"Christ almighty," Rory sighed as he leaned back, sweat pouring from his forehead. "Why the hell was that such a hassle?"

Rory was, of course, referring to the glowing object floating in front of him, pulsing with energy.

Pearlescent Core - Attuned

Grade: Uncommon+

Tier: Seven

Crafted with a tier seven monster core as the base, a pearlescent core maintains similar functions to that of a monster core while allowing for the addition of innate flexible convergence points and shaping. Due to being both a core and a gem, the pearlescent core does not suffer from the same degradation as a regular gem, assuming sustainable usage. This core has been further augmented through deliberate attunement to a specific function, losing potency when not used for that function.

Oh sure, making a pearlescent core wasn't exactly easy as a base level, even having gained a skill for core crafting and the like. For every five attempts, perhaps one would succeed, if one were being generous.

What made it so much worse was that Rory had, of course, had the idea to make the core with the fundamental understanding that it would be a singular component designed for an overarching creation, the result meant to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Or, in simple terms, Rory had specifically mapped out each point of the pearlescent core as a network to map into his staff, like the circuitry of a motherboard.

And that made it far more difficult to create a stable core, as those external branching 'connections' were constantly destabilizing the entire thing. It was like making a battery that would explode if it weren't plugged in from the beginning, but then you wouldn't plug in something you weren't even sure was working.

Thus, months of headache, literal headache, as quite a few of the cores exploded with some extreme prejudice, enough to have killed a tier five human in one shot.

As much of a pain in the ass as it had been, he had finally succeeded, and it only relied on forcing his ever-moody Foundational affinity to cooperate, which was also a headache but for very different reasons. He had, over the years, gotten much better at drawing out the affinity on command, but it was never effortless, like pulling metaphorical teeth. With as much foundational affinity as he had needed to bathe the core within to foster the attuned properties to remain stable even while outside of its intended function, it had been weeks of effort to force his foundational affinity to cooperate.

But the floating core proved he had succeeded. The core itself had been derived from the monster core of a generic tier seven monster. While he probably could have created an even better version if it had come from some powerful tier seven variant after a long-fought climactic battle, Rory was under no illusion that this staff would be some eternal weapon to see him through the rest of his days. The only items he had made that he believed would last the long haul were his blood-bound tools, which could grow with him, as even retrofitting old gear and items could only go so far.

The core wasn't the only thing that he had worked on over the last few months, either, mostly because his foundational affinity wouldn't let him work only on the core. The next was a vial of deep purple liquid that also seemed to have a gentle glow, like the liquid that would spew out of glowsticks from his youth when child Rory decided it was a great idea to gnaw on them for… reasons.

I was a child. I honestly have no idea why I did half of what I did.

Glancing at the vial, Rory gave it a quick examine, another creation that had been rather annoying to produce.

Ichor Pneuma

Tier: Seven

Quality: Toxin

Effect: Ingestion or extended exposure will absorb magical elements, causing a weakening of the body and other magically reliant properties.

Although it was listed as a toxin, the brew wasn't intended for use in that manner. It was closer in reality to something like gasoline for a car or battery acid. Sure, if you ingested them, it was undoubtedly a toxin, but it wasn't the primary purpose. The softly glowing purple liquid would help channel and conduct pneuma through his staff, while also slowly 'nourishing' the staff over time like watering a sapling.

As for how he'd made it, well, that had also been quite the endeavor. It had started with the liquid base of the entire brew, something which Rory figured would need to be far more potent than any other liquid base he had used for alchemic chemistry in the past. Without a ton of options, his attention had eventually drifted to little Jinn.

No, he did not turn the elemental into it, you monster.

Rather, it was the element of the elemental that Rory was interested in, World Ichor. It was essentially super special magma. Was that an oversimplification? Sure, but Rory still barely understood the element. What mattered was that Rory found the secondary part of the element interesting, the idea of 'ichor' that could be capitalized upon. Working with Jinn and over the process of nearly three weeks, Rory managed to experiment in converting the regular golden magma into a small concentration of World Ichor, a fusion of the pure magma concept and blood essence affinity, with the 'corruptive' properties of the blood essence purified out.

Once Rory had figured out how to make World Ichor, even if in somewhat limited batches, the next step was testing the element. It was cationic, much like regular magma, albeit even more so. It seemed capable of housing pneuma in quantities that boggled his mind, at least for something that wasn't a monster core. It appeared to be capable of getting infinitely hot the more energy it was given, and yet that heat didn't seem to transfer, even if his brain could tell it was obscenely hot. Rory was confident that there was far more to understand about the element. Still, without intending to sidetrack for several years by studying the single subject, he had eventually deemed it good enough for his purposes before moving on.

