"Oh, Founder Rory," Gil stepped back, surprised to see Rory tinkering away in the workshop.

"Surprised to see me?" Rory raised an eyebrow at the young man.

"Here? No, you're here plenty," Gil shook his head as he began to shrink to his dwarf form. "I didn't expect to see 'ya here so soon. There was a lot of hullabaloo recently at the circle. Figured it was 'ya, but you're already onto a new project."

"Sort of," Rory raised his hand, holding the void diamond and an ingot of metal. "More like I'm on the next phase of my project. Making a proper piece of equipment from this."

"Do you need anything?" Gil asked.

"Nope," Rory said, shaking his head as several ingots appeared from thin air, snatched up by several threads of Pneuma, and gently lowered to the ground. "Got it all here already,"

"Wow," Gil exclaimed, eyes bulging in surprise momentarily. "How'd 'ya do that? They just… poofed into existence."

"They were in here," Rory said, shaking the void diamond again.

"Was that what all that commotion was about?"

"Mhmm," Rory confirmed. "Now, don't mind me. I'll probably plunk myself here for the next… oh, about a week or so?"

"Alright, as long as you already picked up the materials we had reserved for 'ya," Gil answered. Without much else to do, he stood around awkwardly for a moment.

"Do you need something?" Rory finally asked after a moment, sighing.

"Well…. I was hoping that maybe you'd let me work with you on this project since it's your last one around here."

"Not technically true," Rory muttered as he considered planning to update his armor one final time after the Tyrant was dead. "But, sure. Why not? You're more familiar with your Pyroxene than I am. Mind whipping up a vambrace made of the stuff?"

"You do know that it's more brittle than-"

"I'm aware." Rory waved the comment aside. "Just do a small underlayer of runic leather so it's not constantly chafing at my arm."

"Any other requirements?"

"It's just meant to ground the errant energies. Oh, a few ruts for vents. I'll try to carve in some ley lines to vent a bit of excess energies, perhaps notch the efficiency by a percent or two."

"Sounds good," Gil said with a smile as Rory tossed him a jar filled with the ingredients to make some Pyroxene.

Alright, chassis next.

To make baneite, high-quality gem dust, void-aspected dust, bane-touched chitin, or any bane-touched organic material, and stellar matter were required.

The void-aspect dust was the most arduous of the ingredients to produce. However, it was also the only ingredient that they still had a small amount of remaining from the original Chosen Bane invasion. High-quality gem dust wasn't that hard to get his hands on, given he had plenty of high-quality gems at this point. Even stellar matter wasn't nearly as tricky as the first time they crafted baneite. It had come down to their lack of void-touched organic matter.

Which they now had, if not in abundance, at least in a decent quantity.

Having acquired the ingredients ahead of time, Rory only needed to process them under the intense energies of the Stellar Heart. It had been over five years since the first time around, and since then, Rory had fashioned a far more advanced heat suit. Donning it, Rory stood before the Stellar Forge, preparing himself. Several threads wrapped around the levers to unlock the Stellar Forge as Rory took one last deep breath.

A whole tier and a better suit.

Rather than bother with the tesseract to contain the materials as he had last time, he instead conjured a small shield dome around the materials, leaving a single slot open for the solar burst to enter through. Imbued with his lattice affinity, Rory felt that it would be enough to contain the energies.

Here goes nothing.

Giving the levers a yank with his projected threads, the 'planets' within the Stellar Forge began to shift, forming a spiraling conduit as the minute star began to bubble with energy, lashing out as it sought freedom.

Within moments, a sunburst shot outward, slamming into the shield dome as Rory felt himself shoved backward.

Yep. Fuck. Still a lot of kick to it.

Rory was pushed back several feet before he held his ground, gritting his teeth. He was more than uncomfortably warm, but not quite 'Oh shit, I'm burning alive' like the last time. The last time he had made any baneite, due to his own inadequacies, he had required the use of a tesseract to overcome his shortcomings. However, with more years of practice and a tier-up, Rory felt that his direct control of the shield dome was more practical for what he was doing. It was not something most crafting types could manage, especially as his baneite ring improved his projections -and thus his shield dome- considerably, but then most crafters weren't Architects.

Waiting for a distinct sense that the materials had begun to meld, Rory slammed shut the levers as the Stellar Forge cooled, no longer emitting a baby-sized quasar.

Enclosing the material entirely within his shield dome, Rory snagged the void diamond, inspecting it momentarily. Combined with Seams Unseen and Lapidarist of the Beholding Stars -his version of Gem Crafting had been upgraded as the progenitor of the field- Rory quickly grabbed his trusty crafting knife.

