Chapter 97: The Supreme Adept Set!

Damian stared at the new Optional Side Quest for several more seconds before rubbing his hands together eagerly.

"A full set, huh?"

Perfect!

That was already what he intended to make anyway, so the Dual-Realm Exchange System had basically looked at his plans and decided to hand him another cheat ability for completing them.

Truly, initiative should be rewarded more often!

Damian dismissed the screen and turned back toward the mountain of materials occupying his worktables.

First came the clothing, and this part actually required some thought.

Whatever Damian made could no longer be another loose Mage robe that looked wonderful while standing inside an Association Hall and became considerably less wonderful the moment somebody tried stabbing him.

He intended to fight physically, and that meant running, twisting, jumping, teleporting, using sword techniques and eventually Bladesinging.

A long slip-on robe flapping around his legs during all of that sounded like an excellent method of getting murdered by his own wardrobe.

On the other hand, Damian couldn’t simply manufacture leather armor, hide armor or start weaving metal plates into everything.

<Mage Armor> and several other magical protections were designed around clothing and Light Armor compatibility.

His own <Lightly Armored> Feat gave him much more freedom, but the entire point of this new set was to avoid forcing compromises between his Mage side and his physical combat side.

The clothing needed to remain clothing.

Extremely homicidal magical clothing, but clothing nonetheless.

Damian therefore cycled through the three designs he had prepared mentally.

The first was the Wandering Swordsman.

This was made up of loose combat trousers, layered cloth around the waist, sleeveless or lightly sleeved upper robes, reinforced boots and enough flowing fabric to make every sword swing look approximately thirty percent cooler.

It was very practical and very stylish.

Also...

It was far too casual.

"Next."

The second was the Master Cultivator.

This one was made up of beautiful brocade robes, overlapping fronts, long sleeves, fitted inner garments and enough elaborate embroidery that Damian would look like he owned three mountain peaks and had personally executed twelve arrogant Young Masters before breakfast.

He liked it.

He liked it a lot!

Unfortunately, the sleeves alone were already irritating him.

Damian imagined trying to manually cast <Fireball> while one expensive silk cuff attempted to slap him across the face.

"Nope."

That left the final design, The Supreme Adept.

Damian’s smile slowly widened.

The outfit was fitted without being skintight, consisting of a structured combat tunic over flexible trousers, both layered enough to remain unmistakably fantasy clothing while hugging the body closely enough that nothing would flap around during a sword fight.

The upper section crossed slightly over the torso before fastening securely along one side, while subtle layered panels protected the shoulders, ribs and waist without becoming actual armor.

A broad belt would eventually lock everything together and high boots completed the silhouette.

Damian nodded.

"Yeah."

It resembled the kind of battle robes an elite magical swordsman should wear if someone had taken a cultivator, an Adept Mage and an elite Jedi General, then thrown them into the same character creator.

Supreme Adept it was!

Now he just needed cloth capable of surviving his lifestyle.

Fortunately, Damian had purchased an utterly unreasonable quantity of magical textiles.

Giant Spider Silk provided excellent physical toughness while remaining ridiculously light.

Phase Spider Silk possessed spatial affinity and unusual resistance to dimensional interference.

Mana Silk conducted magical energy with extremely little waste.

Feysilk possessed excellent responsiveness to enchantment and a faint ability to recover from ordinary wear.

Shadowweave absorbed light, suppressed sound and naturally resisted magical observation.

Then came the elemental materials, which were Fire Salamander Fiber, Winter Wolf Fur, Storm Beast Wool, and several magically treated Acidic Slime Membranes converted into flexible alchemical thread.

Separately, each was useful.

Together?

Well...

That was what <Supreme Synthesis> existed for.

Damian started with upgrades.

Ten prepared bundles of Phase Spider Silk were placed together.

[10 × Phase Spider Silk detected.]

[<Item Upgrade> available.]

[Result: 1 × Astral Phase Spider Silk.]

Damian confirmed.

The bundles vanished before a single coil of pale silver-black silk appeared.

He picked it up.

"...Oh wow."

The difference was immediate.

Ordinary Phase Spider Silk possessed faint Ethereal characteristics.

This?

The thread almost seemed uncertain whether it completely occupied physical space.

It remained perfectly tangible beneath Damian’s fingers, yet his magical perception occasionally slipped across it before correcting itself.

