Second Realm

by Michael Chatfield

  Rugrat went through his iron ingots. He checked each and used his Simple Inorganic Scan to see just what their inner makeup was and get a greater idea of their innate abilities. No iron ore was the same, even from the same iron vein.

  Some might have greater contact with Fire and Metal Mana as it was at the center of the vein; others might have an affinity with Earth Mana, or be changed due to being combined with other metals as they were formed.

  There were so many possible combinations that Rugrat had never noticed.

  His angry thoughts at Tan Xue’s “scam” disappeared as he took an iron ingot and placed it into the furnace.

  Rugrat might act a little immature at times. And he might wear short shorts with the American flag on them right now underneath his apron as he worked in front of a forge—with Tan Xue looking away to try to save her eyesight and her mind from burning the image into her consciousness.

  “Dear gods, man!”

  Her calls fell on deaf ears as Rugrat got into the zone. He pulled the heated ingot out of the forge and put it on the anvil. He took out a green paste and put it on the face of his hammer.

  Mana freely flowed through his body and through his hammer, tracing out Mana veins as it entered the green paste.

  Rugrat’s strikes fell on the metal at an odd rhythm. Sometimes his blows were strong and powerful, other times lighter and focused.

  Anvil, hammer, forge, heat; return and repeat.

  Rugrat’s hammer blows fell as a spearhead was created, then the pole arm. The entire spear was made from metal with green veining throughout.

  It wasn’t long until Rugrat finished off the spear, quenching it. A sizzling noise came as steam rose off the spear.

  Rugrat put down his tools and grabbed the spear. He turned and threw it at a target in the smithy. The spear slammed home and shook.

  “Ah, you used the Ylais paste to increase the flexibility of the iron, turning the main body flexible so that it can exert greater strength,” Tan Xue said.

  “Not bad!” Rugrat said, his hands on his hips.

  Tan Xue looked over to get a side view. “Put some damn pants on!” she yelled, having forgotten what he was wearing.

  “Come on, it helps with the breeze to keep my cool!” Rugrat looked at himself, his collection of tattoos and his bulky body. He was in good shape—he even had abs! “It’s okay.” He patted his stomach as if looking out for their feelings.

  Tan Xue’s next hit missed; she’d been smithing the entire time but it was only with his last comment she’d been thrown totally off.

  He didn’t seem to notice her missed hit as he put away the spear and then pulled out another piece of iron that he had been eyeing earlier.

  “Time to put this iron to work!”

  Once he was set on a goal, he wasn’t to be stopped. Rugrat’s Stamina meant that he didn’t require that much sleep. In that time, he spent it on hammering out new weapons, armor, and items.

  For four nights and five days, one could hear his hammer ringing out.

  As an item was finished, he would test it and place it into a storage ring. With each item, he was testing out new ideas. The pressure increased; unlike the metal that could be reworked if he messed up, when using different enhancers with the metal, then it would be ruined and he would lose it.

  With his unwillingness to sell more Mortal-grade iron ingots, he could only buy a certain number of enhancers from Dai.

  He sent out Julilah, who still kept coming around the smithy to go and get him more supplies with his remaining gold. He would have gone himself but he was too engrossed in what he was doing.

  Finally, he sat down on a chair and pulled out a beer from his storage ring.

  “Is there anything you don’t have in there?” Tan Xue had seen him pulling out different storage rings from within his storage rings. Although most wanted to show off their wealth, he seemed more like a pack rat with too much stuff!

  “Yeah, the kitchen sink.” Rugrat snorted at his own joke while Tan Xue frowned at him.

  “Never mind. Joke from back home.” Rugrat sipped from his beer and looked over the smithy.

  Then he waved his hand as the two steel capsules he and Erik had been teleported in appeared with a loud noise. “Could you let me know what you think of this?” Rugrat asked. “The metal, not the workmanship,” Rugrat amended, seeing the welds and knowing how people regularly used spells and flames they produced from their hands to create welds. His utilitarian welds looked incredibly ugly now.

  Tan Xue looked over the steel, using a few different spells and tests. “A heavily enhanced iron,” she said after some time, looking over to Rugrat.

  “Thanks.” Rugrat took a long pull from his drink.

  I haven’t heard anyone saying steel, but then we just came up with the name because we use steel more than iron most of the time. With the different kinds of enhanced iron, there’s just so many varieties with the iron as a base, some of it being regional. They don’t have too many common items other than the raw material. Also, it shows that multiple enhancers can be used at once. Steel is made from a combination of different things, so it could be possible, with a proper mixture of enhancers, to improve the iron. I wonder if Erik would be able to help me out. It seems like the enhancers are more like ingredients that one might find in an alchemical concoction.

  Rugrat continued his musings for some more time. He took the steel and started to write down notes and put a piece to the side. This would act as a reference in the future for him to improve upon and take information from. It was like a record from Earth: their metal and the different processes that they had come up with to create metal-based items.

  Rugrat was still drinking from his beer when he took out some steel and threw it into the furnace. “Part two—steel.”

