System Change

The dining room was lively for the first time in some time. Along with Silvi, Rudy, Thomas, herself, and her mother, they were joined by Jacks, Jensen, Rayna, and Jake. Unfortunately, Stella had quite a bit of stuff to take care of at the Crown, so she wasn’t able to join.

For the first time in a while, Brandi was entirely present in the moment. She didn’t have any projects in progress that she needed to focus on, and she had completed the project she’d been spending most of her time on. Like her mother kept telling her, it was good to take a break every now and then.

Brandi and everyone else ate another fantastic meal cooked by Silvi. She had to hand it to the bunny; she was getting better and better. Nothing Silvi made tasted bad. She was a natural talent when it came to cooking.

After dinner, her mother, Malorie, took all the dishes and put them away somewhere in the kitchen. Either she or Silvi would use Cleaning on them later. Now that everyone was finished eating, it was time for her to give out her own gifts. First was Thomas.

“Since you’re enrolling in the Academy tomorrow, I made you something.” Brandi blushed as she placed each piece of the leather armor on the table. “It’s not the best, but it should be good for you for a while. By the time it’s not good enough, I should be able to make even better things. You can always bring it back so I can adjust it as you grow.”

Thomas’s eyes widened, and he reached over the table and grabbed the chest piece, pulling it in close and examining it. The others at the table were looking intently at the armor, as well, most likely using various skills like Identify to learn about the armor.

“Good armor,” Jacks said. “It will suit him well.” Everyone else nodded in agreement.

“It doesn’t look like much from the outside,” Jake said as he turned one of the bracers over in his hands. “But it is actually very high quality. I may have to put in a commission with you soon.”

With the support of Alanah and Natalie, Brandi had been a bit more open about her class. Nobody other than Derek knew the specifics, not even her own mother, but she felt that she could trust everyone at the table. Of course, the most they knew was that she was a Blacksmith who had some insights into Alchemy, which, while rare, wasn’t too unheard of.

Brandi smiled at the compliment. “It shouldn’t be too long before I can make some things suitable for everyone,” she began. “In fact, I have a couple of new creations that I would like some help with. If it’s not too late, I would like to rent one of the Adventurer’s Guild’s training rooms, if you don’t mind.”

She had made her decision. The best place to test the weapons was one of the training rooms at the guild. Not only would the rooms surely be able to handle it if something went wrong, but there would be more healers other than Jensen around if something bad happened.

“Now I’m interested,” Rayna said.

An hour later, Rayna’s party, Brandi, and Thomas found themselves in a high-quality private training room inside the Adventurer’s guild. It was one of the more expensive ones, but they didn’t need to rent it for a long time just to test her new weapons. Rudy, Malorie, and Silvi had chosen to stay behind at the shop.

“So, what is it?” Rayna asked.

Brandi smiled widely before bringing out the first sword. It was the one with the water-based mana core implanted inside. The sword itself left much to be desired, but it was just a prototype, so that didn’t matter.

“Jensen, can you help me with this?” Brandi asked as she held out the sword to the water user.

“Okay?” Jensen stepped forward and took the sword in his hands. He looked it over with a frown. “What do I need to do?” Jensen didn’t use swords, so it wasn’t natural in his hands.

“I need you to focus any of your water-based skills into the sword and try to cast them. I don’t think it needs to be an attack, but we will find out,” Brandi said.

Jensen shrugged, and his aura began to glow blue. Soon, it moved through his arm and into the sword. He pointed the sword at Rayna, and soon, a protective film of water appeared around her. It was one of his support skills that added an extra layer of defense.

“Huh…” Jensen said.

“So… did it do anything?” It was the first time this particular creation had been tested, so Brandi was excited. She already received the experience for the creation, so she knew it was successful, but she had yet to see it in action, so she couldn’t be sure that it did what she wanted it to do.

“Did it do anything?” Jensen repeated her question as he stared at the sword in fascination. “It reduced the mana cost of my skill by a quarter. How did you make this? I’ve seen wands and staffs that increase spell power, but reducing mana cost is rare.”

