Chapter 195: The wonderful crafting session of a mischievous Shapeshifter and a crazy shadow. (part 1)

Chapter 194: The Wonderful Crafting Session of a Mischievous Shapeshifter and a Crazy Shadow (1)

How do you kill a corrupted Titan?

This is a question that had been asked by a lot of people throughout the history of existence, however only a few had been able to ask it in the war realm, and even fewer people had the answer.

Naturally, one would need something equal to it — a Transcendent Titan. But there was no such being in the war realm, as the noble creatures native to this realm either did not exist, or had gone extinct long ago.

The Transcendants of the waking world, on the other hand, could not defeat the Winter Beast. That was an undeniable fact.

Supremes, however, could — they were of a higher rank, and had the ability to bend the world to their wills, wielding their authorities like the gods themselves. Within the boundaries of their domains, they were invincible.

Hugo could imagine the King of Swords cutting the storm of the Winter Beast with a masterfully forged sword and destroying its core. He did not know much about the Ravenqueen or the hidden third supreme of humanity, so imagining their battle with the winter beast was not easy, but Hugo was certain that they could kill it.

Unfortunately the supremes were not willing to help, so Hugo had to do what the people of the early nightmare spell era did — he needed to get creative and find other ways of handling the situation.

Titans were mystical beings — unknown and vast, encompassing entire worlds within themselves. But their true power only revealed itself when they reached the Transcendent rank — or, in the case of nightmare creatures, the corrupted rank — and above.

To create something capable of damaging such a being, an extraordinary sorcerer is required.

And thankfully, there was two of them.

Hugo used his Ascended ability, and partially transformed his arm into that of Heatblast. He filled the forge with flames and brought out the materials he had acquired through his connections.

His own materials —Made by his imprints—were inefficient for the task at hands, so he had to call in some favors.

It was a wooden material, made from the leftovers of a frightening titan that had been killed by the King of Swords when he was conquering Bastion, two decades ago.

The materials seemed to be Transcendant in rank, which meant that the king of swords had somehow managed to kill a corrupted Titan as a saint...

’As excepted from a sovereign...’

He did not become supreme for nothing.

Hugo had actually gotten the materials from two sources. The first came from Nephis, who had direct access to Valor treasure houses; the second came from the waking world market and was delivered to him by a government agent in the chained isles.

Moreover, Hugo had returned to where he had defeated Goliath via his spirit body, and retrieved remenents of the stone titan’s body. They might have came from the body of a fallen Titan, but the stone held a mystical will stored within it, similar to the Heavenly Chains.

Now that he thought about it, the Heavenly Chains might have not held the will of a great god, but instead of a divine Titan, the daemon of hope — he had just been too inexperienced to realize it back then, but alas this was simply a theory.

This one, however, had a faint will related not to the unholy titan who gave birth to it but to Ariel himself, the daemon of truth.

It seemed like Ariel, much like his brother Nether, was fond of experimenting on creatures. The sinister daemon had done something to the stone titan, or to be specific to its body.

Goliath, being a minor shard of the stone titan, retained some of that influence.

’Who would’ve thought that I would benefit from something the daemon of dread did, thousands of years ago?’

He dismissed the upper part of the [Shroud of Graceless Dusk] due to the heat of the forge, and grabbed his crystal hammer.

Taking a look at Sunny, hugo said:

"Watch closely."

Hugo started by melting the materials to a certain degree — not enough to destroy them but just enough to make them workable.

"When working with materials from dead nightmare creatures, specifically carapaces, you need to soften them instead of melting them completely like metal."

Sunny nodded and watched the process for a few moments.

"How do you make sure they don’t lose their strength?"

That was an excellent question, as the corpse of a nightmare creature — or of any creature — was exactly as strong as the original soul had been.

This meant that the corpse of a Corrupted creature could be used to create artifacts of the Transcendent rank, and such artifacts could handle enchantments of that rank.

