Starting With an SSS-Rank Goddess Summon!
Chapter 114: Choose [Bonus - ]
Brida extended her left forearm.
Thora slid the padded ironwood sleeve over Brida’s thick muscles, then took the heavy black shield face and set it directly onto the wood.
She used heavy brass bolts to secure the metal plate to the timber backing, then cinched down three wide, heavy-duty leather straps around Brida’s forearm and elbow.
"Try moving your wrist..." Thora ordered, tightening the last buckle.
Brida rotated her left wrist, then reached over with her right hand and grabbed the handle of her massive battleaxe.
She swung the heavy axe through the air in a horizontal cleave with her left arm moving fluidly with the motion.
"No interference!" Brida boomed, bringing the shield up in a defensive guard right in front of her face.
The ironwood padding absorbed the weight of the metal easily, distributing the thirty pounds of star-iron across her entire forearm so her wrist wasn’t strained.
"I can block a spear thrust with my left arm and swing my axe with my right at the exact same time! This is a frontline wall!"
At the side tables, Elara and Fenna were completing the mechanical assembly of their compact tactical short bows.
The two scouts took their curved dark gray alloy risers... now gleaming with their polished star-iron deflection jackets and lined them up with short flexible limbs crafted from seasoned ironwood.
They used heavy steel hex-bolts to lock the wooden limbs directly into the metal risers, creating a rigid indestructible central frame.
Next came the bowstrings.
These weren’t standard hemp or linen strings.
Thora had provided them with high-tension woven spider-silk cords, treated with mineral wax to prevent moisture absorption.
Fenna stepped into the aisle, placing the lower limb of her short bow against the inside of her right foot.
She leaned her upper body weight down, bending the stiff ironwood limbs with all her strength until she could slip the reinforced silk loop over the top nock.
Snap!
The bowstring locked into place, taut as a steel wire.
Fenna raised the short bow, pulling the string back to her cheek.
The weapon was barely four feet long from tip to tip... half the size of her standard longbow but the heavy draw weight generated by the alloy riser and ironwood limbs was intense.
Twang!
She released the empty string. The high-velocity hum of the silk cord vibrating through the damp workshop air was sharp and aggressive.
"It draws fast," Fenna said with her eyes wide with appreciation as she slung the compact bow across her back.
It sat snug against her shoulder blades, completely out of the way of her arms.
"No catching on low ceiling roots or dungeon doorways. We can fire off three arrows in a narrow tunnel before an Orc even finishes swinging its club."
That left only the grips.
Silas, Morwenna, and Eluned stood together at the center workbench, putting the final finishing touches on their custom swords.
A sword without a proper grip was a death trap.
If your hands got sweaty or covered in monster blood during a fight, a bare metal or smooth wooden handle would slip right out of your fingers on impact.
Thora had laid out piles of wrapping materials: long strips of rough, textured void-kraken leather that she had gotten from Morwenna’s stuff, thin scales of seasoned ironwood, and brass securing pins.
Silas took his hand-and-a-half blade.
He had already fitted a simple heavy steel crossguard over the shoulders of the blade and hammered a solid steel pommel onto the end of the tang to lock the balance point exactly two inches above his hand.
Now, he took a one-inch-wide strip of dark treated kraken leather.
He coated the steel tang in a thin layer of pine resin glue, then began wrapping the leather tightly around the handle, starting from the crossguard and working his way down to the pommel.
He pulled the leather with all his strength on every turn, forcing the rough textured hide to overlap cleanly without leaving a single gap or wrinkle.
When he reached the pommel, he took a small brass hammer and drove three tiny brass pins directly through the leather and into pre-drilled holes in the tang, locking the wrap permanently in place.
Silas picked the sword up by the handle.
The feeling was magic...
The rough void-kraken leather bit gently into the callouses of his palm providing a rock-solid, non-slip grip that felt like it was fused directly to his skin.
The weight of the sword was thirty percent heavier than the standard issue blade he had used before, but because the balance was tailored specifically to his reach and his Gold Core, it felt weightless in his hand.
Next to him, Morwenna finished wrapping the handle of her two-hundred-and-fifty-six fold naval cutlass with the same dark kraken hide adding a sweeping steel knuckle-bow guard to protect her fingers during close-quarters boarding fights.
Eluned, refusing to use animal leather, wrapped the handle of her one-hundred-and-twenty-eight fold double-edged longsword in tightly braided green ironwood bark strips, locking the ends with polished silver wire.
The assembly was officially over.
All six custom weapons were ground, sharpened, strapped, strung, and wrapped.
Thora walked to the front of the workshop, wiping her greasy hands on her apron.
Her welding goggles were resting on her forehead, and a massive satisfied grin stretched across her soot-stained face as she looked at her squad.
"Alright!" Thora yelled, clapping her hands together. "You built them! You assembled them! Now it’s time for step five: the grand reveal and the mana conductivity test!"
She pointed her hammer toward the empty center aisle of the Foundry.
"A physical blade is only half the equation in this realm!" Thora lectured them, her eyes shining with curiosity. "We layered that newly discovered white silver... the Sil-Graves Silver alloy directly into the Damascus grain of the commanders’ swords! I want to see what happens when you push high-density mana into that virgin metal! Step up and ignite them!"
Silas stepped out into the middle of the room first.
He held his custom hand-and-a-half blade out at waist height with the dark gray steel pointing toward the open smelting furnaces.
He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, tapping into the deep, surging well of power sitting inside his chest.
He ignited his Mythic Gold Core.
Silas didn’t push a massive, destructive wave of energy designed to blow the room apart.
He simply channeled a concentrated steady stream of golden sovereign mana down his right arm, through the textured kraken leather grip, and directly into the steel tang of the sword.
