The portable Ki smithy appeared like some kind of garage door opener. It was an oblong shape with one end wider than the other, just a bit smaller than my palm. It looked like it was made out of some kind of granite, a deep grey with flecks of white crystal throughout. On its top were two square-cut crystals, one a milky white, the other was an obsidian black color. They looked like fancy buttons.

“Dude, you won’t believe this. It’s freaking awesome.” Magnus called out to me while I inspected the portable Ki smithy.

“Huh? What? Oh, right, you said you were thinking about getting that bloodline perk thing right.” I asked

“Yeah, man. I went ahead and picked it, and it’s awesome. Apparently, one of my ancient ancestors was an actual, literal Thunder Bear. I guess it was some kind of magic beast that became humanoid and got frisky with a human.” Magnus chuckled at his own humor.

“A thunder bear, huh? Wait, isn’t that what you named your hammer? Thorbjorn or something like that?”

Magnus nodded his head as he pulled his hammer out of his storage ring. “Yeah, I’ve always had a thing for bears and lightning storms. I’m also a follower of the old ways.” Magnus pulled out a Mjolnir pendant from under his shirt. “So Thorbjorn seemed to fit. But now, one of my actual ancestors was a powerful beast, and his bloodline survived to this day in me.”

“Cool. So, what does it give you?” I asked.

“Well, for now, it gives me 2 abilities. One lets me imbue my hammer with lightning, well any weapon really, it lasts for about 2 hours and increases damage dealt by twenty percent with a stun chance. The other ability is called bear’s hide. It gives me a passive defense bonus based on my cultivation rank. It comes out to one and a half points of defense every rank. So right now, it’s a plus six to my natural defense.” Magnus explained.

“That’s not too shabby. The defense bonus isn’t very high for now, but as you get stronger, it will too. How does the electric attack work? Does it increase with you too?” I asked.

“Yeah, it does. It gives a base-ten percent for an hour, but it gives an extra fifteen minutes to the duration and two-point-five percent damage per cultivation rank. There is one other thing, though. This is so dope. It looks like I can cultivate my bloodline ability like I do my body. If I imbue enough Ki into it, it can unlock other abilities down the road. The only thing that sucks, though, is that it would slow down my regular cultivation.”

“Tough choice. Slow down your progression to get more lateral abilities, abilities that seem to grow with your cultivation, or increase your cultivation first then open other abilities.”

“Did you get your smithy?” Magnus asked.

I held up the almost garage door remote-looking thing. “Apparently, this is it.” I turned it around in my hand and saw a dark hole in the middle of the wider side with a clear crystal covering the hole. It kind of reminded me of TV remotes. If I assumed white was on, and black was off…

A beam of Ki emitted from the opening when I pressed the white crystal. First, the beam struck the basement wall and seemed to roil like a boiling pot of water. Then like someone pulled the plug in a sink, the center opened up in a whirlpool that expanded to a five-foot-wide and seven-foot-tall oval.

“Duuuuude, that’s some sliders shit. Is it safe to go in? We won’t end up in an alternate universe, will we?” Magnus asked.

I walked up to the opening in the wall. It looked like someone had made an oval doorway in the cinderblocks. I stepped through, and an orb in the middle of the ceiling started to glow and lit up the new room.

My eyes boggled as I saw all the tools and equipment spread out in the forge. Several workbenches were lining the walls. There was a massive anvil in the middle and what looked like a large propane forge next to it. There were grinders, sanders, chisels, files, hammers; it even had a power hammer and press. One of the benches looked to have engraving tools, another had carpentry tools.

Welcome to your new Complete Portable Ki Smithy. Would you like to register yourself as the owner?

Y/n

On seeing the new prompt, I naturally selected yes.

Congratulations, you are now the proud owner of the Complete Portable Ki Smithy (Masterwork)

At any time you can set permissions for guests to enter and utilize this work space.

Available Ki pool 449/500

Each power tool requires Ki to function and will default to Drawing from Smithy Ki Pool. Default Draw can be changed in the Settings Tab of your Smithy Interface.

Current ongoing Ki draw: Lights

Lights will consume 1 point of Ki per ten minutes.

Opening or closing Complete Portable Ki Smithy (Masterwork) entry costs fifty points of Ki.

Once opened or closed, there is no continued Ki Draw.

I looked back to Magnus and saw he was prevented from entering. Some kind of force field or something prevented him from passing through. He was running his hands over the entryway like some kind of mime. I couldn’t help it. I laughed at the sight.

“C’mon, bro, you going to let me in or what?” he pleaded.

“How do I know you’re not some kind of vampire that needs permission to enter?” I joked while focusing on opening the Smithy interface. It took a few moments, but I figured out that I had to open my normal interface first. There was a new tab with a really long name. I needed to find a way to rename the smithy to something a bit less cumbersome.

Magnus gave me a look, the look that says, come on, really? I chuckled again before saying, “just a sec, I just need to find where to give permissions.”

