Sherry, Roxanne. Girls, there is no need for us to go to such length just now, really. I mean, we do not even know if he will really try swindling us in any way. It was nothing but a speculation on my part, and the one said as a joke, so
After a moment where it seemed as if my brain was fried and needed a while to restart itself, I finally managed to speak up. And say what I should have said much, much earlier.
Oh, is. Is that so? W-Well then. I, I am so sorry, master! I said all of those things without really thinking them through and went way ahead of myself than I should have! I am truly, truly sorry!
It is a good thing that Sherry recognizes that she made a mistake, but on the other hand, she just went from one extreme right to the other, blowing this situation way out of proportion in my mind. But well, as long as she knows that she screwed up and regrets it, that is more than enough for me.
Relax, Sherry. Everyone makes mistakes every once in a while, so I will not berate you for making one yourself, so just calm down and take it easy, okay?
Really? You are not mad at me for getting ahead of myself and saying all those things in front of you?
Sherry, if master says that he is not angry with you, then he well and truly means that, so it is okay, you can stop worrying now.
Yeah, essentially what Roxanne said just now. And besides, if I will feel like I am angry at her at all, then I am just going to punish her in my own way: by being extra rough on her in bed in the evening. In other words, I have no problems with what Sherry just did, because honestly, If I wa alone and my paranoia grabbed a hold of me again, then that is probably what I would have said and done myself.
When she performed Item Fusionfor the first time it drained her MP instantly and caused her to have suicidal and extremely self-deprecating thoughts, but now nothing like that was happening. She just stood there, staring at the product of her own creation with eyes that were beaming with pride, and it is most probably that her level as a Master Smith has risen since the very first time when I made her fuse the Copper Sword of Obstruction for me. Yeah, that has to be it. Her level as a Master Smith has risen, and as a result of that her overall pool of MP has risen as well, thanks to which fusions of items with Skill Crystals in it no longer sapped all of her MP from her. Now this is what I call visible progress!
But even so, after we finished eating dinner I still asked her to create more basic Misangas. Even though she might have succeeded in fusing a more difficult thing successfully, the continued honing and improvement of your basic Skills and increasing her level as a Master Smith is still just as important of a job to do as the creation of equipment with Skills in it.
Master, is it really necessary for me continue creating Misangas every morning and every evening?
I listened to Sherry question while receiving the two Misangas that she has created from her. With these two Misangas that she made just now, the number of times when she fused an ordinary item without any Empty Skill Slots in it is now seven in a row. Looking at the number of items in my possession that do have Empty Skill Slots in them, I knew that obtaining such items is not going to be an easy process, but still, I thought that after seven fusions at least one or two of those Misangas would have at least one Empty Skill Slot in it, and so I began to think why is it that I have not seen Sherry create even a single one like that, and whether or not there might be some sort of trick to it, same as with fusing items and weapons with Skill Crystals.
I know that right now such a training might seem bothersome to you, but just try to think about it as a way of slowly getting better at being a Master Smith, one step and one fused item at a time. It might not be the best kind of analogy since your Item Fusion and mine swordsmanship are not the same kind of arts that should essentially never be compared to one another, but my strength with the blade was not with me ever since I was born, you know? I also had to spend countless hours training and polishing my own skills with the sword to arrive where I currently am with it. It was not always easy, and there were many times where I wanted to quit, but eventually I managed to push through those difficult times, continuing to improve myself along the way.
That was only partially a lie, because back when I was still practicing kendo as a kid I was genuinely giving it my all before I eventually quit, but the things that I learned during those lessons have stayed with me all the way until today, so it was not a total waste of time like everything else in my life back on earth.
Going back to the issue at hand though, I do not think that the issue here is something with Sherry per se, because up until now she managed to fuse every last item that I requested of her successfully, so she has a one hundred percent success rate, but I think that it is high time for us to try digging into this matter and try to discover why it is like that, because I cannot allow myself to wait forever while hoping that one day Empty Skill Slots are just going to appear in the items that Sherry is fusing on her own. By the time we manage to obtain a Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal, I need to have at least one item with an Empty Skill Slot in it. So think, Michio, think. What might be the cause of this?
I know for a fact that the fusion of items with Skill Crystals has been successful twice in a row now, and that my hypothesis that as long as a weapon or an item has Empty Skill Slots in it, the fusion is going to be a successful one is probably a correct one as well. In other words, just like I said before, before I get my hands on A Green Caterpillar Skill Crystal which Sherry is then going to fuse together with a Misanga to create a Sacrificial Misanga, she needs to create a Misanga with an Empty Skill Slot in it. Learning how to do it is going the be the hardest part of the process, but after I will crack the code on how to do it, I think making more of them is actually going to be quite easy. However, before that can happen, we have to make that first, most important step.