Chapter 34: Uroboros & Jörmungandr

It was a quiet summer evening in the port city of Neima. It was currently seven o'clock PM, now when almost all the residents of the noble district were finishing their chores and preparing to have dinner and call it a day. But...

*BOOM!*

A loud boom coming from one of the mansions of the district interrupted the quiet atmosphere of the afternoon and disturbed the residents and this was not the first time this happened. To be exact these continuous explosions had started almost three weeks ago and occurred with a frequency of two to three times a day.

But although the residents of the noble district were very upset about this, none of them dared to do anything about it. The explosions were coming from the old gothic-style mansion that had been rented by a wandering wizard who had arrived in the city a little over a month ago. Since the wizard hardly ever left the mansion, many people in the noble district had never seen him and what little they knew of him was little more than hearsay.

Some said he was a wandering wizard and others that he belonged to an organization powerful enough to challenge the forest church. Others believed he was just a wizard of the 1st realm and others that perhaps he was of the 3rd realm. Some said he was an archaeologist and others said he was a half-crazed alchemist.

But be that as it may, because the guy was a wizard about whom little was known, no one in the noble district had filed a complaint regarding the explosions. After all, no one wanted to meddle with a wizard and his weird experiments.

****

The basement of the mansion was almost torn apart. There were holes in all the walls, part of the ceiling had fallen in and there were cracks all over the room. How the place was still standing was a complete mystery.

'Ugh... Ouch, that didn't go well.'

Marcus was partially embedded in one of the walls of the room and because of the explosion had every bone in his body cracked or broken. He circulated necrotic energy through his body and his wounds began to heal, but since it was still daylight it would take a while to heal.

About 30 minutes later, when he was fully recovered, Marcus stepped out of the wall and walked towards the center of the room. In the middle of the basement was a large smoking crater and inside it was a piece of metal with runes written on it that was partially melted.

Marcus bent down, picked up the piece, and began to examine it in detail.

'Tch, God damn it... I seriously thought I could at least stabilize the enchantment this time... Why is it so f**king complicated?!'

Angry and frustrated, Marcus threw the piece of metal against the wall, walked out of the basement, and locked the door. He then entered the library and walked over to the long table in the center of the room. On it was a large stack of documents, pieces of metal with runes engraved on them, and the plans for the enchanted armor that the researchers of the Guerrmanic Empire had developed 100,000 years ago.

Marcus sat down, picked up a journal and pen that were on the table, and began to write down all the details of the latest failed experiment.

'If the pattern of the "shadow" and "darkness" runes are mixed with the "energy" and "mantle" runes then the energy distribution changes to a more stable one. But if I try to incorporate the blocking runes and the conservation runes, the magical energy concentration of the enchantment becomes more volatile because the runes do not distinguish solar energy from other magical energy. So...'

A few months back when he was exploring the subterranean facility, Marcus had stumbled upon Imperial researcher Bairus Dertemian's room and the documents of all his research. Among these documents were the blueprints for the stealth armor Bairus had designed.

The purpose of this enchanted armor was to temporarily enhance the wearer's stealth abilities and agility through the use of darkness element enchantments. For all the abilities it possessed, the armor could easily be categorized as a high-level enchanted item.

But of course, since Marcus was a dark element user and could use spells to enhance his physical abilities, he didn't need the armor. But that was no longer the case.

As an undead Marcus suffered damage every time he was exposed to the sunlight and although at first covering himself with clothing to avoid sun damage was helpful, things had changed more than a month ago.

Perhaps because it was summer or because the sun was at its zenith, the concentration of solar energy increased more at midday to the point that mere layers of clothing no longer served as protection. Therefore, the only times of the day when Marcus could leave the basement without getting burned were either very early in the morning or at dusk.

Faced with this situation the only idea Marcus could come up with was to use the stealth armor blueprints and based on the darkness enchantments create an enchanted object that could block the sunlight and protect him from sun damage. But it wasn't that simple.

To create enchanted items a person needed to have an understanding of enchantments, a great mastery of skills such as smithing and craftsmanship, as well as a deep knowledge of magical theory. Unfortunately, Marcus possessed none of these qualities so he could only learn by trial and error until he got it right.

And although after three weeks Marcus obtained the skill [Craftsmanship lv:2], the truth was that he had not made much progress and every time he tried to apply the enchantment, things just ended up exploding.

