I pouted at my pressganging into the Familia but even as Tsubaki clapped me on my back I just rolled my eyes. "Oh come on, you got your face squashed into some of the best tits in Orario and welcomed into the best Familia. If you still get a grudge after that I will kick your ass." She almost growled making me take a deep breath and shake my thoughts aside.
Sure getting all but abducted into a Familia without a Wargame or something was something... But in reality, Hephaestus's Familia was literally the best Familia for my growth, so their aggressive recruitment showed the value they put into me.
"Would you say that in front of the Loki and Freya Familia?" I said pointedly and Tsubaki scoffed.
"Hell yeah, I would! What can Freya going to do? 'mind fuck me' Yeah she will get blacklisted by all the smithing Familia's and then her psycho Familia will collapse within a year." Tsubaki all but sneered before shrugging.
"Anyway Lady Hephaestus, what's got you staring at his Falna paper like it stole your dinner?" Tsubaki called out shaking her goddess out of her reverie.
With a chuckle the forge goddess grabbed the thick paper and handed it over to me and I saw Tsubaki flex as though she considered taking it from me but instead, she got into my personal space with her large breasts pushing into my back so she could read over my shoulder.
Jake Barris
Level 1
Strength 0 I
Endurance 0 I
Dexterity 0 I
Agility 0 I
Magic 0 I
Skill-
Magic- Fusion Of All Things- Grants the user the control of a pocket space, the user may place things in the pocket space and when desires, he may activate the pocket space that will fuse all things within the space to make a single object that is better than all things that were in the pocket space prior put together. Pocket space will level up with more abilities with subsequent levels of Falna and accomplishing secret quests. Rank I
Reading through the Falna and more importantly the fusing skill I frowned a bit as I didn't know my actual pocket space could level up as well.
"So your alchemy isn't actually the process of alchemically turning one material into another but instead combining materials into one another and just getting the end result instantly?" Hephaestus spoke out while tapping her glove-clad fingers on her thick wooden desk.
"Could we try to fuse some coal, iron, and flux en-mass to make a bunch of steel?" I asked and she raised an eyebrow before nodding and standing up from her desk.
"Very well this could be a decent distraction from my paperwork, but have you thought about fusing magical materials directly into your weapons to make them better? Like drop items for example?" Hephaestus asked and as a result, I stepped away from the goddess.
"Yeah I made a spear with my fusion can I show you?" At the goddess's nod, I took my spear out of my pocket space and the goddess's face twitched as she saw the weird-as-hell-looking spear. "Instead of using a tiny Goblin fang or even a Kobold claw I instead just fused the entire corpse of the goblin without removing its monster stone into the spear," I explained and Hephaestus hummed in thought before she stuck out her hands.
"May I see it?" She asked and I handed over the spear without saying anything and for the next minute, she inspected the spear, running her hand down the fur lining the handle of the haft of the spear while also flicking the blade of the spear.
"Although a part of me decries your easy method of smithing in only mentally creating the weapon in the magical process of its creation but, I can still see the heart and intent of creation within the spear and other things you have made. So I cannot judge your actions as being impure or merely an end to meet... Anyway, although your idea of fusing the whole corpse of a goblin is, in fact, more efficient, fusing the goblins fang or a kobolds claw would do more for your weapon as those drops are basically the entire monster's combined essence and more inside the monster drop." Hephaestus explained and I nodded.
"But of course not all if actually even half the monsters you may kill will actually drop such drops so that's why your plan to fuse the whole monster corpse as well as the monster stone is likely better for the weapon in the short run typically," Hephaestus explained before Tsubaki grinned.
"But here in the Hephaestus Familia, we always have some monster drops, especially monster drops from the upper floors as the Guild barely gives people a pittance for them and that's why most adventures rather turn the monster drops to Familia's as quests due to the Guild acting as a middleman and only paying them a small cut." Tsubaki continued and Hephaestus nodded in agreement as we walked towards the smithing section of the Hephaestus Familia's mansion.
Once we got into the smithing section my face twitched at the obvious disuse of the place and Hephaestus explained how the smiths of her place typically had their own houses and setups with how they always made a large amount of money from selling their weapons and her low-level smiths were typically working as apprentices for those higher level smiths and even living with them so the smithing stations here at the Familia base didn't really see much use.
"Alright so just use this iron ore, coal, and the scrap steel we got left over to see what happens," Tsubaki said as she leaned against the door of the shop to keep it closed so I went about throwing a bunch of hunks of the materials she listed into my pocket space while keeping my spear out of it so the materials wouldn't fuse into it.
With a mental order to the pocket space it rumbled within my soul and in a couple moments, I saw all the ore, coal, and other stuff Tsubaki had me place into it had turned into a large ingot of metal.
"Uh, it turned into a large ingot of metal," I said and went over, and with a mental flex the large ingot that weighed a couple hundred pounds dropped with a clang onto an anvil and the girls began inspecting it.
The two smiths began muttering as they tapped it with little hammers, flicking it with their nails or in Tsubaki's case weighing it in her hands.
"Whelp I can confirm that it is indeed a pretty standard bar of decent steel. Now let's test what happens when we add some drop items to it and Jake make sure it comes out as another huge ingot... I want to see if I can mass produce some carving knives for the Loki Familia supporters Hehe." Tsubaki cackled as she ran to a store room while Hephaestus sighed and looked at me with a wry smile.
"You have either made the greatest ally in Orario or you may have just gotten married without noticing... Good luck Jake Barris, I wish you the best of luck." Hephaestus said smiling as she patted me on my shoulder and then with another mutter about paperwork that doesn't wait for anyone she left the smith having satisfied her curiosity at the moment.
But damn... The memes about Hephaestus and her leather pants were underselling just how they clung to her heart-shaped behind that was seemingly sculpted by all her smithing, so it was a pleasure to see her go before I got shaken out of my thoughts as the door to the store room was kicked back open by Tsubaki who was walking in with a literal pile of large bone like things.
"Alright Jake, fuse these bones from some Spartoi into the ingot to see what happens." She said excitedly dumping the pile in front of me and I went ahead and did so and once again she began inspecting the ingot before cackling madly in wild cheer.
"Haha, Hephaestus was right! It kept the Spartoi's enhanced durability at its core and such Haha!" Tsubaki's single eye snapped to me with a mad glint as she obviously considered how she could 'ensnare' me into her service but I bluntly spoke.
"No Tsubaki... I need to kill monsters in the dungeon to get stronger." I said bluntly and she sagged before shrugging.
"Ehh that's fine if you fuse me a couple of things a day and thus save me hours of work that's perfect. But Hephaestus as a rule only will update a member's Falna if they complete a decent weapon or otherwise once every other week." At my look of denial, she said lightly. "Jake, this is one of the top Familia's of Orario, she has hundreds of other people to update, so until you show more than just potential and save us time in making some stuff you need to level up if you want to dictate terms and such," Tsubaki said lightly and I grunted in understanding and pushed down my indignation.