Serum

Dirk was pleasantly surprised when he entered the forge vault. 

Inside was an anvil with enchanted lines running down it, a fire pit, and a table and rack full of every forging tool imaginable. 

Everything was exquisite and most definitely expensive. 

There were even multiple hammers, one for each of the elements. Each one had enchanted lines with differing designs matching the element they were enchanted with. 

Well, that made it easy for Dirk to pick which hammer. Grabbing the hammer with red enchanted lines representing the fire element, he walked over to the wide table that sat next to the anvil. 

There, he brought out one of the black snake corpses. Its head had been chopped off, but otherwise it was in perfect condition. 

Dirk ran his fingers down the sleek scales. From head to tail they were smooth like glass, but in the opposite direction, Dirk actually found himself get a small cut from how sharp and metallic the scales were. These scales granted them amazing defensive capabilities. 

As Dirk was admiring the scales, Obsidius jumped off of him and landed on the scales of the snake. Then, it continued to bounce around. 

Dirk watched, and thankfully, he could somewhat feel the intent of the blob. It wanted him to do something with these scales. 

But he didn’t know what. Should he make armor with it? He already had Obsidius for armor. 

Seeing as how Dirk wasn’t understanding, the blob stopped bouncing and shook a bit. Then, it expanded into its armor form without Dirk’s body, though it seemed unsteady as it did so. 

The walking armor pointed at the scales. Then, it pointed to its arm. It went back and forth like this as its body shook before Obsidius could no longer independently hold that form. 

The blob retracted, continuing to jump on the snake. 

“...You want me to add the scales to you?”

“..!”

Obsidius jumped even faster, signifying its confirmation. But that begged another question. 

How was he supposed to add these scales to Obsidius?

Just as Dirk thought of this question, Obsidius moved again. 

It went over to the chopped off head of the snake. There lay a few scales that had fallen off the body. The blob rolled over a few of the scales, and they disappeared within. 

Then, Dirk saw the scales reappear on top of the blob, as if it had become a part of it. 

Obsidius had absorbed the scales and merged them into its body. 

If that was the case… could Obsidius absorb armor and use it to supplement its armor body?

“Create armor, and let you eat it.”

“..!”

Obsidius kept bouncing, as if shouting ‘Yes yes yes!’

“Interesting.”

Dirk slowly nodded his head. The armor body of Obsidius was indeed completely bare. But with this function, Dirk could enhance it with other sets of armor, allowing its strength and abilities to rise. 

Currently, Obsisius’ armor only had the durability to naturally resist low Tier or Rank attacks. Anything around Tier 4 would damage it and could hurt Dirk underneath. The only way Dirk knew how to increase its defense was by infusing his anima into it, but that took lots of energy, especially over long periods of time.

But with this…

Dirk’s mind suddenly lit up with several ideas. 

All of those ideas though required him to forge a set of armor. 

In that case, Dirk had two items that would allow him to forge a high quality set of armor. 

First, he had tons of dead lightning snake corpses, all of them having scales of metal. If he created a set of armor out of those, then he would be able to easily defend against the attacks of a Tier 5. Plus, with the scales being so numerous and the size of a fingertip, they would be able to cover every inch of his body. 

The second item that would make for good armor was the turtle shell. 

The turtle general Pandora had killed had an oppressively strong shell that didn’t so much as get scratched by her hurricane of bloody ice blades. It was only the completion of her atrociously powerful spell that could pierce through it like a needle and kill it from the inside. 

That turtle, despite being a Tier 5, had defensive power even above the lightning snakes that were Tier 6’s. 

He still had the shell, which was in basically perfect condition. It would make for a truly wonderful addition to the armor. 

The black snake scales and a turtle shell. Two fantastic materials for making armor. 

Only problem was…

Dirk wasn’t entirely sure how to handle these items. 

Dirk had only forged with metal, and he had only made tools and some simple pieces of armor like gauntlets or helmets with Sir Tobasden. He had never used monster materials in any kind of creation. 

This was new territory. 

Suddenly, Spyte chimed in.

