"Nasty stuff," Rory muttered to himself, holding a vial up as he stirred the contents around. "Real nasty stuff."

Vestigial Magmatic Acid

Tier: Seven

Quality: Toxin

Effect: Exposure degrades conceptual and vestigial energies

The product of a rather extensive amount of testing, Rory had finally managed to create precisely the concoction he needed. Using the golden magma as a base, Rory had infused it with blood essence and the toxin from a flaming wasp, as well as some ash coral. It had resulted in a relatively weak 'burning' poison that would burn the blood of those it was injected into. Using that brew as the new base for his next brew, as well as some blood coral, dust from a monster core, and a gem infused with a hint of Eia's aural toxin, Rory had finally achieved his glorified rubbing alcohol for removing trace elements of echoes and concepts he didn't want.

While the direct explanation was reasonably straightforward, it ignored the extensive failures and experiments he had muddled his way through. Alchemical Chemistry was more of a Mariah thing than a 'Rory' thing. If he had to lay claim to anything, it was Alchemical Transmutation, far more interesting than the act of concocting brews, at least to Rory.

Either way, he had succeeded in his goals; the Vestigial Magmatic Acid would work on anything up to tier seven, much like a targeted version of what Eia could do, albeit less focused on killing things and more on simply purifying them.

In a pinch, it would work as a poison, one that Rory wouldn't want to expose himself to, but it was also a relatively easy poison to deal with; simply removing it from physical contact was enough. In the act of processing the concoction for use as mainly a 'cleaning' agent, it had lost some of its potency as a direct weapon; ingestion or forceful injection would weaken the effect considerably.

In a way, it was a lot like his crafting knife, trading potency as a weapon for strength as a tool.

"Just glad it's finally done," Rory sighed. It had been a long process, a side quest that had sidetracked him from his original plan to a large degree. "But isn't that the story of my life, one small task turns into fifty other things?"

Rory sighed once more, even if he didn't truly resent it; in fact, it was almost a game to him at this point, an internal bet of how many times he would be sidetracked during a single project.

Even if that were true, it didn't mean Rory never got impatient, wanting to move back to his main project. With that in mind, armed with the new brew, Rory left his alchemy lab – a nearly empty cave room except for a few alchemy-related tools – and made his way back to the main workshop where he spent most of his time when not trying to make weird magma acids. The monster cores Eia had left him were in almost the same spot, which Rory promptly snatched. He could have stored them in his inventory, but the space within wasn't infinitely large, so he had seen no reason to clutter it further with cores that were perfectly fine remaining in the main workshop.

Examining one of the cores, Rory shrugged to himself before taking the same vial of magmatic acid and pouring it over the core. No part of the brew was all that difficult to obtain – the hard part had just been figuring out how to make it to begin with – so Rory had no qualms with potentially 'wasting' the brew. As far as the monster core went, he had reasonable confidence that at least for this part of the process, the core would be fine; the brew wasn't capable of eating through anything aside from low-tier materials after it had been alchemically refined.

Watching in silence, save for the sound of a splashing elemental in the background, Rory waited patiently as the core seemed to absorb the acid slowly.

Interesting. Didn't expect that.

It took several minutes for the acid to vanish entirely, leaving the monster core a shiny, off-white color, like an oversized pearl.

Did it work?

Examining the monster's core, Rory smiled.

Monster Core

Tier: 7

Purity: 99.9%

A monster core from a tier seven monster has been cleansed of essentially all remnants of the monster it originated from, leaving it perfect for universal usage.

"Hell yeah," Rory pumped his fist. The purity line was new on the interface; he'd seen that before on any monster core before. In fairness, he had never bothered to 'purify' a core before now either, so Rory only saw it as a win.

With the core processed, Rory was ready to move on to the next stage, which he was considerably more nervous about, attempting to map the core the same way he would when crafting a magical gem.

"Shouldn't be more destructive than outright inscribing upon it," Rory muttered to himself, trying to ease his worries.

It didn't help, but Rory wouldn't be deterred, nonetheless. Taking a deep breath, Rory began to examine the core with an analytical view, searching for and expecting a relatively large number of convergence points to greet him.

"Huh, that's new."

What Rory hadn't expected was for the core to be utterly devoid of any points whatsoever.

"Well, shit. Now what?"

Typically, when working with a gem, natural or artificial, there existed some convergence points. Low-quality gems had only a few, whereas high-grade gems had magnitude more. Rory had expected monster cores to follow a similar principle, given quite a few 'gem-like' natural treasures followed that same rule.

Momentarily perplexed, Rory didn't instantly give up; he'd been around for long enough now that such setbacks could often be turned into moments of opportunity.

Thus, staring intently at the core, Rory slowly noticed something, a feeling that Rory managed to sense from the core. If a gem were like a spiderweb of converging points, this was closer to an encompassing layer of wet clay, a feeling of malleability that Rory hadn't initially noticed due to the surprise of seeing absolutely no convergence points.

I wonder.

