each one interlinked with each other via mana circuits that looked like the bus lines on a computer chip. The reason why? You had to mix the skills embedded within the cores to get to the more powerful enchantments.   

Let's say I had three cores that had {Slash Resistance}, {Pierce Resistance}, and {Crushing Resistance}. On their own, that would occupy three slots. But when placed on an enchanting table, the three would combine and become a generic {Physical Resistance} enchantment that only took one slot. On the other hand, you could upgrade enchanting tables to have it always impart a skill, which would make it a freebie.   

Tilde said the most expensive tables added an extra slot, so equipment with 11 slots wasn't impossible. 

But enchanting wasn’t a poor man’s hobby. A low-quality table ran a few dozen gold. Even the mid-range cost more than a peasant made in a dozen lifetimes. You could rent them, but that still took a lot of money. 

Luckily, I was living in the home of a High Elf that valued preparation, so it didn’t take long to find one hidden away in the storage room. And as expected, it was one of the ones that were at the top of the line.  

And it weighed about 900 pounds while being six feet long and four feet wide. Sekh and I had a hell of a time trying to bring it to the kitchen table. So much so that I had to shapeshift into Glog, Metalborn Prince of Goblins, for the extra muscle.  

Honestly, the table itself looked magnificent. Decorated with gold and rubies, the table's background depicted what must’ve been Susize and Aetos flying high above Vredi Forest when they were far younger. It was like a tale told within a single painting, and the Susize inside me felt connected. Without missing a beat, Sekh removed her armor and placed it in the middle of the table. A menu appeared within my vision with the required items to bless it. And by it, I meant the armor as a whole. The helmet, chest, bracers, gloves, greaves, and boots were separate items that each required individual blessings.  

And I did not have enough, so I settled for blessing the breastplate. Boar hide, boar tusks, boar cores, and boar meat were examples of what I needed, but I only needed seven items. Tilde said there were tables that could use cores as substitutes for blessing, but this wasn't one of them. Had I wanted to bless the whole set, it’d require over 40 materials, and I didn’t have that. After satisfying the condition by pulling out seven boar parts, they transformed into colorless mana and danced around the breastplate before being absorbed into it.   

In my activity log, I was alerted to the successful blessing and acquisition of a new title.   

New Title: [Novice Blesser] 

Okay, so it seems like there’s a hierarchy to crafting titles. I got [Novice Blacksmith] back when I first started forging with Irisa. I still haven’t gotten the second tier, yet. Makes sense, I guess, since you really gotta put in a ton of effort.  

“Okay, so that’s taken care of,” Tilde said, pointing to the breastplate. “Remove everything but that. Then start taking out the orbs and putting them in the slots. Remember to use [Analysis] to see what skills they hold. Or you can use the AI to help you filter by offensive, defensive, or utility enchantments. And you can add additional filters if you want, so you can sort them by level, when you acquired them, what monster they came from, and stuff like that. Proper use of evolving [Biological AI] means you gotta work it like a dog.”  

I remembered what Tilde said about combining multiple enchantments, and I played around with them. It seemed the goblin cores focused on enhancing physical defense and physical attacking. The scatter bat provided protection against ailments and debuffs. The slimes, however, increased your regeneration of mana. Likewise, the spiders improved piercing damage and offered resistance to poisoning.  

It was clear to me, and Sekh backed me up on this, that the best option was increasing her defenses. I had the appropriate cores to acquire {Physical Resistance}, so that was my goal. Tilde, however, stopped me. “This table is enchanted with the ability to remove an item’s enchantment.” I didn’t see why that was so important until she grabbed a core that improved crushing damage. “Before you do anything, use this.”  

“Okay, but I don’t know why,” I replied, placing the core onto one of the divots. A menu appeared in my vision asking me if I wanted {Crushing Damage (Lv. 1)} applied to the breastplate. I confirmed it. The core dissolved into pure mana, which traveled along the mana lines on the table to the piece of equipment. It flashed for a moment, and I acquired another title. 

New Title: [Novice Enchanter] 

“It is now possible to recreate the enchantment {Crushing Damage (Lv. 1)}, my lord,” said the AI, who bloomed into existence in front of me.  

“Yep! When you break it down, an enchantment is literally just a set of specific instructions locked within a core, and the AI can lock onto those instructions and copy them. However, it requires a shit load of mana to brute force it this way. And I mean a lot. Even a Lv. 1 enchantment will drain you as you are now, and don’t even try to do a Lv. 2 or Lv. 3. Speaking of which, there is very little difference between a skill and enchantment of the same name. So, if you had the skill [Fire Resistance (Lv. 3)] and enchantment {Fire Resistance (Lv. 7)}, they would not add together. Instead, you’d receive the effects of the one that’s a higher level,” explained Tilde. “Oh, this goes without saying, but the AI keeps track of each level of an enchantment. You’ll still be able to enchant something with {Physical Resistance (Lv. 1)} even if you know the Lv. 3 version.”  

When I opened my Status Menu, I saw a separate button to open the enchantment menu, and yes, there it was. “You know what you must do. Save the cores that have {Slash Resistance}, {Pierce Resistance}, and {Blunt Resistance} until the end so you can get {Physical Resistance},” said the fairy.  

Tilde was hinting at me using all my cores, and I did. I quickly discovered that if I used all available slots on the enchanting table, the menu that appeared was my best friend. It removed the guesswork from this rather tedious process. But it wasn’t all bad because I also learned you could make {Physical Resistance (Lv. 3)} if you had enough fodder material with the required skills. It was like me assimilating a hundred thousand goblins to max out [Spear]. Well, almost. It was the same difference.   

Tilde said it was much easier to just put in the effort to find the monster cores with the higher ranks of the skills I needed rather than trying to work my way up from the bottom. In her words, there wasn’t an enchanting table with tens of thousands of core holders. In the end, I had quite a few enchantments populating my menu, including one that increased all physical damage. It was Lv. 2, but it was still a generic buff. Unfortunately, Sekh’s mace required iron to bless, and I was totally out. But other than that, I had enchantments that offered resistance against venom, poison, and the bleeding debuff. My goal of eventually making our casual clothing as tough as armor remained out of reach for the time being, but I was going to eventually accomplish that.