DanMachi 39

Using [Celestial Eyes] and [Blink] multiple times, I was able to teleport back home. It was still early in the night, and both Hestia and the girls were already there. Hestia, as usual, was surprised by my speed of leveling up but didn't say anything about it this time. Instead, she inquired about Oliva's whereabouts. I informed her that Oliva might arrive later in the night.

[Quest: [Lvl 10] Completed 5,000 WP(x4) Received]

[Falna Status] (Andrew)

Level: 9 > 10

Strength: 1,500 (SSS) > 0 (I)

Endurance: 1,500 (SSS) > 0 (I)

Dexterity: 1,500 (SSS) > 0 (I)

Agility: 1,500 (SSS) > 0 (I)

Magic: 1,500 (SSS) > 0 (I)

D.A.:

[Mage SSS] [Spirit Healing SSS] [Magic Resistance SS>SSS] [Swordsman SS>SSS] [Abnormal Resistance D>C] [Healing Power E>C] [Blacksmith I] [Mystery I] [Metalworking I]

Magic:

[Blink SSS] [Arsenal SSS] [Celestial Eyes SSS] [Alter Orb SS>SSS] [Gate S] [Celestial Forge B] [Clean A>S] [Infuse SSS] [Spatial Barrier F] [Gift of Life E] [Fly C>B] [Destiny SSS]

Skills:

[Sage's Wisdom] [Mana's Blessing] [Magic Penetration] [Magical Embodiment] [Archive]

Most of my skills and abilities have already reached SSS rank, while again, no new abilities were gained. As for my last development ability, I could choose between Fist Strike, Fist Fighter, Initiative, Chain Attack, or Metalworking. Even with all the other opinions I chose Metalworking.

[Metalworking LVL:1/120]

- Reduces the amount of effort required to manipulate and shape metal.

- Allows the repair and reinforcement of metallic substances, using only mana.

- Allows you to inspect metals for any structural flaws.

- Increases final product quality by 0.2%/LVL.

To be truthful, it didn't quite measure up to the standards set by [Mystery] and [Blacksmith], but that's just how it is. When I noticed the goddess wearing a sad smile, I asked her about it, but she only hugged me tightly and shook her head. I had a feeling she was withholding something from me, but I didn't press the matter and hugged her back. Later, I would come to regret that decision.

After expressing my gratitude to Hestia and bidding her farewell, I got dressed and teleported to the 86th floor using [Blink]. Upon arriving, I activated [Celestial Forge] which immediately sprang into action. As I dropped a piece of golden chain onto the forge, it disintegrated instantly, consuming all the mana I had invested in it.

"Well fuck. I might need to do this the old-fashioned way." I grumble. "Let's try forcing it, maybe if I provide it more mana than it can consume, I might be able to smelt it."

I recast the spell, pouring more mana into it than necessary before dropping the chain into it. Instantly, I could sense the spell slowly unraveling and losing its shape. Activating [Focus], I was able to analyze the material and spell more effectively.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the material not only had properties that could absorb mana but also had a strong interference with magic. This was a significant setback since I lacked the necessary equipment to forge manually. However, after giving it some thought, I realized that all I needed were an anvil, a forge, tongs, and a hammer.

I deactivated the remaining spell and allowed the chain to drop to the ground. As I pondered my next move, I came to the conclusion that my only option was to go to the surface.

"Should I risk it and go to Hephaistos's shop?" [Celestial eyes] confirm that she's the only one currently there. Without another option, I nod to myself and place the chain back into my inventory.

Moments later, I appeared right inside Hephaistos's office, startling her in the process. Without hesitation, I covered her mouth and pinned her to the wall to prevent her from screaming. As our bodies pressed together, her face turned slightly red, and her body began to heat up. She struggled for a brief moment before giving up, realizing she was no match for me. I picked up a thought from her using [Mind Arts], wondering if I was there to rape or kill her. To my disbelief, the thought even aroused her. "What the actual fuck!" I exclaimed, staring at her squirming body with wide eyes. "Get your mind out of the gutter!" I whisper-yelled, clearly annoyed by her. "I'll release you if you promise not to scream. There are people right outside your shop, and I don't need them noticing anything suspicious going on here. Nod if you agree." She nodded in agreement, and [Mind Arts] confirmed that she was not thinking about screaming. At the same time, I could sense her disappointment, and muttered "fucking perverted gods."

