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(MoD) Chapter 11: Intermediate Artificer
🕑 Added 2025-02-16 10:46:49 +0000 UTCChapter 11: Intermediate Artificer
"Talk about a collection," Takauji whistled, standing in a spacious study room within Sona's household, staring at the seemingly endless mountain of books, papers, and research material in front of him.
"Aren't you glad you chose to sign the contract?" Sona wore a smug grin.
The amount of resources that Sona had expended to acquire the treasure trove of information before her, was about equivalent to that of a fortune bountiful enough to last at least a dozen generations.
"Since you're obviously not going to be able to study all this in one go, is there anything in particular you're looking for?"
"Yeah, I want information on teleportation circles and barriers." He answered without hesitation, causing Sona to narrow her eyes as his lack of deliberation clearly meant he had those topics in mind beforehand.
"Is there any reason you're specifically looking for those subjects?"
"Does it matter? The contract never said I had to justify the material I wanted."
"No, I suppose it didn't." She hummed, turning to face some sort of tin-can shaped droid in the corner of the room. "You heard him."
The droid performed some kind of salute before diving head first into the pile of books, throwing about roughly four of them at Sona which she seamlessly caught in her hand.
"Did you make that?" He pointed at the robot.
"No, that was Tsubaki's work."
"Thought so."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," he simpered a little while taking the stack of books out of her hand.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"That depends, you wouldn't happen to have a collection of weapons around here I could take a look at would you?"
"Weapons?" She scratched her temple, "We do have an arsenal, but those weapons all belong to Tomoe. You'll have to ask her for permission if you want to take them."
He shook his head, "I don't plan on taking them. I just need to see them."
Confident that he wasn't lying in any capacity, Sona shrugged and nodded her consent. "Alright, but make sure you don't damage anything. If Tomoe notices so much as a slight dent in any of her weapons, she'll go mad—she views each of them as her children."
"Fret not, my touch is as gentle as a kitten's mother."
"I hope that's true." Sona had a flashback to when her Rook, Tsubasa Yura had accidently destroyed one of Tomoe's swords during a spar that had gotten a tad bit heated, resulting in an incident where Tsuabki had to conceal Tomoe for almost an entire hour before she calmed down.
She led him to Tomoe's section of the household, upon which he was left mesmerized at the sheer grandeur of just how many weapons were actually residing in her arsenal.
Hint, it was a triple digit number.
Katanas, Tantos, Yumis, Naginatas, Kama, Kunai—you name it, it was there, alongside quite literally every other weapon in Japan's long history of craftsmanship.
"Tomoe belonged to a Clan of Youkai Exorcists, and once I reincarnated her they donated a small chunk of their inventory to aid her in her training."
"This is what they consider small?" He asked with justifiable disbelief. "Also, Youkai are real?" It took a moment for the former part of her sentence to register.
"They are, but they're mostly localized around Kyoto—at least the friendlier ones. If you happen to encounter one around here that's strong enough to actually affect you physically, chances are it's probably a vengeful spirit of some kind." She patted him on the shoulder reassuringly, "The likelihood of encountering one is astronomically low, unless you or your family are tied to the spirit somehow. So don't worry about it too much."
I'm definitely going to worry about it now that you've brought it up!
Unexpectedly, Sona's expression shifted out of nowhere, as if she had recalled something. "Speaking of your family, Ashikaga-san. There's something rather important I need to query you about."
"Go on."
She adopted a firm demeanor, "I need you to be honest with me. Do you come from a Mage family? I have pretty good reason to believe they're the ones who taught you the Magecraft you've been using."
"No clue," he shrugged.
"Ashikaga-san—"
"I'm being serious, I really don't know." He insisted, "You can sense if someone's Mana is awakened can't you? Since you saw my father when he came for last year's parent-teacher conference, you should've been able to tell whether he was a Mage or not."
"I didn't sense anything when he was around, however, my senses aren't a guaranteed measure. If your father's a 4th Circle Magician or an unbelievably talented 3rd Circle Magician, then it's within reason that he'd be capable of completely evading any attempt to probe him from me."
So the "Rank" the screen has been showing me is universally applied, that's good to know.
"I'm just an inexperienced 1st Circle Magician Sitri-san, I'm afraid I won't be of much help on that front."
She frowned, "Can't you just ask him?"
"I could, but don't you think there might be a reason that he didn't tell me if he is indeed a Mage? Recklessly confronting him certainly isn't the wisest approach in my opinion." Knowing that she was about to push him further, he continued. "The next parent-teacher conference is in a month from now, which is when he'll be visiting again. If you're really that curious, then how about we ask him about it then?"
"You say that as if you aren't curious about your family as well," which would be a good reason for Sona to suspect that he did in fact know something.
"I'm the smartest being alive, if there's something to uncover then the truth becoming known to me is only a matter of time." He smirked, "However, there is one that I'm curious about. I'd like to know whether or not Murayama will awaken as well, do you have any way to test that?"