Its spatial receptiveness and resistance were on an entirely different level.

Excellent!

Mana Silk became Arcane Mana Silk, capable of carrying substantially denser magical energy with almost no visible leakage.

Feysilk became Feyheart Silk, retaining its flexibility while gaining much stronger self-restorative characteristics.

Shadowweave upgraded into Umbral Shadowweave, becoming so absurdly good at swallowing stray light and magical signatures that Damian briefly misplaced a bundle sitting directly in front of him.

"...Okay, you’re definitely going into the hood."

Then came the elemental materials.

After individually upgrading them into their higher-tier equivalents, Damian placed portions together and activated free synthesis through <Item Production>.

[Compatible raw materials detected.]

[<Item Production> available.]

[Result: Prismatic Elemental Thread.]

A single shimmering thread emerged that was red, blue, silver, green, and then something between all of them.

The various elemental affinities no longer competed.

Instead, they flowed through one another, creating a textile reinforcement capable of accepting and dispersing several forms of elemental energy without any one affinity dominating the rest.

Damian’s grin widened.

Then he dealt with the base fabric.

Astral Phase Spider Silk + Arcane Mana Silk + Feyheart Silk + A carefully controlled portion of Umbral Shadowweave + Several Shengyuan spiritual fibers selected for their ability to channel Refined Qi.

And finally, Prismatic Elemental Thread.

<Item Production> activated again and the materials disappeared.

Several seconds later, a wide roll of black fabric appeared.

Damian touched it.

The cloth was ridiculously soft and lightweight, almost weightless actually.

Yet when he pulled hard enough to tear ordinary leather, nothing happened.

Mana entered one edge and flowed across the entire fabric naturally.

Then Damian fed a tiny amount of Refined Qi inside, and that worked too.

His eyebrows rose.

"Beautiful!"

The material was not merely enchanted Mage or Cultivator cloth anymore, it was a unique dual-realm textile!

Damian named it immediately.

"Aetherweave."

Simple and sexy!

Crafting the actual clothing after that though, was super boring!

It was all just cut fabric, shape fabric, reinforce seams, lay internal arrays, use Artifact Refining principles to establish energy pathways, use Talisman methods for several fine inscriptions, apply Valorian enchantment structures, adjust fitting, test mobility, fix mistakes, and repeat!

A few hours later, the Supreme Adept Battle Armor existed!

The Top and Bottom remained separate pieces, satisfying the quest requirement, but functioned as one complete system when worn together.

The Aetherweave allowed Mana and Refined Qi to circulate freely without obstructing spellcasting.

Prismatic Elemental Thread provided broad resistance against elemental damage.

Its spatial materials stabilized Damian during teleportation and made forced spatial displacement more difficult.

The Feyheart component slowly repaired minor damage over time while the Shadowweave elements reduced the amount of magical and spiritual presence leaking from his body.

Most importantly?

It was absurdly difficult to cut!

Damian approved!

The boots followed the same design language and used the same primary material, although Damian reinforced them specifically around the soles, ankles and calves.

He added balance formations, impact-distribution arrays and spatial stabilization inscriptions based around one specific annoyance he had noticed repeatedly.

Teleporting instantly was wonderful.

Appearing somewhere while already moving and immediately needing to fight?

Less wonderful.

The boots helped his body find balance after abrupt movement, sudden direction changes and spatial relocation.

They did not teleport him themselves as that would have been redundant.

They simply made Damian considerably less likely to appear after <Misty Step> and discover gravity had filed a complaint.

The final boots rose nearly to his knees, black like the outfit with subtle golden lines running along the reinforced edges.

Damian placed them aside.

"Three down."

Now came the headwear.

He considered a circlet.

"No."

A crown?

"Absolutely not."

A headband?

Meh, only Ike, Bardock or Wukong could wear it well.

A mask was tempting, but walking around constantly looking like he was preparing to assassinate the local Duke sounded annoying.

Then Damian picked up the Umbral Shadowweave.

"...Hood."

That solved everything.

The finished headwear took the form of a loose hood attached to a narrow mantle that could rest naturally around Damian’s neck and upper shoulders when unused.

When pulled over his head, however...

The fellow would become one of the Creed!

Thankfully, Umbral Shadowweave suppressed visual and magical signatures while Astral Phase Spider Silk distorted attempts to establish precise spatial targeting.

