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When I looked up from where I was sitting on my bed, Cult’s quiet giggle greeted me.
“It’s my turn with you now, isn’t it?” The three goddesses drifted down through the ceiling, drawing closer to me. Looking to my right, I saw Cult gently floating in the air with a coy smile on her lips.
“Yeah. Thanks for agreeing to teach, Cult. Were you listening to our conversation in the dining room?”
“Yes. You want to create an artifact that makes a permanent barrier, correct? One that will use your energy to function, and can be changed to use any of the three types of magic.”
“I can’t say I understand spellcraft that well, but can Hisui even make something like that with his current level of experience?” asked Aruna, who stood a little to Cult’s left in front of me. Cult nodded in reply to Aruna’s simple but sincere question.
“Very easily, in fact. An artifact of those specifications would be difficult for others, but simple for me or Hisui. The most difficult application of spellcraft is cursing other people, not creating objects. That’s why mortals tend to use special items to curse their targets rather than using spellcraft itself.”
“Special items?”
This seemed different from the kinds of magical items we’d been talking about, but I found my curiosity piqued—Cult hadn’t mentioned this topic before. She continued, prompted by my mystified question.
“Yes. You can easily find items that do such things if you doubt my word. Most are obtained from dungeons—not from just any dungeon, mind, but enough that some of these items have found their way into mortal hands. And then, of course, there are curse-imbued artifacts deliberately created by mortals as well.”
“So if someone used one of those cursed artifacts, they could easily cast a spell on someone?”
“Indeed. Those who have a low resistance to curses would be especially susceptible—it would be simple to kill them outright.”
“Wow... That’s so dangerous.” With just one of these artifacts, a person could commit a murder out of the blue. I bet those things were a criminal’s best friends.
“That being said, these artifacts are very few in number, so they are not things you need to concern yourself with. Since you’re under my protective blessing, curses will not work on you in any case.”
“I’m not worried for myself so much as I am for Armeria and Cosmos,” I explained.
Cult nodded. “Those two wouldn’t be able to defend against even the weakest of such magic. That’s how it goes for people who have no affinity with spellcraft.”
“Is there no way to protect against it?”
“There is. You can use godcraft to defend yourself, or carry a protective item with similar properties to godcraft.”
“Godcraft...” Oh yeah, I thought Fouré or Cult had mentioned something about that earlier. Godcraft and spellcraft were basically oil and water. The power of change and the power to revert something to its original state—godcraft was truly the one weakness of spellcraft.
If godcraft awakened in Armeria or Cosmos, then the problem was basically solved, but we couldn’t count on something so lucky to fall into our laps. So the only real choice was to go with Cult’s other suggestion: a protective charm.
“So, could I make an artifact with a function similar to godcraft?”
“Let me think... Well, I guess you could at least try.”
“That doesn’t fill me with much confidence. Is it really that difficult?”
“I’m guessing so. This might be obvious to you, but to make something that has the same protections as godcraft, you’d have to mix that magic with spellcraft. As far as I know, not a single such artifact exists in this world.”
“What? Not even one?” I couldn’t disguise my shock.
“Well, to be more precise, no mortal has succeeded in creating one—it goes without saying that they’d need to have both godcraft and spellcraft powers at their fingertips to create an artifact like that, and you are the only one with those capabilities.”
“Ah, I get it now.” I was really surprised to hear that there weren’t even any items like that in dungeons either, though. On that note, how did dungeons even manage to manufacture monsters and magical artifacts anyway? Like, I couldn’t even see why a dungeon would make those kinds of things at all, much less how. Did they have some kind of inherent supernatural power? That was how it worked in books at least.
No matter how hard I thought about it, though, I couldn’t come up with an answer. I shook my head to clear the distraction and returned my attention to Cult’s lessons.
“If that’s the case, then I’m sure I can make them too,” I said. “The real issue would be whether I have the skill yet.”
“Right. You train so diligently every day, so I doubt you’d completely fail. I’m more concerned with—”
“The quality of the finished product, right?” I interrupted.
“Exactly.” She nodded. “The only way to find out is to simply make it. You could accomplish this purely through spellcraft, as I do, but I think that would be too much strain for you at your current level of expertise.”
“So basically, you’re saying I need to control and manipulate spellcraft on the same level as you do?”
“Yes.”
“Yup, not happening,” I readily agreed.
Cult was the blessed embodiment of spellcraft and had spent several millennia perfecting her craft. Her powers had fashioned the basic form of the goddesses—fairies—and I needed to have the ability to manipulate spellcraft on her level? That was literally impossible. Becoming that skilled would take centuries of practice, if not even more. The amount of time required was staggering.
“Well, there isn’t much point in thinking about it now. I’ll work on the barrier artifact that Claus asked for. I gotta take it step-by-step and start with something I know I can do.”
“A wise choice. I knew you’d make the right decision.” Cult made a huge show out of patting my head, as though to tell me what a smart boy I was being.
Of course, now that Cult was getting touchy-feely, the other goddesses immediately joined in, hugging and patting me as much as they could. My head got special attention this time around, and I swore I could still feel them ruffling my hair hours later.
After a while, our cozy cuddle huddle drew to a close, and I finally began practicing spellcraft.
This time, I’d be making a magical artifact that had never been created before. I needed to visualize something completely different from the stuff I’d been making, like weapons and clothes and food.
“First, think about the shape you want this barrier artifact to manifest,” guided Cult.
To help me focus, I shut both my eyes as I extended my right hand forward. Energy flowed through my body and into my fingertips, and I began to form a picture in the back of my mind.
The shape itself didn’t matter much; anything would be fine. Ideally, it’d be something I was familiar with, since that would make it easier to craft.
The very first thing that came to mind was a disk-shaped device, kind of like the smoke alarms they attached to the ceilings of houses in my previous life. Nice and flat—that was a pretty safe choice for something that warned people about danger, right? It would be compact enough to hang up somewhere or leave on the ground.
Once I’d decided the basic shape, I could fine-tune its appearance using my spellcraft. In addition, now I had to visualize the effect I wanted to give the artifact. I figured that my fire-alarm-like device would generate a translucent wall that would serve as a physical barrier.
Spellcraft energies would do just fine as its power source, and I thought fifty meters sounded like a good range of effect. Of course, the wider the area it covered, the more energy it would consume. I estimated that fifty meters was just about its maximum limit. Any wider than that, and it would exceed the rate of my natural energy regeneration.
“I’ve constructed its design and visualized its effect. Now... I just need to materialize it all.”
I opened my eyes and looked at my hand. In my right hand danced the red of spellcraft power, flickering and wavering like a flame. The flicker began to slowly, but gradually, manifest my vision.
Although I’d visualized its appearance pretty thoroughly, Cult had warned me that if I didn’t maintain the requisite focus to transform the properties of my spellcraft energy, the shape of the artifact might warp, or it might even lose its functionality entirely.
So, with that knowledge, I put everything I had into solidifying the energy until the bitter end. Less than an hour later, I finally completed my first prototype.
“I did it! This is the barrier artifact I wanted!”
I held the softball-sized object that now rested in my hands aloft. Around me, the goddesses began to clap.