RD 3 Ch 8

Chapter 8

Rather than stealing Gloria's entire workforce on a whim, I instructed Simone to schedule our trip to the instance for a few days out, that way people could make arrangements.

In the meantime, I busied myself with some finishing touches on the fortress. It was about time that I put in some work towards this thing.

Wiping the sweat from my brow, I leaned back from my work and glanced down the wall at all the inscriptions I’d carved into it. 

Immediately, three of the Mul Branova appeared at my side. Amanda and Jenny were expected, but there was a third girl, one I vaguely remembered and had soft green hair. 

"Water? Tea? Protein shake?" The three of them thrust drinks at me with giant smiles. 

"Water's fine," I said, taking the glass from Amanda. The tea and the protein shake were a bit much. 

"Lord, are you going to teach any of us inscriptions?" The one with green hair asked. 

I grasped for her name and couldn't remember. Perhaps Helena? I nodded. That sounded right. Though normally I felt that name should belong to a bratty angel. I'd been introduced to all of them at one point and with the level of my spirit stat came near-perfect memory, it just wasn't always at the forefront of my mind. 

"Perhaps. But even if I taught you all of this, you couldn't do it yourself." I turned over my wrist, showing the dried blood on it. 

"You're hurt!" Helena reached over to grab my arm, only for Amanda to slap her hand away. 

"He's not hurt. There's no wound under there. The Devotees get their regeneration from him, and his is even more insane," Amanda clarified with a proud rise of her chin. "And what are you doing here, Helena? I’m his driver and taking care of his needs."

"Well, some of the girls from the crafting group have been very interested in understanding the inscriptions he's making." She gestured at the concrete wall behind me, where I had chiseled very fine lines and then filled them with my blood. 

I planned to have Gloria bring someone by to paint them over with a thin layer of concrete once it was all dried. That way, if there was ever a saboteur within the walls, they wouldn't be able to find the inscriptions so easily. Besides, I was making enough of these inscriptions that they would have to work very hard to destroy all of them without anyone noticing. 

The ones on the walls were simple. Making them titanically strong was, in theory, possible. But it also made repairs and other situations quite difficult. No, instead, the inscriptions I was putting on every inch of this wall would activate only if excessive force was applied. If someone struck them, it would rebound with equal force, protecting the wall and harming the attacker. 

Which also meant, if we ever needed to, we could tear down part of the wall and move it and rebuild the fort's footprint. But if, say, a demon with a battering ram came swinging, the wall would shatter the ram instead.

Over time, this was the preferred enchantment for fortresses, though a fair bit more complex than just making them harder or more dense. It saved on trying to recharge the inscriptions constantly as it would only activate if struck.

I could break several hands and my bones if I tried to strike this wall with my full force. Not that I was going to do that right now. The wall would probably take me a few days to get through all of it. And then I would start in on the buildings. 

Those would get similar enchantments as well as plenty for stability and possibly even some self-repair. Though, the self-repair ones usually were fairly costly and needed some repository for material to be added to. 

Talismans were wonderful, but they weren't omnipotent. To produce an effect costed something in either mana, resources or burning up the materials of the inscription itself. The ones I used to make water burned up the mana charged in them as well as the ingredients in order to produce the water. These I didn't want to burn up on use for the repair, so we'd have to have some basement filled with concrete blocks and tie it into the inscription to make replenishing them all at once easy. 

The last thing I wanted was to be bleeding all over this fortress for all eternity.

"Bran," Jenny coughed.

"Huh?" I realized I had missed something.

Jenny rubbed her forehead.

"I'm sorry. They started bickering and then I zoned out, thinking about my inscriptions." I smiled. 

Helena sighed. "You must be very busy."

"Yes, though, my dwelling on inscriptions was..." I chuckled to myself. A thought of a lover from my past life flipped through my mind. "It wasn't an uncommon complaint in my past," I said quickly. "So please. Crafters wanted to learn inscriptions." My brain caught up with what she had been saying before. It had been lost in thoughts of inscriptions. 

"Yes, they're so marvelous and the number of things they can do are... I hesitate to say, Bran, miraculous."

I couldn't help the smug smile that pulled itself from the corners of my lips. "Of course, inscription is the best crafting."

"Well, it's miraculous," Helen said, looking to the side and not meeting my eyes. "But there are certainly some more valuable skills like armorsmithing.”

“And if you don't know inscriptions, how are you going to craft the perfect set of armor? It's the inscriptions that really make it great." I tried to drive the point home. 

Helena waffled her head. "I think there are limitations, of course. Inscriptions require a certain grade of material, and if you can't find someone to work high-end metals, how would you even have a nice enough set of armor to put good inscriptions on?" 

My face fell and my lips formed a flat line as I tried to keep the distaste off my face, because it was clear that crafters of the Mul Branova needed to understand that inscription was the top crafting methodology. If a player were stranded in the middle of the desert, being a blacksmith did nothing to help you survive. Neither did learning to work leather or gems. But inscriptions? They could help almost anywhere. 

Amanda giggled. "It seems Lord Bran might disagree with you." She winced, though there was a giant smile on her face. "Perhaps you should focus on blacksmithing, and then once you've crafted something wonderful, I'm sure Lord Bran would be willing to help craft the inscriptions."

"No, that doesn't work." Helena frowned. "In order to make the perfect set of armor, you need to understand the inscription before you even start crafting. You have to make sure the planes and the lines and the armor don't interfere with the inscription." 