His first attempt at alchemical chemistry with World Ichor involved essentially melting things into it and observing the results. For the most part, nothing special, aside from the World Ichor seemed to bleed of excess magical elements even without his active participation.

Moving on from that, Rory got into the meat and potatoes of his experiments. Knowing the purpose of the final brew was to act as a sort of liquid conduit for his staff, Rory already had ideas for the conceptual elements that would be needed.

To cut back on the excess explanation, the end ingredients that Rory circled in on was a branch from his home in Ehkorrus, the Star Blood Sequoia, several monster cores melted into the World Ichor to balance off the cationic nature of the solvent, and a single shaving from the void diamond within his vambrace, the speck was both more than enough given the grade of the void diamond and it was the absolute limit to how much Rory was willing to harvest from the item.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

With the conceptual charge balanced, Rory had concluded by leaving the solution under extreme conditions within what looked like a small box or an airtight kiln. It was a pneuma compressor, taking everything he knew about the higher stages of pneuma that could be achieved and attempting to emulate that knowledge, compressing and fusing pneuma within. It wasn't powerful enough to create liquid pneuma, something that Rory desired to accomplish someday, but much like the gulf between grades only grew wider with each grade, so too did the grade of pneuma.

Within the box was a vapor, a gaseous pneuma, and it was constantly being 'woven' and compressed together; it slowly grew more potent before tapering off as his ability to weave the gaseous pneuma with his current mechanical and magical capabilities failed. Even so, stored within such an environment, the nearly complete brew had undergone its final change, purple and glowing with power.

I wonder what would happen if I could infuse the brew with literal liquid pneuma, or even submerge it within some liquid pneuma…. Thoughts for the future, I suppose.

The Pneuma compressor was essentially a Pneuma Crusher on steroids, and running it was prohibitively expensive due to the large amount of raw pneuma required to 'stage up' the pneuma to such a high level. If he harnessed that same volume of pneuma for, well, anything else, he likely could have powered Ehkorrus for several weeks straight.

However, I'm not in Ehkorrus, nor does it matter when I'm in an environment with so much higher-stage pneuma permeating the air itself.

The final part of his staff creation prep work had, unlike his other two creations, not been a physical item, so much as an idea.

Rory was making his second Evolved Rune.

Evolved Runes were…. Tricky, to say the least. The only Evolved Rune he had made to date was his Living Rune. Evolved Runes were detached from the regular understanding of runes that relied on both definitional understanding of a rune and personal interpretation. Instead, they were almost like an epiphany or inspiration, crystallized within a single moment of comprehension that couldn't be replicated through simple explanation or even examination.

In essence, they were a whole lot like that one idea that woke you up from a dream at 3 am, only to forget it by morning.

It was why, by the time he departed, neither Vivian, much less any of her apprentices, had been all that close to scratching the surface of his Living Rune. Viviann had shown some signs that she was getting there, but that was like saying you were ready to run a marathon just because you signed up.

It was that same level of difficulty that Rory was once more looking to undertake. It would be his most profound rune since his creation of the Living Rune, one that could reach farther than any other rune that wasn't a Living Rune.

As for the rune that Rory had in mind? Why, nothing else could fit other than the Rune of the Architect.

I swear, I'm not that egotistical; it's the concept that matters, not my connection to it.

Within their universe, there were architects, and then there were Architects. John, the young man from Ehkorrus, was an architect was a lowercase A. Rory was an Architect with an uppercase A. The difference was that the lowercase A indicated exactly what the title on the tin said: standard building relations. The idea of an Architect with an uppercase A was that of someone who built and dabbled in everything.

A rune to represent that sort of deep involvement was almost like the +4 card from Uno that could be applied anywhere, for any craft or creation.

And that was why it was an Evolved Rune, because the ability even to begin parsing the depth of what that meant was something that Rory could only understand because he was the first Architect and had been at it for so many years. Hell, not just was he the first Architect, but one of the first humans.

Lots of Significance, lots of conceptual meaning, lots of brain-frying. Perfect for an Evolved Rune.

Unlike the pearlescent core or the Ichor Pneuma, making a new rune was far faster, if far more dangerous. The only preparatory work needed was a bound circle with an excess of pneuma to draw from, and a brew made from dissolving nearly twenty ossified blood gems into it.