"If the two of you are actually from a Mage bloodline, then it's practically an inevitability. However the process of one's Mana awakening itself happens almost instantaneously, detecting it beforehand is quite bothersome unless you attempt something more invasive."
Takauji certainly wouldn't be sticking any needles into his sister's body anytime soon.
"Fair enough."
"By the way, I did some research into your name—"
"The Shogun, I'm aware. I don't have any Muromachi-period relics lying around my house, so I don't have anything for you there either."
She groaned, "Very well. I'll drop this subject for the time-being, but I hope I can rely on you to tell me if you do end up discovering something."
"Sure," his tone didn't give away much of his intent.
"And remember, don't break anything." She left with him a final warning before leaving him be, already aware of what he planned to use the weapons for since Tsubaki had relayed what she had learned about his projection ability back to her.
"Yeah yeah," his eyes began to wander around the arsenal, wondering where to begin.
Let's start with the more simplistic-shaped weapons first.
He picked up one of the resting Katanas, holding it vertically across both of his open palms and finding himself surprised in lieu of its weight.
Traditional steel Katanas are supposed to be rather heavy, but taking the length of this particular one into account it still feels slightly unnatural. He flipped the blade around, observing each of its components in close detail. It must be adjusted to the strength of a Devil, but I wonder if its weight is all that there is to it?
He activated Mana Sense—watching in trepidation as runic symbols highlighted in light-blue appeared across the surface of the Katana's metal. Each of them arranged in some sort of patterned formation that was clearly purposeful.
I should ask for information about this once I'm done getting rid of that intrusive teleportation circle, since these engravings have been done to a weapon it's probably something that'd go well with my Artificer abilities.
He continued checking out the wide array of weapons that were available to him, only projecting those that didn't have runes inscribed into them. Such as a normal Katana, Kunai, and even a Yumi—all of which he'd need proper training with first before he could actually utilize them in a combat scenario, save for maybe the Kunai.
And much to his delight, doing so had warranted a notification from his screen.
───
Congratulations! You have successfully obtained 100 Artificer Experience.
Novice Artificer Intermediate Artificer (0/1000).
[+20 DEX (38 → 58).]
Skill(s) Awakened!
(Level 1) Skill Splicing; Imbue properties from your acquired active skills into objects, skills that do not match with the object will have their effectiveness reduced or be rendered completely ineffective.
(Level 1) Trace; You can immediately understand the internal make-up of low-tier objects as long as you have them in your hand through injecting your Mana into its internal composition.
───
His delight only surged upon seeing what he had unlocked, his interest in the skills he had awakened completely overshadowing the nice chunk of Dexterity he had been given as a bonus reward, as well as the level his Projection and Enhancement had gained.
I can already grasp the versatility of "Skill Splicing", it'll only get better and better with time as I unlock more skills, and finally gives me the power to do more than simply enhance the already existing traits of an object.
As for the ability "trace", he was pretty much in the perfect spot to give it a test run.
He started by projecting a regular Katana, and then proceeded to grab the original Katana belonging to Tomoe that he had examined earlier.
Trace, information started to flow into his brain at a rapid pace—detailing each and every component that made the Katana what it was, the hilt, the blade, the metal used in its composition, everything.
So something like this is indeed defined as "low-tier", which probably means that the runic Katana isn't something I'm capable of tracing at the moment.
Just to confirm, he tested out the skill—and ended up receiving no information whatsoever.
That's fine, I'm definitely going to be using this skill a lot so leveling it up shouldn't take too long.
He projected another Katana, but this time using the information he had obtained from using Trace. Holding both projections up to the original and comparing them.
The weight of the new one I created definitely feels more accurate to the original, but I don't actually have any training in Kendo yet so I probably won't be able to identify the differences in depth for now.
He continued to trace as many weapons as he could, increasing the size of his arsenal far beyond mere a kitchen knife and electric fan. And once that was finished, he decided it time was to give Skill Splicing a shot.
Grease, Blind, and Shadow Step are all probably not the greatest fits for a weapon, and using Mana Reinforcement doesn't make a whole lot of sense since it's effectively doing the same thing as Enhancement. He scratched his chin, looking for a solution.
I mean, I don't necessarily have to go for a weapon right out of the gate do I? Even if I end up creating something useless, I'd like to at least get some experience using this skill. That way it'll be more effective by the time I obtain a suitable skill.
He picked up the less effective Katana projection, clasping its hilt and imbuing it with the Grease skill—causing the armament to immediately slip out of his hand as if the hilt had been coated in a thick coat of butter.
Wait a minute.
And in that moment, an idea popped into his head.
Couldn't I imbue Sitri-san's shoes with Grease while she isn't looking?
━━━━
Some shenanigans are about to commence, perchance.
Comments
ShadowXK
lol turning into a lucky pervert with magic on Sona
Cobalt
Oh I'm so happy he chose the troll lifepath this time around