I rubbed my chin. "Yes, that is the right mentality when crafting armor. You need to make sure it is a perfect canvas for the inscription that is going to go on it." I nodded along, finding myself liking Helena a little more. 

"I wouldn't say the perfect canvas. I would say the perfect set of armor for inscription to improve." Her distinction was not accurate, but I nodded along, deciding to impart some of the wisdom from my past life.

"Oftentimes, the inscription master would work alongside the other profession, creating a set of blueprints before they even got started. After all, it's very important for anyone working to have an idea of what they're going to do before they even lay out the raw materials." I offered.

Helena nodded along. "Which is why I'm wondering when you're going to teach someone about inscriptions." She gestured at my work on the concrete wall.

"Would you like to learn inscription?" It seemed only proper to teach an armorer what the true master craftsman ability looked like.

Helena shook her head. "I've got my hands busy, but with the new batch of Mul Branova, there are few that are ready to start from scratch. After all, we're still working on building up our armory."

"Armory?" I raised my eyebrow. My interest was piqued. 

"Well, of course, we're keeping all of the nearby instances clear. We even managed to collect two more from the FPA, though they're about two hours outside the city. And we've got a team of three at each, clearing them as we speak. All of these people are bringing back raw materials that we can incorporate into the fortress, as well as the equipment we're building. If you expect us to fight like an army, we might as well be equipped like one."

I shrugged. "Well, you can send any interested parties that want to learn inscription over. I can probably make a few quick designs and give them some of my blood to make some low-grade inscriptions and at least get the skill activated. Once they have that and a few designs, they can work through the designs and work their way up," I offered. 

Though currently, my own ability for inscriptions didn't quite match my actual capabilities, the system had recognized my achievements. However, my mind contained the understanding and expertise to make far higher grade inscriptions. 

Helena clapped excitedly. "That would be wonderful! Could we get a drum of your blood so we can start?" 

I held a finger up. "You are not getting a drum of my blood." 

She pouted. "But think of all the things we can make. Simone said it's already S-rank.”

“S-rank for the purpose of being used as an inscription ink." I pointed a finger at her. "Do not think that means you can just add it to recipes willy-nilly and turn everything several ranks higher. If it were a raw material from an instance, possibly. But you could consider my blood an already refined ingredient for the purpose of inscriptions.”

And technically I could probably use it for some alchemy things, but I wasn't going to tempt the crafters.

I knew how crafters could be. Sometimes they were maniacs at their craft. Spending months or years holed away experimenting. I remember when I wasted five years in a cave to reach the grand master level of inscription. And personally, time had flown by. I really hadn't expected or meant to spend that much time locked away.

A few of my past lovers would say that I went through an eccentric crafter phase.

"Would it be possible for us to learn too?" Amanda and Jenny asked. 

"At the same time? Sure. I mean, whoever wants to get the skill can get the skill. I'll make a single recipe book of inscriptions from perhaps F to D rank. That will give you guys plenty of time to practice." I answered.

Their eyes lit up. "We'll happily copy the book too." 

"Well, you'll have to understand and perfect the inscription before you'll be able to make an effective copy," I raised an eyebrow at them. "So for now, it'll just be one book. Whoever comes can borrow it. And I guess you might gain some insight watching what I'm doing once you have the inscription skill." 

All three ladies were now nodding along. It was a break from this activity. But I truly believed that getting all of the ladies skilled up on the inscription would be a huge boon for the community as a whole. After all, it was the most versatile and the best crafting profession.

***

 I looked up as Gloria pushed her way through the crowd, resplendent in a fantastic copper sequin dress that made nearly every inch of her gleam. She even managed to pull my attention away from the inscriptions. 

"What is going on here, Bran?" she asked. 

I glanced around. There had been fifty of them the last time I had given an instruction on the inscriptions. I paused, squinting at the crowd. Nope, this was nearly all of the Mul Branova. 

"I said I would give inscription lessons," I said, pointing at the wall where I had been working. 

"Uh-huh," Gloria sounded slightly unamused. "And why are you doing it shirtless?" 

"Oh. Well I said I was getting hot and they said it was fine," I gestured at the Mul Branova.

Gloria put her head in her hand. "Bran, put a shirt on. And you need to be ready for our date." 

I pulled my phone out of a storage ring and quickly glanced at the time. "I have a half an hour." 

Gloria crossed her arms and I realized the reason she looked so incredible was because she was ready for our date early. I cleared my throat and turned back to the group.

"Everyone, show's over. I will be teaching inscription later, but you must have the inscription skill before you can learn anything." I glanced around and one of them held up the notebook that I had written the basic inscriptions into. "That is what you need in order to learn your first few inscriptions and get the skill. Only then will watching me have any benefit. I will be doing inscriptions for the next several days, possibly weeks. Thank you." 

I stood up and scooped Gloria into my arms before jumping up against the wall and kicking off with enough strength to launch myself over the crowd and towards the barracks that held our penthouse. 

Gloria had a pout on her face with her arms crossed as I landed. "Do not ruin my hair. I spent 20 minutes on this." 

I smiled and put her down gently. "Alright, then do what you need to do to stay as absolutely gorgeous as you are. And I will hurry back." I flashed her another smile before racing into the building. I was officially against the clock. 

I froze as I pushed the button for the elevator and realized I had made a terrible, terrible mistake. I didn't have any suits that would fit my new frame, having grown several inches both in height and girth during my stay at the Hero's Clan. 

I checked my phone. There were a number of messages, including one that was a picture of Simone and the Three Servants holding up a brand new suit. 

"Oh, I love that woman," I said, reminding myself to give her a massive hug when I saw her.