Mentally 'pressing' against the core, Rory's eyes widened as he felt a single point affix itself in response to his prompt.

"Holy damn,"

The reason there were no convergence points was that they hadn't been added yet. Usually, a gem-adjacent item already had all its convergence points from the beginning. In this case, Rory could add them himself, a level of control he'd never had the luxury of before.

Probably a method to the madness, though.

Chances were, if he attempted to just willy-nilly 'poke' into the convergence layer – better name pending – then the unstable nature would destroy the core, he'd never seen a gem that didn't have some level of pattern, even if he hadn't understood or noticed it right away.

I also probably can't add as many points as I want; there is perhaps an integrity limit that would collapse the core in the same fashion as haphazard placement.

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Taking a break before he did anything more than placing a single point, Rory took some time to blueprint mentally. It was similar in nature to standard gem mapping, except rather than just mapping out the exact 'meanings' of each point, he had to first start by planning out the pattern of points so that it would maintain a proper structure.

In that fashion, Rory regarded himself as uniquely suited for the task. Of his two primary affinities, one was specifically an affinity for the lattice structure. Having spent many years working with that affinity, he had an almost instinctual memory of exactly how to lay something out to mimic that same geometric structure.

Once Rory had an outline planned in mind, he began to plot the points throughout the three-dimensional metaphysical space that the convergence layer occupied. Diligently, Rory felt as if he were placing pins on a globe, until at last, he mentally stepped back and observed his work.

Two thousand points. Solidly uncommon grade as far as gems go. I get the feeling I could have pushed more points, but probably best to have stayed within a safe degree of risk.

Feeling proud of himself, Rory was surprised when suddenly two notifications may as well have screamed in his face with how urgent they flashed before his eyes.

"Oh, jeez, alright, important, got it," Rory muttered. Picking one at random, Rory opened it as his eyes narrowed.

That's new.

Successful creation of a Grand Craft

Item Crafted: Pearlescent Core

Prerequisite Skills: Alchemy, Gem Crafting, Core Crafting

"Grand Craft?" Rory asked, perplexed. Tapping once on the word, a secondary interface bloomed.

Grand Craft: An item or other creation that is made by a singular artisan involving multiple artisan skills and at least one Advanced Artisan skill.

"Okay, well, artisan skill is straightforward, that's just your general crafting skills, Alchemy, Gem crafting, forging, etc. But what the hell is an Advanced Artisan Skill?"

Glancing back at the initial notification, Rory zeroed in on the three skills involved, one of them unlike the others.

"What the hell is Core Crafting, and when did I get it?" Rory frowned until a memory resurfaced. "Wait, is this some sort of evolution of that Core Modifier skill I was offered once?"

Back when he'd been a mere tier four, reaching tier five, he had been offered a skill for modifying monster cores. At the time, he had chosen not to take it in favor of the Mind Palace skill, a choice that had ultimately proven wise. He hadn't thought about the skill almost once since that day, that was until now.

Having an idea as to what his second notification was about, Rory pulled it up.

"Yep, thought as much."

It was a notification of a new skill that he had just acquired.

Core Crafting

Rarity: Extreme. Skill Level: Low. Category: Advanced

The mere ability to modify a Monster Core is not enough for one of your caliber. Instead, you seek to shape them yourself, going beyond the thresholds of the naturally occurring. From the erasure of concepts, the adjustment of design, and the application of meaning, every component of a Monster Core is within control, up to the eventual goal of the creation of an entirely artificial core itself.

"This feels unearned," Rory admitted with a shrug. "But I won't complain."

In truth, what Rory had done hadn't felt all that different from whatever the regular Core Modifier skill would have allowed for. No, the reason Rory suspected he had gained the evolved version of the skill was that it was a one-man project, from the creation of the magmatic acid and purification of the core to the actual designing of the core.

A bit of chicken or egg, what with that Grand Craft needing an Advanced Artisan skill to begin with, but Eon be Eon.

Eon was probably using it as an opportunity to test bed a new idea, and with Rory being the preeminent craftsman of multiple fields, it wasn't a surprise if it occasionally fudged things a bit in his favor. Having never heard of a Grand Craft before, Rory figured the idea being tested was precisely that.

Which is neither here nor there for the moment.

Putting aside the new skill and the classification of a Grand Craft item, Rory examined the new core.

Pearlescent Core

Grade: Uncommon

Tier: Seven

Crafted with a tier seven monster core as the base, a pearlescent core maintains similar functions to that of a monster core while allowing for the addition of innate flexible convergence points and shaping. Due to being both a core and a gem, the pearlescent core does not suffer from the same degradation as a regular gem, assuming sustainable usage.

"Damn nifty," Rory said. A gem and a core in one, that could be extremely useful. "Though, what would have happened had the work been split between several people?"

That was something he couldn't test, as he was only one person.

Obviously.

"Excitement aside, the fact that it all went well on the first try is a nice change of pace," Rory said with a sigh of relief.

Now that he had the monster core – pearlescent core – prepared, it was time to work on his newest blood-bound tool finally.