....

{Solar energy in the environment has disappeared}

….

{All the user's statistics and skills return to normal}

….

'Sigh, I guess that's it for today.'

When he saw the system messages, Marcus stopped everything he was doing, left the library dressed in a set of black hooded robes, put on his mask, and left the mansion.

****

The weapon store was divided into three floors. The first floor was where the more common and cheaper weapons and armor made of iron, bronze, or steel were located. On the second floor were weapons made of better quality metals and enchanted equipment or made from monster parts. On the third floor were different rooms that were used for various purposes.

Normally only the lowest ranking adventurers and mercenaries bought the equipment on the second floor since they did not have enough money to buy something of better quality.

However, those who did buy this equipment tended to change it quite a bit more frequently. This was because many of the monsters in the jungle had high defensive capabilities that damaged common weapons or could also tear through shields and armor like paper.

But despite all this, there was not much that low-level mercenaries could do about it.

Even though the job of hunting monsters left more money than that of a farmer or an average craftsman, all that money went to buying potions and renewing equipment among other basic expenses, so they couldn't afford to buy better equipment.

Sure, they could save up to buy better equipment, but that would take quite some time and most mercenaries and adventurers had families to support so they couldn't do that. After all, a person needed to eat every day, not a week or two from now.

Others simply couldn't stand their situation and tried to hunt stronger monsters to receive better earnings, but most of the time things didn't end well.

'Hm. I guess the life of mercenaries and adventurers is not as fantastic as they describe it in the novels. Unless you're strong enough.'

Marcus stood on the second floor of the store looking at the weapons hanging on some of the walls. Some were enchanted weapons and others were made from monster parts or with metals that didn't exist on Earth.

But instead of looking at the weapons, Marcus was looking at the price of these as even the cheapest of them cost several hundred silver Raels.

'15 gold Raels for an Inferior-Tier enchanted sword?! Ugh, with these prices I'm not surprised that people choose to buy lower quality equipment instead of trying to save.'

"Excuse me Mr. Edevane, the clan leader is waiting for you." Said one of the store employees.

Marcus stopped looking at the weapons on the wall and the employee guided him to the room that was located on the third floor of the store where he had met Hadrif three weeks ago.

*Creack*

Marcus entered the room and saw that the clan leader was sitting on the huge armchair in the room while drinking a cask of wine. He walked to the center of the room and noticed that the armchair he had broken last time had already been replaced. He also noticed the chest sitting on top of the living room table.

"Gaps... It's about time you got here. Do you have any idea what time it is?" Hadrif said in an annoyed though not so stern tone.

"Sorry I stayed late working on an experiment."

"Hmph, yes I do. I heard the explosions as did everyone in the damn noble district. I'm surprised no one has complained so far." Hadrif said and took another sip from the cask again.

"Haha... I apologize for that. But more importantly, are they finished?"

"Look for yourself." Hadrif set the wine cask aside and opened the chest on top of the table.

Inside the chest was a full suit of armor with a hood included and a longsword.

The armor was black and looked like it was made of leather, but if one looked more closely one would notice that the armor was composed of thin strands of metal and unknown material, woven together as if it were carbon fiber cloth.

The sword was double-edged and 100 cm(39 inches) long, its sheath was black and its hilt was wrapped in the same leather as the sheath. When Marcus unsheathed it he noticed that the blade of the sword was black as well, but it had a pair of runes inscribed on it and had a marbled pattern similar to Damascus steel.

================================

Name: Nameless armor

Artifact: Enchanted Item

Tier: High

================================

Durability: 1950/1950

Defense Power: 350

Description: An armor imbued with

spells created from the use of **********

to combine the scales of a [Horned Basilisk]

and Galadium fiber.

Abilities:

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Fire resistance lv:3

Necrotic resistance lv:2

Physical Atk resistance lv:4

Self Repair (Cooldown time: 3D)

Increased Def (Cooldown time: 1D)

================================

================================

Name: Nameless Sword

Artifact: Magic item

Tier: Medium

================================

Durability: 1,500/1,500

Attack Power: 140-210

Description: A sword created from

the use of ********** to combine the

horn of a [Horned Basilisk], Ilectrum

and ground Rhei crystals.

Abilities:

Conductivity and magical empowerment 17%.