After poking around a few sub-tabs that I would have to go through more thoroughly later, I found the settings tab and the permissions option. It looked like I could assign people simple entry permissions; they could pick up and use any mundane items but wouldn’t have any access to the power tools or the Ki pool.

I could grant limited guest rights to let them use the power tools if they used their own Ki to power them. I could grant full guest rights that give access to the stored Ki. There was an option to grant full administration access, or I could create my own designation that gave specific accesses. For now, I gave Magnus full Guest rights and the kids limited guest rights. Just in case, never let kids use power tools without supervision. That’s how you lose fingers in shop class.

“Ok, you can come in now.” Magnus came in, and we walked around the room, oohing and ahhing over the excellent tools and their stats. The Ki Forge used fire element Ki to burn hot, but with low Ki cost, only two Ki per minute. The Press and the power hammer used five Ki per minute, but they didn’t stay on the entire time.

“Umm… John? Magnus?” Cody called as he poked his head around the forge entrance. “There’s some weird scratching going on behind the wall over there?” Cody’s face was a bit pale from fear. His mace was in his hands, and he kept glancing over his shoulder. As his knuckles turned white from his grip, the plain steel mace started to shimmer, then fully glowed with a metallic tan light.

Cody’s mace began to subtly shift. The surface started to form lines extending from where Cody gripped its shaft. By the time the mace’s light faded; the weapon took on the grain structure of wood. It was like someone carved a branch from an oak tree then turned it silver. It lost the dull grey coloring and now was a brilliant and untarnished silver color.

I triggered my Identify real quick.

Iron Oak Mace of the Paladin (Soul-bound)

Quality: exceptional

Rarity: Rare

Durability: 65/65

Damage: 26

Weight: 5lbs

Traits: ignore 10 points of armor

Special: +4 Str, Paladins Armor: Conjure a spectral suit of Full plate mail armor. Armor provides +20 defense for 10 min twice a day.

It looked like Cody had selected his moderate perk. A strength buff, armor, and a high-quality weapon in one item? Damn, that was a good result. The fireman’s axe I got from that church dude only had one special effect that could only be used twice a day.

“The wall is cracking,” Rowan called out. I could practically feel the terror in his voice. Rowan backed away from the out of sight wall, lights dancing around his fingers as he began casting a long spell, probably one of his summons.

I pushed out my Spiritual Sense but discovered an unfortunate aspect of my new workshop. My sense stopped abruptly at its walls. It didn’t even extend out past the doorway. I looked at Magnus; he already had his hammer out from his inventory and nodded to me. We walked out of the shop, and I used my Spiritual Sense again.

Beyond the wall to the right, where Rowan and Cody had been huddled up in their grief, I could feel a mass of writhing creatures. Each one individually felt weak, but there were so fucking many of them. I couldn’t count all the different aura signatures.

“Ready up, everyone. There are a whole bunch of weak mobs behind that wall, and they are coming in.” I said as I pulled out the plain steel spear from my ring.

Rowan finished his spell, and his lightning dragonling appeared with a flash. Good choice. The fire one would have been too dangerous inside this wooden house. Lightning still posed a fire risk but not as bad as fire it.

Cody emitted a silver glow from his whole body that coalesced into semitransparent silver plate armor. Looking like a knight straight out of medieval times, with a golden cross emblazoned across his chest.

I looked at Magnus with his hammer and back at the wall with cracks forming in it, and then back to Magnus. “Hey, if you knock that hole they are forming in first, and Rowan has her,” I looked to Rowan real quick with an apologetic look before continuing” has his lightning dragon shoot a bolt down the hole, we could slow them down a bit to be more manageable.”

“I can do that, bro,” Magnus replied with a grin and walked over to the wall quietly and readied his hammer for a powerful swing.

I looked to Rowan; he still had a trace of blood next to his nose from the earlier nosebleed. He gave me a determined nod and directed the small lighting dragon about five feet from the wall.

“Do it,” I said.

I could sense the Ki in Magnus’s body surge through his body as his muscles briefly swelled. Then, he took a deep breath and swung the hammer into the wall. The kinetic burst from its head let out a loud crash as the cinderblocks exploded into rubble. A cloud of dust and grit blew out while the larger pieces blasted into the tunnel.

As soon as Magnus was clear, the dragon breathed a cloud of yellow gas into the tunnel. The cloud was full of little blue arcing bolts of electricity.

A chorus of high-pitched screeching emanated from the hole in the wall for a few seconds before it all fell silent, for a few seconds. Then, the screeching turned from pain to rage, and nearly a dozen creatures flooded out.

Three-foot tall, anthropomorphized rats with patchy fur and a viscous yellow drool charged at us.

Diseased Ratling Scavenger level 4

HP: 25/25

Stam: 50/50

Mana: 70/70

Defense: 5

I thrust forward and speared one rat clean through. “They are weak, only twenty-five hit points,” I called to the others. “Just don’t let them bite you. They are diseased. Rukia, no biting. Just play crowd control.”

