Chapter 88 - Staff

Eiro looked down at his new hand and started to move his fingers around a bit to see if he would really be fine, and then looked up at the notification that appeared when he thought about his connection to the hand.

[Connection Rating: 5.6%]

Over the past couple of days, the connection rose a little bit, and as it did, Eiro could move his hand around better and better, just as Nelli had suggested. It wasn't anywhere near how he could move his left hand, but Eiro honestly expected that. It was the same with his old Prosthetics after all, so he was really more used to using his left hand for everything anyway, just using the right one to support what he was doing a bit more.

But now that Eiro could actually move his wooden fingers this well, he chose to get started on the things that Jura wanted Eiro to make for the children. It was probably best to get started on their training as early as possible so that they could handle themselves properly.

And so, he made his way down into the bas.e.m.e.nt and looked around to gather the materials that Jura mentioned, and turned over toward the Spirit floating next to him as he looked around. "So, I get the reasoning behind Acquen and Kavin… Acquen is a material good for Water-Magic Based staffs and wands, so Clementine will use it to practice her magic. And Kavin is only good material we have I can think of that can divert damage like that, so we can properly use it for Rudy's practice as a Shield-Bearer." The demon pointed out as he started looking through the pieces of wood in front of him to search for especially good pieces, and then continued when he noticed Nelli was paying attention to him.

"But what about Ovoya and Avenos? I know that they're supposed to be good for weapons, but we never made anything except some made of Oak, so I don't exactly know in what way they're actually useful." The Demon explained, so Nelli slowly looked at him with a wry smile.

"Hmm, Ovoya and Avenos… Which were those again?" She asked, slightly embarrassedly, so Eiro quickly held up the wood in his hand. "This is Avenos, it's the wood from an especially tall breed of tree growing somewhere in the west. The highest quarter of the tree's wood has a natural wind affinity. And Ovoya is something similar, it comes from a tree that grows on a volcanic island Jura was on before… It's pretty rare, actually, and it has a natural Fire Affinity." The Demon explained, so Nelli nodded her head as she seemed to slightly remember.

"Ah, right… I think those are simply easy to use Elemental Enhancement on." Nelli replied, and Eiro looked at her with a blank expression before the Spirit remembered something important about what she just said, "Oh… You were never shown how that works…" The Naiad muttered quietly, and Eiro shook his head.

"I remember hearing the term before, but at the time I was more focused on learning how to carve properly…" Eiro explained, before Nelli cupped her chin in response, grinning lightly as she looked at the Demon.

"Hehe, then I'll teach you about that part of it together with the kids, alright?" She suggested teasingly, but Eiro just nodded his head with a light smile. "Sounds good, thank you." He said, and Nelli quietly grumbled to herself.

"Tsk, people are way more fun to tease…" Nelli muttered quietly, and Eiro just turned his eyes toward her with a grin, trying to remind her that it was practically impossible for her to say something he couldn't hear now, and the Spirit just smiled at him. "Let's just get going, alright? You also have to finally put that hand on the puppet, so get started with it already!"

"And why exactly can't I just put the hand on it right now?" Eiro asked, and Nelli looked at him with a deep frown, "Because I say so! You can't do that until you're finished with everything for the kids, and then you can, alright?" She exclaimed, and Eiro sighed deeply, annoyed that Nelli kept the 'hidden function' the puppet seemed to have a secret.

"Sure." The Demon said quietly as he put all of the Ovoya and Avenos that he needed into his bag, and then grabbed some nicer wood that he could use for handles, because especially Ovoya was a material that usually irritated your skin pretty badly.

"Alright, and then those planks of Kavin…" Eiro muttered quietly and then quickly picked the planks of the rubber-like wood up and placed them onto his shoulder, and then grabbed the other type that was supposed to be the base. Kavin itself was too unstable for a shield, after all.

Carefully Eiro brought them back out of the bas.e.m.e.nt and into the hut, where he quickly placed everything down onto the ground and then went back outside, because the last material was a bit of a bother to get.

As the note that Jura left behind said, the Acquen was at the bottom of the pond… Especially wood that's as highly magical as that and is meant for staffs or wands usually needs to be stored in a special manner like that, or else it will lose its effect. That also meant that Eiro really had to try and hurry up with the creation of Clementine's Staff, or else he would need to completely start over.

