Spearing further suspense, Tetsu fills in the information with a mental command and identifies his latest creation.
[Ding! You have found a 'Split Artifact' Rejuivestaff talcostum: Any attack from a level one beast can break the artifact into pieces. Boo ho! This is my first creation. Deal with it. Also, because I can't make this mine by binding it to my soul, guess what? So can't you? Whoever picks it can use it. You better have a firm grip, bitches. #Self-repair #Restore Mana/health. #Initiate #Inferior #Requires a darn good grip. Level: Initiate. Rarity: Inferior.]
"What's split...?"
[Segments: 04/04.]
"Oh, that solves that!"
Tetsu double-checks the overlap in information.
"I didn't know my screen would show the level and rarity independently." Tetsu removes two hashtags. "Better?" He shrugs in doubt. "Why doesn't it show my exceptional self-repair thingy?"
Tetsu tries to probe the description further and finds hidden features within the description.
"What is this?"
He thinks of clearing the blur, masking the description, and it unveils itself.
"Wow..."
[Ding! A new creation has been made. Class: The Artificer received bonus points for a new creation. Level: Initiate --> 14% <--]
"Not this one." Tetsu scrolls lower. "I love it, but still."
[Ding! Skill: Artifact Prober is available: Artifacts are known to be at the peak of creation. Yet every artifact has an obvious weakness, for every power has a limit. With a keen eye and a skeptical approach toward every aspect of luck and life, you have found the hidden clause that always comes at the end to bite you in the ass. Discover every hidden aspect of the artifact with Artifact Prober. Keep an eye on improvement and an eye on its limit. Level: Initiate. Rarity: Uncommon.]
Not dwelling on how? Tetsu accepts the skill and uses it to uncover the hidden description.
"Wait! I've seen this before."
~ (Hidden stats:
Any attack of Fort (>5) can break the artifact beyond recognition. Fire-based skills: @Initiate. Level: 01. Can disintegrate the artifact. Mana and health regeneration are calculated by the level of the user (LU) multiplied by Power output (PO) divided by Regen (R) and the entire sum multiplied and divided by Atmospheric mana (AM) and State of the user (SoU).
MH Regeneration = R (LU×PO) × AM × SoU1
Restoration of the artifact is calculated by: the number of segments available (NSA) multiplied by damage percentage (DP), divided by mana output (MO) multiplied by Atmospheric nature mana (ANM).
Restoration = (MO×ANM) (NSA×DP). ~
"You had to bring back math, didn't you?"
This was also all the information Tetsu ignored during the artifact diagnosis.
"Got the skill because of my hate for the skill." Tetsu pats himself on the back. "Sometimes bad luck is good luck in disguise."
Tetsu uses his skill over the first artifact he ever found. Okay, okay, stole.
{Partial shell of Verdant Willbloom Staff.}
A quick info on the partial shell part of the description told Tetsu partial shell meant partial shell.
"How helpful." He sighs and uses the skill over his pants. "Oh, fuck no."
[Skill failed: Higher-level artifact found. Can't probe through.]
A simple yet devastating notification left Tetsu in tatters. He didn't mind the limitations. In fact, he already guessed such a limitation would be a possibility.
The part that ripped his heart out and stomped it into a paste is the fact that he knew who made the darn artifact.
A dumb jelly outdid him and with relative ease.
What, it took her half an hour? And all it did was eat and spit its own fucking body out. Given it's super powerful, but still... This is unacceptable.
Tetsu turns around, pointing the artifact at RJ, in a fencing stance.
"Are you ready to face my wrath?" He asks her with a frown.
RJ tilts her head at him. With a squint, she identifies the stick in Tetsu's hand, opens her eyes wide in shock, and snaps at the other end of the stick.
With overwhelming stats, she sucked in the entire artifact. Tetsu didn't even have time to comprehend what the fuck happened.
It took but one gulp and the artifact swept into the rhino's mouth and broke into tiny pieces.
The runes lost their sparkling golden tint.
Parts of the stick cracked, then broke and later dissolved into her gelatinous body.
Tetsu lept forward, only to smash into the invisible shield.
"Where did this come from?"
He crawls over the shield like a lizard. No matter which direction he chose, he stayed on top of the invisible shield, witnessing his precious creation being devoured.
"Stop eating every fucking thing." He yells.
Tetsu pounds over the shield, only damaging his health pool.
[Ding! Skill: Sacrificial Fist....]
"Eh! Fuck off." Tetsu shoves his notification away.
In less than a minute, Tetsu went from the happiest person in the incubation ground to the most miserable one.
And it had nothing to do with him losing his first accomplishment.
{Dumb fucking gluttonous jelly: Level: 08}
The bottomless rhino grew a level by simply consuming his useless artifact.
Tetsu was certain it had to do with his crappy artifact. She leveled up just yesterday and based on how her levels slowed down from four to five, Tetsu was one hundred percent sure that his worthless piece of stick helped her grow a whole freaking level.
Whereas his stupid ass is stuck at level one for some fucking reason. Even the narcissistic sage leveled up by his efforts and by doing nothing and now this fat rhino leached off of him.
"I give up." Tetsu slides off the rhino's shield and crashes to the floor.
This next scene is weird! One might call Tetsu a moron, but he prefers the term optimistic. If the rhino can eat an artifact and level up out of the blue, so can he.