So much vital essence infused into a brew would have typically been a poison in itself, like how unconstrained regeneration would lead to cancerous growth. That dynamic changed when your body was forced to burn itself up to sustain the cost of the raw energy, significance, pneuma, vital essence, you name it, that came with the creation of an Evolved Rune. Even compared to the creation of the Living Rune, Rory was confident it would be far more taxing, as the last time it had been a genuine stroke of inspiration, whereas now he was somewhat brute-forcing his understanding of the concept.

Either way.

Having prepared himself as much as he could, Rory had gone on to chug the brew, activate the bound circle, and carve the would-be Evolved Rune into a panel of +1 promethium, the only material he had that could withstand that much chaotic energy passing through it. Carving the rune had only taken a few minutes, but the subsequent fallout had taken over six hours to resolve. His body felt like he had grabbed a live wire directly as the universe sucked what it needed from him directly, while he drew what he needed from the bound circle, as the brew likewise replenished him.

In the end, unsurprisingly, the effort was a success.

Otherwise, he would have, you know, died.

With the attuned pearlescent core, vial of ichor pneuma, and the knowledge of a new Evolved Rune, it was almost funny how anticlimactic the final steps of making his wizard staff were. Rory poured the ichor pneuma into the channels of hardened 'glass' tubing, which appeared like arteries only surface-deep through the staff of carved bone. Having already carved the rest of the runes throughout the staff, Rory topped it off with a single final rune, a faint glow from the inscriptions signaling that the entire thing had resonated. Finally, Rory pushed the pearlescent core into its specially fashioned slot. A single pulse of energy passed through the staff, and Rory almost felt like he could hear the magical weapon humming with potency as he admired it.

Prototype War Staff

Grade: Uncommon

While other staves have been seen and made by the efforts of stalwart crafters and desperate mages, none have succeeded in the creation of a true War Staff until now. Unlike a regular wizard staff, a War Staff is designed to handle stress far beyond the equivalent wizard staff of the same grade. This specific War Staff is neutrally inclined, augmenting neutral alignment pneuma direction, conjuration, and manipulation.

"So, takeaways," Rory muttered as he examined his newest weapon. "I'm not the first person to make a staff of some fashion. 'Stalwart Crafters' and 'Desperate Mages' are an indication that 1. Other crafters exist outside of myself and Ehkorrus at this point, and 2. Others specialize in magic enough to be referred to as mages."

None of it was that unexpected, not after decades had passed since his initial arrival on Aelia at the very least.

"Other takeaway," Rory tapped his index finger against the handle of the staff, spinning it a few times to ensure everything was balanced as he hoped and firmly in place. "A difference exists between a wizard's staff and a war staff. While the criteria aren't spelled out, I assume it has to do with the overall degree of involvement the actual materials used had. Had I carved the spinal column into a staff, added a few inscriptions, and called it a day, I have no doubt that I would have ended up with just a regular wizard's staff."

Pleased with the feel of the staff, Rory tapped the metal-capped 'club' head of the butt of the weapon upon the ground as he attempted to pulse pneuma from himself through the weapon. It passed with flying colors, responding as easily as if he were channeling pneuma through himself. His next test was drawing pneuma from the environment through the staff, which proved even better than he hoped; it greedily drew in the energy, the pearlescent core storing it for future use.

Perfect.

Lastly, there was the grade of the staff. While it was only listed as uncommon, the description made it a point to spell out that it wasn't something to be underestimated, its equivalent tier wizard staff being inferior to it. Without having a wizard staff to compare it to, Rory could only assume that the war staff lagged in grade by anywhere from half a stage to a complete stage behind a standard staff.

Or, in short, a base, uncommon-grade war staff would be the equal to a middling uncommon-grade wizard staff, potentially up to a base rare-grade wizard staff.

"All in all, a complete success," Rory said as he finally let himself crack a wide grin. He wasn't even surprised when he felt a deluge of ascension energy crash into him, months of work and the act of being the first to fashion a war staff netting him quite the windfall, making up for months of inactivity or near inactivity as far as monster murder went.

Still in a great mood, it was dashed moments later as, with a bang, a certain roommate appeared, dropping from an overhead connecting tunnel.

"Oh, perfect, don't even have to look for you," Zoey said happily as she spotted Rory.

"What is it?" Rory sighed, the afterglow of his success fading already.

"Mind taking a look at this?"

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