Eiro quickly made his way down the hill to the small pond that was near them, and started to take off his clothes so that he could dive down there. "Let me know if something is going on, this is the one time I won't be able to properly know, I think." Eiro pointed out as he placed his feet into the cold water. Well, while it was cold, it wasn't uncomfortable. He actually enjoyed the cold… And warmth… As extreme as possible, to be honest. Either way, as Eiro started to step deeper into the pond, which wasn't that deep but still required him to dive down a couple of meters, the Demon held his left hand up and swung it around a couple of times as if scooping something up toward his wooden hand.

And after a little while, the Demon kept his hands a bit of a distance away from each other as if holding something and made his way underwater while concentrating on what was happening. Slowly, as Eiro descended into the water, it slightly parted way for something small and spherical while Eiro leaned down and held his mouth onto that spherical spot.

Because what Eiro did just there was rather simple. Using his Air Magic, he gathered enough Air in his hands and slightly compressed and held it together to be able to breathe a fair bit longer than usual, so that he could pick out the best wood they had there, and then supported that bubble with his water and ice magic, using the latter to give the bubble a shell to make it easier to keep everything together.

And so, Eiro now had something like a small ice-mask filled with air around the lower half of his mouth as he descended into the water. It stung a bit in his eyes, but it was fine after Eiro got used to it a bit better. Somehow he was able to see perfectly through the opaque water now that he was in here, and immediately spotted the small blocks of wood both tied to the floor of the pond and a hollow sphere to keep it afloat in the water so that all sides of it were constantly covered in it.

Eiro started taking a look around and swam around the different pieces of wood, before finding a smaller one that seemed pretty good to make the sphere out of, and another one that seemed good to make the handle out of, and quickly cut through the ropes both of them were connected to, quickly diving back up to the surface to bring them to the shore again. He didn't pull them out of the water just yet so that he wouldn't end up wasting the time he had to work with the wood.

With a quick grab, the ice-mask around Eiro's mouth started to melt, and then the Demon's body slowly started to give off a little steam as the water covering him was evaporated by the heat he was giving off through Fire Magic.

"Alright, let's go." Eiro said after getting clothed again as he quickly grabbed the two wooden spheres meant to hold the Acquen Wood steadily in the water and quickly pulled the wood to the surface before cutting through the rope and grabbing the Acquen, rushing back toward the hut. He had one hour before the wood became useless and wasted.

The moment he was inside of the hut, he got started on his work, placing the longer wood into the bathtub for the time being to make sure it could last as long as possible while he worked on the sphere.

It wasn't that complicated really, but the annoying part was that he needed to hollow it out, and it had to be a single sphere. The plan for the Staff specifically said so, after all. That meant that Eiro had to fiddle around inside of the wood with a special tool after getting the basic shape done, and that was really just bothersome.

Quickly, Eiro got started and carved the rough sphere, making it as quickly as possible and sanding it just roughly to smooth it over some more, before carving a small hole in one spot. That hole was then used to access the inside of the sphere, and would later be sealed shut by the handle.

The sphere would really just be a bit larger than a fist, so there wasn't too much work luckily, but it still freaked Eiro out a little knowing that this would be completely ruined if he didn't finish on time.

But after roughly half an hour, Eiro was done with the sphere, and could then spend the rest of the time working on the handle, which luckily was finished more quickly. It was already a long and straight piece of wood, so Eiro just had to carve along the surface to get it rounded, and then went over it to sand it a little.

"Nelli, come on." Eiro said, relaxing when he noticed that he was finally done after just 55 minutes, meaning that he could take his time putting it together. The Sphere needed to be filled with water that was created through magic, and Eiro only had access to one way to fully create water right now, and that was through the Naiad floating next to him.

Water Magic Stones also created water, but it wasn't 'real' water, as it would disappear after a couple of minutes as if it was never there in the first place, so it was completely unsuitable for this. But the Water that Nelli could conjure would stay there forever if she didn't specifically make it disappear again, so it perfectly fit the conditions for the Staff.

And then, Eiro held the water-filled sphere up and pushed the glue-covered, slightly pointed Handle of the staff inside of it to make it properly fit. The tip of the handle actually had a small Light Magic Stone pushed inside of it, since Clementine's Affinity were both for Water and Light, so that was incorporated in the sketch already.

Quickly, the Demon tried to help the glue dry a bit more quickly, and then when he only had a minute or two left till the hour was over and the wood would start rapidly losing quality and would stop working as a magic wood at all, Eiro placed it inside of a thin, tall tank that he prepared specifically for this, which was filled to the brim with Nelli's conjured water, because that was the finishing step. It had to stay inside of there for a whole week to be done.

And when Eiro sealed the top of the tank, he deeply breathed out and started to finally relax again. Making Staffs was really exhausting…