After spending a couple of hours playing around with my new Skill, I was starting to get the hang of how to get it to work. [Imbue Enchantment] allowed me to add Mana to objects in a dormant state. This dormant state could then be activated under certain trigger conditions. This required using Authority to tie off the Mana in such a way that it held Intent on its own.

Or at least that was the simplest way to apply an enchantment. There was clearly more to it, but I couldn't reach that depth yet. That was probably because this was a Class Skill, not a Profession one—it was built for speed, not complexity. If I had an enchantment in mind, I just needed to touch something with my Authority and channel Mana into it to make it stick.

This obviously had combat applications.

The enchantments I could apply were designed for on-the-fly use. Creating single-use enchantments was simple, but I could also create recharging ones if I leaned into the stability granted by my Strand. The best I could manage right now was a structure that would trigger once, then require recharging.

This meant I couldn't replicate the enchantment on the books I stole, which could be continuously triggered without immediately burning through their Mana all at once.

Bullets with a Glacivein muscle interior coated in Whisperash and tipped with a Kinetic Mana enchantment were being stockpiled by me and Novi. We confirmed Silver Whisperash-coated bullets could penetrate three times deeper into rock compared to the standard variety she was using beforehand.

As for the Night Whisperash-coated ones, we didn't really have a use for them right now. They were harder to detect, but detecting a bullet didn't really mean much if you couldn't get out of the way in time anyway. I would know, I tested it.

Her Mana coilgun was already very quiet, and both varieties of Whisperash only made it quieter. It didn't really matter which one we used right now.

Maybe they would be useful against a creature with really high Wit, as in, high enough that the world would practically be moving in slow motion for it.

Also, because of how my eyes seemed to slide off them, I kept losing the Night bullets, only for Novi to point out they were sitting on the table in front of me. It was like the worst version of losing the TV remote and realizing you were just sitting on it the whole time.

Part of my mind was focused on mass-producing a special variety of Silver bullets with a different enchantment than the ones I made for Novi earlier. They were going to be a surprise for her. She, meanwhile, was tinkering with a loading mechanism to fire more than a single shot. The rest of my mind was devoted to building that glaive for Autumn.

With the bullets, I used a Kinetic enchantment that triggered on impact. I couldn't do that with the blade of the glaive.

Well, technically, I could, but it would just mean Autumn could only hit something with the blade every few minutes before having to let the enchantment recharge.

Instead, I was taking inspiration from the structure of how enchantments worked, by fixing Mana in place in relation to an object instead of being contained within a material.

I went with a Scorchbranch pole with circuits running through its core that allowed the user to channel Mana through the tip, replacing the Kinetic Mana with their own. Hopefully, this would enable Autumn to use their seasonal Mana through it.

The tip was a thick Silver Whisperash coating over a Glacivein core filled with circuitry. A second circuit that was designed to add a Kinetic blade overlayed around the coating was the main focus here. This one pulled from environmental Mana but could be triggered by the user.

I had simplified the controls compared to artifacts designed for myself. Just a tiny stream of Mana would activate the sheath and add a Kinetic spike to the other end.

Both the blade and the spike were tied to the staff using principles of enchantment to sync the position, but run through Mana circuits instead of being made using [Imbue Enchantment]. Because of this, they weren't really enchantments, which meant they could be sustained as long as Autumn held the activation command down.

I activated the glaive's blade, flipped it such that the blade was facing upwards and manifested a leaf directly above it. The leaf fell and was cleanly cut in half as it passed over the Kinetic sheath.

There was another function I added to the glaive, inspired by how both [Everwinter Shield] and the mind shielding artifact Nyxie lent me. But I needed to test whether Autumn could actually access it or not.

I nodded towards Novi and went to check how Autumn's preparations were coming along.

As soon as I left the house, I could feel something was off. A shiver passed through my shell as I sensed something had changed in the Zone.

Inside the house, I couldn't feel anything at all. My Strand's influence on the walls was probably the reason. Argent Bastion, if nothing else, had a protective, perhaps even isolatory Nature.

I headed over to the path only to stop the moment I saw what Autumn had done. A moment later, I opened my eyes to the roots of the world to understand what the fuck I was seeing.

It looked like someone had stretched all of the roots as far as they could go, aligning them parallel to each other along the path. The effect of this on real space was that it looked like I was staring at an optical illusion, as it stretched on far further than it should be possible for it to.