Tetsu completed his second artifact within the hour. He already knew how to and his improved stats, a blueprint based on his previous attempts, and his smoke orb returning from the bottomless pit of a hell hole which is RJ's stomach, also helped a lot.
With such miniscule progress, Tetsu couldn't stroke his ego to celebrate. After an 'eh' of disappointment, he redid the paperwork. This time, however, he dropped all the systems diagnostics into the description, named it XYZ, and selected the transferable bond.
Hoping to test his luck and making sure the damn glutton didn't leach off of him anymore.
Tetsu pushes his mana into the artifact. Now the system will do its thing and it will belong to him until he says otherwise.
[Warning! Artificer class will be lost if you bind any other artifact. Do you wish to bind the artifact?]
[Y/N]
"Of fucking course!" Tetsu turns to RJ. "Aren't you the lucky one?"
He didn't even have a way to change things after the final confirmation. Good thing the system used security prompts for people like him.
The one lucky break he was bestowed by, came to bite him back in the ass. Not only this, but it did not permit Tetsu to use any other artifacts whatsoever. A trade or balance created by the system or his terrible luck to fuck him over.
Nitpicking at the silver lining, this meant he could someday find or create a super-powerful artifact and choose to use it by losing his class. His pants, being a gift or a higher craftsmanship, bypassed this rule.
Maybe because he already had it before attaining the class, so he got to keep it. His silver lining had so many holes that they were more of a silver question mark.
RJ ignores the childish tantrums and approaches Tetsu. Her invisible shield was ever present between them. After all, she is way smarter than him.
Artifacts were hacks for her race. A hack that is super impossible to get and the easiest way to put a target on their back.
She didn't know the exact details, having slept during most of her debriefings, but her mom warned her many times.
Never eat artifacts in front of anyone, even other Gemhides.
Unlike the dumb human, she was smart and understood everything. The repetitive warning made her drowsy, but she understood.
She still remembered her mom's eyes reflecting death. A terror she could never remove or begin to comprehend.
Only their chief held a strong enough gaze to continue this forbidden tale. Artifacts are our clan's forbidden fruit. A fruit that can level us to the peak of creation but a small misstep can also wipe our race from existence.
I say bring it. Everyone already hounded us for our molds. If they want a fight. A fight they shall get.
RJ fixes her onto Tetsu.
At first, she assumed he found an artifact. She did him a favour and took it from him.
He will die soon and this weak artifact can never save him. On the other hand, if she has to protect him, an extra level and more stats are welcomed.
Let's call this his payment.
The humans cried and begged, but that wasn't anything new. But the dumb humans making another artifact.
Now that's news.
He might be a good pet, after all.
Darn it! She pissed him off.
Now she has to make it up to him and protect him until he levels up. With him as her slave, she can feed her entire clan with artifacts and become the face of their uprising.
The Gemhides will claim their place in the new multiverse.
RJ's tail wags out of some weird reflex while her eyes scan her second target.
Tetsu's second artifact.
Lumps of jelly drip out of her mouth as her stomach rumbles for more power.
Tetsu imagined a cute puppy lore. He just had to gouge out her eyes and she could pull it off.
He tosses her the second artifact. "Enjoy..." he starts.
Before he can complete his sentence, RJ swallows, digests, and levels up.
"Someone kill me already." Tetsu groans.
Tetsu crashes to the floor and lets the floodgates lose. He cries and groans crawling toward his coffin. A semi-constructed coffin he wished he had never broken out of.
He crawled half the way, moped for a while, then pushed his ass to move again.
Tears poured out of his sockets like a fountain as he slowly chewed three more pieces for the third artifact.
With tears as a side dish and lubricant, he chewed on his latest creation. He skipped three notifications, as they had nothing to do with his current experiments.
In the end, the charcoal shards burnt their way down. Now that he thought about it, maybe he should've eaten the bottom part first or not eaten them at all.
All out of tears. His torn, bloody mouth took over, pushing the remaining fragments of wood into his stomach.
"I should make a rune for flavour." He shelves another experiment and checks his status.
Level one.
"One more?"
Thanks to the 'Craftsman' title and his tracer skill, his teary vision didn't obstruct the creation of his fourth identical artifact.
This one had a better build. Except for that, every other aspect, even its description, resembled his first artifact. The only changes were its name and the conditional bond where the user had to be human to use the artifact.
Now at least the mind tree can't steal his artifact from him, like he stole from it.
He had to take out his frustration on someone, and who better than a tree that tried to bury him alive?
He turns to face RJ again. The rhino can still eat it, though.
[Ding! You have found a 'Split Artifact' Eh... A Stick: Any attack from a level one beast can break the artifact into pieces. Boo ho! This is my first creation. Deal with it. Also, because I can't make this mine by binding it to my soul, guess what? So, can't you? Whoever picks it can use it. You better have a firm grip, bitches. # Self-Repair #Restores Mana/health. #Requires a darn good grip. Level: Initiate. Rarity: Inferior.]
Yet another memory shared between him, the tree, and a greedy rhino. For the rest of the world, this won't be known as Tetsu's first artifact. Once he creates a legendary artifact, that will be known as his first.
For now, no matter how absurd it seemed, a rhino ate his hard work, and he had no fucking way to prove it…!
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