An artifact made from Ascended materials usually could not handle Transcendent rank enchantment, but in this case, Hugo had fused the carapace of a unique fallen Titan with that of a corrupted titan — making it strong enough to handle any enchantments.

What Sunny was asking, however, was how to melt those leftovers without losing their innate strength.

If the durability is lost, then the artifact would not be able to handle powerful enchantments.

Hugo thought about the question for a few moments, as he began hammering the softened materials and shaping them into a long, thick object.

"To be honest with you, I don’t know. In my own experience, I usually soften and melt materials using my own Abilities — that way I can soften them at the exact right temperature so that they don’t lose strength. But for other people, I’d recommend a heating memory. If that isn’t possible, then help from an expert fire-wielding aspect wielder is the next best thing. An appraisal-type memory would also help in determining whether the temperature is right or not, so if possible, you should craft or buy one." He passed for a few moments, enhancing his body with soul essence as he hammered the materials with more strength. "To do all of this without any mystical abilities, you’d need to be a great smith — a greater smith than me, at least."

"I see..."

Sunny watched him for a few seconds, his eyes locked onto Hugo’s body and carefully studying his movements. He was already using shadow dance to copy his crafting skills, the physical ones, at least.

"So to recap, you’re going to enchant this artifact, and then I will turn it into a memory?"

Hugo nodded as the materials finally took shape, becoming a long black javelin that was too heavy for any human to carry.

"Yes. My regular enchanting skills, even with Grey Matter involved, are nowhere near the level of a true spellsmith. Your weaving, on the other hand, matches a valor spellsmith’s and exceeds them, really. I’ve never seen one in practice, but from what I’ve read in Master Snow’s book on sorcery and blacksmithing, your raw magical ability is definitely superior."

Sunny raised an eyebrow.

"Who the hell is Master Snow?"

Hugo hammered the javelin once again.

"A very excellent Valor sorcerer and smith. I’m a big fan of his work, he even wrote a book about his craft." Wiping the sweat off his temple, Hugo smiled. "Actually, I heard he’s writing a second book, which I’m very excited for."

Sunny kept that in mind. Few Awakened ever shared their craft in this world, so learning from all those he could would certainly prove beneficial in the future.

The javelin’s main body was finally done, now it was time to craft the tip and butt of the object.

Hugo grabbed some of the raw materials, specifically the densest ones, and heated them.

After that, he hammered them once again to shape the objects, But just as he made another swing, the hammer suddenly shattered.

Hugo frowned.

"Shit."

His hand was slightly burnt by the forge’s fire but hugo quickly used his Ascended ability to fix it by adding Heatblast DNA to it.

Sunny give Hugo a disappointed look.

"Really? You don’t even have enchanted equipment? Why would you handle supernatural Abilities using a regular hammer?"

Hugo shook his head.

"It was a hammer created by an Ascended devil version of Diamondhead. I thought it would last longer but I was proven wrong."

Just as he was about to make a new one using Diamondhead, Sunny bent over and sunk his hands in the shadows.

A few moments later, he brought out a new hammer, onyx and dark, made from the shadows and manifested using his Ascended ability.

Quickly, he summoned a needle like memory, and two Ascended soul shards, and begun weaving the shadow object into a memory.

A few minutes later, the hammer broke and was reformed by sparks of essence, becoming a memory.

Sunny tossed it towards Hugo, and as soon as he grabbed it, he heard the voice of the spell:

[You have received a memory: Shadow Hammer.]

"Wow, how creative."

Sunny shrugged.

"Try it. I enchanted it with durability and heat resistance, although it’s just an Ascended memory of the second tier, so be gentle with it."

Hugo summoned the memory, and watched as the dark hammer manifested from dark sparks of essence instead of the usual white.

’So memories weaved by Sunny manifest as black... Interesting.’

He used shadow essence for them, naturally, so it made sense.

With his new tool on hand, Hugo returned to his work, spending thirty minutes working on the tip of the javelin and its butt.

