As Rory inspected the crystal geodes, the former Scales of Earthen Tyrants, he couldn't help but purse his lips.

Tyrannical Geode Scales

Quality: Rare

Formerly the scales of an earthen tyrant. After a lattice element supplanted the deep-earth elements, the former Scales of Earthen Tyrants transformed, with the residual echoes of earthen aspects morphing into genuine crystals.

His lattice affinity wasn't crystal; it was just that the external impression of his lattice affinity often looked that way. The crystal he was holding was clearly an actual crystal.

I mean… it makes sense… I guess.

The description said it all; the remaining earthen elements of the scales, once exposed to his lattice affinity, changed. Unlike his blood affinities' tendency to corrupt things, this wasn't corruption. If anything, it was closer to evolution. Still, Rory couldn't say that the scale-looking geode was of a higher qualitative value than the scales had been.

Just… different.

But Rory also wasn't done with them. As unexpected as the direct transformation was, he could still go farther, as he had two affinities, not just one.

And if the first affinity was about altering the base of the scales, a simple replacement, now he was looking to corrupt the scales properly.

Grabbing yet another gem, Rory refilled the braziers as he took a short break, considering his next steps. It wouldn't be hard to activate Alchemical Transmutation alongside Architect's Essence Inscription, simply infusing his blood affinity within and altering the material further.

But.

But he could do better than something that simple.

Pulling his crafting knife from his inventory, Rory began etching small grooves into the scales. Each scale received a Blood Rune, an Absorption Rune, and finally, a Stability rune. Part of Rory had played with the idea of trying to inscribe a Living Rune on top of them as well, but while inscribing a single living rune wouldn't kill him, even two or three in a row would likely cause some serious repercussions, much less the dozens he had.

The reasons for the three runes were simple. Blood was doubling down on the concept. Absorption and stability played a more interesting role. While it was true that Rory had two standard affinities, he had a third affinity that was typically nothing more than a 'garnish' or flavoring - his Foundational affinity. He often forgot or simply didn't think about it because it wasn't something he could 'force' as anything more than a minor imbuing.

Or, that had been the case for the longest time, but he had managed once to force the foundational affinity to obey his wishes.

Since then, he had been pondering the affinity, as there was still much that was unknown. One thing Rory had felt reasonably sure of was the next closest concept: stability. It was a concept that had once nearly killed him when he had made the mistake of attempting to formalize it as a rune.

But by adding both a stability and absorption rune, Rory hoped that he could 'goad' the foundational affinity to be more easily harnessed and channeled in the same fashion as his other two.

Finishing with his inscription etching, Rory sat cross-legged in front of the bound circle, unsure how much this was about to take out of him. Just to be certain, he quickly popped an ossified blood gem into his mouth while he was at it.

Alright, here goes nothing.

Closing his eyes, Rory locked onto the scales, mentally imagining himself turning the crystal scales over. Then, he reached out with his newest hand, holding the scale both physically and metaphysically.

Here we go.

Had his eyes been open, Rory would have noticed his new hand giving off a soft, crimson glow with a slightly metallic taste to the air around him. To his mind's eye, it was like he was slowly injecting a syringe of blood into the crystal, the blood soaking into and staining the quartz-like microscopic structures that formed the scales.

Then, like a gut punch, Rory felt something else yanked out from him, for a moment feeling as if he were in free fall, like the ground had disappeared beneath him.

Eyes snapping open, Rory first affirmed that he was still on solid ground. Next, he felt his heart rate rapidly stabilizing after a sudden spike that he was confident had nothing to do with anxiety.

Lastly, there was the crystal scale he was holding.

It had gone from the color of milky white quartz to a deep, blood-red. Not just that, within the scale itself, Rory imagined he could see the tiniest flicker of… something.

Curious.

Only a tiny bit out of breath, Rory examined the first scale.

