Chapter 161: Day 351 (2) – Equipment

I returned to the Enchanting Hall and the leadership council quickly began to gather. Each enchanting table was the size of a decently sized fold out table, the same as the standard table size purchased for buildings. The portion in the middle had eight indentations and an indented circle in the wood connecting all eight indentations.

There was room on either side of the table to lay out equipment and spare crystals. I laid out rows of crystals to my right, double checking each type with the Processing Rod. The small wolves and brown slimes had dropped brown crafting crystals as well. Clarissa laid out the equipment she had prepped was laid out to my left. There had been no chair when the building was first purchased. Now a chair had been provided for me.

I looked at the 12 swords. “Really all swords?” I asked.

“To limit any variables, based on the equipment type,” Clarissa replied in her usual deadpan. I could appreciate the need to control variables, but I wanted to see a wider range of tests being done. I set the first sword into the circle. It barely fit. I knew from the pillar, that only one item could be inside the circle and the item had to be entirely inside the circle.

I then placed the eight blue slime crafting crystals. I then put both hands on the table and carefully touched the circle while thinking ‘active’. I didn’t panic when all the blue crafting crystals began to glow and there was a mental confirmation that the process had begun. I waited along with everyone else. I knew from the pillar interrupting the process, would wreck the crystals and the piece of equipment.

There was no conversation, and it was boring. The only one speaking was Clarissa who kept track of the time. A minute, then ten, half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half. Finally at 100 minutes, the process stopped. The crystals stopped glowing, turned to dust, and then disappeared.

That was a lot of time. I carefully picked up the sword. I instantly knew that I just needed to channel energy to activate the sword’s ability to melt through things. I picked up a spare sword with my other hand and held the two together. I focused on channeling, nothing happened.

There was no effect. I thought about different things, but nothing turned on the active effect. “Here,” I passed the blades to Gerold who was standing the closest. He tried the same thing as me for a minute, but no result. The blades were passed around and no one could turn on the active effect.

I sat back down and put another blade in the circle. I filled up the slots with blue slime crafting crystals. I paused. “Someone else can do it this time. Passive, I believe. I am going to freshen up,” I said. I left the building as everyone was sorting things out.

I rolled my head around on my shoulders and took in the fresh air. I stretched out my arms and let out a long sigh. Yeah, I wasn’t doing that again. That was the most mind-numbing thing anyone could do. Figure a 15 hour work day would mean about 9 enchantments by one person per day. Why did it have to take so bloody long?

I knew there was probably a reason, but 100 minutes was frustrating. It also didn’t escape my notice that was the same amount of time as a full regeneration cycle. There was definitely something going on there, but I had no clue what. Another mystery to add to the pile.

As I went to get a shower, change of clothes, and something to drink, I began to think on all the mysteries I had encountered so far.

The 100 minute timeframe for a regeneration cycle and enchanting, it seemed quite arbitrary and the fact that amount of time had come up a second time was like a glowing neon sign. I couldn’t make out what the sign said, but I knew it was there.

The variance in the length of day and night when I first arrived. I didn’t trust Ruth’s analysis anymore, that it was just my imagination. The tower obviously. I should prepare some weak summons of my own to test it out. Maybe bring someone along who could do negative energy sensing to see if they spotted anything about the tower. Then I remembered the cold of the zone and both of these ideas didn’t seem so great anymore.

The stats other than Body. Higher level monster behavior. Then the entire thing with energy, crystals, powder, and summoning. That was an entire can of worms on its own. I didn’t like worms. They felt disturbing to me. All squiggly, mushy, and just plain weird just like how I was concerned about the crystal powder.

There was the big mystery, why we were all here, but that was like the unifying mystery. Solve that mystery, and basically everything else gets solved. It was all a question of ‘how’ if I had that answer. There was a lot of data, from the timing of arrivals, to the layout of the Systemic Land, but it was like a puzzle without anything to guide me but my guesses.

After getting cleaned up, I returned to see one of the soldiers at the enchanting table. I also noted a second soldier at one of the other tables. I walked over to Clarissa. “How much longer?” I asked.

“Just a couple of minutes for him, the other one is working on counter and will be a minutes after the passive enchantment,” she replied. I nodded at that and waited with everyone else. I looked around and there were no spare chairs. If there had been a chair, I would have stared at the person until they got up and offered it to me. It would have been funny. Sadly, only two chairs and both were in use by the soldiers.

The glowing crystals crumbled away. “All done,” the soldier said. Everyone looked at me and I went over and picked up the enchanted sword. It had an ability to melt things. I frowned since that was the same mental information I got from the active enchanted sword.

It had been set down on a nearby table and I picked it up, comparing my impression of both blades. One required energy while the other one didn’t. Ah, there was nothing about their respective power. I set down the active blade and went to pick up a regular sword. I pushed the passive enchanted sword against an unenchanted one.