[You can skin the snakes, but if you stitch together those hides, then the stitching would be the weak point. The armor would fall apart under attacks. Plus, it would look like patchwork. On the other hand, we don’t have other large leather hides that you could transplant the scales onto, and that’s assuming you could transplant the scales well.]

“There is such thing as scale armor though. Sir Tobasden showed me how forgemasters would make something like chainmail with metal rings, and then they would create scales of metal and hook them onto those rings after punching a hole through it.”

Dirk rubbed his chin while gazing a the small scales of the black snakes. Then, he waved his hand. 

The turtle shell within his pocket ring fell out onto the ground. It was a really large shell that easily surpassed the size of Dirk’s body. That’s how big the turtle had been. A walking fortress.

Dirk walked over to the dark green shell, tapping his hand against it and feeling the texture and material of it. 

In his mana vision, he could also see the extraordinarily dense earth and metal mana within it. 

“It's metal.”

Dirk came to this conclusion and was pleasantly surprised. 

“I don’t have metal ingots to forge with, but if this shell is metal, then I can reforge it, shape it into rings, and create scale mail armor with the snake scales…”

[With chain rings made from that turtle shell, there won’t be any weaknesses. Smart thinking.]

“Of course.”

With a small smirk, Dirk’s mind rapidly formulated a plan. Obsidius also bounced around with glee, liking the direction Dirk was moving. 

“Alright Spyte, let’s begin the blueprint. Activate your runic tracing.”

[Roger.]

At that moment, Dirk’s mana vision lit up with lines. 

Because he no longer had eyes, he couldn’t simply create a visual trace and measurement of the materials he was using. In that case, he had to transform what he was seeing in his mana vision into runes that detailed the materials and their products. 

With Dirk’s comprehension into mana, creating simple measurements wasn’t difficult at all. So before long, he and Spyte were able to trace an image of the scales and shell in his mana vision, calculating the volume of the materials. 

Then, they took measurements of his body and determined how much of each material they would need. 

Dirk also began shaping the components of his product in his mind. For example, he shaped the rings that would be made of the turtle shell, perfecting their every detail and taking things like the forging process into account. 

The links between the rings, their diameter and thickness, the holes that they would need to punch into the scales, the angle of the rings in relation to the scales as it laid against his body… 

Over time, more and more details were accounted for as Dirk began to shape a figure of mana within his mind. This virtual figure that he and Spyte created seemed to be constructed of runes, and hidden within the runic artwork were all the details pertaining to each component, of which there were thousands. 

But of course, the runic blueprint wasn’t perfect at first. Getting the angles of the rings and their shape and connections around the body proved more difficult than Dirk imagined. He was constantly making corrections, as one problem would require several fixes in other areas to rectify. 

But it came together. With Spyte’s help, Dirk was able to standardize measurements and get proper calculations. 

In the end, he spent an entire 4 hours creating the blueprint in his mind. And by the end of those four hours, he had finished. 

A scale armor that covered Dirk’s virtual figure from head to toe. There wasn’t an inch of unprotected space. 

And with that blueprint completed, Spyte could properly calculate the volume of necessary materials. 

The conclusion…

[You would have a good amount of turtle shell to spare.]

“Really?”

Dirk was a bit surprised. He had thought that he might not have enough, let alone some to spare. 

Since the snake scales were small, there had to be thousands of little rings to hold them all. The result was an incredibly dense set of layered scales. While it made for fantastic protection, Dirk was worried that he wouldn’t have enough turtle shell to forge into the rings. 

But his worries were unnecessary. He even had some to spare. 

[With that extra shell, I suggest you make a stronger helmet, maybe even some gloves or vital protection on your torso.]

“The helmet I can make. But as for the rest… maybe a weapon would be good.”

[A weapon? But you already have a few that Pandora gave you. Shortswords, hatchets, and even a spear. You’ve really only used the shortswords, but you’re covered in almost every aspect. What other weapons did you have in mind?]

Spyte questioned curiously. Dirk was now proficient in many types of weapons, from spears to swords to bows, not to mention guns. With enough weapons, there wasn’t any enemy that he couldn’t take care of, so long as he had the strength to match. 

But Dirk had something a bit more unique in mind. 

“Here.”

Suddenly, Dirk began creating another blueprint. On it, he outlined the weapon he was thinking of. 