Unlike with the prior projects, the actual fashioning of his newest tool was blissfully quick. Wanting to start from a basic foundation, Rory first constructed a boxy scaffolding from some blood coral. Once it had been fashioned, taking no more than ten minutes, Rory proceeded to place the pearlescent core within the skeleton of his new hammer, the core fitting snugly. Once that had been done, Rory began carving inscriptions into the skeleton of the hammer, an assortment of runes for shock distribution, absorption, galvanization, and overall stability. Once satisfied with the inscriptions, Rory began pouring molten stone over the entire thing, until he was left with a large working hammer made from a shiny grey colored obsidian.

The entire time he did, Rory made sure to blast his blood essence with Architect's Essence Inscription. To make it easier, Rory even slashed his palm, and blood constantly flowed from the wound and into the hammer itself, which seemed to drink it up endlessly.

Growing exhausted from the effort, Rory didn't stop. A key point of a blood-bound tool was that it needed to absorb a large percentage of his vital energy; giving himself too much time to rest would essentially 'reset' the weight of his efforts.

After the obsidian-stone hammer had been finished, Rory didn't even bother examining it, planning to improve upon it instantly. Taking a lump of enriched iron from his inventory –Rory had discovered small pockets of the stuff within the regions of the volcano furthest from the core—he placed it within a pyroxene bowl before placing the same container atop the tray that he would lower over the magma whirlpool. As the entire thing was lowered into the magma, Jinn the World Ichor elemental noticed, floating over to inspect.

"Not a toy," Rory called out, afraid Jinn might attempt to mess around with it and tip the entire thing into the magma, costing him some of the enriched iron.

Whether the elemental understood him or not was up for debate. At the very least, the nascent elemental seemed to understand his tone of voice, bobbing away from the bowl as the metal within began to liquefy.

Watching to ensure the metal melted evenly, Rory eventually cranked back on the chain that the tray hung from, pulling it back over. Grabbing the bowl with his prosthetic hand, Rory brought both the bowl and the hammer to a corner of the room, where an interim bound circle was prepared for any projects requiring immediate use of a bound circle after melting or heating. Scribbling a few inscriptions around the bound circle, Rory placed the head of the stone hammer into the molten metal before activating the entire thing. Within moments, the hammer began to drink in the metal the same way it had drunk in his blood and still was drinking in his blood essence even without directly feeding it more liquid blood.

Unlike his youth, when he hadn't known enough about runes, magic, or even crafting, he was now able to maintain the process in a much more gradual and refined fashion rather than the instant inhalation of material that had occurred with his knife.

Beginning to feel severely lightheaded, Rory took a moment to check on his current status.

Oof.

He had purposely been pumping the gas on how much blood essence he flowed from the Architect's Essence Inscription. However, it still staggered him to see that in only a few minutes, he had managed to drop his vital energy down to a mere forty percent.

Not good enough, yet.

Waiting until the hammer had drunk in the enriched iron completely, Rory held it before his eyes. Even without examining it, he could tell it wasn't quite what he wanted yet.

A little more.

"Jinn, come here for a moment, would you?"

Hearing its name, the nascent elemental begrudgingly left behind the magma whirlpool, floating over toward where Rory stood.

"Mind warming this a little?" Rory asked, holding the hammer so that the head of it was low enough for the nascent elemental to reach with its stubby 'arms.'

The elemental stared at the hammer for a moment before nodding. Reaching out, it attempted to 'hold' the head of the hammer, which was nearly the size of its blobby head. Touching the hammer, it instantly began to glow with heat, enriched iron far more susceptible to extreme temperatures, given its relatively low grade.

"That's fine," Rory said as the hammer glowed a cherry red. Happy to have been of assistance, the elemental floated back toward the magma pool before diving back into it.

Final leg.

Slashing the palm of his hand once more –his prosthetic hand this time– Rory grabbed the glowing hammer, the residual temperature of the World Ichor elemental enough that even with his prosthetic hand, Rory felt distinctly uncomfortable holding the hammer.

Doesn't matter.

Still pumping Architect's Essence Inscription and physically bleeding upon the hammer, Rory fed it the last of his vital energies he could afford to. On the verge of his legs giving out on him, Rory finally called it quits, staggering backward and dropping onto a stool.

Physique is showing a happy fifteen percent. Holy shit.

Dropping his vital energy much lower could have adverse effects on how long it would take to recover, thus Rory considered it the general limit of what you could reasonably use as a 'resource' in the way that he had.

All that's left is the hammer itself.

The hammer had already begun to cool once more, a crimson sheen it hadn't had before.

Blood-bound Artisan's Hammer

Grade: Uncommon

The tool of choice for many professions, the hammer can be used for a wide range of purposes, from forging metals to driving nails through architecture. This hammer has been directly bound to the blood essence of its crafter and has withstood its first advancement. How many more it will see has yet to be determined.

With a tired grin, Rory dropped the hammer onto his lap, stretching his arms overhead as a yawn escaped him.

I could use a good old one-week nap.

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