"I have some materials I found, on the 94th floor and my forging spell can't handle it. I'll give you a few tons of it if you help me out." Her eyes go wide and she rapidly nods. I finally remove my hand from her mouth but keep an eye on her. "Sorry to barge in unannounced, but I broke my sword fighting something, and need to forge a new one," I say after a sigh.

"It's alright, although, I would appreciate it if you're not so forceful next time you come." She says while fixing her getup. I just give her a deadpan look, knowing all too well what her real thoughts were.

"I couldn't take that risk," I replied firmly. "While I have no qualms about killing, wiping out the entire guild or town would only anger Olive. So, please don't force my hand. I'd rather avoid it altogether." I shrugged, causing the goddess to freeze in place. She looked at me awkwardly, let out a sigh, and quickly changed the subject. "Where is the material you found?" she asked.

"It's in my spatial storage," I replied. As I said that, an idea struck me. "Why haven't I made a spatial storage bracelet or ring yet? I could easily warp space and bind it to an item. It's not even that complicated." However, before I could dwell on that thought any longer, the goddess interrupted me. "Alright, let's head to the forge. You can show me what you found there." She walked towards the bookcase, pulled on a lever disguised as a book, and revealed a hidden room behind it.

As I entered her forge, I noticed that it looked exactly the same as before. The renovations that took place after my crafting incident didn't seem to have changed anything about it. Perhaps the floor was a shade lighter, but everything else was in the same place as it was the last time I had been there.

I extract the tiniest piece of the law-infused chains from my inventory, a meter in diameter but weighing several hundred kilograms. It thuds onto the ground, cracking a few boards and eliciting a creak from the building's supports. The goddess regards me with a deadpan expression.

"Sorry, forgot to mention that it's quite heavy," I admit with a wry smile.

She rolls her eyes and approaches the chain link. "Holy shit," she murmurs after scrutinizing it. "How did you come by this?"

"I was battling something on the lower floors when these chains appeared as I was casting a spell," I explain. "After I completed the spell, I swung my sword, shattering it and hitting part of these chains. I still have five larger pieces."

She looks at me, astonishment was evident on her face. "Those chains," she begins, "only appear when something is about to break the laws of the world. You shouldn't have been able to damage them, let alone cut them apart." She brushes her hand along the chain's side. "And the cut is flawless as if it were polished perfectly smooth."

"I told you, a single attack," I say with a shrug.

"Hestia was right; you are an anomaly," she mutters to herself, but I catch every word with my enchanted hearing. "The material is powerful, and I can sense it tugging at my mind and divine energy, but it's also heavy. Are you certain you want to use it to create a weapon?" Her mention of the material affecting her divinity causes me to raise an eyebrow.

"No." I shake my head. "I was planning on adding some other materials into it," I say extracting a few Void Ingots from my inventory, some bone fragments from the level ten Juggernauts, a few level ten magical stones, Ijiraq's, the floor boss of the 65th floor, bones, and barrel of its blood, some of the sand found on the 86th floor and a few other interesting things I picked up on the lower levels.

She looks at the stuff with a curious eye, and her fingers reach and pinch a bit of sand, grinding it between her fingers. "Intriguing." She comments. "Where did you get this?" She looks my way.

"86th floor is a safe spot, eternally in the twilight. It has a huge ocean and this is the sand from the beach. The place is quite beautiful." I explain.

"This sand should be a good binding agent, there are particles of mana between the grains, if we could activate them, the weapon could end up almost indestructible." She says but looks at the chain link with a grimace. "But that thing might screw up everything, we need to find a way so the material doesn't consume mana from itse..." She stops mid-sentence spotting the void affinity ingots, made out of the horn of the creature I accidentally almost released on this world.

"W-what's that?" She asks frightened, taking a step back.

"Ingots made out a horn of a nasty monster."

"Why does it feel so ominous?" She mumbles.

I ignore her and ask. "So, can we make an alloy out of these two materials?"

Pulling her out of her thoughts she answers. "They kind of complement each other, they both want to consume, one of them magic and divinity, the other light and life. But the materials are too different." She turns to me with horror on her face. "If you do manage to make something out of these... It could have a devastating effect on the world, especially in the wrong hands." She squints her eyes.

