"The festival is in three days and I still don't know what I will do until then. I need more money to buy a land but I don't feel safe enough to do business here with the Kirin Feast and Blue Light ready to kill me. I wished I had power to not worry about them, that first arrow they used still instill fear in my brain." Roland complained, rolling on the bed of the inn he is staying.
The inn he is staying at is relatively good, being made of special wood and it is extremely comfortable. The room was simple but efficient with his big bed, table, chairs and a closet. They even permitted animals and had small bowls at the sides to serve as places to put animals' food.
After Roland got out from the guards' garrison he walked straight to the inn, almost running. And since then he was studying to no avail the Soul Spirit he decided to call rest. He wasn't even halfway done with the first tier of Eternal Water Spirit Incantation.
"What the hell do you mean by vibrations variations, water condensation and solidification points, correct timing of putting pressure and that ice and blood are actually just water? This makes absolutely no sense, and don't even make me remember of 'water particles can be made from the air you breath using Vital Energy'." Roland groaned like an animal in frustration, eating his nails without perceiving because of his annoyance.
"It's fine to you be frustrated, but we can't have a disciple of ours without doing anything. How about you began to train in ones of the Great Arts?" Lucy suggested and August added. "How about you also join one of the Societies? Three of four ways to you reunite with your father depends on you becoming powerful and participating on a Society."
Roland knew they were right, so he sighed and let of his childish behavior. "Okay, after the festival I will ask around to see which Society is better to me and whilst I will train in one of the Great Arts, which one do you guys recommend? My knowledge about them is shallow."
"How about Medicine Alchemy?" August quickly said to have an advantage over his mother about his favorite Great Art. "In Medicine Alchemy we use fire-"
"Not interested. Next." Roland cut August off.
"You didn't even let me finish!" August stomped his paws on the floor.
"I don't like of fire. I really hate it, it makes me remember of things I don't want to remember, I prefer to die than dedicate my life to something directly related to fire." Roland said with melancholy in his eyes, the day that aberration of nature left his life still fresh on his very being.
August grumbled, but let the matter die.
"Roland, in the Essence Reinforcement you need to inscribe runes that can draw Essence from around them and also from the object they are inscribed to give them various effects. With each rune you add to the object it gains one 'layer' of power. The majority of talismans are made in this way." Lucy said. "Interested?"
"More or less, I will for sure try later but not now."
August took the chance to advertise his other good Great Art that he is actually better than Medicine Alchemy. "Roland, in the Soul Tampering you can directly control souls from others and receive powers based on the souls you eat or tamper to make them obey you. You can, for example, mess with the soul from a normal animal to make it your slave and even talk the human tongues despite never learning the alphabet. Impressive, right?"
"No, it sounds nasty and evil. Next." Roland indifferently said, not caring about August's hurt feelings or how the turtle was sulking in the corner after hearing his answer.
"The last one is Equipment Formation, you use Essence and other materials to create anything you can imagine of in different tiers of power beginning in the Lower Mortal tier. Since you don't like of fire you won't be capable of creating metal weapons or anything related to that but Equipment Formation is much more than just swords and armors. You can literally create anything, no need to feel constricted by iron weapons. Finally interested?"
Roland's bright eyes glittered with the innocence of a youth, just thinking about all the possibilities, principally of a possibility he saw earlier that captivated him. "Can I make one of those beautiful portals to me just stay looking at them?"
"Yeah… you can make them when you become better at it." Lucy said, incredulous that her disciple wants to make a teleportation portal to just… look at them.
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's begin immediately, what I need to do?" Roland stood up from the bed and for the first time looking at Lucy with deference and eagerness to be taught.
"First you need to buy these items on the market…" Lucy listed everything and Roland went outside to buy them, the matter of Blue Light and Kirin Feast was completely out of his mind.
"Why can't he be passionate about training just as he is being right now?" August grumbled on his corner and Lucy just awkwardly smiled.
After two hours Roland came back with everything on his Endless Bag and sat uprightly on the inn's floor, waiting for Lucy's instructions.
"First of all, you need to learn how to draw Essence to wherever you want beyond your own body. To do it you need to know how to use one of the energies that can dilute and mutate Essence. Learning how to do it with Qi will be useless since it will be highly ineffective to train how to make equipment while suffering high emotions. So you need to use the Vital Energy." Lucy said.
Roland nodded with the Soul Spirit in hands, he began to draw the azure Vital Energy from it and it was hard to not let the Essence enter his body.
Essence came to inside of him in the presence of the Vital Energy no matter what he did. "If only there was a way to block the Essence from entering me, it would be easier to control it outside of my body, unless..." Roland reminded of how the Soul Spirit enveloped him and used Vital Energy to prevent all attacks to affect him. "That's it!"
With inspiration flooding him, Roland took the maximum of Vital Energy from the Soul Spirit and surrounded himself with it.
There was so much azure Vital Energy around him that it looked like was inside of a layer of water.
When the Essence got aroused because of so much Vital Energy and tried to enter his body, he willed the Vital Energy to mimic what the Soul Spirit did when he got ambushed and closed all the routes to Essence inside of him.
It was true Vital Energy was soft but it was also impermeable if necessary.
All the Essence in the room created a vortex circling Roland, incapable of entering his body or dissipating to its natural state. "Success." He shouted using his hands and body's movements to guide and 'hold' the Essence to wherever he wants.
August and Lucy were for the first time as masters of Roland impressed by his quick thinking and creative solution, he took no even ten minutes to succeed and moreover, he without instructions from them did something only God Blacksmiths or Theological Artificers naturally learn.