As I flung the Ratling off of my spear, both Magnus and Cody literally exploded their first targets. Then, a bolt of translucent blue force shot from Rowan’s familiar, it dropped one, but it was still moving.

Rowan stood back, holding the wood axe awkwardly in his hands but was directing his Aeon to launch a bolt of lightning at another target. The bolt was much more concentrated than the previous attack; it nearly blinded me when it struck. The poor Ratling was launched off the floor and smashed into a wall, falling to the floor in a smoking broken heap.

After the initial strikes from everyone, the remaining Ratling scattered and darted around the room. They nipped at us and tried to slash us with their tiny claws. But, even without any armor, they couldn’t even break my skin.

I knocked away one that managed to latch onto my leg and was attempting to chew the back of my knee. Even though it wasn’t armored, all it managed to do was tear my pants leg. Before it could get up, I punctured it through and through.

“Son of a bitch” Rowan called out. I turned around and saw one of the little beasties clinging to his arm, gnawing on his wrist. Blood droplets flew as he managed to fling it off of him. His Familiar Tess launched an arcane bolt at the flying rat, propelling it faster, and it too slammed into a wall. It fell to the floor lifeless.

Just a few seconds later, after another round of pulping from our blunt weapon fighters and another bolt of lightning from the Aeon, the only Ratling remaining was the one injured by Tess’s first arcane bolt. I walked over and crushed its head beneath my boot. The fight wasn’t long, but it was frantic and chaotic. Those little fuckers were fast, just not as quick as I was.

The basement now stank of blood and burned hair. It was a nauseating stench; we wouldn’t be able to spend the rest of the night here. Moreover, the blood and flashing magic spent here would probably draw in other predators.

“Rowan! Are you ok?” Cody asked worry etched across his face. Surprisingly he was the only one that didn’t have a speck of blood on him. There was another handy use of his new paladin’s armor.

“I’m fine, it didn’t get me much, and I didn’t even lose ten percent of my health,” Rowan said.

“But they were diseased. Did you get a debuff from it? Or did you get a resisted prompt?” Cody pressed.

“I told you. I. Am. Fine. Seriously, you are worse than a mother… a mother…hen.” Rowan swayed on his feet. A flush of red appeared on his cheeks. Cody caught him and eased him to the floor before Rowan could fall on his own.

“Ding,” Rowan said, his voice a bit out of breath. “I got a level from that… that fight. Why am I so dizzy?”

I pulled up Rowan’s Identify.

Rowan Jessup

Level 5 mage

Hp: 60/65.

Stam: 124/140.

Mana: 216/252.

Defense 12

Debuff: Rattling Infection

So he did manage to contract that disease they carried. The new UI functionality showed itself now. The Ratling Infection was clickable; I did so and read the info on the status condition.

Ratling Infection: Uncommon

rapid onset fever

-50% stamina regeneration

-50% effective Agility for duration of diseased condition.

-1 Constitution and endurance every 2 hours until either condition is removed or subject dies.

If cured, attribute recovery is 1 point each recovered per 2 hours

“Does anyone have a cure disease potion or ability?” I asked as I pulled up my inventory. I didn’t think I ever picked one of those up, but I had to check to make sure. This wasn’t the kind of status effect that timed out on its own.

A sudden silence filled the room as everyone checked their inventory rings. But when nobody could find one, Cody’s face fell. His lay on hands ability didn’t cure anything; it just restored hit points. It wouldn’t help if Rowan’s constitution dropped. That would just reduce his maximum health. If his constitution reached zero, well, you can’t live if you don’t have any hit points. Not anymore.

Cody dropped to his knees and began to fervently pray to his god. Before the system came to earth, I would have scoffed internally over such an action. It would have been better to do something useful, like calling an ambulance or directly taking him to the ER. Now though, the system made all the gods real. So this might actually have a chance.

Magnus and I collected the loot from the Ratlings while Cody prayed over his brother. They didn’t have much, some trash quality mangy pelts that we dropped, they each had a level four magic core, and together we collected only seven hundred twenty credits. So it was only one hundred forty-four each, a drop in the bucket, really.

After about ten minutes of Cody praying, I was almost ready to tell him we needed to pack up and leave when a golden glow suffused his whole being. I could feel potent energy through my spiritual sense filling him.

As the glow faded, Cody’s eyes took on a thousand-yard stare. The same look we all got when we were interacting with our interface. Then he grinned and placed his hands on his brother’s head and chest. Golden light radiated out of his hands and filled Rowan.

Rowan shook for a moment then stilled. The red in his face faded, and his breathing evened. He opened his eyes, and they were clear and lucid. “What happened?”

“God answered my prayer. He granted me what I needed to save you.” Cody said with pride. “He gave me another point of his Divine favor; I was able to use that to select the Cure Disease divine ability. And it cured you.”