The physical reaction was instantaneous, unique, and staggering.
The sixty-four layers of folded Sil-Graves Silver alloy woven into the dark steel matrix violently woke up.
The intricate white Damascus lines running down the flat of the blade ignited with a blinding cold silver light.
The sword didn’t just glow... it radiated a pure, starlight aura that completely overpowered the orange light of the brick hearths, casting sharp crystalline shadows across the entire workshop.
"Whoa," Silas muttered, his golden-ringed eyes widening as he felt the sword hum in his palm.
The metal felt like it was physically vibrating with life.
He raised his arm and swung the glowing blade through the air in a slow, experimental horizontal cleave.
VWOOSH.
As the blade cut through the humid air of the shop, it left a trail of brilliant silver light behind it.
And then, something incredible happened.
From the center of the glowing Damascus blade, an intricate magical circle projected directly outward into the open air!
The glowing silver circle hung suspended in space exactly where Silas had finished his swing, roughly three feet in diameter.
It was packed with complex, spinning geometric runes, ancient starlight symbols, and interlocking triangles that pulsed with a steady frequency before slowly dissolving into a shower of harmless, sparkling silver particles that drifted down to the brick floor.
"By the stars," Eluned gasped, dropping her own sword slightly as she stared at the fading runes.
Morwenna didn’t wait.
The pirate queen aggressively surged her own deep-ocean mana directly into her two-hundred-and-fifty-six fold naval cutlass.
KRACK!
Her blade ignited with a violent stormy blue-and-silver light.
As Morwenna whipped the cutlass through the air in a sharp boarding slash, a massive swirling magical circle of deep blue ocean runes projected outward from the spine of her sword!
The circle spun violently, releasing a sharp, refreshing blast of sea air and the smell of crushed salt across the room before dissolving into spray.
Eluned immediately channeled her nature mana into her one-hundred-and-twenty-eight fold elven longsword.
HUMMMMM.
Her double-edged blade glowed with a brilliant, luminous emerald-and-silver starlight.
She swept the sword upward, and a breathtaking intricate magical circle of glowing green forest runes and weaving roots bloomed directly from the center fuller!
The circle cast a serene, life-giving glow across the brick walls before scattering into glowing green leaves that vanished before hitting the floor.
The entire workshop went dead silent.
Silas, Morwenna, and Eluned stood with their glowing silver-patterned swords raised, staring at the empty air where the three distinct magical circles had just projected and dissolved.
None of them had chanted a spell.
None of them had activated a skill.
The swords had generated the magical circles purely on their own simply by conducting their mana through the folded silver alloy.
Thora completely lost her mind.
The dwarven blacksmith dropped her heavy forging hammer onto the floor with a deafening crash.
She scrambled across the brick yard like a maniac, shoving past Tasmin and Brida until she dropped to her knees right on the spot where Silas’s silver particles had fallen.
She pulled her magnifying glass out of her pouch, pressing her face inches away from the floor tiles to inspect the lingering magical energy.
"This isn’t just standard mana conductivity!" Thora screamed, her voice cracking with fanatical blacksmithing mania.
She looked up at Silas, her eyes wide as saucers behind her goggles. "Do you have any idea what those geometric runes were, Boss?!"
Silas lowered his glowing sword slightly.
"I just thought it was flashy visual effects from high-tier ore, Thora. If I did, I’d have told you..."
"Visual effects?!" Thora yelled, jumping up to her feet and waving her greasy hands in the air. "Boss, that wasn’t a cosmetic light show! I recognize the underlying geometry of those triangles! When that white silver... that Sil-Graves Silver alloy reacts to high-density mana, it automatically weaves a passive, high-speed structural reinforcement mana circle!"
She ran over to Silas, grabbing his bare, sweating forearm and pointing at his glowing Damascus blade.
"It’s an automatic self-casting durability spell!" Thora explained, bouncing on her heels in pure excitement. "Every single time you swing these swords, or every time your edge clashes against a monster’s armor, that magical circle absorbs a fraction of the impact force and feeds the energy directly back into the internal crystalline lattice of the metal!"
She looked at Morwenna and Eluned with her chest heaving as she delivered the staggering conclusion.
"As long as you are actively channeling your mana through these grips," Thora declared cleanly, "these blades literally cannot be notched, chipped, bent, or broken! They are functionally indestructible in combat! The magic circle repairs the microscopic stress lines faster than physical force can create them!"
Brida’s jaw dropped. "Indestructible swords? Are you serious?"
"I am one hundred percent serious!" Thora cheered, doing a wild, triumphant little victory dance in the middle of the aisle, slapping her heavy thighs and cackling like a madwoman. "We hit the motherlode! That hidden cavern isn’t just a silver mine! It’s a monopoly on unbreakable alloys! Once I figure out how to smelt larger batches of this white ore without risking an explosion, we can layer it into shields, spear points, and armor! We are going to be the most indestructible faction in the entire Sovereign Realm!"
The Vanguard girls erupted into cheers.
Brida banged her battleaxe against her new Kraken shield, Tasmin spun her chained shortswords with a grin, and Fenna and Elara high-fived over their bows.
All the sweat, the six hours of sweltering heat, the blistered hands, and the exhausted muscles were instantly forgotten.
Silas smiled, looking down at his glowing hand-and-a-half blade.
’That is what I call a high-tier crafting upgrade...’ Silas thought happily. ’And I haven’t even upgraded it yet...’
However, his peaceful moment of triumph lasted for exactly three seconds.
While the rest of the Vanguard was busy celebrating around Thora and inspecting their shields and bows, the two SSS-rank monsters standing next to him slowly turned their attention entirely away from the magical circles and directly toward their Lord.
’I’m fucked...’