Nate sat in his workshop staring at the finished product before him. To date, most of his creations had been functional in nature rather than beautiful. The two bracers he wore and the single armband were just simple bands of metal, concealing the runes within. Even looking back at his Legendary Acid Wand, it had looked like a gnarled, if expensive, piece of wood. Of course, up until recently he had a major limitation as a crafter: without being a blacksmith or carpenter, his ability to alter the shapes of his materials had been relatively limited. With his Material Shaping Skill that was no longer the case. He wondered if that was why this creation received an Achievement, since it had been a while since he got a new Achievement for creating an item.

  Bringing up the identification again, he reviewed it one last time.

  Runecrafted Soulrending Dagger (Legendary)

  Stats: +6 Willpower

  Features: Soul Bleed (Legendary), Reinforcement (Epic), Illusory Blade (Legendary), Innate Repair (Rare)

  Soul Bleed: This item has been Runecrafted to cause any wounds inflicted by it to bleed soul energy until the wound is healed, either naturally or by magical means. The rate of soul energy bleed is vastly enhanced by the dagger’s' affinities.

  Reinforcement : This item has been Runecrafted to reinforce the material, making it exceedingly hard to break.

  Illusory Blade: This item has been Runecrafted to allow the user to expend mana to overlay an illusion, disguising the shape, size and appearance of the dagger. Requires user’s mana to function.

  Innate Repair: This item has been Runecrafted to repair itself over time using ambient mana. Feeding the Enchantment mana can accelerate this process.

  He smiled, looking over the dagger. The blade was longer than the ones Kiri normally used, the shape elegant and slender, with detailed scrollwork along the length of it depicting a gryphon, finally ending in a razor-sharp tip. He had shaped the guard to mimic an eagle's wings. The hilt was wrapped in Rare-grade black leather that he had been assured would not tear easily.

  Kiri had been using the Rare-tier Dagger of Torn Souls for a while now, and it was clear to Nate that she had outgrown it. But it wasn’t like Legendary-tier equipment was just lying around the Capital. So, having resolved his own defensive problems, he thought he would spend a little time making a couple of things for Kiri. The other item was a mirror of his own defensive trinkets. A Legendary bracer that flooded an area around her with the effects of a Soul Release. It would keep anyone from preventing her from using the soul energy that so many of her Skills relied on.

  Of course, his efforts had not gone unrewarded as he glanced at the newest Achievement.

  You have created a Legendary item that utilises Soul Energy.

  Your achievement has been recorded.

  He wasn’t completely certain, but he thought that this would be considered a Legendary tier Achievement. That was already cause for celebration, but he had learned how important the language the System used was. The fact that the Achievement included the word ‘created’ made him extremely pleased.

  Sending a mental message to Frick to ask Kiri to join him at the workshop, he set to cleaning up the space. Now that he had finished his crafting it was time to focus on the next step in his development – one that had been a long-time coming. It had been almost a month since the last Dungeon run, and that entire time his Conceptual Insight had been absorbing excess mana and storing it in preparation for this moment. It was time to learn his first Grandmaster-tier Sigil. The only question left was, which of his Master-tier Sigils should he raise. Once upon a time, it might have been a simple coin flip between whether he went with Mana or Barrier. But that time had passed with the addition of his new Sigils. Now Sound, Illusion, Space and Soul were also on the table. Six options and he could only improve one of them.

  The discussions with Frick had gone back and forth for days now. Mana could improve his mana gathering operation and also the subset of his defences that focused on making sure he could use mana externally. But, he didn’t really need to improve his mana gathering operation. He was already syphoning off enough mana from the Capital to fund his experiments, workshop and the production aspects that he handed off to Jacque. In terms of defence, he was confident that there would be few enough in the near future that could oppose both his Spatial Release and Mana Release Legendary items.

  On the topic of defences, there was an argument for him to upgrade his Barrier Sigil. It was his ultimate protection and something he made use of in every battle. It was also the direction he was leaning and had pushed for. His ability to heal, for now, was tied directly to being able to drain others, which meant that the smartest thing to do was simply not get hurt in the first place. Unlike Mana, Barrier was definitely still in the race.

  Soul was an option he had already discarded. That was Kiri’s domain, and while he was interested in understanding the energy type and the things you could accomplish with it, it was not his path. The only reason he might have chosen it would have been to further improve the item he had created for Kiri. He didn’t need to ask her to know she would’ve told him off for that.

  The second serious contender was Space. It was both a part of his path going forward and a core piece of his skillset. Expanding his options by utilising creations that controlled space was a strong option. He already had ideas for ways to expand his usage of space in combat, but that wasn’t the key draw. The tome given to him by Arikanvil that detailed how to try and find the Dead Realm that Earth resided in was still inside his spatial storage. He had held off on looking at it, knowing that there was nothing he could do yet to try and cross those kinds of distances. A Grandmaster-tier Space Sigil would change that. Portals, Spatial Searching and Multiversal travel might suddenly be an option.