There was a slight hiss as one copper sword melted through another. There was a clang as the end of the unenchanted sword clattered to the ground. I looked at where it had been cut. The metal was melted and slightly deformed. I looked at the enchanted blade and the edge was slightly worn.

I carefully poked the enchanted blade with my small finger. Nothing. I gently poked the edge, nothing as well. An inbuilt safety feature, which was important to know. I poked the floor. It began to melt. I poked my boot, and my boot began to melt. There was an empty sheath on the enchanting table. I put the blade into the sheath. No melting. I took the sword back out and handed it off to another person and set the sheath back down on the table.

The enchanting was finished on the counter blade. I got the impression it could resist melting. Once I had the passive blade back in my hand, the blades didn’t do anything to each other. “Next round of enchanting, three at once?” Clarissa asked.

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“Brown slimes next, those rows of crafting crystals.” I pointed out the rows of crystals. Clarissa quickly organized three enchanting tables and assigned soldiers to begin the enchanting process. While that was happening I noted chairs and a table had just been brought in and I sat down, claiming a seat as my own.

People talked about the enchanting and passed around the blades. The big question was the active enchantment and how to activate it. A soldier brought over a tray of cups, and a pitcher of water. I was served the first cup of water.

I sipped my water and thought over the issue. Why couldn’t I channel energy? Clearly channeling wasn’t what was being done with raw crystals to make crystal powder. It was something else. A term I didn’t understand, beyond energy goes into an active enchantment.

Time to think about this logically. The entire process was based on levels. So, level 1 enchanting could melt a similar copper sword. I had a quick experiment that would get me some answers. “Clarissa,” I said, and she turned towards me from her seat to my right. She had been listening in to the ongoing conversation.

“Get an iron sword. For a test,” I said.

“One moment.” She got up and began to arrange things.

“What are you thinking Champion Michael?” Bob asked.

“Testing a higher-level weapon against a lower-level weapon that is enchanted. It should provide a lot of information,” I replied.

“Clever like always,” Bob said. I ignored him sucking up to me. Clarissa came back with an iron sword. Now leather was the main material in the level 2 store, but it also had iron bars. But all the iron weapons and gear were in the level 3 store. The number of enchantments that could be stacked would need to be tested.

First, the test I had planned for right now. I took the passive enchanted copper sword and the iron sword. I brought both of them together. The melting was a lot slower. It took a bit more than a minute to melt through.

I set the pieces down on the table as conversation started up again. I was listening, but not really paying too much attention. Most of it was about equipping people, costs, and other matters I wasn’t really concerned about. What I was thinking of was the enchantment itself process and the level of the enchantment.

I didn’t think it would be a stretch to say that an active enchantment was more powerful than a passive one. A passive enchantment appeared to be at the same level as the crafting crystals. There would need to be tests done on monsters, but that would make sense, with how crafting crystal upgrades were presented.

Regardless the issue with channeling was concerning. Up to this point the Almighty System never provided something where there was a question on how to use it. It may be opaque, but the pillars, buildings, skills, all came with mental instructions. Now active enchantments broke this trend.

I considered the buildings available, but nothing seemed to match up with channeling, possibly the Alchemic Hall, but I wasn’t holding my breath on that. It seemed like too much of a stretch. Also channeling what? Energy? That was already being done with crystal powder and summoning.

I picked up the active enchanted blade again and began mentally thinking a range of things. Push energy, channel energy, melt energy, melt power, melt active, and so on. I spent a good fifteen seconds on each thought while pushing the edge of the blade against the table. Nothing. Other people had tried as well.

I finally let out a sigh and set the enchanted blade back on the table. “Clarissa,” I spoke up and everyone else quickly quieted down. “Set up a test for this blade. The first person who activates it gets rewarded. Time limit five minutes an attempt. Also something to test the blade on besides a table. People can form a line or something. We can outsource the problem. Can set it up near the pillars.”

“I will make the arrangements. What kind of reward are you thinking?” Clarissa asked.

“A skill. Since we aren’t holding auctions anymore, we will make the reward a skill. How is the process being decided at the moment?” I asked. There was a long stretch of silence and then Clarissa spoke up again.

“There is a list for the dungeons near here, and the Union has claim on the dungeons outside the city. For the near dungeons, I have been allocating the skill points.” She was probably using them to leverage favors and solidify her power. “Laura can speak to the Union’s organization on skill points further away.”

“They are allocated skill points based on seniority. People can add up seniority for a team member. Once a skill point is earned, all that seniority is erased.” I nodded at that. It was a good system to use.

“I see no reason to change things. Keep up the good work.” I noted Laura relax visibility and Clarissa appeared less tense. If the process wasn’t broke or stupid, I wasn’t about to interfere. I had enough headaches as things were.

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