  He had got down forming the metal to what he needed easily, but before, he had been forcing the metal to become items that they might not be suited for.

  Thinking of the items he had given to Su Wei, he could only wince, thinking of what an idiot he must have looked like, giving them such sub-par items.

  His path had become much harder as he sought out perfection, taking one piece of metal as his base that suited all of the stages and later parts.

  He didn’t just take a piece of steel and think of making a sword. He would take a piece of metal, think of how he could enhance it to bring out its truly destructive properties.

  Enhancers could bring out the innate attributes of the metal.

  An enchantment was a simple way of saying formation but applying it permanently to an item of clothing or weaponry, looking to increase the user’s fighting capability.

  Rugrat knew that he was lacking in his knowledge of enhancers and formations. The problem was that with so few alchemists in the first two realms, enhancers came in their most basic form: unprocessed and unrefined.

  Formation Masters only started to appear in the Earth Realms with massive sects dominating the landscape. The Kerose Institute of Kaeju city might have people who dabbled in formations, but their focus was still on combat strength and couldn’t rely on just their formation Masters to hold up their group. No one was willing to share information unless one joined their group. Rugrat wanted to learn as much about the enhancers through trial and error as soon as possible, so he had at least some knowledge before he got to the Third Realm. He hoped that Alva Dungeon would be able to help him to increase his knowledge of formations.

  He didn’t know about that, but he did know that making such a high-class item was not simple. To contain that kind of power, to perfectly integrate enchantments and innate abilities together, the base damage of an Apprentice-level weapon might only reach fifty. But with the different combinations, they could reach mid-Journeyman tier as they exacted hellish damage, or had attributes perfectly suited to the user, greatly increasing their combat capabilities.

  It was too simple to just place a formation on the weapon that work
ed instead of one that complemented it. Custom-making a formation was a hellish undertaking that required a high-tiered formations Master.

  Rugrat hoped that he would be able to reach this stage in the future. He had placed a few formations on daggers and the like, but he knew that they were half-assed. The only reason he sold them instead of melting them back down was for his need of gold.

  Instead, he focused on creating the right item that suited the metal and using enhancers that drew out greater innate abilities from within the metal.

  Rugrat had a smile on his face as he pulled out the steel from the furnace and started working again. His eyes glowed with the sparks as he hit the metal; his Mana channels beat according to his hammer, creating a resonance with the two, increasing the amount of Mana that entered the steel.

  Mana veins started to appear on the steel as an object from Earth underwent a new baptism, becoming an item of the Ten Realms.

  Chapter: Merchant Convoy

  Jasper looked at the outpost in front of him with a complicated expression.

  “Something wrong?” Elise asked from beside him. They both stood on a hill far away, using binoculars to study the outpost.

  Jasper laughed to himself. “It wasn’t long ago that our little village was nothing but a couple of people who banded together to try to hold out against the beasts that roamed the forest. We weren’t even a fifth the size of the Wild Reaches Trading Outpost.

  “Though now when I look on such a large outpost, I’m not left in awe, but wondering what kind of supplies they have and if they’ll be able to meet our needs.” Jasper shook his head. With their first preparations, Jasper had been in charge of dealing with all of the crops, getting them processed and stored for the long haul. Then there had been the beasts. He and his people took lessons from hunters and developed their skills to clean the meat and prepare it. Monster cores, healing and Stamina powders, armor, weapons: things that would have left Jasper in shock were now nothing more than something to be sorted, organized, and dealt with.

  What had been treasures were now just trading goods.

  “Well, let’s see if we can’t get a good deal on what we’ve got,” Elise said. She might be in charge of Alva Dungeon but she was also the highest skilled merchant in the dungeon. She’d got herself a place on the trading convoy, leaving the management of the dungeon to Egbert, Glosil, and Taran.

  Egbert had taken over his role as librarian with gusto. People constantly asked him for information and he could be seen sitting in the large library, browsing books. He had become a god-like figure to those who were interested in information.

  The previous fear had long disappeared as his quirkiness and odd personality were known.

  Taran administered the academy fairly and efficiently, meaning that he was in his smithy all the time and would make snap decisions, not caring who the people were as he only wanted to get back to work and train his apprentices.

  Some people who argued about their tuition not once but three times found themselves forced to work as Taran’s aides, working the forge and moving around supplies.

  Then their parents, who had paid their tuition, found out and thrashed their backsides.

  Glosil had turned into a training maniac. He had been left as the guard captain for a long time, but after the fight for Alva Village, he had seen Erik and Rugrat charging forward; he listened to their orders and put everything into improving his and the military’s strength.

  The barracks had turned into a holy ground for combat Experts. Although they didn’t get Experience from killing their opponents, they could increase their fighting skills, which allowed them to get Experience and increase their combat capabilities.

  Parties regularly went off into Beast Mountain to test out what they had learned in the barracks or academy.