  That left Illusion and Sound. The former drew him for two reasons. The first was how the idea of an Illusion could draw parallels to his goal of ‘living art’. It wasn’t quite the same, but it did advance his ideas of moving art. The second was the ability to misdirect and conceal things. It had become a major part of every single item that they produced in the workshop. A multi-layered Illusion and Obfuscation rune was a part of every item produced at the Rare grade. The purpose was to conceal the Sigils involved. It might have been a concern if Jacque didn’t already know that Nate held a Mythic-tier Class, but since the man was bound by a System Contract there was no harm in sharing a Grandmaster-tier Illusion Sigil with the man if he went that way. On the other hand, he didn't really need a Grandmaster-tier Illusion Sigil to do the things with it that he wanted to do.

  Sound should have been an afterthought. It had been one of his more recent acquisitions and it worked perfectly in tandem with Illusion, creating the ultimate ability to conceal anything he wanted. Admittedly he was being hyperbolic, given the myriad variations in detection abilities, but it certainly meant he could both conceal and silence the things he created. It could also be used as a weapon. Sound was just a specific type of vibration, and with his ability to focus his runes on individual Subconcepts he could definitely use it in battle. The idea was actually a little frightening. He had no idea what would happen if he vibrated something at a high enough frequency but he guessed that it would produce heat. A lot of heat. Watching someone get immolated, or worse, explode, wasn’t exactly high on his list of priorities.

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  The war went on inside him for a few more minutes: Space or Barrier. In the end he chose Space, even if it ran the risk of interfering with his goals for changing his Embodiment. He was pretty sure that Barrier wouldn’t have assisted with his plans anyway.

  Conceptual Insight activated and he felt the mana stored in the Skill drain away as the image formed in front of him in the air.

  Space Sigil (Quality: Grandmaster)

  He had wondered if he would get an Achievement to go with it, but nothing was forthcoming and he was forced to accept that he would need to create a Grandmaster-tier rune to get the desired Achievement. Looking over the sigil, he used Conceptual Runic Creation to copy the Sigil before confirming it was a perfect replica. The symbol continued to hang there in the air in a sturdy mana construct and he supposed that it was meant to give the individual time to make sure they could copy it down correctly. Instead, he used the extra time to study the geometry and symbolism involved. It was an order of magnitude more complex than any other Sigil he knew of, but it still paled in comparison to the image on his puzzle box. That gave him a little encouragement that his puzzle-box really was using a Sigil on it, even if he still hadn’t figured out how to activate it. The interesting thing to him was he could feel the pressure the Space Sigil was putting on the environment around him. His sphere of awareness was sensitive to spatial fluctuations and he could feel how items around him felt like they were both closer and further away. It was as if he could reach out and touch anything in the room, the very idea of space having become fluid. The feeling slowly faded as the mana construct started to dissipate and he was thankful. It had been a slightly disconcerting experience and he was definitely going to have to practise under such conditions to get used to the potential future capabilities of his Realmwalker Class.

  Kiri chose that moment to enter the room, forced to walk in like a plebian as the workshop was warded against Soul and Spatial entry. If he had a Sigil for Demonic or Celestial energies he would’ve included those as well.

  “What’s so important that it couldn’t wait till tonight?” Kiri asked with a smile.

  “Didn’t think you would want to wait for your presents,” he replied with amusement, waving a hand at the bracer and dagger on the table.

  “You didn’t!?” she exclaimed, her visage warring between annoyed and elated.

  He knew she wanted him to focus on their burgeoning mercantile empire. The Auction House had finally started to mention ideas for a few custom pieces that they might be interested in. Instead, he figured they could wait a little longer while he finished off Kiri’s upgrades.

  He let her stew for a few seconds longer and was rewarded with a frustrated grunt before she started beaming again.

  “Alright, alright! I give in. What do they do? You know I can’t identify them myself.”

  Nate brought up the identification results for both items, making them visible to his sister. It still felt a little weird to think that word in regards to Kiri. That wasn’t to say it felt wrong. It was just new and he was still getting used to it. But she was the family he had chosen.

  “No way! That is amazing!” she gushed, already playing with the illusory blade ability to make it invisible, or match the appearance of her other daggers, before dropping the illusions to look over the true blade. “The gryphon from the Dungeon?”

  He nodded with a contented smile plastered onto his face.

  “Artwork worthy after all. I love it! I love it so much! Thank you!”

