Chapter 256: Making Some Upgrades

Words : 906 Updated : Oct 9th, 2025

Chapter 256: Making Some Upgrades Looking down at the workbench, I opened up the crafting menu and browsed around, looking through the various recipes and getting myself back up to date with what was waiting to be made, seeing if anything useful popped up. Not finding too much besides a few things that might be useful later, but not that useful, I flipped over towards the crafting station tab, looking for an Arcane Workbench and Arcane Furnace. I found the furnace easily, and it wasn't that expensive of an upgrade; it needed some Mana Coal, one bar of Magisteel, a Furnace, and some more stone. As for the Arcane Workbench, it was just a Workbench, Magisteel, Magisteel tools, and a Focus of any kind. Of course, if I ONLY could make things through the system I would be stumped at this point; where do I get Magisteel if the thing to smelt Magisteel requires a bar of Magisteel?! However, I could make things outside of the system, using my own abilities and knowhow to make things just like everyone else did; by hand and with precision and understanding of what I was doing. According to Sari, Magisteel was something most Arcane Crafters made themselves, using just a bar of normal steel and imbuing it with mana, or in my case threads. Threads of raw mana for now, since I had a sneaking suspicion that if I imbued it with either Blood or Dark threads, the steel wouldn't be Magisteel... So, taking out an ingot of steel and placing it on the workbench, I rested my hands on it and closed my eyes, activating {Mana Sense} and plucking a few threads of raw, colorless magic from the air, which I began to slowly and steadily insert into the ingot.Nôv(el)B\\jnn With each thread infused into the metal, it went from a blank, polished bar of silvery color to one that shimmered with a pale white light, radiating a fair amount of mana. {Magisteel Bar (Enhanced)} Raising a brow, I inspected the ingot in my hands for a few moments before storing it away, pulling out a lump of coal and doing the same with that. The chunk of black rock shifted to a deep navy blue, and I now had a single chunk of {Mana Coal (Enhanced)}, allowing me to craft the Arcane Furnace. With that requiring 10 minutes of time, I began to organize my inventory and create more Magisteel for myself, having found the recipe for a Magisteel Forge once I had the material for it; the Arcane Furnace, some more Magisteel, and Mana Coal. I continued to produce more Magisteel and Mana Coal, getting what I think I needed from the Coal before shifting entirely to the Magisteel, giving myself thirty bars to play with before I experimented with using different mana types. First I used the Blood threads, uncorking a small vial and gently guiding the dripping threads into the metal bar, watching in interest as the steel gained a red hue that emitted a sinister aura, whilst the metal itself darkened to a deep silver, creating something... new. For instance, with just a single Magisteel bar I could craft a {Basic Amulet}, which increased all mana accumulation by 5% and spell strength by 5% as well. As for more enhanced Focuses, they required different materials besides Magisteel, like an Earth Topaz or Fire Ruby; those were geared entirely for that element, and most likely I could create Focuses made entirely out of a single 'element' for better results. Of course, I also looked at the three different metals I had made, finding a few different items to be crafted from them. {Sapping Thorns Staff : Increases Blood and Dark Magic damage by 30%; all Blood Magic spells can inflict an additional 20% damage if target is bleeding; all Dark Magic spells can inflict a Curse on the target that drains their strength by 1% every two seconds} {Sanguisteel Amulet : Increases Blood Mana accumulation by 20%, and damage by 25%; When bathed in blood, all of the Amulet's stats double} {Tenebristeel Wand : Increases Dark Mana accumulation by 25%, and damage by 20%; Any Curses cast are 10% stronger and last 10% longer} They were all certainly potent, but... {All Focuses have a 10% chance to break before crafting, consuming the materials used to craft them} For the basic Amulets, Wands and Staves made from the Sanguisteel or Tenebristeel, that wasn't an issue, but the {Sapping Thorns Staff} required Vitae Shadowsteel, which looked like it would be a bit more valuable than both Sanguisteel and Tenebristeel combined. Either way, I was excited to have this option opened to me now, and I planned on exploring it more soon, as each thing I crafted could increase our strength by a large amount... Besides that, I had also seen some recipes for weapons made from those special metals too, which meant that if I wanted, I could make the warriors in our family Magisteel Weapons with Focuses attached to them, increasing their strength exponentially... --- Sanguisteel - Sanguis (Blood) Tenebristeel - Tenebris (Dark) Vitae (Of Life) Latin is a wondrous language, and if you can't tell, that is what most Arcane materials will be named after going forwards; I might explain their 'origins' like this, I might not, but they should be self explanatory most of the time... ---

Chapter 256: Making Some Upgrades

Comments (0)