Energy conservation 10%

Reduction of mana cost: 15%

================================

When Marcus saw the stats of the items he was quite impressed.

Although the armor resistances were listed as abilities, they were not magical but simply features of the equipment itself. But Marcus remembered that almost all armor made of metals and normal materials he had seen had no elemental defenses and only had [Physical Atk. Resistance] between levels 1 and 2.

The second thing he noticed was the materials that had been used.

From what little Marcus remembered about the materials of this world, Ilectrum was a metal used in the manufacture of magical weapons because it was an incredible conductor of energy. Galadium on the other hand was a metal that was incredibly resistant to physical attack and had some resistance to magic. But casting and molding these metals was no easy task.

But most striking of all was how the equipment was manufactured.

'How did she do it...? 'According to the system this armor has scales from the basilisk, but it looks like she processed them and turned them into threads. And how did she combine the basilisk's horn with the metal?' Marcus' mind was a sea of unanswered questions.

Although the civilization of this world seemed to be far behind Earth, the truth was that thanks to magic and other factors, technology, techniques of creating and processing some materials, this world had already surpassed Earth in multiple aspects.

"So what do you think? "Although she couldn't see his face, just by seeing how he had reacted, Hadrif knew that the equipment had exceeded Marcus' expectations. She smiled and took another drink from the wine cask.

"This is amazing... But why is the sword a Magic item and not an enchanted one? Are you going to make me pay another extra for it?" Although Marcus said this in jest the truth was that he didn't want to waste any more of his Rehi crystals.

Besides, when he realized that the equipment had been created from the untainted parts of the horned Basilisk he got a little upset. The Giant Clan had practically made a profit from a monster he killed and not only did he not make any profit but they were also charging him!

"Gasp... Don't worry, I won't charge you extra. Consider it a thank you for giving me such an interesting job after so long. Besides, you already paid extra, remember." She said as she opened another barrel of wine.

Originally, Marcus had paid sixty grade 2 Rehi crystals for the equipment, but according to Hadrif, it would take her six weeks to make it. Since he didn't want to stay in town for too long, he paid a little more to have it finished in half the time.

"The sword can boost reinforcement spells and the armor has two enchantments. The first one activates automatically when the durability decays to 40% or you can activate it manually just like the second one. But once you activate them you'll have to wait a few days to use them again." She took another sip of wine and then asked "What name are you going to give them?"

"Do I have to name them?" He asked as he put the sword back in the chest.

"Not if you don't want to. But it's normal for equipment like this to have names." She replied.

'I was never good at choosing names... But...'Marcus tried to come up with a good name for the sword and armor. After thinking about it for a moment he chose two that seemed fitting for the equipment. " The sword is Uroboros and the armor is Jörmungandr." He finally said 'Hm, it sounded better when I thought of it in my head.'

Ding!

....

{Objects have been successfully named}

....

{Nameless sword » Uroboros}

....

{Nameless armor » Jörmungandr}

....

{Item names cannot be changed and will be permanent}

....

Unexpectedly the system reacted to the objects and when Marcus checked them again, the name of the sword and armor had already changed. But apart from the name the equipment did not undergo any other changes.

"What strange names. Do they have any meaning?" she asked.

"No. They're just the names of some giant snakes." She replied. Marcus had only chosen those names because the armor and sword were made of a snake-like monster. Though he knew there was no point in explaining something that the people of this world wouldn't understand.

****

After their meeting was over, Marcus took the chest with the equipment, said goodbye to Hadrif, and left the room.

A few moments later, Hadrif drank the last of the wine in the cask and got up from his seat. But just as she was about to leave the room...

*BOOM!*

A loud explosive sound spread throughout the city.

"What the hell?!"

Quickly Hadrif made her way to the window of the room that was in the direction of where the sound had come from. When she looked out, she saw a large plume of smoke rising right where the entrance to the city was.

*Clang! Clang! Clang!

Loud chimes began to ring unceasingly.

"SH*T...!! GRAHAM!!!" She shouted.

At that instant, a man in his thirties rushed into the room. But Hadrif interrupted him before he could say anything.

"Gather all the clan members! I want everyone to get ready and head for the main entrance-"

*BOOM!*

Another explosion sounded.

"Hurry!" Hadrif looked out the window again and watched as the number of smoke plumes steadily increased "The city is under attack."

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