Brandi balled her fists in excitement. It had worked. Though it didn’t reduce the cost as much as she wanted, but that could be due to multiple factors, including skill type. His protection skill wasn’t one that was usually channeled through a weapon, so that may have had some effect on the outcome.

If they knew how many of the cores Brandi had and how many weapons she would be able to make with them, they would be stunned. Also, him mentioning staffs and wands gave her even more ideas. She may be able to create a healing staff that reduces the cost of mana and increases the power of the healing skill at the same time. The gears in her head were spinning rapidly.

“That’s a secret,” Brandi said. “I think this is going to be one of my specialties for some time.” She would eventually run out of mana cores, but not for a long while. With the amount Derek had left her, that would take years, even if she was wasteful.

“If you sell this, you’ll make a killing with mid-tier adventurers,” Jensen said. “I’m not sure if high-tier adventurers would use it because of the weapon quality, though. Though maybe some mages who don’t rely on weapons would still choose to buy.”

Brandi nodded. “That was just the first prototype,” she said. “The overall weapon quality will become better and better. Look at this one.” She pulled out the wind-based blade that she made specifically for Rayna.

The quality of the blade could be said to be dozens of levels higher. In fact, it wasn’t too much worse than the one Rayna was currently using. Though she hadn’t spent much on her weapon after she outgrew the one Derek had given her because of the speed at which she leveled. She was still trying to figure out the perfect sword for herself. Brandi decided she would be the one to create that perfect sword.

“Here.” Brandi held the sword out to Rayna, who took it before giving it a few swipes. “I want you to use one of your most common attack skills. Like the Wind Blade that requires a weapon, or that one that sharpens your sword.”

Rayna nodded silently before charging up her attack and launching a Wind Blade across the room and into the wall. The blade left a long cut on the wall before the repair runes went into effect, closing the cut.

“Wow…” Rayna muttered. “The cost was almost half of the usual.” After that, Rayna’s blue-green aura covered the blade, creating even more of an edge on it. “Razor’s Edge takes even less mana to maintain per second. This is amazing. Are there no downsides?”

“There are,” Brandi said. “Do you see the crystal in the handle?” she asked.

Rayna looked closely at the sword before nodding as her eyes fell onto the greenish crystal. “I do.”

“That crystal holds wind-based mana. So, when you use a skill, it takes some of the mana out of the crystal to supplement your skill. Though each crystal contains a high amount of mana, it is finite,” Brandi explained.

“Oh… so it’s a consumable weapon?” Jacks asked, with a bit of disappointment in his tone.

“Yes, and no. It can be recharged. You just have to channel your mana into the hilt, and it takes some time to recharge. As long as you charge it up when you aren’t using it, it will be fine.”

“Oh, that’s amazing!” Rayna said. “Can you make them for each element?”

“No.” Brandi shook her head. “I can currently only do water, earth, wind, and fire.”

“You can do fire?” Jake and Jacks spoke up at the same time.

“Yes,” Brandi said. “Though I haven’t worked much on the fire version yet.” She pointed at her eyebrows, which were very thin and only just beginning to grow in again. “Water was much less… explosive.”

Everyone had a good laugh at her expense.

“I bet it was,” Jacks said.

“Anyway, I would appreciate it if you two would keep those and test them in real combat for a while, then report back to me. I need to know what I can improve other than the quality of the sword, and if there are any flaws in the crystals. Like, if it will break after a certain number of charges, or how durable it is.”

“I’d be happy to,” Rayna said. Jensen also nodded.

“Great,” Brandi said. “I’ll work on a couple of fire ones next. It would be best to have multiple tests going on at once. After that, I will work on improving my sword crafting.” And staff making, she thought secretly.

“Fantastic,” Jacks said.

“I guess I can count this as a success!” Brandi said as she pumped her fist.

“I’ll say,” Jacks said. “We should be getting back now, though. Thomas has a big day tomorrow.”

With that, everyone left the Adventurer’s Guild and headed back. Rayna’s party would be taking Thomas to the capital city tomorrow, and Thomas needed to get however much sleep he could manage.

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