thomasdarkrose
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Fabricator v2 - Chapter 5
🕑 Added 2023-06-25 00:43:16 +0000 UTCJunichiro looked down at his latest project and smiled brightly. A glittering golden ring rested on the top of his worktable. It was somewhat large, at least twice as wide and thick as a wedding band, but that was necessary for the rune work that anchored the enchantment on it. The interior circumference of the ring was absolutely coated in tiny runes that he'd painstakingly inscribed. It had taken him almost twenty hours of work to carefully inscribe the runes while looking through a magnifying glass. Yet, it was completely worth it to have his first true magical item!
He hopped off of his comfortable work chair and slipped the ring on his finger. It gave off a soft glow and quickly re-sized itself to fit perfectly onto his finger. He continued to admire his work even if the exterior of the ring just looked like a normal golden ring, if a bit large. Until he sent some mana through his hand and into it.
The moment his mana touched the ring a transparent blue magical shield sprang to life and completely surrounded him. Junichiro started laughing happily as he looked all around at the shield surrounding him. It was perfect! No cracks, no signs of static or random shifts in the surface. It was as smooth as glass! Unfortunately, it was also currently about as strong as glass. He stopped channeling his mana and looked proudly at his accomplishment, the Ring of Shielding.
It was a rather simple magical item. Wear it, channel mana into it, the mana becomes a shield to protect the wearer. It wasn't perfect though. First, its strength was determined by the amount of mana that was channeled into it. Second, it could only handle so much mana before it failed. So, someone like Sirzechs pumping his magical power through the ring would burn it out in seconds even if he never got hit. Meanwhile, Junichiro could pump all of his mana into it and it would only produce a weak shield.
Weak to magical attacks anyway. Even with minimal power the shield was completely impervious to mundane attacks. Knives, guns, rocket launchers, tanks shells, anything short of a massive explosion would just harmlessly bounce off of a shield powered by him. Yet the weakest magical attack would shatter it due to his still pretty low reserves.
He'd been working non-stop for the last two months, ever since he sold his first set of knives to that nice middle-aged man. Yet, his mana was only about double what it had initially been. That might seem impressive but doubling ten was only twenty and that was essentially what he had done. Now if he doubled it a dozen more times, he would have something to be proud of. If he was a D&D wizard, he'd just now have enough magical power to qualify as a level one. So, not much.
On the bright side, he'd garnered himself something of a reputation at the weekend market. He'd sold out all of his knives that first weekend, his last one only selling just before the market closed that Sunday. However, word had spread about the quality of his work by word of mouth and the next weekend he'd sold out on the first day. Then came the really lucrative thing, custom orders! He charged three times as much for a basic custom order and then even more if they wanted something fancy.
Thanks to his popularity he hadn't had to steal much in the last two months. Just the occasional item that no amount of magical trinkets would get people to sell him. Things like the massive chemistry set sitting over to his left. Now that he had a good source of income, he was planning to branch out into a few more fields, Potions, Wands, and Scrolls. Each of which had some startling costs. It wasn't like he could just scrounge up potion ingredients in the junkyard. Scrolls required expensive paper and parchment along with equally expensive inks. He'd had to hold back on wands until he had a working gas generator, a lathe, and cash to buy precious metals a semi-precious gemstones. The generator and lathe were rather expensive pieces of equipment to have shipped to the junkyard, but who would think twice about shipping them here?
Before that, he had to do one more thing. He hopped back into his nice comfortable seat with a grin. He'd had a 'do it yourself' style shed delivered to the junkyard once he'd saved up enough money. It was just a small ten-by-ten shed with a tin roof. Nothing special, but once he assembled it deep in the center of the junkyard where it would be impossible to see from the road, he officially had his first lab! Since then he'd been improving it and his security.
For security, he'd followed through with his first set of ward stones. Sadly, they were actual stones carved with runes and smeared with his own blood. They were nothing to write home about, and rather weak. They did their job though and once he'd gotten his hands on a proper smelter, crucibles, and molds, he'd made much better ward stones. Making mana infused steel cubes, carving deep runes into them, and filling those runes with mana infused gold made some excellent mid-tier wards. If his judgment was right, only a being of middle-class power or higher could even detect his wards, and only by coming close to them. The wards prevented all outbound mana transmissions, up to a certain point. As long as he wasn't setting off Megumin style explosions, he would be fine.
Thanks to the smelter, making mana infused metals was a cinch. Just melt the metal, pour it into the mold, and feed mana into it while it cools. Then he could use his new mana infused ingots to do some mana forging and really get some excellent results. Stacking mana into the metal like that gave any runes or enchantments and excellent boost so power and efficiency. Both things that he needed with his low mana pool.
Once he was comfortable, he picked up his conjured inscribing tool and a second gold ring. He had his shield, but now he wanted a second layer of defense to protect his life. He didn't care how long it would take, his life was worth the effort.