He also put in a concealment array that interfered with Spirit Sense, a Valorian anti-divination structure that resisted magical scanning and scrying, and several Shengyuan inscriptions disrupted spiritual probing.

Damian even layered the fabric around vulnerable sections of the skull with hardened Aetherweave, providing actual physical protection rather than merely making the hood mysterious.

He tested <Divine Sense> against it while holding the finished piece away from himself.

The hood resisted terribly, though not completely against Damian’s own superior <Divine Sense>, but enough that his grin became increasingly arrogant.

"Yeah, this is going to annoy people."

Perfect, heh!

............

Next came the five Accessories.

Damian refused to walk around looking like a jewelry merchant who had been robbed and decided to wear the recovered inventory.

It was down to one ring, one belt, two wristbands, and one amulet.

Done!

The ring became the Ring of Folded Horizons.

Phase Spider material, Blink Dog essence and several space-aligned Shengyuan minerals formed its foundation.

Its purpose was not storage, as Damian already had multiple storage solutions.

Instead, it stabilized spatial magic around him, improved his ability to establish safe teleport destinations and resisted hostile spatial interference.

More importantly, it gave his Grandmaster <Misty Step> yet another layer of compatibility.

The belt was considerably less subtle.

Damian synthesized several body-strengthening monster materials with Shengyuan earth-aspected resources and created something designed to reinforce physical output.

The resulting Titan Foundation Belt supported the waist, spine and core while enhancing the body’s ability to exert strength and endure physical strain.

It did not magically dump free Attribute Points into Damian.

Rather, it allowed the ridiculous physical Attributes he already possessed to be expressed more efficiently without his own body becoming the weakest link.

"Impressive, very nice!"

The wristbands came as twins, the Flowing Hand Bands.

They were a matched pair built from extremely responsive magical fiber and several Dexterity-oriented Beast materials.

They stabilized Damian’s wrists, fingers and forearms while subtly assisting precision movement like sword transitions, spell gestures, manual crafting, throwing, and fine motor control.

Everything involving his hands became smoother, which was exactly the kind of accessory Damian liked.

Finally came the amulet.

That one Damian handled differently.

He used sanctified Valorian materials, purified magical crystal and several spiritually receptive Shengyuan substances before constructing an internal pattern compatible with Divine authority.

The Amulet of the Living Word did not create Divine Spell Slots nor did it strengthen Lyla’s authority.

And it certainly did not somehow give Damian permission to modify Divine magic he barely understood.

Instead, it improved the clarity and stability with which Damian served as the point of invocation.

Cleaner transmission, less interference and better resistance against hostile forces attempting to disrupt Divine Spellcasting.

Damian held it up. "Remember kids, cheat responsibly!"

Nine pieces complete, and only one remained.

Damian’s smile disappeared, because this one mattered the most.

............

Ao Longtian’s remains emerged from System Space and Damian stood silently for a moment before beginning.

The Jiao’s scales formed the foundation.

Artifact Refining flames softened, purified and compressed the Semi-Divine Beast scales until their layered structure merged into a single dark metallic-blue substance.

Damian shaped that material into a long, elegant sword blade that was straight and double-edged, built for control rather than brute weight.

Ao Longtian’s bones became the internal hilt structure while his tendons were processed, strengthened and wrapped around the grip, creating a binding that felt almost alive beneath Damian’s hand.

Then Damian removed the Juvenile Dragon Heart he had purchased for five thousand Gold Coins.

"Finally!"

So this was why he bought the fucking thing!

While he hadn’t predicted finding a Jiao so easily, he had been intending to hunt one down by asking the Evergreen Sect and Azure Water Sect if any existed around, as Dragons were not so easy to find in Valoria compared to Shengyuan.

Ao Longtian’s blood poured into an alchemical vessel and the Juvenile Dragon Heart sank inside.

Bloodline energy immediately reacted and the heart absorbed the blood, changing and strengthening.

Damian used Alchemy to refine the resulting mixture into a thick crimson quenching medium carrying two distinct draconic inheritances.

When the sword emerged glowing from the refining furnace...

Damian plunged it inside.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

The entire crafting room shook as a distant roar echoed through the walls.

Ronan, standing outside, slowly turned toward Stella.

"...Did something just roar in there?"

Stella stared at the door. "I have learned not to ask."

