Quickly deactivating the crystal, Emily returns to her desk. She pulls out one of the water crystals, along with a new colle tray, and follows the same process as before to engrave the activation rune. After crumbling the first gem due to using slightly too much mana, she looks at her system mana and maa values before deg to meditate for a while.

  Filling up her resource reserves swiftly thanks to the Teancer’s Breath’s increased efficy, she soourns t crystals. This time she succeeds with the water crystal on her first try. She moves back to the steam geor to test, pg the water crystal into the tre of the empty water tank and activating it.

  The moment she does, water pours out of the crystal, quickly filling the tank. Realising a slight problem, she reaches her arm through the water to deactivate the crystal before the tank overflows.

  I should modify this geor first.

  Making a quick decision, Emily turns around and walks back to her desk again. Turning her notebook to a bnk page, she begins drawing up blueprints.

  After a short while of nothing but the sound of a quill scratg on paper, Emily looks at the blueprint before her in satisfa.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Blueprint created: Steam Source {Gen.0}

  [Steam Source {Gen.0}]

  [Type:] Magic Steam Geor

  [Tier:] 1

  [Rank:] F

  [Description:] A simply remodelled steam geor running on mana crystals.

  [Effect:] When activated, gees steam

  _____

  It’s not E-rank, but it will do for now.

  Standing up, Emily grabs the k of white iron from the drawer and takes it to one of the new maes, a rge block of iron with an exposed jagged bde suspended vertically in the tre. Leaving the white iron on the mae’s cutting ptform, Emily quickly moves to the steam geor, opening the heating chamber and reag in to activate the fire crystal within. The moment it activates, she retracts her hand and shuts the chamber, watg the heat and pressure readings increase in the system.

  Returning to the rge mae again, she reaches for the steam valve on the back to turn it on before pausing. Turning around, her gaze falls on the mass in her bed, rising and falling in a slow rhythm.

  She slept through a hacksaw, but it’s probably mean to test her with a bandsaw.

  Turning off the steam geain, she sheepishly returns to the bandsaw to take the white iron back. As she reaches out to take the metal though, a thought occurs to her so she tinues moving past it and pces her hand on the bandsaw.

  Releasing a spark of maa, a familiar e forms with the saw, and a full three-dimensional breakdown of its internal ws quickly settles in her mind. Looking at the delicate mix of gears as within, Emily decides to memorize the mae's blueprint for future reference, and the moment she does, a system window pops up.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  Blueprint created: Steam Bandsaw

  [Steam Bandsaw]

  [Type:] Tool

  [Tier:] 1

  [Rank:] F

  [Description:] A basidsaw powered by steam

  [Effect:] When activated, cuts through any material held to the bde.

  _____

  ve, it seems to respond to my will with blueprint creation sidering I didn’t get the elevator blueprierday. I should take a trip into maeworks at some point and take ss of all the tools there, maybe reset afterwards so I don’t have to expin anything to Ed.

  With this thought in mind, she happily moves around the room, taking ss of all her new maes and saving their blueprints for future use and modificatioling back at her desk after, Emily opens her notebook to another bnk page and lifts her quill.

  Now, time to create my masterpiece!

  Filled with excitement, she pulls on her ideas from her trip to the city the day before, and her new bank of knowledge from the maes in her room, to start drawing a new blueprint. Several hours ter, after agonising over the design and evearting several times, she’s left with a pleased grin and a new blueprint sat iebook before her.

  It’s not perfect, but for a first prototype, it’s good enough! I should be able to get it done in time for my css tomorrow if I work fast.

  Cheg the time, she sees there are still a few hours left till Juliana should be waking up for breakfast. Unwilling to disturb her sleep, Emily settles on the floor at the end of the bed and falls into the spellweave.

  ***

  A couple of hours ter, Emily returns to her room aloer breakfast, having told her friends she will be unavaible till tomorrow m.

  “Right, time to get to work!” she excims excitedly while casting her gaze across the new maes waiting to be used.

  She turns oeam geor and grabs the white iron, taking it to the bandsaw. Finally flipping open the valve on the back of the mae’s body, the suspended bde tears into motion. Carefully, Emily raises the white iron to the bde and slowly pushes it through, cutting off a thin strip. After pg down the remaining hunk of metal, she splits the strip in half widthways and then turns the saw off.

  She moves to another mae, this one appearing like a miniature workbench with a rge abrasive disk jutting halfway out. Twisting the valve at the back of the mae, Emily watches the disk spin to life. Pg one of the metal strips onto the metal surfa front of the disk, she slowly presses it against the disk, watg as the uneven edges are quickly cut away to reveal a smooth, squared side. She repeats this four times, making the strip into a cuboid, before angling the metal and sanding the end down into a point.

