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 sa 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 equipnt 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 slis had dropped brown crafting crystals as well. Clarissa laid out the equipnt 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 .
I looked at the 12 swords. “Really all swords?” I asked.
“To limit any variables, based on the equipnt 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 sli 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 ntal 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 equipnt.
There was no conversation, and it was boring. The only one speaking was Clarissa who kept track of the ti. 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 ti. I carefully picked up the sword. I instantly knew that I just needed to channel energy to activate the sword’s ability to lt 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 sa thing as 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 sli crafting crystals. I paused. “Soone else can do it this ti. 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 an about 9 enchantnts 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 sa amount of ti as a full regeneration cycle. There was definitely sothing 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 sothing to drink, I began to think on all the mysteries I had encountered so far.
The 100 minute tifra for a regeneration cycle and enchanting, it seed quite arbitrary and the fact that amount of ti had co up a second ti 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 so weak summons of my own to test it out. Maybe bring soone along who could do negative energy sensing to see if they spotted anything about the tower. Then I rembered 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 . 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 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 enchantnt,” 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 . 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 and I went over and picked up the enchanted sword. It had an ability to lt things. I frowned since that was the sa ntal 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 lted 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 tal was lted and slightly deford. 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 lt. I poked my boot, and my boot began to lt. There was an empty sheath on the enchanting table. I put the blade into the sheath. No lting. 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 lting. 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.
“Brown slis 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 enchantnt 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 sothing else. A term I didn’t understand, beyond energy goes into an active enchantnt.
Ti to think about this logically. The entire process was based on levels. So, level 1 enchanting could lt a similar copper sword. I had a quick experint that would get so answers. “Clarissa,” I said, and she turned towards 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 mont.” 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 . Clarissa ca 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 enchantnts 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 lting was a lot slower. It took a bit more than a minute to lt 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 enchantnt itself process and the level of the enchantnt.
I didn’t think it would be a stretch to say that an active enchantnt was more powerful than a passive one. A passive enchantnt appeared to be at the sa 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 sothing where there was a question on how to use it. It may be opaque, but the pillars, buildings, skills, all ca with ntal instructions. Now active enchantnts broke this trend.
I considered the buildings available, but nothing seed to match up with channeling, possibly the Alchemic Hall, but I wasn’t holding my breath on that. It seed 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 ntally thinking a range of things. Push energy, channel energy, lt energy, lt power, lt 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. Ti limit five minutes an attempt. Also sothing to test the blade on besides a table. People can form a line or sothing. We can outsource the problem. Can set it up near the pillars.”
“I will make the arrangents. 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 mont?” 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 mber. 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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