513 Chapter 513

Cain noticed that when Cyrene fell asleep, the thoughts vanished from the background of his mind, so the spell was only showing conscious thoughts. She was definitely dreaming right now, she was wiggling and smiling in her sleep, but none of that fed over into the spell.

That was a small blessing, listening to other people’s disjointed subconscious ramble as they slept could get annoying.

Cain had the Puppets bring up a blanket with his evening snack. It got quite a bit cooler overnight, and he didn’t intend to close any of the shutters or heat the room, so something to keep her warm would let her rest much longer.

Just after the sun came up, Cain had a revelation about the weapon he was making. Ancient quality was a transformative change, not just a quality change. He had been examining two similar items, one Legendary and one Ancient Quality when the difference was suddenly as clear as day.

Cain began the process again, using the same mace he had been working on all night. Once he started changing the nature of the energy in the enchantment as well as the power level the change seemed to just naturally happen, so Cain let it complete and make an Ancient item.

His hope was that doing it this way would give better results than the ones he pushed straight to Awakened. That first success had been Mythic, but not great. Going to Mythic from Ancient should give better results, Cain believed.

He was about to start on another attempt when Cyrene began to stir. But she didn’t fully wake up, only shifted so her upper body was inside his shirt and then fell asleep again.

Now that Cain understood this process of empowering items, he was getting tempted to share it with someone who would truly appreciate it and not just perfect it for himself. There was a chance that a true professional might even offer him insight as to the parts that he was missing.

The Dwarven Smiths would love this ability, even if they couldn’t use it to its full capabilities. If they could even master the basics of it they could use low-grade patterns as a base and make extremely high-quality items out of them instead of trying to find the highest quality recipes.

They already improvised constantly, but the results of that were more random. This way they could enhance specific abilities.

[Moana, could you send us to the Smithy in the Demon Capital? Dimnys should be there working by now and I want to show her something.] Cain thought, knowing she would hear him.

[Give me just a moment. My other copy is a ways away.] She replied, and Cain could sense that she had sent a copy of herself to the ocean to hunt sea monsters while he was working.

Not out of some sense of justice or public service, they were just tasty, and nobody had any in stock when she wanted to eat one.

The clone that was at the Manor came upstairs a few minutes later, and Cain gathered up Cyrene using the blanket as a sack. She was in for a shock in about three seconds, because the forges were quite loud.

Cain considered leaving her behind, but he knew she would pout more about being abandoned than if she was rudely awoken, so along she came for a trip to visit the Dwarven masters.

Moana transferred them to the demon capital, opening her portal right near the forge where Cain could see Dimnys and a dozen other dwarves working. They should be all the Master Smiths that lived in the city, so even if he dropped a knowledge bomb, they were ready for it.

“Greetings everyone. I have a new technique for Dimnys here, and whoever else she thinks can be trusted with Guild secret techniques.” Cain declared as he entered the forge, letting the heat wash over him as the echo of hundreds of hammers rang in the distance.

“A Technique for Smiths? How rare is that? We will gladly learn it.” Dimnys called back, waking Cyrene up.

The Lamia was disoriented at first but adapted quickly since she could hear Cain’s thoughts reassuring her. Once she had her bearings, she slid from the improvised bag to her place around Cain’s waist, then placed the blanket in her inventory.

“Sorry, it was a really good nap.” She whispered, but she could sense Cain wasn’t bothered. Her mental celebration made Cain smile, she was way too happy just to know that he was pleased with her.

Cain cleared his throat and began his lecture. “I’m sure you know something similar already, but this is a technique to increase the level and quality of an item instead of reforming it.”

The dwarves stared in awe as Cain explained the method, using the words from the text supplemented with his own experiences to help them understand. When he got to the last bit, where you had to change the nature of an item’s energy to bring it to Ancient quality one of them actually dropped his hammer in shock.

