The next week went by in a blur. Seven days, fourteen wishes. The promised five per day had been put to good use by Camden. With the other two free, I’d put most of my time and points into working with Benny to start. Twenty points per day, traded for density shifted attacks. Since I was higher rank than he was now, I could hold more of them, netting me twenty of them per day instead of ten.

A hundred and forty points into Might left him at over three thousand in that stat (three thousand forty five specifically) and the wishes provided me with a constant supply of density shifting attacks to use for practicing my Dust Construction.

Today I was supposed to meet up with that enchanter Sonia recommended, and had twenty charges of density shifting on hand for my forest time experimenting with E-rank stone. I’d officially reached Lesser Dust Construction Mastery, which massively reduced the amount of strain that even multiple parallels of Dust crafting put on my soul.

I’d asked Sonia about the odd dichotomy, where I had so much soul power but small delicate usage made me cramp up. She’d informed me that aside from quality, souls also had another aspect called polish. Not strength so much as utility, polishing a soul was difficult and time consuming, and was something only crafters ever really did.

So, aside from training my people and working with Benny, all I did all week was play with rocks. Polishing my control and working on minute alterations and delicate applications of my extremely versatile crafting discipline. I spent every waking moment learning more about construction in a general sense, studying castle wall designs, learning more about stonework, and studying whatever I could find about material density.

With the F-ranked stones I had my unit gather as ‘training’ every day, I worked on the best way to make bricks, put them together, structure the dust inside so they’d be more durable, and experiment with density shifting to try to make better stone. I put my all into the experiments, and had even designed a scale for the force I used so I could map exactly how durable each attempt was.

When I arrived at the area near the well, the building that had been there (a bakery I was pretty sure) was gone, and where it had stood was a pile of E-ranked stones about the same size as a house.

“Oh, you’re here!” Said the small blonde boy with the delicate features who was waiting for me. He was sitting on the rocks, and hopped up, smoothing down his green velvet cloak and straightening the brown vest he wore over his white button up shirt. He shot me a nervous grin, green eyes glinting with enthusiasm. “I’m glad you could make it, my name is Adam. Pleased to meet you.” He stuck out a hand for me to shake, and I did, feeling the need to hold back in case I broke this delicate looking person.

I gestured to the rocks. “So I figure I’ll make some bricks, try to get the hang of this, and once I have the process down we can get started trying to adapt the enchantments. Can you do the same thing Sonia can? See the patterns of my skill as it affects the stone and then enchant them directly?”

He waggled a hand. “That’s complicated. If I can learn how the Skill interacts with the material I can enchant a brick. But the less synergy there is the more effort it’ll take, and more than that, weaving the enchantments in such a way that it can connect between multiple stones will be difficult. I might need you to alter the makeup of the stone a few times.”

“How much difference will resonance make in terms of effort?” I asked cautiously. “Do you have that tuning fork thing?”

He laughed. “No, that’s for gear. Buildings are more…organic. We have to go by feel, and there’ll be plenty of variance between different stones. Weaving them together will be difficult. Make your bricks, then we can figure out the differences. Although there’s one thing I was curious about, are you going to use mortar to hold the bricks together? A buffer might cause inconsistencies in the flow of energy.”

“Nope. I’m shaping them so they fit seamlessly together.” I cracked my neck as I prepared to work. “I know in a lot of castles the extra large blocks were set like that. Held together by weight. More than that since I’m making them I can join the blocks after they’ve been laid, making the wall one giant structure. If you think that’d work.”

He seemed excited by the idea. “I think that would be perfect, if we can prep the enchantments to graft properly. Quite a challenge. Once I’ve designed the enchantments we’ll bring in a few dozen enchanters for cheap labor. I’m sure you know enchanting takes Impact?”

I did, and I was fine with outsourcing. With that clarified, I walked over to the pile. I picked up a few stones, turned them to dust with Pit of Despair, and used my Dust Construction to catch the dust midair, molding it together into a brick shape. With Lesser Dust Construction I could maneuver the dust much more finely. I couldn’t wait to test it underground like I had during my last fight.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

I had to add a few more stones until I reached the limits of the dust I could hold like this, and then I started to PRESS. Slow and steady, because I’d found that I had more control over cohesion this way. While just slamming it into a cube might be possible, it tended to leave small bubbles or weak spots.

Consistent pressure continued to pour into the brick until I couldn’t press anymore. Once that was done I let it drop, and the brick fell to the dirt with a crash as it slammed about two feet into the earth, leaving a big ass hole.

Leaning down, I reached into the hole and grabbed it, having to wiggle my fingers to get a grip, and then PULLED.

