Ember of Invention

You have leveled up! Gained 1 level in the [Artificer] Class.

Stat gains (Level 1 bonus applied): +5 Con; +3 Str; +5 Dex; +6 Int; +5 Res; +2 Cha

New Skill: [Artifice Crafting]

[Artifice Crafting] (Skill)

You now have the capacity to shape and craft Fabled Items. Gain the ability to harvest raw Ethos from the world, shape them, and then solidify them into something new.

Lindle gasped deeply as he felt an overwhelming rush of energy flow through him, the power of his stats all expanding, half of them more than doubling instantly. Lindle had been told that the first level in a class always came with a big influx of stats, but he hadn’t really understood the implications, how could he? He had never earned more than 1 stat point at a time before, and now he was getting multiple in every single one at once.

He closed his eyes as he tried to wrangle the overwhelming sensation and bring it under control, ironically enough he felt his increased Resilience stat assist him, soothing the overstimulation until his mind and body began to calm. He even started drawing on the mental exercises Madam Holly taught him for [Flow], breathing deeply before eventually he felt normal again, the power flowing through him settling down into a tranquil normality.

Lindle opened his eyes and looked at his hand, opening and closing them. He in fact, did feel surprisingly normal, the initial rush had been a lot, but now the increased power inside of him felt natural. He pressed a finger down on the table, trying to do so normally, and it didn’t feel like he was pressing down with any more strength as he did before uncontrollably. In the back of his mind however, he was aware that he could, easily as breathing, draw on his Str stat and just somehow, press down more, ramping up any of his natural abilities as far as any of his increased stats allowed.

It was a strange difference between how he had felt when his stats increased growing up, but it wasn’t unpleasant, just more separate, more deliberate.

His increased stats weren’t the only changes he felt, all of his point pools had expanded dramatically. His Mana pool still was pitifully small, but it had still doubled in size. His HP and AP pools however had ballooned to containing over 200 points each, his HP nearly at 300 now. Far less mentally stimulating than the stat gains had been, but it did give him an odd feeling of an almost full stomach carrying around so many more points, each point in turn also containing more power because of his various stats.

The last change was the quietest, his new skill, [Artifice Crafting]. It simply was a part of him now, as if he had been born with it. It wasn’t like a spell or technique, where he had needed to learn and train to understand them, it felt more like [Hunter Gatherer] did when the qualifications to activate its buff were met, it was just something he could do now.

The skill seemed to be closer to an active one than a passive one, which was odd for a crafting skill but made sense if it was something that was physically impossible for him to do without it. Activating the skill, he felt the sensation of his personal Ethos swirling in his body, similar to all the training he had done to bring it under his control, but now his Ethos did something it had never done before. It flowed inside of his body to his hands under the skin, and partially solidified. It was an invisible change to his eyes, but he could feel it with his Ethos sense.

From the new awareness coming from the skill, Lindle could tell that what his Ethos had done would let him touch Ethos in a way he couldn’t have before. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling his Ethos collide with each other when his hands touched. He reached into his pocket, searching for any loose materials he had stuffed in there, and pulled out a greenheart root, a basic ingredient for healing potions.

Lindle focused, holding it in his palm with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed at the root with his skill. Instead of touching the physical root, his hand instead touched the root's Ethos. Pinching it with his fingers, he pulled, dragging the Ethos out of the root.

Lindle looked with awe as he held in between his fingers a glob of physical Ethos, the same black color as Nothing’s body. Wait, Nothing.

Lindle blinked and looked up to his Mom and Nothing looked at him with amused faces, though only Lindle would be able to read the face Nothing was making as amused. He had completely forgotten they were both there, having ignored them for several minutes.

“Having fun?” His mom said.

We didn’t want to interrupt you.

Lindle blushed as they both laughed.

His mom wiped away a tear as she looked at him proudly. “It’s fine Lindle, I was the same way on my 15th birthday. It’s a lot right?”

He nodded, looking at his hands, seeing the black-as-night glob of Ethos in one hand, and the root in his other. The way it had changed was almost as fascinating as the raw Ethos he was holding, the greenheart root was no longer green, now a dull grey color, shriveled up and shrunken. Under his Ethos sense, it registered as completely mundane now, and when he shifted his hand, it crumbled slightly. He rubbed it with his thumb and it broke apart easily, turning into a pile of dust.