Maybe I should have eaten that seed of the World Tree instead of giving it to Autumn. I was clearly missing out on something here.

With a pop, Autumn appeared next to me. "Does this look like it will help?"

I just nodded blankly and held up the glaive and the cloak they had asked for.

"There's no blade on it? Also, you didn't answer…" Autumn said as they put the cloak on.

Right, I forgot. They wouldn't understand Earth gestures.

Except for the fact that it looked like they would nod in response when I first met them. Was that something to do with the translation part of the system? I wasn't sure. The system was kind of a mess, so anything was possible.

"Yeah, we'll have to figure out how distances work for Novi's bullets, but it should help. As for the blade, it's right here," I said, then activated the Kinetic sheath. "Just send a bit of Mana into it while gripping the pole, and you'll turn it on. Also, if you send a large enough amount of Mana, it will be rerouted and used to create the sheath instead of replacing the Kinetic one. I added that just in case you wanted to hit somebody with Autumn Mana."

Autumn accepted the polearm from me and activated it, getting into a stance as they went through a few motions. An idea came to me as I watched them. If I were going to be in the middle of every brawl we get in, I needed to learn how to actually fight.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"Care for a spar?" I asked. "We've never had a chance to go up against each other. No magic or Skills, I want to see your skills with the glaive."

"Sure, I'd be happy to give you a few pointers, but the balance is still a little off…" they replied. "It's also very light, which isn't a problem necessarily because it still carries a lot of momentum, but it might take me a little while to get used to it. I'm used to using an ironwood glaive."

With a sigh, I had them explain what was wrong and added Silver Whisperash to the sections that they pointed out as needing to carry more momentum. I had to fiddle with the circuitry on the butt to fit a counter inertial balance.

While I did that, another part of my mind was using Earth Mana to shape a platform for us to spar on.

"Are you going to be training as a pugilist? I'm familiar with how they fight, but I'm not sure if that would work for you," said Autumn while I was making the alterations.

I hadn't really put much thought into that. I'd been wielding a staff for a while, but that design was obsolete by now. Even though it allowed easy manifestation of Ice, that was kind of its only gimmick.

"I don't really know, I'm not trained in anything. The most complex technique I know is 'hit them hard'. You saw me fight, what weapon would you suggest?" I asked in return.

Their vines twisted together in contemplation, "You're more like a siege weapon than a traditional combatant. I think you need to plan around that fact."

I groaned and buried my head in my hands. Why did my Strand have to turn me into a cannonball? Novi was already acting in capacity as our sniper with her insect drone, and I couldn't copy what she was doing.

I needed more Wit if I wanted to be able to even perceive what happens when I used an Avalanche. I just moved too fast; unless I just flicked it on and off like I did when I broke the merfolk's ribs, it was practically like I was teleporting.

"Is there any way I can avoid using myself as a projectile? I know I can't just not use Avalanche, but I'd prefer not to fight that way," I said. If I could avoid being in melee combat, that would be perfect.

"Hmm, I was going to suggest a great hammer," Autumn said. That wasn't a bad suggestion. It would let me strike without throwing myself at things. The word they used in Root gave me a clear image of what a great hammer was supposed to look like. It was a weapon built for superhuman strength, impossible to wield without a fair bit of Might. "It's nearly impossible to avoid close-quarters combat at a low Ascension entirely, but you could try javelins. Those would work well with your abilities."

[That would go great with your Inventory! This is what I meant when I said you needed to use it more efficiently. Pile a stack of javelins in there, and you'll have something to fight without burning your Mana. You just need to prep them in advance.]

I almost jumped when Novi interrupted my conversation with Autumn. I hadn't realized she was listening in.

She wasn't wrong, though. I could take advantage of my ability to stack ammo in my Inventory before a fight. Like how I used all of my grenades in the last battle with the merfolk, those worked pretty well.

Except if I made the javelins right, I wouldn't have to blow myself up.

"Okay, I'm gonna try that great hammer idea. Let me make it, then we should have a spar." I asked as I put the finishing touches on the glaive and handed it to Autumn. "By the way, if you pour Nature Mana into the Silver Whisperash at the tips, it will remove the extra inertia. Also, you can extend your Authority and link with the ritual inside the glaive. There's an extra function that I think you'll find to be useful."

Autumn signed in acceptance and took the glaive. Their Rootgesture included something about difficulty using their aura, but I was sure they could figure it out. It wasn't that hard for me to connect to the weapon.