They were thinking of teaching him this trick after he failed for more than one week to show to him how Equipment Formation is hard, but how could they know he would mimic his Soul Spirit so well?
Even if a Master Blacksmiths or Artificers saw how the Soul Spirit protected him they couldn't copy it without intensive study. To Roland do it instantly means his connection to the Soul Spirit is deeper and stronger than any other Soul Spirit Lucy or August saw in their lives.
Roland couldn't yet perfectly understand Vital Energy or his own Soul Spirit, but his affinity to them is astonishing.
"Now what I do, Lucy?" Roland said.
"Now you need to focus on one kind of constructions and a 'Profession', since you don't like fire becoming a Novice Blacksmith is impossible. You will, therefore, become a Novice Artificer. Let's begin with something simple until you can create Mortal tier Equipaments without failing. Pick the rubber and needle you bought."
In the Great Art of Equipment Formation, their practitioners are divided between Blacksmiths and Artificers in different grades beginning at Novice grade. And their creations are divided on Mortal, Earth, Sky, Celestial, Demigod, Divine tiers with each tier having three different subdivisions, lower, mid and high.
And to discover what tier the Equipment is, you need to sense how much of Essence exists within it. Even someone ignorant to this Great Art can deduce what tier the Equipment is if it is at the Mortal or Earth tier. Beyond that only the creator of the Equipment or another master in the Great Art can know what tier the Equipment is.
Roland held the white natural rubber and steel needle, looking anxious to the next instruction.
Lucy sighed in her heart, "why can't he be this cute and eager while training?" And said. "Your first lesson is to learn how to make the rubber form a big ball and then condense it to become small, thin and sharp as the needle at your side. The needle will only serve to you have a reference while guiding the Essence to the rubber."
Imagining things from nothing was easy for Roland, the amount of time he spent alone inventing plays to himself because nobody on the streets would be his friend was tremendous.
He slowly got the hang of manipulating Essence, it was similar to how he mixed Vital Energy and Qi Energy to train.
You just need to mix when to be soft and when to be hard at the correct times.
Seeing the rubber instantly become a ball full of essence and then condensed to a small needle radiating Essence, made August and Lucy's suspicion become reality.
The man that has a training speed too slow to them has actually a talent to Equipment Formation, and probably an even bigger talent to Essence Reinforcement since it depends even heavily in control of Essence and correct timing of using Essence.
"Your first product is actually Mid Mortal tier Equipment. You are indeed a genius in this Great Art." Lucy pointed to the steel needle in his other hand. "Try to use the rubber needle on the steel needle."
Roland obeyed and unsurprisingly, nothing happened of special.
"Nothing happened because of two reasons. When you envisioned the needle you just thought of it as another needle, making it not have any special qualities. Right now the rubber needle is just rubber with Essence inside of it.
The other reason is that in Equipment Formation you can't change the very nature of the material you are using, the rubber will be rubber no matter what you do unless you use Essence Reinforcement, if you do that you can change rubber's nature to become sharp enough to pierce steel."
"Remember, the important in Equipment Formation is 'imagination' and 'intention'. If you have the two, nothing is impossible." Lucy said.
Roland nodded with his eyes shining.
"Let's go to other exercises, it will take a while but our objective is to you make High Mortal tier Equipment, the sooner the better."
***
Three days later Lakepoint was decorated and illuminated to the Autumn Festival, you could see different types of brightly lit lanterns on all houses. It was impossible to count how many red and orange lanterns existed.
People walked on the streets appreciating even the lanterns floating on the waters and going to stands to buy special pastry only served on the Festival.
With the full moon on the skies, the mood on the city couldn't be any better. No incidents occurred with the intense vigilance of the army and helpers from the two Societies.
But no matter how well the city was decorated, it couldn't compare to how beautiful Major Castle in the middle of the city was.
Its seven black towers shone with the moonlight and illusions of mighty white beasts flew around the castle, blessing everything they touch.
The castle being held by four gigantic chains was floating, and under the castle was a lake named Samsara Waters Gate. For unknown reasons, nobody from the city knows what Samsara means but they think it is the name of someone, and the lake is connected to all rivers around Lakepoint.
The water on the lake after being connected to the other rivers took another quality and appearance, it was so crystalline and pure that made ones wonder why it was forbidden to drink or fall on the water, having full formations and talismans to prevent that.
On the illusory white bridge to enter the castle full of guards, stood people from the Societies, nobles, and Roland with an upgraded version of his previous clothes. He thought his previous clothes were formal enough to enter this part of the festival with Elizabeth's invite, so following Lucy's instructions he made High Mortal clothes using various precious cloths.
It only gave him a slight increase in his defense and comfort, so it was more to show his luxury of having clothes on the High Mortal tier. If he knew Essence Reinforcement he wouldn't need to have all this job to make another set of clothes and would even make more useful clothes.
The only reason for him to make the same clothes again was because Lucy liked his actual outfit and would only teach him if he continued using the same garment's appearance.
Roland looked at the water feeling a stir within himself and the Soul Spirit in Lucy, training a water technique made him more sensitive to such high-quality water.
"Sir, I'm sorry but no animals are permitted in Major Castle unless they are from Kirin Renascence's elders." Guards stopped on Roland's way and everyone else entering the castle laughed at his stupidity.
Roland thought in confusion about the actions of the people famous or rich enough to be here. "Why the necessity of being so aggressive? What's the deal of these people? To make a mistake is human, why have a scorn so thick? I will never understand the thought process of such prideful and petty beings."