My current strength sat at over fifteen TONS of lifting power, and since I was higher Impact than the brick there was no additional pressure. Just raw weight that I had to try to offset, and I barely managed. Of course lifting with my fingertips didn’t help, but as I dragged the thing out of the ground and adjusted my grip, I found myself staggering a bit.

Ten tons, give or take. The extremely condensed size didn’t help, I glanced down at the hole in the ground and grimaced. “Ok…I think I might need to consult an architect. I wanted the most durable bricks possible, but I didn’t consider the foundations necessary.”

These bricks were absurdly heavy, and I wasn’t sure what would be able to support a wall made of them. Not to mention I hadn’t even used any density shifting. The F-ranked bricks I’d been making were somewhat offset by the native Impact of the planet itself, which bore up under the lower Impact easier. It was why despite the insane pressure F-rankers didn’t get shoved through the ground.

E-rank though, was enough to ignore the offset. Crafting was great, but I wasn’t a builder. After a second though I shook off the worry. I didn’t need an architect. I needed help. I was pretty sure Camden could use some of his wishes to make me a solid foundation to work off of, but we still needed to figure out how well the bricks worked before I took the problem to him. For one I needed a weight to give him as a base, and we hadn’t tried enchanting any yet.

Rather than just jump to that, i did what I’d said I would. I tested the bricks. I kept making them, different shapes, sizes, densities. I struck them with my staff, with my armored fists, or with attacks like my Steam Arrow, seeing what did the most damage to each shape and size of block and taking meticulous notes.

When I finally found the best specifications for durability, I carried it over to a watching Adam, who was staring wide eyed at the multitude of holes in the ground and partially buried bricks. Several of them had cracks and dents, with some of them being shattered from the sheer damage. The one I offered him though, only had a few scuff marks.

“This is the one I want to test it on. You need to study it before I use the techniques I have in mind?” He shook his head numbly, and I grinned, deciding to try out the most useful technique for a wall I could think of. I triggered Mornax, my defensive form, focusing it into the stone…and got nothing.

Mornax was built on Mountain Stance, and apparently rocks didn’t count as standing on the ground. Shame. My next attempt was aided by my armor as I triggered Belial, and I was pleased to see it work flawlessly as the already dark surface of the brick turned pitch black as fractures opened up across the faces, emitting the toxic green glow of poison fire.

Adam swallowed loudly before reaching out to touch the stone, hissing and pulling back a burned finger. I raised a brow and he shrugged ruefully, shaking out his hand as he focused hard on the rock like he was trying to stare his way through the surface.

Which, I suppose, was exactly what he was trying to do. After a few minutes of focus he finally exhaled loudly. “This is…a complex technique. It isn’t particularly stable though. Unbalanced Skills can’t be used for enchantments because without a soul to stabilize them they’ll just fall apart.”

I cursed. “I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case. What about my gear? Sonia was able to make that stuff work.”

“Not the same.” He said with a shake of his head. “Extremely compatible materials can act as a brace to hold a Skill together. It’s part of why she tested the resonance on your armor before creating it. This, though, this is just rocks. Durable rocks to be sure, but they have no special resonance with the Skill that can hold it together.”

Waving him off, I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’ve been meaning to rework my other two Goetia forms anyway. I’ll need a while to work on it. Do you want to wait, or should we just meet up here again tomorrow?”

He shrugged. “Tomorrow will be fine. I understand reworking Skills can be a complex and time consuming endeavor.” I thanked him with a handshake and sent him on his way before heading back to my barracks. I needed to fix my first two forms anyway, and this was good incentive. I wondered how easily I’d be able to access them once I did the restructuring.

I’d already experienced Mornax and Mephistopheles, and I’d been blown away by the power. Near invincibility combined with overwhelming firepower. If I fixed the other two though, I’d be able to use Belial and Mephistopheles at once offloading both of them onto the armor, perhaps even all three at the same time.

Imagining the black flame of Mephistopheles mixed with Belial’s deflection and erosion was so exciting I could hardly contain myself.

When I got back to my room I hurried over to my bed, sitting down with my legs crossed and closing my eyes as I tried to slip back into the same state where I was using Eye of Revelation to find the patterns of my Skills and identify what was wrong with Belial and Mephistopheles. It was easiest to do it the second time, thankfully, and I was able to get right to work.

As I started the process of repairing two of my forms, I wondered what would happen when I finally completed them all. I was roughly thinking about making nine different forms, but what would the staff art be when that happened? Would it become its own Skill? Would my path change? Whatever it was I had a feeling it would be a big change, now I just had to reach that point.