Inside, Damian smiled.

Finally came Ao Longtian’s Dragon Pearl.

The dark-blue pearl settled directly into the center of the sword’s guard, where it could function simultaneously as a spiritual core, magical focus and energy regulator.

That location looked much better than the pommel anyway.

More importantly, the entire blade could route energy through it, whether it was mana, Refined Qi, elemental power, and even compatible spell structures.

Damian completed the internal Arrays, carved the final inscriptions and established compatibility with <Object Control>.

Then, he released the sword!

It did not fall, the blade floating casually in the air beside him.

Damian’s smile became enormous.

"Oh yeah!"

When his mind connected to it, the weapon answered thought almost instantly.

Forward, backward, rotate, rise, and return were all fluidly executed.

The draconic materials made the sword monstrously durable.

The Dragon Pearl improved energy conduction and allowed the weapon to act as a proper magical focus.

Ao Longtian’s bloodline gave it powerful affinity toward water and draconic energies while also carrying a natural oppressive presence toward lesser Beasts.

Its scale-forged edge was exceptionally effective against both physical protection and energy-based defenses.

Most importantly, the entire weapon had been designed around flight!

Even his Entry level <Object Control> moved it with noticeably less resistance than an ordinary flying sword.

Seven-Turn Sword Art could now be delivered through a weapon that did not necessarily need to remain inside Damian’s hand.

And if separated?

The blade naturally responded to his spiritual and magical signature, making recall absurdly easy.

Damian stared. "What do I even call you?"

The sword hovered silently in place, awaiting its master’s decision.

He thought of Ao Longtian.

Damian smiled faintly. "Fine then, you will be the Longtian Sword!"

Simple enough.

The sword vibrated.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

A low draconic rumble rolled through the room.

Damian’s eyebrows rose.

"...Guess you like it."

............

Then came the most important part, the fit check!

Damian stripped out of his Association robes and equipped everything.

Black Aetherweave trousers first, then the fitted Supreme Adept upper robe.

The fabric hugged his athletic frame closely without restricting movement, layering across his torso in overlapping black sections bordered by fine golden trim.

The shoulders remained structured but flexible, while the waist narrowed cleanly into the Titan Foundation Belt.

His boots rose beneath the trousers, black and streamlined with subtle gold tracing that only became obvious when magical energy flowed through them.

The two Flowing Hand Bands sat around his wrists like understated black-gold bracers.

One ring rested upon his right hand while the Amulet of the Living Word disappeared beneath his collar.

As for the hood?

When lowered, it sat loosely around Damian’s neck like nothing more than part of the robe’s upper layering.

Unless someone specifically looked for it, they might not even realize it could cover his head.

Damian walked toward the room’s mirror, then stopped.

"...Damn."

He looked good!

Black and gold fitted battle robes with no unnecessary flowing sleeves, no giant shoulder armor, and no ridiculous crown.

The overall silhouette carried the disciplined, martial appearance of an elite Jedi General’s battle robes, except rebuilt through Mage tailoring and Shengyuan artifact principles.

There was enough cultivator elegance to prevent it from looking like ordinary military clothing, while the magical details made it unmistakably Valorian.

Heh, if he stood next to Clone Wars Anakin, he might actually pass as the fellow’s Jedi partner!

Then Longtian floated into view beside him.

The sword’s dark metallic-blue blade reflected faint light while the Dragon Pearl glimmered within its guard.

Damian raised an eyebrow.

The Flying Sword rotated once, then smoothly crossed the room and secured itself against his belt.

Grrrrrrr...

The low roar of a Dragon accompanied the motion.

Damian stared into the mirror.

"...Yeah."

This fit was fucking hard!

Ding!

A familiar blue screen appeared.

[Optional Side Quest Completed!]

[A Creator’s Joy!]

[Objective: Create a complete set of equipment through your own abilities by crafting 1 Top, 1 Bottom, 1 Footwear, 1 Headwear, 5 Accessories, and 1 Weapon — Complete.]

[Reward acquired.]

[Special Power: The Divine Forge.]

Damian’s excitement immediately spiked.

Then another screen appeared.

[Special Power Acquired: The Divine Forge!]

[Description: The hands of a true creator are themselves a forge. Equipment personally conceived, crafted and perfected by the Host may now transcend the ordinary limitations of its constituent materials and crafting disciplines!]