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Several days later, Junichiro set down the second gold ring and smiled brightly. As much as he wanted to get this second ring done as fast as possible, inscribing runes for twenty or so hours straight, even over two days, was a bit much. So he'd taken plenty of breaks to work on his custom orders and the next set of standard knives for the coming weekend. Despite his much improved income, he still wasn't making nearly enough. He wasn't willing to push his luck to try and find someone to sell a magical item to though. Way too risky.
This second golden ring had runes inscribed in it much like the first, only it had a greenish tint to the gold. Weaving the enchantment into the ring to make it work had tinted the gold somewhat. Once he gave it a last look over, he slipped it onto his left hand. Once it re-sized to fit perfectly, he picked up a small knife sitting on the edge of his desk, “Here goes nothing.”
Taking a deep breath and tensing his whole body, he drew the razor sharp knife across the tip of his index finger. The blade effortlessly parted his flesh causing blood to rapidly well up and begin to drip. Just that simple slice had sliced his fingertip to the bone. Junichiro had to start taking deep breaths to fight off a bought of nausea. Cutting yourself on accident was one thing, self mutilation was something completely different.
Luckily, his new ring activated as intended. He felt the ring connect to his mana automatically and begin siphoning some into itself. Simultaneously the wound on the tip of his finger began to close at a visible pace. His Ring of Regeneration was working wonderfully. Similar to his Ring of Shielding, the Ring of Regeneration worked faster with larger reserves of mana but could only handle so much so the speed was limited. Unlike the Ring of Shielding, the Ring of Regeneration couldn't be burnt out since he couldn't force more mana into it, it just took what it needed. It wasn't anywhere near Wolverine levels of regeneration, but he could recover from anything less than a major wound in just a few minutes. Additionally, it would keep his body in perfect health by repairing any damage repeated actions, like swinging a hammer, would do to his joints. Had to plan for that late life arthritis!
Seriously though, between the shield and the regeneration, he should be very safe from mundane threats and low level supernatural threats. Combined with the trinket hiding his mana and he should be easily ignored as nothing important. It was the absolute best he could currently do to ensure his safety. Once he could make weapons capable of vaporizing continents, he wouldn't need to be so careful. Until then...
There was another reason he made the Ring of Regeneration. He rolled his chair over to another desk, this one covered in writing supplies, most notably calligraphy supplies. Not just simple starter supplies one might find in many stores, but rather the high quality expensive ones that you had to either find a specialty store for, or special order. Junichiro had actually been surprised at how easy it was to find high quality parchment paper at a reasonable price. It was the brushes and ink block that had monstrous price tags.
Just a single medium-high quality ink stick had cost him fifty thousand yen! The most expensive ones he'd seen were easily double that price if not more! Then he had to spend just as much for a similar quality brush! JUST ONE BRUSH! Just those two innocuous items had cost him over one hundred thousand yen! He'd been very tempted to just try and steal them but it was impossible. Such expensive items were very well protected. Besides, he might be willing to steal in necessity but he didn't consider himself an actual thief. He only took what he needed, not what he wanted.
…
Most of the time. He wasn't perfect, alright?
He pulled out the ink stone, ink stick, and a small container of water. To make traditional calligraphy ink, he needed to pour just a small amount of water on the top portion of the stone, above the well, and grind the stick into the water. He'd need to do this a bunch of times until he had not only enough ink but also the right consistency. The more of the ink stick he grinds into the water, the thicker the ink becomes. It had to be within a certain range to suit his purposes. So, that's what he did... For the next forty minutes.
Once he had enough ink, he set the ink stone aside and retrieved the knife he'd cut himself with previously. In order to make spell scrolls one needed magical ink. There were many ways to get magical ink if one had access to the right materials or stores. Junichiro didn't. The only magical thing he had available for materials was himself. With that being the case, he channeled mana from his core to the tip of his finger, in order for the blood to be as magically charged as possible, before slicing it once more and allowing his blood to drip into the ink well.
It just took a few drops carefully mixed into the thick ink and he had himself magical ink. His Ring of Regeneration ate some more of his mana to seal his finger once more. He'd forced himself to hold off on making magical scrolls until he wouldn't have to suffer through days of healing every time he wanted to make some.
With his prep done, Junichiro settled a sheet of parchment paper in front of himself and picked up calligraphy brush. After dipping it into the ink, he began to draw on the piece of parchment while channeling mana through the brush. Spell scrolls were interesting little things. What you drew on them was largely irrelevant. This was a necessity as not every Artificer would be an expert as drawing art. What was important was the intentions of the caster, the amount of mana invested, and the amount of ink used. All Artificers could feel when a spell scroll was completed just as they could feel their enchantments take hold on items.
Most people might consider single use scrolls to be inferior to wands and staves. Generally, they would be right. There was no spell he could put on a scroll that he couldn't make into a wand. So, why make scrolls? For one, it took a minimum of fifty times as much mana to produce a wand. Mana that he was required to have on hand while making the wand. Mana he definitely didn't have. So he could, instead, make fifty scrolls to one wand.