  After doing the same with the other strip, she shuts off the steam valve and moves back to the geor, taking a handheld drill from uhe workbench with her. She ects the drill’s steam hose to a barbed fittio the geor and lowers it to the tre of the heating chamber before pausing.

  If I try to drill into the chamber without lubrit, I’ll kill my drill bit.

  She quickly closes the valve ected to the drill and opens the heating chamber. Reag in through the intense heat within, she deactivates the fire crystal and removes it from the chamber. Leaving the chamber open to cool down, she moves up to the water tank, removes the crystal within, and drains all the excess water.

  After cheg the steam gauges for their pressure and finding it high enough to use her drill still, Emily quickly weaves her hands together, casting the grease spell. Only supplying a small amount of mana, she just coats the bottom of the tank with the liquid before ending the spell. Satisfied with her preparations, she turns the drill ba and carefully drills a hole through the tank to the front face.

  She repeats this in the heating chamber, then she collects a set of files and carefully files the hole into matg the shape of her two white iron nails. Sliding one of the nails into the hole and nodding in satisfa at the snug fit, Emily moves to grab welding tools as a thought occurs.

  I use fire magic to weld?

  Happy to test her theory, she holds the nail in with one hand while slowly drawing burning hands’ magic circle with the other. As the spell activates, she focuses it pletely on one hand, managing to prevent the other from igniting at all. Raising her e glowing hand, she carefully traces the e between the nail and the geor with rapt attention, smiling as she sees the metals quickly fuse, f a seal.

  Perfect! It looks like the straal-eating properties of my mental image affected the properties of my spell without ao ge the magiu!

  She quickly moves to the sed nail before her spell runs out, firmly seg it in pce as well. Finally, she repces the fire crystal in the heating chamber with the activation rune fag down, toug the point of the metal nail. Then oside of the chamber, she expetly sends a spark of mana through the nail.

  To her relief, the crystal iivates instantly.

  Good, it worked. Now I just o add proper fasteo hold the crystals in pd I move on to creating my oy. I’ll o make a quick trip back to Threads for some leatherw supplies too…

  Emily excitedly gets lost in her craft, losing track of time as her blueprints bee reality.

  ***

  The day at 8 am, after another sleepless night, Emily’s focus is broken away from iing the pleted creation before her by a familiar knog pattern on her door. She opens it with a tired smile on her face.

  The moment Juliana sees her, her eyes open wide in shock.

  “Emi when was the st time you slept?!?”

  “Before we went into the city together,” Emily answers with a slightly guilty tone, aware of her state.

  The heavy bags under her eyes and the u state of her hair clearly give away her ck of self-care during her creation process.

  “Do you have any lessons today?” Juliana asks while taking her arm and pulliowards the transportation rooms.

  “Just hand-to-hand bat iernoon.”

  “Good, then after breakfast you’re taking a nap!” Juliana says firmly, allowing no room fument.

  Emily cracks a small smile and silently nods her head.

  ***

  That afternoon, after sleeping the m away, Emily ehe training hall fifteen minutes before css is due to start. Looking around, she spots Aganding at the edge of the room, looking over one of the on racks full of short bdes with her signature greatsword missing from her back.

  Walking over to her, Emily calls out eagerly:

  “Hey Agnes, we spar quickly? I have something I’d like to test.”

  Looking over her shoulder at Emily, Agnes raises a brow and asks calmly.

  “With daggers or not?”

  “I’m already armed, so grab whatever you want,” Emily answers with a cocky grin, enjoying the look of fusion and intrigue that grows on Agnes’ face after she looks Emily over and fails to spot her on.

  Agurns back to the on rack, and quickly takes a dangerous-looking bde, half the size of Emily’s arm, into her hand. They both move into ay spad face each other while l into their bat stances. Agands with her free hand raised before her and the dagger iher h around her chest pointing towards Emily, and Emily stands with her feet spread apart and both hands raised before her, open ay.

  “The spar ends wheher of us calls it off, or one of us ’t fight back,” Agnes says slowly, her gaze narrowed on Emily.

  The mages in the hall notice their stances and all fall silent, turning to watch the ing fight with i.

  Upon seeing Emily nod in agreement, Agnes smiles and calls out: “Begin!” while leaping forward to close the distance.

  Watg Agnes approach, Emily releases her breath, fog pletely on the bde quickly ing towards her as her perception slows. Seeing a slight twit Agnes’ wrist, Emily puts her faith in her new creations and raises her right forearm to guard the side of her face. As she predicted, Agnes sends her knife in an arg liowards her face, and the quickly moving bde sms into her raised arm.

  All the watg mages look on with anticipation, but instead of the sound of flesh being cut as they expected, they hear the harsh sound of metal scraping against metal. The bde cuts through Emily’s sleeve, exposing the bright glint of metal underh.