It was easier to show them what he meant, so Cain borrowed an epic quality item off the wall of the forge room and demonstrated, thankfully bringing it to Ancient on the first try and not embarrassing himself.

“See, that’s what I mean. At least, it was if you could see or sense what I did. I know that not everyone has the mana sense of an Ancient.” Cain explained before the Smiths launched into a deeply philosophical argument on the true nature of the blacksmith’s craft.

They continued their argument for almost an hour before Cain finally got bored and dragged them back on topic. If he didn’t, they would go on for days at a time without ever reaching a conclusion. That might be the dwarven way, but Cain simply didn’t have time for it today.

“Now, if we can get everyone to give it a try, let’s see how much of what I tried to explain you could understand and apply,” Cain suggested, and all the dwarves headed straight for their forges, grabbing the closest bit of material at hand to experiment on.

They all chose the most basic of recipes to work with so that they could be finished quickly and see if the results were as good as their hypothesis suggested that they could be. In only fifteen minutes, they had a collection of new items created, and a new discussion going on about how well the new technique actually worked.

“If you didn’t get it to the level of quality you were aiming for you can just trace through the pattern again and enhance them further now that the item is created and stable,” Cain suggested.

The Dwarves shook their heads in rejection of the idea, and Dimnys clarified for Cain. “We thought about that, but once the item is finalized we can’t see the Mana lattice anymore, it sinks into the item and vanishes. So once we get the System notice that the item has been successfully created, that is it for us. I think the ability to see and manipulate the Mana flows is something unique to you.”

That was a shame, they could have really increased the standard of smithing on the Central Continent.

“I think I understand. But with that in mind, how did everyone do? Better than expected, or did the technique not work well for you, since it has an odd interaction with the system if you do it during the crafting process?” Cain asked.

“I got a Common Quality item up to Epic, that’s two whole ranks of Quality above the base for the recipe. I think if I had started with a better item I could have pushed it to be a better overall item, but there simply wasn’t time in such a short crafting period to properly enhance the item.

The process is much like the standard method of creation, but with an extra step of enhancing the flow once it is in place. It’s very finicky though, and I never would have thought of doing it that specific way if you hadn’t shown it to us.” One of the Dwarven Masters, who all looked nearly identical to Cain, being short, bearded, and covered in soot from the forge, which hid the small details of their features.

“I have some time, why not try something that was mediocre to begin with, maybe a low Epic item that doesn’t take forever to craft?” Cain suggested, and they all ran back to the forges.

The Dwarves loved to talk but they loved the forge even more, so any reason they got to go back to their work was enough to send them on their way before you even finished talking. The sound of hammers and the bellows that fed oxygen to the lava-fuelled forges of the Demon Capital were the only sounds while they worked over the next few hours, and Cain watched carefully as they enhanced the items they were creating.

He didn’t learn anything that was too outstanding, but a number of small things that Cain hoped would add up to a much easier time enhancing the items he was working with and lead to better final products. Every Quality level had a wide range of modifiers that could fall within it, and the goal was to end up at the top of the quality level every time.

That might not be realistic right now, but with a little more work, Cain thought it might not be too outlandish to be able to create top-tier Mythic items out of random stuff that people brought to him.

Cyrene loved the thought. A benevolent gift from the Darklight Host Guild Master, upgrading the very armor that supplicants wore to meet him.

The Lamia shrugged off his concerns about the Cultish behavior, firmly convinced that it was only natural for him to be worshipped by the people of the Central Continent when so much of what they had could be traced directly back to him and the benefits that he personally granted to his Guild Members. For many small nations, their very existence after the dungeons collapsed was the result of a group of Outreach Workers using the Guild Skill summons to reinforce the local guards and save their cities.

Put that way, she did make some sense, but there was still something missing from her logic that Cain couldn’t really put his finger on. Cain was sure he would figure it out eventually, but since Cyrene herself saw nothing wrong with the logic, her thoughts weren’t going to lead him anywhere near the answer, he would have to focus on it himself.