Then, when he was done, he used his Ascended ability again and made water via Water Hazard, quenching the javelin.

"Alright, this is the important part."

Hugo grabbed the main body, the shaft, and asked sunny to cut a socket into the shaft’s end using his jade blade, which was Transcendent in rank.

As he watched him cut the socket, he frowned and said:

"What kind of memory is that?"

Sunny glanced at him, and for a brief moment Hugo felt as if the blade had a will of its own.

"It’s the memory I got from finishing off the remnants of the Jade Queen. A powerful sword, probably the strongest I’ve ever had, but it also has a sinister whisper that talks to me sometimes... Or to be specific, it drives me crazy."

"... Sunny, that’s not normal."

"What is even normal at this point? You can literally turn into aliens. Even if the things offered by the spell are weird, and downright dangerous, they’re still tools that should be used to their full potential."

Hugo agreed with the statement, despite the fact that he was still worried about the sinister natural of the blade.

It had a connection to the daemon of dread, after all.

’I should use my own advice too.’

He was still frequently using the [Promise of Falsehood], despite it being arguably more dangerous than the jade blade.

But if he was truly honest, Hugo was not worried about it.

He knew madness more than anyone else in this world. Every time he transformed, his flaw would twist his mind in unimaginable ways, breaking the confines of his consciousness.

Things that were immoral, repulsive and preposterous to others were second nature to Hugo when he was transformed — and echoes of that state remained with him even when he assumed his human form.

Sanity was an alien concept to noble creatures, at least to some of them, which also affected Hugo.

In the end, he came to a simple conclusion.

Whether he liked it or not, human morality only made sense when seen through a narrow worldview, that of a mundane human. It was not something that the gods — or non-humans — abided by.

The recent traumatic events had also made his human mind crumble slightly, but there was no time to worry about that.

Hugo grabbed the javelin and inserted the tip, before binding them together using sturdy webs created by Spider Monkey. He wrapped wet webs tightly around the joint.

As it dried, it shrank and locked the joint tight.

He melted the area around the web as well, making it even more connected.

And finally, Hugo repeated the same process for the butt of the javelin, which was only needed to balance it.

Finally done with his work, Hugo stepped aside from the forge and examined his creation.

The javelin was strong and mighty, made from materials left behind by two ancient titans.

Even without any enchantments, it radiated a unique aura.

Looking at Sunny, hugo asked:

"So, did you learn anything?"

Sunny nodded.

"Yes, I’ve mastered the principles... But aren’t we done here?"

Hugo raised an eyebrow.

"Done? Sunny, we barely even started. Don’t you remember the original design? And why I had even invited you, in the first place?"

Hugo gestured at the plenty of materials left, from Goliath and the other titan.

"Oh..."

"The artifact we’re making has seven individual parts, in other words seven javelins that are connected via mystical means. So, take off your shirt, and build three javelins like this, while I make the remaining two. We’ll share the work for the last one."

Sunny sighed deeply, and dismissed the upper part of the [Puppeteer’s Shroud], revealing his lean, muscular body that was perfectly sculpted, as if made of marble itself.

Hugo looked at him for a moment and wondered if a more feminine, yet somehow masculine, build could ever be achieved by anybody else.

Though the feminine features were definitely dominant, if he was being honest with himself.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Sunny said with a slightly uncomfortable look, as he took a few steps away from Hugo. "Listen, I don’t swing that way..."

Hugo looked at him dumbfounded.

"What? I’m not staring at you with sexual intentions! Just admiring your physique. Gods, why did you have to make it so awkward?"

"Sure... Whatever you say, buddy."

With that, Sunny quickly summoned an identical hammer memory, and started working on the javelin.

’He’s been hanging out with Effie too much...’

Hugo sighed and resumed his work.

The sound of hammer hitting a strong material resounded through the Ivory Tower, turning into a beautiful symphony.