Oh, shoot, I forgot.

It had been a long time since the last upgrade to his crafting knife. While his knife could cut and carve through some seriously tough materials, a master-grade material was likely outside its ballpark.

Wincing, Rory mentally thumped himself on the forehead. Still, there wasn't time to rectify that now.

Between only needing a tiny scratched-out channel and Seams Unseen, I think I can manage.

Taking his knife to the diamond, Rory could barely scratch a tiny line through the diamond. As always, carving lines of 'significance' that would direct energies felt a bit like he was an alien drawing the Nazca lines for the first time.

Rory finished his carving only a few minutes later, as nothing about the actual carving itself was exceptionally complicated, just precise. Finished, Rory manipulated the conjured shield dome, opening a small funnel from which he poured the tiny bit of baneite out. With precision that only tier seven allowed, Rory perfectly poured the molten material as it cooled on contact with the void diamond.

Finally, Rory examined the diamond after he'd finished pouring the baneite.

Scandalous. Rory chuckled to himself. The childish part of his brain hadn't failed to notice that it almost looked like the diamond was wearing fishnet tights.

A less scandalous way of looking at the diamond was that it was now encased within a tiny black cage or restraint, a literal chassis.

Reduced Diamond of the Void

Rarity: Master

Most diamonds are made under heat and pressure. This one was made in the absence of space itself. Formed of the void, it carries traces of its conceptual powers. Due to the short-lived conditions forming the Diamond of the Void, the overall rarity and potency are reduced.

-->

Contained Diamond of the Void (-)

Grade: Master

Most diamonds are made under heat and pressure. This one was made in the absence of space itself. Formed of the void, it carries traces of its conceptual powers. Due to the short-lived conditions forming the Diamond of the Void, the overall rarity and potency are reduced. Contained within a chassis of specially crafted baneite, the potent energies of the diamond may be more easily harnessed by lesser materials.

"Perfect," Rory said with a grin. He doubted even the absolute pinnacle of his current skills, a masterwork crafting, could have nudged the grade of the diamond so far above what he could do.

Interestingly, it's now considered a crafted item rather than a natural treasure.

It only 'technically' counted, Rory understood, as if it had fully counted, that would have been several Testaments unlocked all at once for crafting a master-grade item.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The brace—the vambrace Gil was working on—would take the longest to fashion, given that Pyroxene couldn't be shaped like molten or white-hot metals could. Knowing Rory still had a time advantage, he pulled some stellarite from his inventory within the diamond and twirled it around.

Stellarite, Solarite, Banite, and Night Copper are all materials connected to space.

Did it mean anything? Probably not. Did it leave Rory thinking? Yes, yes, it did.

Hm… Solarite, being all sun-themed and that jazz, could be seen as the day. Banite would be the emptiness of space, and Night Copper would be night itself. I guess Stellarite could be the stars in space?

Rory wasn't sure where he was going with any of it, but some of his best ideas often came from the random meanderings of his mind. So much cognitive investment meant that the random neuron connections could occasionally conjure up some inspired thoughts.

Solarite is the day, Night Copper is the night. What if there were something to represent dawn and dusk?

Now, that was an intriguing thought that Rory found himself fixating on.

Now, would dusk and dawn be two conceptually different identities or the two sides of one coin? When you think about it, it's just the opposing forces interacting from rotating directions.

Did that mean anything? Rory still had no idea.

Well, dawn is when the day starts, as the sun emerges from the night, whereas dusk is when the night swallows the day.

An alloy, then, between Night Copper and Solarite. If he were to-

"Founder Rory?" Rory suddenly snapped out of his thoughts. Looking around, Rory realized a considerable time had passed as he'd been lost in thought.

Hours, just like that.

"Finished?" Rory questioned Gil, who was standing before him, arms folded.

"Yah," Gil said as he tossed something through the air. Snatching it up, Rory took a look at the vambrace.

It was, well, a vambrace, exactly as expected.

It was well-crafted, which was undeniable; however, it was just a basic vambrace. Had it not been for the fact that it was made of Pyroxene, it would have been among the less interesting things produced within their workshop. Inspecting the vambrace for longer, Rory even noted a gentle curvature within the material that seemed to bleed off toward tiny 'vents' at the edges of the item.

"Nice work," Rory said.

Gil, meanwhile, picked up the contained void diamond and examined it.

"That's some precision shit," Gil said after a moment. "The individual filaments are barely the width of a hair. How you managed to manipulate that all so finely is beyond me."

