Chapter 333 - Prosthetic

The forging started at once, Mercury and Marie worked the forge while Naila assisted, she too was a blacksmith or more precisely an 'active mana armor craftsman' as the thing the Wasim clan hated the most was borrowed power she had designed and made her own active mana armor under the guide of an elder over the course of 2 years, it was the same for her brother

"Mercury, I have a few questions"

"What is it?"

"I… I understand the blueprint, but where did you get this metal from? It's way lighter than anything I've ever seen before… Plus it's durable"

"Oh, the Aluminium?"

"...The what now?"

"Aluminium"

"...What kind of metal is this?"

"Well, it's the metal of the age of flight"

"Flight? Like a bird?"

"Yeah, it's not of this world"

"...I'll accept that explanation for now… Then with all these parts, what's going to bind them all together to my arm?"

Mercury showed a smile and spoke

"That comes later, let's focus on making the last of the parts for now"

"Okay…"

The three of them worked into the night before the components were done, then after they cooled down over the night the three people returned to the workshop and inspected the parts, Mercury gave his sign of approval and nodded before he asked Marie

"What does your [Metal appraisal] say?"

Marie inspected the pieces a bit before she nodded and spoke

"They're all grade 9… They are of excellent quality"

"Good… now for my part, [Essence shop]"

[Essence shop]

Current essence: 321.185

Available skills: none

Available purchases: [Metal gamble, cost: 1.000] [Advanced chunk of Living metal Assimilation, cost: 100.000]

Random status point, cost: 100

Specific status point, cost: 500

Level up, cost: 1.000

Mercury looked at his essence shop and noted that he was down about 200.000 points since before he began to mass-produce the golems, feeling the need to find a source of metal in the near future Mercury sighed before he spoke as he held out his hand

"Purchase [Advanced chunk of Living metal Assimilation]

Under the watchful eyes of the two girls, the chunk of living metal appeared in his hand from a flash of light, the chunk of living metal looked like a pool of mercury that was seemingly self-contained, Mercury then picked up the parts they had made of the prosthetic hand and threw them into the chunk of living metal, then he spoke

"Show me your arm Naila"

"...Yes"

Naila reached out her right arm and then Mercury moved the chunk of living metal up to her arm and spoke

"Initiate fusing"

The living metal obeyed and quickly fused with Naila's arm, then under Mercury's programing the prosthetic arm quickly formed, then he spoke

"FInalize 'prosthetic arm #1'"

Naila looked down at her new prosthetic and muttered

"No way…"

The hand had a silver metallic shine to it and looked just like a normal hand, she turned it around and moved her new fingers for a bit before she looked up at Mercury that wore a smile on his face and spoke

"This was originally going to be payment for a favor I was going to ask of the two of you, but since you pledged yourselves to me I figured it wouldn't hurt to have you combat able sooner"

Naila's eyes teared up slowly, she had been worried ever since she lost her arm that her days as a warrior would be finished, but now Mercury had given her a new arm, she kneeled down at once and spoke

"Thank you, Mercury, I swear I'll become the sword that strikes down your enemies so that I can live up to the gift you have bestowed onto me!"

Mercury looked at Naila, with her tanned skin, lean body, and curly dark brown hair she truly looked like a fierce desert fighter, she had a kind of untamed charm about her, like a majestic desert wolf, Mercury showed a smile and ruffled her hair a bit before he spoke

"I expect a lot from you, Naila"

"Yes!"

"Very good"

The 3 of them soon returned to the lord's manor where Mercury went off to see if Julia was done with her work, she had been assigned as the temporary lord of the city until a replacement arrived from Juliantia, she was swamped with work and when Mercury arrived at the lord's office he was not too surprised to find that there was light from within still after he knocked on the door he heard Julia's voice from inside the office

"It's open"

Mercury opened the door and saw her sitting behind the study desk with stacks of paperwork in front of her, Mercury saw how fatigued she looked and without saying anything he walked over and picked her up from the chair 

"What!? Wait, Mercury, let me down!"

"Nope"

Then he carried her out of the office, Julia struggled for a bit before she sighed and asked

"What's with you today Mercury?"

Mercury sighed before he flicked her forehead

"Ouch! Why did you do that?

"Because you aren't taking proper care of yourself"

"But I have a lot of work that needs to get done before I can laze around with you so I want to get it done as soon as possible!"

Mercury sighed before he spoke again

"That's still no excuse to neglect yourself, no more work today, let's go to sleep"

"...Fine~"

"Here I come!"

*CLANG*

The sound of metal meeting metal sounded out in the courtyard as Mercury blocked the slash from Naila's curved sword with his gauntlet before he delivered a lightning-fast jab towards her jaw which Naila only just managed to block with her other curved sword, still, the recoil from blocking a strike from Mercury proved to be too much as she was forced to take a step backward thereby giving Mercury an advantage which he exploited fully, soon Terak judged the fight to be over as yelled

"And that's that, Winner, Mercury!"

Mercury relaxed his guard and reached out a hand to Naila and helped her on her feet before he asked her

"How is the arm doing? Is there any discomfort?"

Naila shook her head

"No… It's actually kind of scary how much it feels like my own arm…"

Mercury showed a smile and looked over towards Terak that had been the judge for this little match, he was healing well, but it would still be a couple of weeks before he would be well enough to walk the journey to first Ingrid and then to the underground pyramid

'That or we need to create something that'll help him with walking…'

Mercury shook his head as his thoughts continued

'No… It would be best if he gets to heal properly on his own…'

Mercury moved his eyes from Terak over to Naila as his thoughts continued

'Naila's ready for the journey, she has adjusted well to her new arm…'

Mercury sighed before he muttered

"As long as the United Cana tribes don't try anything funny we should be golden…"

Marie that stood next to Mercury heard some of his mutters and asked

"Sorry, what did you say Mercury?"

"Nothing, just casually raising a flag…"

Marie tilted her head slightly

A few days passed again, Mercury was out shopping with Julia for a change of pace, Julia was lazing around for the past few days while Mercury and Marie were working on a new model golem so Mercury felt that they should get some air, the two of them walked through the streets while Mercury carried a brown paper bag in his arms as the two of them chatted, suddenly Mercury felt a chill go up his spine and he looked around, Julia also suddenly became restless and looked around, then she looked up and as a result, her legs went limp as she sat down on the ground and muttered

"Mercury…"

Mercury looked up at once and soon muttered

"Motherfucker…"

Above the city in the sky were countless meteors breaking through the clouds, Mercury's mind went into overdrive at once and he quickly grabbed Julia and picked her up in his arms before he began to sprint through the streets as he yelled to alert the surrounding people

"SEEK COVER!"

As fast as Mercury was there was no way he could outrun a meteor storm with Julia in his hands, as pandemonium descended around the city the first meteor hit the city, then came several others, house-sized meteors quickly rained down around the city, Mercury realized they had to seek shelter and quickly ran into an inn startling the people inside that were seeking shelter, he quickly yelled

"Down into the basement!"

Some people agreed and quickly moved down into the basement, as soon as Mercury reached the basement he used [Essence consuming] and [Lesser metal weaving] to quickly reinforce the small basement, moments later a meteor hit the inn and sent out a shockwave that made the building collapse entirely....