"Don't worry, Olivia and I are leaving after we clear the dungeon," I say. "And I don't think were coming back anytime soon, my homeland is in danger and we need to save it, that's why we came here, to get stronger." A worried expression appears on her face and I can see her wanting to tell me something, but she closes her mouth bites her lips, then sighs and nods.

"If you truly can conquer the dungeon with it, I'll help you create a weapon, but I want a promise that you won't use the weapon against Orario or its denizens."

"Can't promise that," I say and a grimace forms on her face. "But I can promise not to use it unprovoked." The goddess sighs again, then shakes her head and says.

"I'm not really satisfied with that answer, but you're telling the truth, and I know you'll find a way to craft it even without me, so let's get started. The alloy is possible but we need a good reagent." She starts rubbing her chin, and after a minute of thought, she perks up. "I think I have something that might work. Be right back!" she yells out and runs out of her forge.

I don't fully trust her, so [Celestial Eyes] keep an eye on her, she rushes down to the main floor and looks toward the front door, the exit to her shop, she shakes her head, dispersing any thoughts she might have had and rushes toward the storage room.

There she starts searching the room for something, and screams out in surprise when she does find it, she rushes back up with a vial in her hand.

"This thing is a reagent allowing to bind two opposing types of components. If you want to put a cost on it, just this vial would cost around 300 million Valis, but we're doing something no one has ever done. So money can go fuck itself right now." She says with a smile.

"Great, where do we start?"

"What's that blood to the side?"

"Blood from the floor boss of the 65th floor."

"I can feel the ice, death affinity, and what's that... Rot?" She looks at the blood with a grimace. "What the fuck was this guy?"

"A pretty nasty necromancer dude, the bone next to you is his pinky," I say pointing at the two-meter-long bone next to her. She looks at it and rises an eyebrow.

"Damn..." She shakes her head, a grimace still marring her face. "Heat up the furnace, I'll prepare the materials and well make an alloy, never before seen."

We start the preparations, I heat up the furnace using mana, while the goddess, starts mixing some ingredients. A moment later she shoves some items into my hand and orders me.

"Grind up a few of those stones, and that bone, make it as fine as you can." I boost my stats with [Mana's Blessing] and grind up the materials, mixing them up in the process, Hephaistos to my surprise adds some blood to the mix and does something I didn't think she would do. She cuts her finger and adds a few drops of Ichor into it. The mixture shines up brightly, turning golden for a second and then going back to an odd, dark crimson color.

"Are you sure about that?" I ask.

"Yeah, let's make it into something crazy. I wanna see what the limits of any of this will be."

"Okay... I've got a question, what do you think about using [Mystery] on the ingots before we start smelting them?"

"Won't work, after putting it into the furnace it will lose all of its enchantments." She says shaking her head. Shattering my dream, but I do know the people here are misunderstanding the [Mystery] ability so I might end up experimenting with it later on.

"Whatever, let's get to work." I pick up the golden metal, drop it into the furnace, then drop in a few void ingots. The furnace shouldn't be hot enough to melt them, but for some reason, they start to soften up and shine brightly.

"Don't act so surprised, I'm the goddess of the forge if I want the metal melted down, there is nothing that can stop me from doing it." She says with a smile, and now that she mentions it, there was a thin trail of divinity leaving her and going straight into the forge.

"Are you sure you won't get into trouble for using divinity on the surface?"

"I have an agreement with Ouranos, I can use it for crafting, but I'll have to explain the reason later on." She says while shrugging.

"Alright..." I say not caring for the rest.

The two materials melt, and slowly start to flow downwards into a container. I grab some of the mixture we created and add it to the metallic compound, then start mixing them together. The materials violently react, but Hephaistos empties the vial onto it and the violent reaction suddenly subdues.

As the material starts to cool down I scrape it out and place it on the anvil. I activate [Focus] and as soon as I hit it with a hammer [Blacksmith] development ability shoots up a few levels.

I shape the blob into an ingot, but just before the material cools down I quench it into the blood mixture. Let it cool down sitting in it, allowing it to absorb the blood concoction's properties, and as soon as it's cooled down, I place it back into the furnace and wait till it gets red hot again.

As soon as I place the reheated ingot on the anvil, Hephaistos sprinkles some magical stone, Juggernaut bone, and sand mixture over it, and I start slowly shaping it into a blade. Meanwhile [Metalworking] and [Blacksmith] level like crazy. Each time, just before the material cools down, I put it into the blood mixture, and by the ninth repeat, the color goes from crimson to almost see-through water-like.