"Ehh, give it a few tiers, and you will get there," Rory said with a shrug. Gil was tier four, but tiers were far slower when you weren't constantly on the cutting edge like Rory.

"I'm not so certain about that," Gil chuckled, a slight frown on his face. "I'd have to spend a hell of a lot of time studying the other crafts to measure up to what you manage. You tackle a breadth of works in a way none of the rest of us can compare."

It was Rory's turn to frown. He didn't quite like that mentality. Gil wasn't the first to have it either, viewing a Vocation as an ironclad truth rather than a self-reflection.

Or maybe Rory was the odd one out. He still didn't have the sample size to say for sure.

"As thanks for working on the brace," Rory said after a moment of contemplation. "Why don't you sit back and watch me work on the scaffold? It shouldn't take me too long now that the chassis and brace are finished."

"I'd love that," Gil said excitedly, an odd reaction from a guy who looked like he could benchpress a car.

Shrugging, Rory arranged his workstation. First, he grabbed a hammer, then a pair of what looked like heavy-duty bolt-cutters, a monkey wrench, and finally a clamp.

"So, the idea here," Rory said as he pointed between the brace and the chassis. "Is that chassis will be the conduit for the energies at play, and the brace handles what is left over. But we need something to funnel those energies through, in which case we need the scaffold. I'm using solarite because it's the best stuff we've got that we also have in large enough quantities not to bankrupt the bank."

"Bankrupt?"

"Never mind," Rory waved it off. "Therefore, when moving an energy or substance from point A to point B, one of the most effective forms of transfer is emulating arteries or veins, the concept at play affecting the overall efficiency."

Grabbing the solarite with a pair of tongs, Rory pushed the solarite close to the Stellar Heart, or as close as he could before it would begin to be too much even for the sun-aspected metal. Waiting until it was glowing hot, Rory retracted the material and placed it on an anvil. Pounding the metal flat with a hammer, each strike was more powerful than a pneumatic hammer from Earth—not to be confused with Pneuma —and before long, Rory soon had a sheet of solarite flattened.

Grabbing it with the pair of tongs from earlier, he once more got the metal glowing hot before grabbing a simple chisel and hammering through the sheet until he had several strips. Satisfied, Rory switched to the bolt-cutter-esque tool, cutting the smaller sheets into even thinner strips. One by one, Rory heated each strip before clamping them in place. Once they were locked in place, Rory grabbed his monkey wrench and began to rotate them, leaving twisted cables once he was finished.

"As you can see, we have some nice cables," Rory said, brandishing one of the solarite cables. "But, I don't want cables, I want conduits."

Heating the cables once more, Rory then grabbed the cable directly with his prosthetic hand.

"Uhh, Founder Rory?" Gil said, wide-eyed, staring at Rory as he handled the glowing hot cable directly.

"Does it hurt? Quite a bit," Rory said, the pain locked in an offshoot mental thread. "But this fancy hand, when touching something directly, gives me a better sense of what I'm doing than feeling from afar."

Holding the glowing cable, several threads of Pneuma began to sprout from Rory's prosthetic hand, winding forward and burying themselves into the cable.

"What I'm doing right now is using my threads to widen the interior directly, cutting through the weak points that would endanger the overall integrity. They're instead turned into strengths, and they're exactly where I will cut through instead."

"I'm not sure anyone else here can manipulate such durable pneuma constructs," Gil said, eyes still wide.

"Projection magic isn't unique to me," Rory countered. "Now, do I have a few advantages because I've spent a lot of time working on it? Yes, as basic pneuma manipulation remains the foundation of this all. I'd argue that many of you have a better baseline talent with that than I ever did. What matters, though, is that pneuma manipulation should be considered as integral to a craft as your ability to move your digits on your hands. I can guarantee that as you move up the tiers, just the ability to hold a hammer in your hand won't be enough to be a skilled smith; you need to be able to handle constructs and manipulation as well."

The lack of a combat skill had led Rory for most of his life to force himself to practice his Pneuma manipulation, even as someone who was hardly talented with Pneuma, to begin with. As a result, he'd been practicing manipulating Pneuma directly since nearly his first day; it was his way of circumventing the lack of tools or resources that he'd often encountered in his early days.

With all the tools and advantages of modern Ehkorrus, Rory often failed to consider how many had forgone refining the technique of nuanced pneuma manipulation in favor of relying on whatever skills they had obtained through ascension or from skills like Scholar's Retreat.