  While abs the impact with her arm, Emily thrusts her left hand forward in an open palm towards Agnes’ chest. Agnes notices but doesn’t move due to the differen reach between her knife and Emily’s palm. The moment her arm reaches full extension, Emily lets a grin creep onto her face as she hooks her pointer finger around the wire attached to her thumb and pops her hand backwards.

  Agnes' instincts warn her just in time and she leaps back as a bde fires out from Emily’s sleeve. Looking down, she sees a small bleeding cut on her ribs, and a manic grin forms on her face as well.

  “What an iing on,” she mutters quietly before sshing her knife down towards Emily’s chest.

  Emily deflects the kh her exposed bde while stepping forward to close the distaween them, her wrist bde’s reach still slightly shorter than Agnes’ long knife. Unwilling to give up her advantage, Agnes keeps attag Emily while stepping back. Struggling to close the distance, Emily gets caught by a few shallow sshes and chooses to take a step back.

  Cirg Agnes from a distance, Emily decides that catg Agnes by surprise is no longer possible and quickly ehe sed wrist bde. With both bdes exteo their full twenty-five-timetre reach, she quickly steps forward and thrusts her right hand towards Agnes’ chest while driving her left up and towards her ribs.

  With the flick of her wrist, Agnes deflects the first bde as she steps forward to meet Emily. Before the sed bde make tact with her, she swiftly reaches her free hand forward and knocks Emily’s arm, sendiab wide.

  Emily tries to recover her arms but soon freezes as she feels the cold steel of Agnes’ knife against her throat.

  “I give,” she says with a small sigh.

  They both rex and separate with matg grins.

  “That was a good spar, and those bdes are fasating,” Agnes pliments her while staring at the exposed metal through her cut sleeves.

  “Thanks,” Emily says proudly while bringing her hands up to reset her ons and gazing at their system description.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Cws {Gen.0}]

  [Rank:] F

  [Stats:] +1 Str, +1 Dex, +1 Agil

  [Description:] A set of basic spring-loaded wrist bdes.

  [Effect:] Provides armour to the forearms aends bdes from the wrist when activated.

  _____

  She grabs a small groove on one of the bdes and pulls it down while pulling on the release string with her other hand until it slides fortably bato its housing. As the bde bottoms out, she lets go of the release and a small click sounds as the bde locks into pce.

  While retrag the other bde, Emily notices a low murmuring ing from all around and looks up to see everyone in the room crowded around her and Agalking to each other while stealing g Emily.

  “Tsk,” Agnes clicks her toh a frown before muttering something under her breath and stomping her foot on the ground.

  As her foot sms into the ground, the earth shakes and walls of dirt shoot up to form a dome around both of them. The noise from outside cuts off the moment darkness falls over them.

  “There we go, now we talk in peace,” Agnes says casually.

  Kind of hard to talk when I ’t see you.

  With a frown, Emily quickly weaves a few hand signs and casts light, tossing the formed ball of glowing mana up to the peak of the dome.

  “I see the rumours about yical talent weren’t exaggerated after all,” Agnes ents with a sly grin, staring at the glowing ball of light.

  Whoops, I fot to t… Ah well, I’m not pnning on hiding my gesture casting.

  “What I say, I’m a girl of many talents,” Emily responds casually, pying off her mistake.

  “Speaking of, I see your ons?”

  “Sure,” Emily agrees easily, pulling back her right sleeve to reveal the meisms below.

  From her elbow to her wrist is a fitted leather bracer, fastened with a set of straps at the side. On top of her forearm are two thin ptes of smooth titanium with a split down the tre, c a colle of springs and wires underh. The wires follow a few small els around her arm to join the underside, where a delicate metal housing ceals the bdes withiending from the end of the housing is another small wire, ected t ohumb without enough tension to activate The Cws uhe wire is pulled upon by something else.

  “It’s beautiful, did you make them yourself?” Agnes asks while carefully turning Emily’s arm over to ihe entire on.

  “Yes,” Emily answers proudly, happy to have someone appreciate her work.

  Finishing her iion, Agnes releases Emily’s arm and looks her in the eyes, her emerald eye glowing with the fierce light of passion.

  “I want you to make me a set,” she says, raising her hand auring for Emily to wait whearts to object. “I like to colleique ons like those, don’t worry, I won’t sell them on or reveal how they work to anyone else. And iurn, I’ll give you some private lessons to teach you how to use them properly.”

  The moment she offers to help, Emily thinks back to their spar.

  I could use the help, I’ve never dual-wielded ons before, let alone ones awkwardly in lih my arms.

  sidering it for a few moments, she soon agrees with a nod.

  Ah well, these are only the prototype anyway, it ’t hurt to make her a pair.

  “Perfect, I look forward to teag you more,” Agnes says with a wide grin that sends a shiver down Emily’s spine as she drops the earthen dome around them.

  Oh Goddess, what have I got myself into?