Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

“Is that a problem?” Thera asked him. “I mean, I know that would be hard for other people but you’ve succeeded in that before.”

She wasn’t seeing the issue that was making his knuckles crack from how hard he was squeezing his fists, none of them were. He’d made high-legendary items before, even if only a few, but a task like that seemed well within the realm of possibility for him if not for one thing. What the specific phrasing of those instructions meant and the fact that of all of the craftsmen in the world, they would have only been put there to get in his way alone.

Only the skills found within your soul.

An instruction that was basically outright saying they wouldn’t accept results if he enchanted anything with the help of his deep connection. An instruction that couldn’t have been placed more than five years ago considering how recently his god had created the skill and one he doubted had been added before he’d first started to express interest in taking on that tower, blocking off one of his key abilities in a challenge that basically demanded it.

Why?

Why was every god in the world constantly finding some new method to get in his way no matter what he did for the world and how he’d compromise for them. Was it so obvious that he was going to breeze through the rest of that tower that they had to make sure he’d fall right at the end or did someone just want to spit in his face and found that to be the funniest way to do it? On the very last floor, did the gods of the world get a kick out of taking a challenge he was sure he could overcome and dropping his odds down to nothing with just a couple extra words?

Because that was the real issue there, one he couldn’t escape. He’d been making legendary items for a while now and even a few high legendaries as well, but he’d never once reached that upper ranking using nothing but the skills he’d grown within his own soul.

He didn’t even know if he could. His greatest strength was the variety he could access, something that not even the other connect holders had reached, let alone the other enchanters of the world, but when it came to the abilities he’d cultivated within himself, did he have enough that he could achieve the highest mortal level of craft?

He had fifty-five skills total, eighteen of them were awakened and seven he was a contender for but items of that ranking were normally the realm of the third tiers. It was why his teacher had told him when he’d first started learning that people who could reach that level appeared once a millennium. He was sure he had what it took to reach the lower or middle parts of that spectrum but to get to the top…

No. He told himself. I can make legendary items already by myself, by that very fact I am a once in a millennium talent. I can enchant as good as a third tier and of the skills I hold, I’m a master of most of them. It doesn’t matter if the gods wanted to try to screw me over with this once more or if they have some other reason for doing this, all that matters is finishing this tower and putting them in their place. Twelve hours? That might as well be years to plan this out. I have all of the time in the world.

He just needed to decide what item to make and what enchantments to put on it and with his rage already pushing him in one specific direction, all that mattered was refining it as he took a seat on the ground and brought his thought speed to its maximum, retreating into himself for what plans he could make.

Three hours later he opened his eyes and jutted up, his first sign of movement in that time that caught the attention of the others as he finally got started, pulling the homunculi out of his rings and filling each one with his soul for the task ahead.

Since the other part of that floor's instructions said he could use whatever materials he could access he wasn’t shy about pulling from his rings as the tables around him filled with magic materials while others went right to the forge, heating some up for future use while others were divided under his magic for later.

One of the clones he was working through started to fold and hammer the red-hot metal, the first blow ringing loud through the room with the strength under it, his ill intent enhancing all of his attributes to unseen heights that warped the metal beyond anything he’d intended, that one mistake needing to be fixed while the rest of him continued on with other tasks.

Certain alchemic enhancers were ground up into fine powders to be folded and blended into different metals while crystals were cut to shape with every part of the item he was making, a knife, being constructed at once under his many hands, redundancy on redundancy being created for the weight of the enchantments he intended to place. With nine hours left, he had more than enough time to remake it again and again if it came down to it.

While metals were being worked, turned into alloys of mythril and orichalcum for the magical effects they’d bring, one more was added through materialization, the faithstone he avoided making out of consideration to the gods being born of his mana now that his care had run out while crystals that would make up the blade’s handle were each given souls, different bits of knowledge placed in each one by connecting to them, making sure that skill was applied in every other way it could be to spite the ones who denied it.

Once the blade was shaped and the hilt added, each crystal was placed over the tang, fitted together to create a grip that he held tight at its end, his true body sharpening it to a razor’s edge before applying every enchantment he wanted it to have as the complex system he worked with went down.

His material manipulation was placed to ensure that the blade itself would be strong despite the thinness of its edge and his crafting contributed to that same fact as well. His mind skills were bound to it for what extra power they’d give its handler, letting them think faster and with more minds than any typical mortal while unnatural inspiration went into it to affect their subconscious thoughts, there for the benefits such things could give combat as well and strengthened even more for the ill intent the blade was drenched in, buffing the holder’s attributes so long as it was properly wielded with the intent to kill.

Given the inspiration behind the blade, just how ingrained the sacrilege enchantments were would shock no one either but to a greater extent than any of that was the interplay of deep connection running down every inch of the knife itself.

Soul crystals had obviously been placed to give the wielder more mana if they needed it but the designs were far more insidious for anyone who faced it, with that skill being just as good for ripping a target’s mana from them as it was any blank soul while also carrying over the things he’d imprinted on them, certain ones holding every pain he’d been put through since coming to the world for the mental attack it would be for those it would stab into and more from there.

His personal system, the enchanting modifier and the magic modifiers had all been employed but his newest enchanting spell had found its way in as well, the factory enchantment being stripped down and minimized to the farthest extent he could in order to make something that would apply self-destructive spells from his magic into a target’s bones should the blade make contact with even more sacrilege mixed in as well, leaving the final part he squeezed in combining his magics together to materialize metal pins when activated, something to be left behind in whatever flesh the knife found itself in that would be powered by its own victim’s mana.

Every drop of anger and spite he’d built up for the gods over the years went into it and the second he was done, what shocked him wasn’t the fact that his eyes showed that he’d pulled it off, a new high legendary item in his hands, but that it held at all under the magical strain he’d created. Every single effect had a weight and with both a materialization and a factory spell on that single small item, he’d had to use every bit of skill he’d claimed for himself since coming to the world, with the notifications going off in his head being his reward.

<UNENDING CRAFTING LEVEL INCREASED>

<DEEP CONNECTION LEVEL INCREASED>

<UNNATURAL INSPIRATION LEVEL INCREASED>

<ILL INTENT LEVEL INCREASED>

Four new levels for his achievement, each of them greatly desired but he didn’t get the chance to reflect on what they meant for him. He’d completed the tower, beaten every challenge it had laid out for him which meant it was time to claim his reward, with a god appearing to give him exactly that.