Spyte was silent for a long moment as she saw the weapon. 

[This? Are you serious?]

“Could we make it?”

[...Not sure. Give me a second.]

Spyte began analyzing the blueprint. When she was done taking the measurements though, she sighed. 

[No. If you plan on making a helmet, then you wouldn’t have enough for the weapon. It’s one or the other.]

“Helmet it is then. Maybe we’ll get the materials to make it later. Besides, I feel that other metals would make the weapon better. Voidmetal would be preferable, not that I know where to find that stuff.”

Dirk let out a light breath, not particularly disappointed. 

At that moment though, there was a voice. 

“Voidmetal? What for?”

“...”

Dirk turned his head, resting his gaze on the figure who had entered the vault. 

Pandora looked at Dirk curiously. He was just sitting in a chair, not looking like he had done anything the entire night. 

“...Nothing. Just something I had in mind.”

“Hm. Well, the Dark Kingdom has plenty of voidmetal, seeing as how we’re the site of the densest source of dark mana in the world. I can get you really high quality voidmetal, upwards of Tier 7. Tier 8 voidmetal is a bit difficult though. We’re accumulating a deposit of Tier 8 voidmetal, but it won’t mature for another few decades, so our current stock is regulated rather heavily.”

“It’s fine. I don’t need it now anyway.”

Dirk hummed before standing and leaving the vault. After he was outside with Pandora, he used one of his pocket rings and stowed the entire vault away. 

“So? Please tell me you did more than sit in a chair all night.”

Pandora asked as they walked toward their vehicle. The Grand Marshal and Ethan were already ready to leave, so the duo jumped into the car upon arrival. 

“I blueprinted the armor I plan to make. Apparently Obsidius can absorb armors and merge with them, making his own armor body more powerful. So I plan to use the turtle shell and snake scales to make a set of armor.”

“That blob can absorb armor? Impressive. And how did you go about blueprinting? I didn’t see any papers.”

“Runic tracing. Spyte can permanently record runes. I made a virtual image with this runic tracing that details the set of armor.”

“Oh really? I can do something similar. My Book of Life lets me store runes in its pages. The pages act as a magical conduit too, basically removing the need to personally cast spells so long as the spell circles are already in there.”

“...”

Dirk was silent as Pandora began to drive after the Grand Marshal who had continued her hunt. 

Turns out, the Book of Life was really powerful. With Pandora’s four attributes and that book, she absolutely had the largest magical arsenal in the world. Nobody had more variety than her. Plus, she could cast even complex spells with ease. This would only get more pronounced as she got stronger. 

Dirk could also mimic that function with the help of Spyte who could copy spells. This function though had been integrated to a certain extent into his Stigma. His pistol that acted as the runic medium for spellcasting allowed Dirk to instantly cast spells, should he know the spell well enough. 

Most of Dirk’s spells were simple, and the ones that weren’t were more obscure like Stealth that required elemental manipulation. So for him, casting simple spells with his pistol was perfect. 

But even then, with Pandora’s display while killing the turtle, he was finding out that he needed to advance his combat prowess quickly. 

And forging could help. If he could create weapons and armor tailored for himself, then he could increase his strength greatly. 

These thoughts went through Dirk’s head as Pandora drove the car behind the Grand Marshal and Ethan.

The two of them couldn’t really help in their endeavors. Because the monsters only got stronger the further into the dungeon they went, Dirk and Pandora, who hadn’t even reached Tier 5 yet, were nothing but baggage. 

Only Ethan could still fight with the black lightning snakes, and come the end of the dungeon, only the Grand Marshal would be able to fight if Tier 7 monsters showed themselves. 

So, all Dirk and Pandora needed to do was stay out of the way. And they didn’t have to do that while running all the time. Pandora had her magic truck, and now, she was taking full advantage of it. 

Not long into the ride though, Dirk grabbed one of the spare rings and tossed it to Pandora. 

“Collect the black snakes. I’m going to sleep.”

“Only if I get some blood later.”

“...Later.”

With a sigh of resignation, Dirk relaxed back and fell asleep. Though, not before doing another destruction cycle, as he needed to every night before bed.