He looked up at his mom and Nothing as the urge to keep interacting with his new skill threatened to take all of his attention again, wondering if he should stop and say something.

His mom hid her smile with her hand, laughing again slightly. “Really, don’t mind us, this is a huge moment for you, enjoy it.”

Lindle smiled gratefully. She held out Nothing in their lantern and placed them on the table next to Lindle. Lindle held his hands up to them to show the Ethos and dust pile.

“I did it! I harvested some Ethos from a greenheart root. Is this what happens to fabled items when they lose their Ethos?”

It can depend, seems like you took out everything the root had to offer. Some items might just turn into mundane counterparts if you leave some Ethos behind for them in the future, but yes it is common for them to crumble to dust.

Lindle tilted his head. “Was I too rough with it? It came out really easily, can I just rip out the Ethos out of anything magical this way?"

It is fine, though you shouldn’t expect it to be that easy to harvest everything. The stronger the Ethos the more it will resist being taken from its material form.

Lindle eyed the pile of dust in his palm. “Should I keep this? Can it be used for anything?” Nothing chuckled at the question.

You have quite literally already taken everything useful to you from it already.

“What about throwing it in a monster's eyes?”

Nothing did the equivalent of rolling their eyes and now it was Lindle’s turn to chuckle, blowing the dust from his palm away and turning his attention to the small glob of Ethos in his hand. Lindle moved it around in his hand, rolling it into a ball as he felt his Ethos collide against it.

He compared it to Nothing’s body. Visually they were extremely similar, but up close he could see that Nothing’s body had much more depth, his Ethos much more complex, powerful, even more developed, with subtle but varying shades of black at different points, the Ethos representing various concepts and types he couldn’t fully identify. The greenheart root Ethos was infinitely simpler, a mostly homogeneous mass that carried the idea of mostly plants, with a secondary idea of healing and perhaps what he thought of as alchemy?

What should he do with it? Really he could do anything he supposed, he was free to experiment as he pleased, the material was nothing valuable so it would be no big deal if he wasted it. Stockpiling plenty of cheap magic materials for him to gain experience with was the plan in the first place. But if he made something with it, it would be his first Artificer item ever and he wanted that to be special. He looked up and saw his mom watching the two of them. He looked at Nothing, who sent him feelings of encouragement.

Looking back down, he began to mold the Ethos clay. Taking his own Ethos in his hands and the months of practice, he twisted it to take the shape of the life aspect, luring out the same aspected Ethos in the clay and bringing it to the forefront. He rolled it out and flattened it, creating a small disc shape. He poked a hole in the center and thickened the outside to create a ring. He took the plant aspect and modified it, shifting it slightly to the idea of wood instead of plants in general.

He changed the shape around to make sure it wasn’t lopsided or too large for a few minutes, but when he was happy, he activated the last part of his skill to solidify the Ethos.

There was a sense of heat as the Ethos shimmered and shifted in his palm. It slowly morphed from being black and clay-like into solid wood, and once the transformation was completed, he held a small wooden ring with a green line running across its circumference.

Heartroot Ring

Effect: When wearing the ring the wearer will receive a small boost to their natural HP regeneration and the effects of Health Potions they drink.

It was a success! Lindle held up the ring in triumph, smiling at the effect as it seemed to be exactly what he wanted. His mom gazed at the ring with wide eyes, her eyes moving in a way that let him know she was reading the same thing he was.

“It has a status? I’ve never seen an item with a status before, the system can appraise items if you have the right skill but this is something different. It’s amazing.” She turned to Lindle and grinned, opening her mouth to congratulate him, and froze when he held it out for her to take.

“Lindle I can’t just take that, it’s your first item.”

He shrugged. “I made it for you.”

She tried to refuse, but Lindle was insistent, and eventually, his mom accepted with a sigh, putting it on her finger and looking at it before shaking her head.

“Well, I still think you should keep it for yourself, but thank you. What now? I’m assuming you aren’t just going to head off to bed now are you?”

“Nope! Too much to do for that now! I got to test a lot more things out.”Lindle grinned wildly, picking up Nothing’s lantern as he started moving swiftly to his workshop.

“I thought so.” His mom said behind, sighing and looking at the ring, tilting her head and looking at it closer, she hummed to herself curiously. She took out a health potion and looked at it for a few more seconds, before turning around to head to her alchemy lab. “Me too.”