109: A Slightly-Powerful Ring

The first thing that needed to be made of the new set weren’t the tools, but rather the equipment. Something that Eris could wear to give herself a benefit no matter what she was making- regardless of the specialization of crafting it required. Something that worked for Metalsmithing and Weaving and Alchemy alike.

She set out for two rings- both made of silver and palladium. Two chain bracelets also made of that combination, a set of earrings once again made from that combination, and even a new pair of goggles to replace the Ophthalmic Quadfocals she disintegrated worth just over three hundred Magic Power. Sure, she could potentially wear a ring on every single finger and toe she had, and have bracelets wrapping all up her arms and legs, but too many magic items being used at once tended to clash and diffuse the power of each other. The more magical stuff someone wore at a time, the less powerful each one became individually- especially in the case of identical jewelry.

According to research, one piece of a kind of jewelry was the most efficient, but two was technically stronger. Anything more than that, and things started to actually go backwards in terms of power output. Azris was more than strong enough on its own, Eris diluting it by trying to wear a second necklace would definitely make things worse. Therefore that brought down the list of equipment to be made just slightly. Two rings, two bracelets, two earrings. Eris could make that easily.

The silver was needed to increase the attunement to a Mind stat modification, allowing Eris to give herself equipment that would both increase the capacity and regeneration of the Mana she had- the only crafter in the world capable of using the resource.

The palladium was much more straightforward, since it had a high attunement to most of the crafting stats, such as Craftsmanship and Control, but also Crafting Potency and Speed along with each of any of the specific specialization variants of those two modifications. The only thing it didn’t account for was Crafting Durability or Duration, but a little bit of lead actually helped to shore up that side of things.

Thanks to the many gifts from other crafters, as well as the Syndicate seeming to bend over backwards for her every need, any material Eris called out for was almost immediately retrieved by Grace who seemed all too eager to help. Tatum had gone back to her own workshop, given that most of the discussions had ceased, as well as Bailey, though the two could not have been doing more different things.

Tatum was crafting away, making whatever glass potion vials or clay pots or runic gemstones she needed.

Bailey, on the other hand, was clearing out her shop.

Every few minutes, the blonde would come back to Eris’s shop with a wagon filled with tools and beakers and burners and graduated cylinders and cauldrons and ladles and gods-know-how-many other things as Bailey emptied out her livelihood.

All to bring to Eris so that it could be disintegrated.

It was the sad smile on Bailey’s face the entire time that was truly heartbreaking. No matter how much she said that she was okay with it- that she had done everything she needed to do as a crafter and a researcher- Eris could see the pain. Bailey was mourning the loss of her class and her powers, now more than ever. Not having them for the weeks in the Obelisk was one thing, but emptying out her shop was the equivalent of digging the hole to bury everything she’d spent the last few years making for herself.

She must have been truly devastated, since she didn’t even slap Eris’s ass anytime she walked past. She just gave that sad smile and moved on.

Eris, meanwhile, had to focus on her crafting. Not the actual crafting itself, since the crafting trance took over to make the process almost completely automatic, but rather the far-more-complicated-than-last-time process of delegating her many Crafting Points.

Gently tapping the heated silver of the first ring with a hammer made the metal bend in the exact ways that Eris wanted. Every tap did the perfect amount of manipulation- so much that Eris found herself being forced to slow down just so she had a bit more time to work out the math in her head of how to apply her CP.

She was using Masterwork, and could feel the vibrating tingle almost like a buzzing in her fingers while she worked. At the same time, the pink strings dangled free, wrapping through and around the silver metal to make a tangled mess that Eris found no difficulty working through.

One stat modification normally, with two extra from Masterwork, and one extra from the first-level variant of Exhibition Efficiency on her previous tools. Likewise, one Lust enchantment naturally from imbuing the ring with Lust, and two more enchantments from Masterwork. She could feel the enchantments in her Malleable Arcana calling out to her, reaching to be used, but not all of them. Some of them were pulling away, a clear indication that they weren’t meant to be used on a ring. Namely, the ones that seemed to be specific to a tool itself, such as Severance or Protective Varnish.