  The beast stables were also more lively as different kinds of cubs were brought back from the wild and raised there. A few of the people from the village had taken on the role of beast tamers. The gnome records had a deep understanding of beast contracts between creature and person. With the high-leveled raw meat and scraps from processing the beasts that the parties brought back, the cubs were growing rapidly, becoming an actual fighting force. Their trainers took them out to fight other beasts to increase their strength.

  “Ready?” Roska asked. She had been deployed with half of the quick reaction force, which had now become the second special team. The Special Team One, led by Storbon, had reached the Second Realm and were looking to train and increase their strength.

  “Lead on,” Elise said.

  “Move out!” Roska said.

  The Special Team Two was quiet as they moved. They didn’t seem to be threatening at all, but Jasper had seen their strength as they dealt with the beasts along their path from Alva Dungeon to Wild Reaches Trading Outpost without batting an eyelid.

  They only trained with one another, but not because they looked down on others. They were too strong to have a fair fight with others. They hurt one another badly in their fights, nearly always requiring healing agents. Through it, they learned and took on the saying: If it hurts, you’re alive and you can keep fighting.

  They’d turned from farmers, shopkeepers, crafters, and jack-of-all-trades into a true fighting force. They laughed and joked around, but when that switch turned, just like with Rugrat and Erik, then they were focused killers.

  Jasper looked to the other traders with him. With Elise and himself, there were three others he had brought from Alva Dungeon. Jasper had high hopes for them and they had all expressed a great interest in being merchants in the future.

  Gradually, they moved out of the forest and then reached a road that many groups coming back from Beast Mountain would use to enter the outpost.

  They reached the gate. The guards looked them over, their eyes wary. They might not be showing off their levels but they were all high-leveled people. The pressure that they placed on those of a lower rank was impressive.

  Though there were still many high-leveled people who ventured into the first realm just to farm the Beast Mountain. They gained access to the safety and inns inside the outpost only after paying their fees.

  “Simms, Xi—go and get us a place to stay at the Bloody Ram,” Roska said as they entered the city, before looking to Jasper and Elise.

  “We’ll do as we discussed,” Jasper said.

  The others agreed and split up to go about their business.

  One group would look to sell off the hides, another the monster cores, another the miscellaneous items they had made or acquired, another the beast meat they’d collected.

  Jasper was in charge of selling the monster cores and headed off to one of the trading houses that dealt nearly exclusively with monster cores.

  The Silaz trading house was a powerful presence in the outposts that lay around the Beast Mountain. They owned five trading outlets in different outposts. They had carved out their position with their greater strength and their connections to the higher echelons of the surrounding empires and countries around the east mountains.

  There was always a great demand for the monster cores, whether it was nobles trying to increase their level by consuming the cores, or different people trying to increase the power of their weapons, armor, and crafted items.

  The Silaz trading house was a dominant power. Their headquarters could be in any major imperial city but instead they chose to remain in Chonglu city, where they had started, so that they were close to their different branches.

  Jasper entered the branch. Two strong guards stood at the entrance. They looked at Jasper, their eyes thinning; they couldn’t look through him as he entered the trading outpost.

  The people inside were all hard-looking men and women who went into the Beast Mountain, putting their lives on the line to increase their power and gain riches.

  A monster core was a great matter of wealth for people in the lower realms. To Jasper, who had seen hundreds of them, he
didn’t really care for them.

  It takes forty Common Mortal-grade monster cores to power the dungeon for even an extra day. Egbert said that if we increase in our levels and we use more Mana around the dungeon, then the excess Mana will be purified by the core and stored in crystalized form, whatever that means.

  The items they had gathered from the different beasts had become their most valuable products. Hides of beasts up to level twelve, Common Mortal grade monster cores, beast meat up to level nine: all of these were delicacies or rare crafting materials that would be hard to find in anywhere but Beast Mountain.

  Though there was no single group in Beast Mountain that could bring them out in such large quantities.

  Jasper walked up to a counter off to the side. The counters were broken up into booths so it was hard to hear and see what the sellers and buyers were doing.

  Jasper pulled out five Lesser Mortal monster cores and two Common Mortal monster cores.

  The man on the other side of the counter looked around to make sure that there was no one looking in on the deal. “I can give you one silver and thirty coppers for each of the Lesser Mortal monster cores, twenty-seven silver for the Common monster cores,” the man said quickly, as if not wanting to let Jasper go.

  Jasper pushed the Lesser Mortal monster cores forward, resting his hand on the Common Mortal monster cores.

  “Twenty-eight and fifty coppers,” Jasper said.

  The man looked from the cores to Jasper. Lesser monster cores were rare, but Common monster cores were in high demand. Their price in the higher realms was around thirty silver, but here in the First Realm, where there were less resources, they could sell for thirty-five, even thirty-seven.

  “Done.” The man nodded.

  “Good. I hope the price stays the same. I’ll have more later,” Jasper said.

  The man paused before taking out a token. “If you show this medallion, then I will make sure that you get the same price for your monster cores. But I will have to ask that there be more than five of them at the same time.” The man pushed it over.