Draig cursed his earlier naivety, he had been making Enchanted gear for others with excellent results why was it only now that he had thought of doing it for himself. Unknown to him he was about to unlock a useful ability for the future, Draig continued enchanting until he finally had a complete set but it wasn"t until he had tried on the gear itself that it became clear."Hidden Mission: Arm the Armorer completed"
The message appearing in Draig"s view caught his attention, he specifically remembered reading about mission"s in his book and it had never mentioned anything about Hidden Missions. However he left this as a footnote to be researched later as he couldn"t look a gift horse in the mouth at the moment.
With great antic.i.p.ation Draig opened his menu to check his gift box and indeed found a reward from the Hidden Mission. With a heavy breath he clicked on the reward and another message popped up.
"Rewards for completing Hidden Mission: Active Skill Mana Molder, Complimentary Skill Magical Craftsman"
The message left Draig feeling a bit saddened at the aforementioned skills before quickly snapping himself back to reality, he was beginning to recognize flaws in his own character unbecoming of Vampire let alone one of his pedigree. Noting this as something he would work on Draig checked the skills.
"Mana Molder: Allows user to mold materials using Mana, ability used by Arcane Smiths for st.u.r.dier materials"
"Magical Craftsman: Complimentary skill to the Enchanter cla.s.s, allows user the ability to craft their own gear and tools with the capability of channeling Mana"
Draig was going to begin lamenting internally but it quickly ended before it began when he began thinking of the possibilities. This would be cutting out the middle man of his enchanting process but this would still leave the problem of gathering materials however for the moment Draig was beginning to see a brighter outcome.
Thus Draig spent two weeks sorting through the weapons that he did have, practicing his newly gained skills by molding the weapons into different shapes while inspecting them for any special quality. While doing this he had managed to increase his Magical Crafting skill to level three which had allowed him to form more complex designs with less expenditure.
It was however on the fifteenth day that Draig was brought from his new obsession by the sounds of armor clanking, temporarily forgetting his current doings he went to greet his welcomed visitors.
"Greetings Sir Warren, I hope you have been successful in that task" asked Draig looking at the wrapped up bundle in the Knight"s arms.
"I am sure you can see the results for yourself" stated Warren as he bequeathed the hard cover to Draig.
"Excellent" chuckled Draig when he saw the actual tome, it was mostly the ghastly green metal but towards the center showed the color of the Ancient metal however he didn"t see any trace of the Dragon Fang.
However despite his curiosity Draig didn"t ask and merely smiled, the reason being he felt that he wanted to start being taken seriously. He was destined to be a leader, it was in his blood as a dominant being. Leaders were required to be knowledgeable, he should be answering questions not asking them so he let it be and became more determined to read his encyclopedia all the way through until he had answers.
"So can we begin" asked Warren thinking that Draig had decided to read up on crafting methods as he hadn"t asked anything about the tome.
"It will be done after I complete the ritual" answered Draig knowing why the old Knight was anxious to begin, this would be the key to Knights becoming a relevant topic again.
Warren simply nodded knowing there was nothing he could do. He, like many other veterans had encountered Vampires and had the displeasure of learning about some of their abilities from personal experience and tales from the previous generations. He knew what the Bloodscript was and had a rough idea of what it did but he knew nothing of its inner workings.
Retreating to the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Farmhouse Draig began using his runes to draw out an odd formation that began worming its way across the floor until connected with itself. The glow of the runes showing that the formation was ready Draig began to concentrate, the secret to the ritual is to picture a s.p.a.ce that is constantly being stormed by pages and to then focus your Mana and pierce open the barrier separating the s.p.a.ce and pull as many pages to your focal point.
Usually this ritual would performed without a conduit but from some of his digested information from the Founder he found that this was a more efficient way.
Clearing his thoughts Draig began to focus his Mana while opening the Tome binding, Draig kept building more and more Mana until he felt a thrum come from the binding. He suddenly felt that the Mana capacity he had been proud of boosting so high was now very insignificant again as the binding seemed to suck his Mana into the whirlpool he had already inserted.
Gritting his teeth from feeling the first sense of exhaustion since becoming a System User, Draig put his focus back into the Mana that had acted of it"s own accord and began focusing the Mana into a single point until the area in the center of the formation began to ripple.
Taking this as a sign of encouragement Draig pierced the Mana into the ripple as savagely as possible attempting to get the biggest benefit, it was laughable thinking that this would help but Draig was hoping to get all he could from this moment.
The Bloodscript was too important to his plans for him to fail or come up short, these thoughts fueling Draig he forced a wider strand of Mana into the same spot as the first strand causing an obvious rip releasing a torrential amount of energy. The horrifying amount of power did nothing dissuade the young Feratu in fact it had even managed to put a smirk on his face, laughing Draig forced more Mana into the rip causing almost a window to appear and on the other side it looked like h.e.l.l.
Magical pages possessing an ominous glow tore through the s.p.a.ce like billions of blades ready to slice anything that would enter. Staring at the marvelous scene Draig almost had a lapse in concentration, the minor slip allowed him to remember that time was of the essence.
Taking a deep breath Draig manipulated the Mana that he had forced inside of the rip to start forming a type of funnel which took an immediate effect as pages began flying into the tome in Draig"s hands like bullets rocking his body with every page that filled the tome. Smirking the young Feratu felt success and intended to keep grabbing more pages but his vision began fading.
Snorting in disdain at his own limitation Draig used the last of his will to rip as many pages from the s.p.a.ce as possible before jamming them into the tome.
With the last of his consciousness realizing total success Draig for once pa.s.sed out with a smile of contentment on his face, it was unknown to him just how long he had been at it as it had seemed like mere minutes but his ritual had actually lasted a day and a half which had made it quite the feat the young Feratu had managed to struggle against the Scripted s.p.a.ce as it would come to be known for so long.
Elsewhere others were experiencing their own successes.
"Excellent, a bit of blood magic and now you have an army" laughed Dracule as he looked at the a.s.sembled group of Jack O lanterns in pride.
This was his contribution to the trouble ahead and he hoped it would be enough but only time would tell.