Well, two free enchantments, and one free Lust enchantment. Skilled and Precise were no-brainers. Four extra ranks in her Craftsmanship and Control stats were way too good to pass up. And the free Lust enchantment Eris could direct towards being Exhibition Efficiency, since it was upgraded and even stronger now.

Eris paused.

Or… she could just spend the CP to force Exhibition Efficiency and see if she ends up getting a different, also powerful random Lust enchantment…

Fuck it.

Ten points went into placing the enchantment as a guarantee on the item, and Eris couldn’t really describe it. It was a fuzziness in the ends of her fingers as the enchantment inserted itself, with the energy of Lust seeming to reshape itself in a new form, ready to make a new, sexy enchantment when the item was done. A simple test proved that Eris couldn’t put the enchantment a second time, nor could she do the same with the ones she was intending for Masterwork. It seemed that, unlike stat modifications, each enchantment could only be applied on a given item once.

With that said, and no other enchantments she needed to bother with for this first item, that finished that portion of figuring things out. Ten points spent on a single skill meant Enhanced Crafting Points gave her eight more to spend anywhere else. Obviously, those went into Excellence. Potency was king, no other way about it.

Four free stat modifications, and each one could only be applied twice. Eris could practically see the list in her mind of everything that was available to her, which was almost everything on the list she already had and upgraded. However, there were new ones. More combat-oriented ones like Mind, Magical Power, Magical Defence, Dexterity, and even Tenacity. That one was probably from the little bits of lead in the ring. Regardless, Eris focused.

Two modifications of Craftsmanship and two in Crafting Potency for the three freebies. Now was where her budget came in.

Twenty points for two modifications of Control. Twenty points for two modifications of Crafting Speed. Ten points for just one each of Crafting Durability and Duration. She needed to conserve her points after all just in case she didn’t have enough. Twenty for two modifications of Mind.

Going over the math again, Eris saw she had used ninety of her one-twenty-five limit on Crafting Points, excluding the free ones she got thanks to the secondary effect of Enhanced Crafting Points. Likewise, that meant she had all seventy-two of those free points dumped into Excellence, and she ideally wanted as close to half of her two-twenty-five effective total all put into the skill to maximize the Potency as far as she could get it. Well, she still had thirty-five more natural points to spend, which meant three more possible stat modifications on a rapidly shrinking list of available options. Her earlier conservation of points proved unneeded, and Eris put another ten points each for a second modification of both Crafting Durability and Duration.

With just fifteen points left and reasonably under her limit of half points or less, Eris put all of them into Excellence with the twelve extra from that then being put into the yet-neglected Unbroken. Just as an afterthought, Eris began using Artificer’s Grace and let her mana flow into the item as yet more Crafting Points.

Five went into Excellence, naturally putting four more into Unbroken. Then another five did the same. Then another five? Since when did Eris have that much Mana? It had just been ten points’ worth previously, and she wasn’t wearing any items that gave a bonus to her Mind stat, so-

Oh right, she levelled up. And that increased her Mind stat, naturally making her have more Mana, and thus more Crafting Points. As it turned out, it seemed like her natural pool of regenerating Mana equated to about twenty CP instead of ten, so that meant twenty points in total added to Excellence and eighteen to Unbroken.

And that was everything, which Eris was thankful for because her head was starting to hurt a bit from the math. With a final touch of her fine-point graver chisel to finish the engraving, Eris watched the pink strings of light all tighten around the ring like it were trying to strangle it completely. Once they faded and left behind a silver band wrapped with palladium calligraphy and a single lead accent almost like an embedded gemstone, Eris was able to look over her work, giving just a few cosmetic tweaks with Obfuscation. ‘Multi-metal Ring of Crafting’ just wasn’t a cool name in the slightest.