"It's a miracle it even lasted this long. I'll mix up another batch quickly." She says taking away the bucket and quickly grinding down another set of stones, and materials. While I reheated the blade, sprinkled some dust on it and shaped it.

As the sun began to rise, after six hours of hard work, the sword was nearly complete. Hephaistos had crafted a sturdy handle while I sharpened the blade, and both my [Metalworking] and [Blacksmith] skills had reached their maximum level thanks to the experience bonus from [Focus] and working with such exceptional materials for so long.

Compared to my previous sword, this one was longer and heavier, but still bore the familiar shape of my old katana. The hand guard was black and the handle was crafted from high-quality materials. The sword had a crimson-black hue from the blood it had drank, with blue lines running the length of it. Runic inscriptions, illuminated in blue, were etched alongside the lines and connected by artificial mana channels.

The sword was enchanted with Sharpness, Durability, and Clean. It radiated out an extremely dangerous aura, that made even me shiver. Casually moving it in the air, caused even space to be ripped apart.

"That thing is even more dangerous than I thought it would be." Commented Hephaistos. "It will consume, not just light, life, mana, and divinity, but part of everything it cuts."

"Then wait till I'm done with it," I say with a smile and she rises her eyebrow.

"What are you planning?" She asks worriedly, but I ignore her.

I sit down on the floor and place the sword on my thighs, my hand over it. [Focus] boosted by [Archive] fully activates, and so does a 100% boost to my stats, courtesy of [Mana's Blessing].

I focus on the sword and will [Mystery] to activate. 2 million points of mana enter the blade, making it shine brightly, heating up its cold surface, and burning me in the process. [Troll's Regeneration] and [Halo] activate, repairing the damage instantly, and stay active throughout the process.

A kaleidoscope of colors assaults my vision. I find myself surrounded by nine ever-changing shapes, nine runes, squares, and circles. Seemingly object from a higher dimension, without a true form. Then the realization hits me, like a truck.

'I'm seeing concepts, but my comprehension of them is too shallow to understand what they mean. What am I supposed to do? Do I choose one of them randomly?'

I do know [Mystery] allows me to imbue one of them into an item. So I wish for the concept of cutting, damaging, or death, to appear before me, but nothing changes, the concepts stay the same. A headache caused by mana expenditure starts to form, and without another option, I decided to leave it up to luck. I reach out and grab onto one the one right in front of me.

The kaleidoscope shakes, but the chosen concept vibrates with what seems like happiness and slowly, but surely, moves towards me and sinks deep into the sword. Shifting its color from black to silver in an instant, birthing something totally new.

My abilities turn off and light vertigo assaults me, but Hephaistos catches me before I hit the ground.

"W-w-what did you d-do?" She whispers her voice a bit shaky.

"Enchanted it even further," I say after catching my breath.

"That wasn't something I've seen before, the properties of the material shifted."

"Oh, what does it do now?" I ask curiously.

"It doesn't just consume, it will grow." She says.

"Didn't it already do that thanks to your blood?" I ask confused.

"No," she shakes her head. "My blood would only make it more durable, and grow with you. Now it grows stronger and sharper with each life it takes, each thing it cut apart. It might even gain abilities from the materials it consumed." I rise an eye at that statement and look back at the now silver blade in my hand.

All the enchantments on the surface disappeared, the blade was polished and silver, the handle went from black to white, and so did the hand guard. I stand up and make a light swing with it. I'm not sure what I expected, but cutting a vertical gash into the side of the room wasn't it.

"Sorry about that. I'll leave the other materials as compensation, and I'll place a few chain links into your storage room." Hephaistos awed by the displayed power slowly nods.

After depositing the materials, I say my goodbyes but before I leave she stops me.

"What did you name it?" She asks.

"My last sword was named Omen, it's only right if I name this one Cataclysm." Just as I say that the sword vibrates in my hand, shining brightly accepting its name with pride.

"Good luck, I'll be praying for you to succeed." She smiles and a tear forms in her eyes.

Unsure how to react to that, I thank her and [Blink] back to the 86th floor, only to find Olivia pouting, tapping her leg on the ground with her arms crossed. She squints her eyes at me and sniffs the air.

"You were with a woman." Her glare intensifies.

'What are you, a bloodhound?' I sigh.