Blood Beryl Genesis Scale

Quality: Aberrant

Formerly the scales of an earthen tyrant. After undergoing two stages of Alchemical Transmutation, the tyrannical geode scales were infused with the blood essence of a founding human, granting them the integrity necessary to contain a spark of significance from a primordial human.

"Hot damn," Rory whistled. He hadn't expected to have it in him to cause an outright grade increase from rare, much less. Yet, the more Rory stared at the blood-red crystal scale, the more a frown began to tug at his lips.

No, there is more at play here than I realize.

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For one, the description felt…. Grand, in a way that felt like it was bigger than Rory himself.

Genesis… Wait, as in the same sort of Genesis tag that one-person-only stuff gets?

As Rory thought about it, he figured he was onto the right idea, but perhaps not exactly as he initially thought.

Genesis, as in origin. A genesis-bound item can only be used by its origin. Maybe this refers to the idea that the 'genesis' in question is the other concepts involved. The use of language such as 'founding' and 'primordial' doesn't seem like the usual overly flowery language.

The key term was 'founding,' as in 'founder.' Once upon a time, the title of founder was nothing more than a convenient name that Aelia had given to himself and the seven other original settlers. Over time, Rory could sense a particular significance in the title, between his accomplishments and those of the others, and how even his citizens referred to him as 'Founder Rory' rather than just by his name.

Primordial, meanwhile, was cut and dry; the idea of a primordial anything meant something existing from the very beginning.

While Primordial and Founder felt like they could be referring to the same concept, Rory suspected they were distinct from one another, given the otherwise redundant description's reference to both.

The more Rory thought about it, the more he felt certain of his hypothesis. The qualitative increase had more to do with the concepts that he had tapped into rather than his skill itself. Had the original scales not already come from a Territory Alpha and had elements that translated to his lattice affinity so easily, he would have never forced the scales to turn into the crystal form. Had they not achieved their crystal form, it wouldn't have been so capable of turning into something capable of containing the emblematic concept he had touched upon, the essence of a founder rather than the essence of Rory. Finally, without a crystal bathed in the essence of a founder, it wouldn't have been enough to house the spark of a primordial.

Or, in simpler terms, it wasn't Rory himself who was important; it was what he represented.

"I'll still take it," Rory said with a shrug after a moment of consideration. He doubted he'd be able to give a grade upgrade of this degree to anything else without the stars aligning. Still, Rory wouldn't spit a gift horse in the face.

"Alright then," Rory said to himself as he mentally accepted the situation. "Now I just need to repeat this another seventy or so times."

It took Rory two full days to fully transmute each of the remaining scales; it was simply too much to attempt more than one scale at a time. By the end, he was spotted leaving with a bloody nose, eyes, and ears. Still, he'd managed to fully transmute seventy-two scales of earthen tyrants into blood-beryl genesis scales.

Originally, Rory had been content with high-quality, uncommon-grade armor. Now that he had a stash of aberrant grade scales to work with, he felt that rare was more than doable. Now, that was primarily because of the significance of the materials involved rather than his actual skill. Either way, Rory felt as if he were splitting hairs.

Collecting the rest of the materials he needed, runic leather, the fur of a tier-six two-headed panther, enhanced crimson steel, and Inverted Steel -the same method used to improve enriched iron into stabilized steel had been used with Inverted Iron- Rory made his way to his oft-visited forge. Gil was out, catching up on the work he had relegated to the back burner while helping Rory. Inside the forge, there was a single one of Gil's apprentices.

Great, no one to disturb me.

There were three parts to his armor crafting. First, he needed to make the 'skeleton' an inner 'frame' of chainmail that would be made from a blend of Inverted Steel and Enhanced Crimson Steel. It was a material he'd worked with once before, difficult to work with and generally not worth it as it was… stubborn, to say the least.

Vermillion Titanium. Perhaps the most annoying metal he'd ever had the displeasure of trying to find a good use for.

It obviously wasn't real titanium, but what Rory vaguely recalled about titanium was that it was finicky to work with, even though it was quite a strong material.