Hell, even Apostolos had backhandedly mentioned as much just the other day when he'd explained how the only one with the skill to handle the space disruptions from his little inventory project had been him, and that was because, much like Rory, he hadn't been able to rely on directly given skills for his style. While Apostolos had developed a few combat skills in the time since, the core of his fighting style was still freeform magic, the manipulation of solar-aspected Pneuma.

I probably should have done a better job of stressing something like this…. Ehh, I can't hold everyone's hands; they've got to figure out some things by themselves.

"I suppose you're right," Gil said thoughtfully, staring at his own hands. Rory saw a flicker of a thread appear for a moment, vanishing a moment later.

"Again, I will stress that I have several advantages that make my constructs and manipulations more physical than ordinary, but aside from my baneite ring, which is Genesis-bound, nothing else I have is strictly a me-only thing. You can work on emulating them in your own way or forming your own derivatives of my techniques."

Gil nodded as Rory continued to give a short lecture as he finished his work. Soon, the cables had been correctly formed, after which Rory proceeded to weld them into both the brace and chassis as he held the final product. Truthfully, it looked like a fairly standard vambrace, just with the addition of cables twining and binding a black diamond against it like an oversized ring.

"So, it's done?" Gil asked.

"Well, yes and no. The part you care about is done." Rory said, holding up the modified vambrace. "From here, everything else is just a matter of Inscription, which you're not exactly hot on, right?"

"At some point, I plan to learn some basics," Gil said defensively. "But, I appreciate the lesson. It has given me some things to consider."

Rory nodded, watching Gil for a moment, who finally sighed.

"I'm going to go have a word with Viviann, I think."

"Good call," Rory said as Gil stood up and left the forge.

Alone, Rory sat down at a work desk and grabbed his knife as he began to carve away at the item. In truth, none of the Inscription was that advanced, but for a complete novice, it would have made entirely no sense, just a bundle of symbols. The reason Rory was able to get away with a fairly simplified runic array was the void diamond itself. The sheer potency of the gem, of the concepts it embodied, allowed Rory to cut back on some of the planned inscriptions he had thought up before he'd gotten his hands on the void diamond.

Sure, he could still add them, but it would be like trying to add an extra mile of range to an electric car that already had ten thousand miles of range. Eventually, you were doing things for the sake of doing them rather than for any significant improvements.

The reason he'd begun planning out an extensive runic array was that it was necessary before the advent of the void diamond. While the void diamond had the raw conceptual strength and significance to bear the brunt of travel through a null window, the same couldn't be said for whatever artificial catalyst he would have used in its place. Missing those same aspects, he would have had to rely on highly precise and extensive inscriptions to undertake the job of directing energies and forces precisely as they needed to be directed. Without those extensive inscriptions, he would have encountered the problem of bridging. When Inscriptions lacked detailed work, any magical effects that were produced were directed in the most direct way possible. Usually, that meant pouring in more and more energy to try to brute-force a reaction. A runic array meant to conjure fire could do so easily by gathering combustible gases and particles in an area and adding just a tiny bit of energy to ignite them. In contrast, a single fire rune without a supporting array or understanding would attempt to continuously add more and more thermal energy until something ignited, which would be less efficient by many magnitudes.

With something as conceptually complex—and physically, from a scientific standpoint—as crossing vast distances through the space between spaces, any bridging whatsoever would require the Pneuma and forces to reach unattainable levels for anything they had on hand. At a minimum, he'd likely need to be tier nine or ten to handle the strain without a highly detailed runic array handling the bulk of the complexity.

But Rory didn't have to consider any of those since he had a void diamond.

Truthfully, just how far can I go?

Traveling a few miles through the null window required no void shell, as proven by their teleportation directly to the Maw. More than that, it began a question of scale, the rocket fuel paradox all over again. The further you traveled, the more 'fuel' you needed, the larger the gem needed to be, the more 'fuel' you required, and so on and so forth. Perhaps an uncommon-grade gem would allow for a thousand-mile journey, possibly less; it was hard to say with the knowledge he currently had, a large portion of it forcibly injected into his mind as a reward for clearing the first two floors of the Maw completely.

Now a master-grade gem? That was an entirely different story. While Rory knew Aelia -the planet, not the Spirit- was large, at least the size of Earth's sun pre-collapse, a master-grade void diamond likely made it possible to jump across the entire planet in one bound.

"I may not even have to replace this thing for a long… long time," Rory said after he finally finished his inscription work. It had taken a little over two hours, but the task was finally complete.

Leaning back, Rory sighed, staring up at the ceiling above.

"All that's really left is to kill a Tyrant."

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