Kadell’s Virtue

Durability: 100%

Magic Power: 4,613

A powerful ring, designed only for the best of crafters. Imbued with the essence of Lust. Created by Eris Kadell. Made from silver, palladium and lead.

Provides a Minor boost to Craftsmanship. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to Control. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to Crafting Speed. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to the Potency of crafts. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to the Durability of Crafts. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to the Duration of Crafts. (2)

Provides a Minor boost to Mind. (2)

Additional effect: Skilled

While worn, the user’s Craftsmanship stat increases by 4 ranks.

Additional effect: Precise

While worn, the user’s Control stat increases by 4 ranks.

Additional effect: Exhibition Efficiency

While the user is nude and wearing this item, any crafts made by the user gain 3 additional stat bonuses of the user’s choice upon completion. Does not apply if nobody observes the user’s nudity for the majority of the crafting process. Crafting equipment, protective equipment, jewelry and body ornaments do not count against Exhibition Efficiency.

Additional effect: Clarity

While the user is wearing this item and achieves orgasm during the process of crafting, the crafted item has its Quality increased by 50%.

Eris lifted the ring from the table and smiled. “Now that is a damned ring.”

For her part, Grace was staring at it with wide eyes and her jaw practically on the floor. “That… that is unbelievable.”

“Yeah, and now I’m gonna use it to help me make four more pieces of jewelry exactly like it but stronger. Then I’m gonna use all those to help me make a ridiculous pair of goggles, and then I’m going to use all of them together to make all of my tools.”

“Do the enchantments stack with each other?” Grace asked almost breathlessly. Gods, she looked like she was on the verge of drooling. Eris chuckled.

“I’m pretty sure they do. Which means that after I make the rest of the equipment and I’m wearing it all, it presumably means that my Craftsmanship and Control stats would both be increased by… twenty-eight ranks.”

Grace furrowed her brow. “What would that even go to?”

Eris shrugged, then held up her fingers. “Well, Craftsmanship is a C+ right now, so three ranks brings it to B+, then three more for A+.”

“Which is theoretically the highest possible rank for a stat,” Grace muttered. Eris nodded.

“Yeah, which also means we’re gonna be diving right into uncharted territory… again. So whether I’m gonna get maxed out, or I’m gonna have an ‘A’ in my Craftsmanship stat with twenty-three plus marks after it, or if there’s some other method of calculation, we’re gonna find out pretty damned soon. Though, that’s not even the most interesting part of stacking enchantments.”

Charlotte piped up from the side of the room. “It’s not?” Eris smiled towards her.

“Not a chance. If all these stack together when I wear them, I would get twenty-five stat modifications for free which I’m not even sure I can physically use that many. I mean, this ring has fourteen and that was already covering literally every useful stat mod for a generalist bonus, twice. On top of that, all of the tools I make with those items would have a guaranteed Quality bonus of at least three hundred and fifty percent if I take a short sex break in the middle of each.”

Charlotte went pink. “What?”

Eris felt herself blushing too, but the excitement was also taking over. She gently slid the ring onto her finger, feeling the flush of warmth through her veins and shuddering with new power. It was almost a shame. If she had more time, she could disintegrate this one to learn both the Mind stat modification as well as that new enchantment, buff both up, then make an even more powerful version, likely with a new Lust enchantment she could then learn and buff, then do it again and again and again. However, there simply wasn’t that time right now. Eris would make this set of tools, then after making all of the equipment for Jaxie and the others (and draining a bunch of old artifacts with who-knows-what-kind of enchantments), Eris would use these tools to make a brand new, even more powerful set. Then use that to make new equipment for the combatants, then make a new set of tools, and so on and so forth.

Eris stretched her arms out above her head, arching her body and making a half-erect member bounce between her legs. She peeked out at the two ladies in the room.

“Yeah, a sex break. And if Bailey doesn’t happen to come back after I start making this next ring, that means one of you is going to need to take her place. Any volunteers?”