  He dropped his barrier at the last moment as she threw her arms around him and hugged her back for a moment. That moment may have continued for a little longer, but they both stepped apart, glancing upwards to the front door of the shop that housed their workshop. It was closing and two bodies had entered the workshop. That was one too many. Jacque was one of the individuals, but he wasn’t to let anyone else in. That begged the question of who the second was. If Kiri’s frown was anything to go by, she already knew who the second individual was. Nate reformed his barrier, watching as Kiri hid her dagger in plain sight and clipped on the bracer of Soul Release he had gifted her. Glancing at each other they nodded, before the pair made their way upstairs.

  Nate audibly sighed when he saw who it was that was holding Jacque hostage.

  The dark-haired Guard Inspector Koriolos watched them with brown eyes alight with a sense of triumph.

  “You two are exceptionally difficult to get a hold of,” said Koriolos, his tone clearly one of frustration. “That has made me look bad. I truly, truly, hate looking bad. So, now that we’re finally alone, I am going to get some answers to my questions. Drop your soul protections or I am going to arrest you both on suspicion of involvement with the death of a member of the Etruan Nobility.”

  The man punctuated his statement by shoving Jacque so hard that the man collapsed to the floor with a scream of pain. It only took Nate a moment to tell that Koriolos had already broken the ex-Professor’s arm, likely as part of gaining entry to the workshop. The wards would’ve kept the Inspector out without a key to get in, a key that Jacque, of course, had.

  Turning his attention back to Koriolos, he mentally sighed. This was a complication he didn’t need, but there was no way in the Nine Hells that he was going to drop his Soul Barrier around the man. He didn’t even need to glance at Kiri to know how she felt about the situation. She already seemed primed to kill the man, consequences be damned. Still, Nate wasn’t there yet. His hand was being pressed, but it was yet to be forced.

  “We won’t be doing that. So you can either ask your questions, or you can leave.”

  His voice sounded calmer than he felt, but not by much. The fact was, after everything he had gone through, he was unwilling to submit to anyone, let alone some Guard Inspector who only held a Rare-tier Primary Class after his second evolution.

  “The hard way, then,” Koriolos replied with a confident smile. Nate understood where he was coming from, albeit barely. Koriolos was level eighty and even if his Embodiment was only Fragmented, it likely still gave him some additional bonuses. Enough that the Inspector believed he had the upper hand.

  Koriolos flashed forward in a burst of speed, blade drawn as the swordsman tried to target Nate. It was the right decision, he supposed – closing on the mage first. He didn’t bother to dodge. The speed Koriolos showed was decent, but nothing compared to Kiri. A wave of soul energy accompanied the man's rush, washing over Nate as he sensed the pressure against his Soul Barrier. Pushing a little extra mana into his Soul Barrier he felt the resistance firm even as he watched Kiri handily drive the Inspector back using only two daggers.

  Koriolos’ eyes transitioned from focused to fearful as the reality of the situation dawned on him. He was being beaten by someone that should be over thirty levels lower than him. Nate didn’t have a Skill that would let him know what the soul attack had been meant to accomplish, but whatever it had been, it had no effect on the pair. Worse for the man, was how easily Kiri was beating him. Another three seconds passed as dagger met sword, the sounds of each impact ringing off the surrounding walls. Then Kiri, with a burst of speed, stepped inside of a slash from the swordsman, catching the sword and arresting its movement with one dagger as she hooked the pommel with her second. Yanking the blade out of Koriolos’ hand, she kicked out in the opposite direction. The Inspector grunted as he fell to the floor, eyes alight with fury.

  “You’ve laid hands on a Guard Inspector. You’re dead. You’re both dead!”

  “Does it need to go that far?” replied Nate. “You’ve broken my employee’s arm and attacked me. We could just let it go at that and you could go on your way. Continue your pointless investigation. You have to know I could just talk to Princess Morgane about this.”

  “Talk to whoever you want, you common trash! The law is on my side now! Even the Princess will be forced to accept it! I’ll see you executed for this!”

  Nate sighed, turning to Kiri, “Should we get Deverell?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Koriolos lunge forward. But it wasn’t for Kiri or himself that the Guard Inspector went for. Gripping Jacque’s broken arm, Koriolos stared them both down with a knife to the man's throat, ignoring the screams of pain.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” Koriolos whispered viciously, a victorious smile on his vengeful face.

  Kiri glanced at Nate, her eyes asking him for permission. The sound of Jacque groaning in pain and the huffing of Koriolos were the only sounds in the room as he defeatedly gave his sister a nod, acquiescing to her request. He stared at the scene as she vanished, appearing behind the Inspector and plunging her Runecrafted Soulrending Dagger into the man's back. Nate maintained his watch as she drained his soul dry. It was the least Nate could do after agreeing to the man's execution. With Jacque quietly sobbing on his knees, Nate suppressed the emotional response he was having, and started figuring out how the fuck they were going to hide the man’s murder.

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