Vermillion Titanium was much the same; unless you were holding the material directly, it would remain rigid and unworkable. It had to be actively infused with blood essence to stay malleable during the forging process. It was significantly tougher than almost any other non-rare grade metal he had worked with, which Rory considered to be peak-uncommon quality.

However, having to hold a white-hot metal physically made it significantly more challenging to work with than any other uncommon-grade material to date.

The solution was Rory's new hand. It was another reason Rory had a good feeling about the result of his armor, as not only did he have aberrant-quality material to utilize, but he could also now realistically work with Vermillion Titanium, when before Rory had only planned on using regular Stabilized Steel. His new hand, capable of holding white-hot materials without concern while being even better at acting as a channel for Pneuma, meant he could easily forge the stubborn material.

While the Vermillion Titanium would be the source of his chainmail, Rory intended to utilize his blood-beryl genesis scales as a sort of 'partial' scale-mail atop the chainmail. There weren't enough scales to fully armor himself, but it was enough to cover the chainmail meant to protect his chest and upper thighs.

The second part of his armor crafting would be stitching the chain mail within the two sides of runic leather pressed together, almost like the layering used in modern ballistic vests.

The third and final part would be putting it all together in the actual shape of a cuirass, cuisse, and greaves. If Rory had enough leftovers, he'd also put together a secondary coat or jacket. Finally, he would line the stuff with the fur of the Tartarus Panther, which was excellent for warding off both heat and frigid temperatures. After everything was said and done, the standard inscription affairs would follow. The inscription wouldn't likely take too long, as he'd already mapped out what he wanted to do regarding it.

Having a plan in mind and nothing to distract him, Rory got to work.

First things first, Rory grabbed some tongs and picked up ingots of both Inverted Steel and Crimson Steel, pushing them through the magnetic field containing the Stellar Heart. Within only a few short moments, the ingots would quickly heat, after which Rory placed them upon an anvil, layering a white-hot ingot of Inverted Steel underneath an ingot of enhanced crimson steel. Holding them firmly in place with his prosthetic hand, Rory began flowing his essence into the ingots as he pounded and folded the ingots together. Once the mass started to cool, he would place it back within the magnetic field and repeat the folding process.

For nearly an hour, Rory folded the two ingots time and time again until it was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended. At that point, if he stopped flowing his essence for even a moment, the ingot seemed to stiffen, no longer pliable to any amount of heating or folding.

Another two days passed as Rory worked with several ingots of recently made Vermillion Titanium. Since he was making chain mail to start, Rory reduced the ingots into a multitude of wires, from which he cut and formed small loops before linking them together. Without the attributes and dexterity of someone beyond even superhuman, it would have been damn near impossible without potent modern forging equipment and machines, and in two days, no less.

After the first layer of chainmail was crafted, Rory then covered it with the thin, blood-red crystal scales. Working with a second layer of chainmail, nearly a week had passed before Rory finally wiped his forehead of sweat and grime. A triple-layer chainmail with a layer of scale in between, by itself, would have already been a potent armor, but he wasn't done yet. Clearly, Eon was aware of this fact as well, as when Rory examined the chain mail, the grade was listed as 'incomplete.'

Stingy. It won't even let me see where I'm currently at with its overall quality.

Having handled the hard part, the stitching of the leather layer was something Rory was able to accomplish within a single day, again thanks to his superhuman attributes. With some leftover leather and even scraps of Vermillion Titanium, Rory managed to whip up a leather coat in the semblance of a British sea captain.

Looking at it, Rory half smiled to himself.

Alright, won't deny I really liked Pirates of the Caribbean as a kid.

With the leatherworking handled, Rory soon added some fur to the inner portions of the coat and even some of the actual armor. While the sea captains of Hollywood Prime clearly inspired the coat, the armor looked as if it had come right out of the closet of a certain white-haired mutant.

Taking a final two days to work on the inscription, at last, after nearly two weeks of work, Rory examined the complete armor.

Now, then, let's see that final grade.

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