A notification had started blinking away the moment I finished working on the glaive.

Profession Level (Greenweaver) Increased +1 (18) +4 Wit, +2 Spirit, +2 Arcana, +4 Eidetic Drops

I definitely needed to take the time to level up my Profession. Those Free Stats were incredibly useful. I put the drops into Wit.

It was odd, you would think with how fast my mind already worked, I wouldn't need the boost. But with how fast everything moved in these high-level Zones, it felt like I was reacting in slow motion compared to the enemies.

The fact that Novi was stealing so much of my Wit just to fuel her bodies wasn't helping. We really needed to spend some time optimizing the ritual she used to create those fake Cores.

Luckily, her consumption of my Wit was multiplicative, not additive, so she was only using forty-nine percent, not sixty percent. My Titles basically offset that, but the boost from my Titles was the only reason I was still alive. Having it practically removed was a problem.

"Javelins seem simple to learn to use. You just throw them at a target and try not to miss. I can learn how to use them by doing some target practice, but I'm pretty sure the hammer would be far more complicated. Are you able to actually teach me how to wield it?" I asked.

Autumn let out what could be interpreted as a chuckle, "I've taught many saplings on their way to becoming Sylvan over the years. If I didn't know how to wield one of their traditional weapons, I would have had to step down from my teaching position."

They whipped the glaive into a tree as they spoke, cleanly splitting it down the middle.

I nodded to myself and pulled up a simulation to try to model a hammer. This wouldn't be the final version, because I would have to make alterations when I finally made that Very Easy-rated material. So I didn't bother adding a ritual inside the weapon. I could wait until later to design the… I wanted to call it a symbolic weave. A ritual made out of wiring intended to create an effect for an artifact.

I wasn't sure if I came up with the term myself or if my Core pushed it into my head. Though, there might not be a difference between those two scenarios.

Once I had the design down, I pushed Mana through [New Growth] to grow a hammer into existence. I had to take occasional breaks to regenerate my Mana because of how large it ended up being.

The hammer head had a core made of Silver Whisperash to give it an immense amount of inertial weight. That core had a coating made of Scorchbranch, with Latticedew Veins running through it that constantly cycled environmental Mana, both to increase the rigidity of the material and recharge the enchantment I placed on the hammer.

The best thing about rechargeable Nature enchantments was that they weren't picky about the type of Mana they consumed. Even though I didn't have a rune that would allow Mana to be converted into Nature Mana, I could circumvent that problem just by feeding the enchantment a fuckload of Mana.

That was possible because the enchantments I made also carried my attunement, meaning they were able to convert other types of Mana into Nature Mana inherently. The only problem was that the loss rate was incredibly high. But that could be solved by making the enchantment not consume much Mana.

When it was finished, the hammer stood taller than me, the handle alone being over a meter long. The head was half a meter long with a diameter of a third of a meter. At the base of the handle, I had to add a second counter inertial weight, which was just a small sphere of Silver Whisperash

While picking the hammer up, the Silver Whisperash increased the inertial weight such that I actually struggled to pull it off the ground. Then, once I got it in the air, it started floating away due to its low weight and high inertia, which caused it to be barely affected by gravity.

While I was being dragged into the air, I mused about how this didn't make any sense if gravity was the same as it was back on Earth. In my original dimension, gravity was just space warping, so everything necessarily fell at the same rate unless it ran into something else.

This meant that either gravity didn't work the same here, or magic made this into some kind of exotic matter. I wasn't sure which was more likely.

With a push of Nature Mana, I removed the inertial weight carried by the Silver Whisperash and dropped back down to the ground.

The lack of weight was kind of a problem, so I went through my materials, simulating each one to try and find the heaviest one I could.

That ended up being Klyven Dew, which didn't really surprise me. It was a liquid metal after all.

Carving out most of the Silver Whisperash interior of the head and the counterweight, I filled the interior with Klyven Dew and added a switching circuit into the Mana channels. Now I could send Nature Mana into the Silver Whisperash to remove its inertial weight, then, with a flick of a switch, have all that Mana be dumped into the Klyven Dew to increase the durability of the hammer while increasing its inertial weight again.

With some tweaking, I managed to get the switch to take just under a millisecond.

Heaving the now immensely heavy hammer over my shoulder, I headed over to the platform where Autumn was still going through the motions with their glaive.

It looked like they were enjoying themselves. I hadn't seen that expression on their face before, even when they were drinking the blood of my enemies.

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