There was another reason though. Scrolls didn't have to be made all at once. As long as he had the proper supplies, it was technically possible for him to spend the time and mana making a single scroll capable of blowing up all of Japan. Obviously that would take an ungodly amount of mana and was very inefficient for him at this time. However, a few scrolls capable of hurting something along the lines of a mid-class devil? A day of work, tops.
Then there's all the simple little utility things he might only need once in a long while, in which case having a wand for that spell was silly. For now he was taking some inspiration from the D&D franchise and some books he'd bought with spells in them. While he was aware of such things in both of his lives, he'd never really studied them in depth or anything. So, inspirational sources were a necessity. He'd still make simple elemental attack scrolls, those were always useful. But another useful spell could be Dominate Person, a spell that let him turn someone into his personal minion for a short time. Hit someone threatening him with that spell and tell them to run as far away as they can, while he did the exact same thing!
So, yeah, he planned to make a few dozen scrolls in his spare time and carry some on himself at all times. He had his priorities straight and priority one was survival! He couldn't do anything if he got himself killed by the first weak ass supernatural entity he encountered. Or god forbid, a stray coming into his city. And now that he'd thought of that, he felt like he'd tempted the great Murphy in the sky. A good weapon was definitely next on his list!
Junichiro jumped and felt his heart suddenly hammering in his chest as his proximity wards were tripped. He quickly hopped to his feet and grabbed a small hand mirror. Instead of his reflection he saw the front gates of the junkyard. As soon as he looked he let out a sigh of relief, “Way to work yourself up over nothing, dumbass.”
Sitting in front of the gate to the junkyard was a deliveryman dropping off a few packages. He watched through the security mirror until the delivery man left. The security mirrors were part of his upgraded ward scheme. He had small mirrors all over that all linked to the hand mirror. With a touch he could scroll through all of them and get many views of the surrounding area. He generally kept it focused on the front gate though, just for moments like this when his deliveries arrived.
He quickly made his way through the maze of junk and broken down cars until he arrived at the last turn before the main gate. He looked through the security mirror once more and flipped through some of the other surveillance mirrors to make sure no one was nearby to see him. With the coast clear, he came out of his hiding spot and quickly went toward his packages. He quickly carried the boxes back through the maze to his work area slash home. They weighed a bit but he'd started working out some to beginning improving his strength. He just considered this another work out.
Once safely in his shed, he grabbed his knife and sliced open the packaging. After pulling out the items, he gave a little cheer. It was several pieces of dark tan, nearly black, leather and a variety of leather working tools. He starting setting them up in his tailoring station with a bright smile. He'd been meaning to make himself a bag for a long time but he needed to make the bag from scratch if he wanted to enchant it. Oh yes, he was very much looking forward to making his very own Bag of Holding. Or, Backpack of Holding, as the case may be.
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AN
So this chapter is slightly shorter than normal but it felt like a good place to stop and I didn't want to force myself to pad it out just for word count.
We got another little time skip and things are going nicely for Junichiro so far. I think it's almost time to throw him a curveball, what do you all think?
Comments
greatGUARDIAN100
"Stacking mana into the metal like that gave any runes or enchantments and excellent boost so power and efficiency" should probably be "Stacking mana into the metal like that gave any runes or enchantments an* excellent boost to* power and efficiency" Thanks for the great story, binge reading it all today here I come!
greatGUARDIAN100
I'm over half a year behind but just bought your patreon today and reading through your work, loved your stuff on RR and when I found you on here I had to read more of your writing. Found something that needs correcting, not sure if you fixed it after posting it elsewhere or not but figured I should point it out just in case.
Cody S.
I do love using simple things like the Ring of Regen for awesome things like GAINZ! As for joining the school, I think he'd be forced to after joining Rias's peerage. Then again, he might just negotiate something to keep himself out so he can keep working on his crafting. Not to mention, once he joins her he'd use his second Essence and would want to dedicate time to getting some GAINZ! from it. So, I'm not 100% sure which route I will go yet. 50/50 odds for now. Will change as the story develops.
King hand axe
I enjoyed the progression and small time skip. The ring of regeneration is amazing, especially if he uses it to work out, lift maximum low weights high reps -> tears muscle fibers -> near instant heal with ring for muscle gaines -> rinse and repeat. Gives him a body professional climbers would be jealous of, dense strength not bulky. Boosted gear works on multiply base level strength, the stronger he is the less boosts he needs to be crazy powerful, mix training in with his blacksmithing and maybe some weighted clothing, he'd be a powerhouse. Maybe he should look into a battery type device he can make, so he can store up lot of mana for projects that are currently above his mana level. Is he going to be joining the kuoh academy? Just, he'd kinda a homeless orphan.
