One of these claims was that he could provide creation master services, something that anyone would be tempted by.
"I was really talking out of my ass huh? Anything to save my skin I guess."
There were many professions that one could take up in the new world to provide an income for themselves. There were the more popular ones like Alchemy, Formation setting and blacksmithing as well as the less popular ones like farming and sewing.
A creation master is one that was proficient in at least 5 of these professions and as such they are usually very sought after. Humanity only had one such creation master, known as Supremacy Mal, and she was the creator of the personal communicator. One could only imagine the amount of money she would bring in every day.
"Thankfully Itroth wasn't known as a genius for nothing. While it wasn't called creation master back then, he is more than qualified for the title now."
From what he could gather, Itroth was skilled enough in over 20 professions, blowing through the requirement multiple times over. Naturally Ray was going to pick the 5 most popular of these to learn initially, but after a bit of consideration he went with 7.
Namely Alchemy, Formation setting, Array setting, Blacksmithing, Artifact refining and lastly Cooking and Tailoring. The last two he added for his own convenience, he didn't want to continue to waste the meat he had and he was tired of walking around shirtless. It was even more urgent now that he would have a naked woman and 3 babies to find clothes for.
He transferred the knowledge to his brain and was instantly overwhelmed, but thankfully his wisdom and soul strength were high enough to withstand it. After a few minutes of a head splitting headache all of the relevant information was imparted.
This didn't mean that he was instantly a master in all of them however. It was closer to having a skilled mentor and library at your fingertips, he was still extremely inexperienced.
If he wanted to achieve the lofty title of creation master he had to get to at least greater mastery in 5 of them. When learning a profession the levels of skill were properly separated.
Starting at Initial mastery it then moved up to lesser Mastery, then Mastery, then greater mastery and finally Perfection. There was technically a level above that known as transcendent, but having such a title means that you are the very peak in the field in the new world and it was granted by the will of the world.
There is usually only one transcendent per profession, unless more than one person managed to be at the exact same level.
Reaching this level was so difficult that even Itroth, the genius creator of hundreds of extremely powerful cultivation methods, had never gotten such a title. As such the generally accepted limit was Perfection.
With Itroth's knowledge and experience he was instantly pushed to the lesser mastery level but any more than that he would have to find his own understanding.
"I am gonna need a few things if I want to practice. If I want to be recognized as a creation master before I get to the Black Sands mountain range then I have to reach greater mastery in 5 of them, thankfully it doesn't really get that difficult until you want to reach perfection."
If anyone else heard him say that then they might strangle him to death, but Ray couldn't be blamed for that. Itroth had reached the level of perfection in all 20 or so professions that he had taken up.
That information coupled with his own intelligence led him to believe that most people who had basic knowledge and some form of teacher could reach the level of mastery at the very lest.
"I am going to need a furnace, mortar and pestle, and scalpel for alchemy. A cauldron, anvil and hammer for blacksmithing. Formation setting, array setting and artifact refining all need a brush, but I will need a few formation plates for formation and array setting."
Formations and arrays were related directly, a formation was like a stationary spell of various sizes and complexities and an array was a collection of formations made to work together, hence the name array.
"For proper cooking I only really need a good pot and tailoring needs a needle and thread, though if I understand correctly then I might not need either."
In his lifetime Itroth had heard of and later witnessed the usage of mana threads, which was a forgotten art of compressing and lengthening mana into threads. At that time it was used for attack but Ray was sure that it could be used for tailoring.
"The problem with it is that the threads tend to be very fragile and not very powerful, otherwise it wouldn't have been lost through time. At that time it was used as a supplementary method and not the main form of attack. But I will cross that bridge when I meet it. Finding a way to get the threads to be more stable will be much easier than finding a reliable source of thread."
Since he could transform mana into iron, he quickly made some of the things that he needed. Straight iron wasn't going to cut it in the long term but was good enough for now.
"The only thing that I can really practice now is blacksmithing, but that would make too much noise"
She had finally calmed down and her children fell asleep but if he started slamming iron then they would obviously wake up.
"What is your name? I can't keep calling you 'she', 'her' and 'beast." He said to her.
"I do not have one. 'Beasts' like me only adopt a name after transformation and as I wasn't anywhere near that level before I didn't plan one." She emphasized on 'beasts' , obviously offended that he only saw her as such. Transformation was a big step for a beast, it was the same as if you constantly called a 50 year old man a child. He would be confused at first and if you did it enough times get angry.
"Well as your 'master', it is my obligation to give you a name." He shivered at the word 'master', only uptight and snobbish people referred to themselves like that.
He thought for a moment before deciding on one he thought was most appropriate. "After my own mother you will adopt the name Laura. I didn't know her for long enough to know what type of person she was, but I hope that you honor her by being the best mother possible to your children. Especially since your husband had passed away"
"Husband? Oh, that's what you meant. He wasn't my husband, only a mate. I would have been the one to raise my children on my own even in his presence. Beasts don't have that level of commitment, at least we don't. But I do appreciate the thoughtfulness in the name you gave me."
Ray nodded, he didn't really understand but it would be useless to try to understand the mind of beasts, especially before they underwent transformation.
"I am going to bring you to another place now, don't try to resist." He said as he put his hand on her head.
She nodded in response and in a flash they teleported into his soul sea. And naturally she was shocked by what she was seeing.
Laura had never left the new world since she was born so the feeling of passing through a membrane was uncomfortable and foreign to her, luckily her children had already fallen asleep or else they would have started crying again.
Noticing her confusion he explained. "I don't know what you would call it, but this is my soul sea. For the time being just settle in and get comfortable, the mana here is dense so you can start to absorb it, but I have other plans for you so don't."
They teleported onto one of the closer peaks. "You can live here, if you need food or water then just ask. I haven't made any houses so for the time being you will have to sleep on the ground, but I will find a solution in the meantime."
"What…"
"Don't ask questions, just rest and take care of your kids. I will answer everything when you have properly adjusted to your new body." Before she could try to ask another question he teleported out and started to move to the camp. Her body and face was making it difficult for him to focus and it wouldn't be good for his mental health if he spent too much time staring at her.
It was a long ways away so he practiced making mana threads on the way there. With his control it wasn't very difficult but as he expected it was extremely fragile.
He was considering what to do until he remembered his experiments when making his utensils.
"If it's just mana it should work right? There shouldn't be any interference."
And with that he started to apply the structure of the Jin clan's golden body refining technique to the threads.