Inflame (The Completionist Chronicles Book 6) by Dakota Krout (best romantic novels in english TXT) 📕

while to go before he was able to get a new cleric ability or spell, since he had only just regained access to level twenty. Joe patted the book-shaped altar, looked around at the newly-made Juggernauts and small Tree Ents that would protect this place, and decided to leave.

He trekked along the pristine new road until he found his way back to the main street, and further into the Tradesman District. Entering the forge, Joe found most of the Dwarves staring at him with absolutely gloomy smiles pasted on their faces. A few started walking toward him, and one held out a hand. “Candidate! It would be a true joy for me to be able to teach you about seniority and-”

Grandmaster McPoundy’s door popped into existence and the Dwarf himself stepped out. “Joe, it is good that you are here! Today, you choose the item that you receive as a Candidate, and our next encounter will only be in order for me to hand over that item after it is made. Get in here so that we can get this over with.”

Joe heard what he was saying, but it sounded like a prepared speech, stilted and wrong. Before he said anything, he joined the Grandmaster in his small pocket dimension, then let his words fly. “What was that all about?”

McPoundy wiped his forehead with a cloth and frowned at Joe disdainfully. “Didn't I tell you that there would be blowback from allowing you access to this place? Those brats out there want to know if I am training you secretly, instead of them. They have worked—and paid—for the privilege. At this level, that can't be negated just because a Candidate has arrived.”

“Hence the clear explanation of how many more times I would be able to come here without causing an issue.” Even though Joe understood the logic, he was disappointed. He had been hoping that he would be able to train his ritualistic forging with the Grandmaster, perhaps becoming awesome at it. “I see.”

“Well, I told you not to come back until you were ready for me to make you a weapon. What did you decide on?” The Dwarf got straight to the point, either not understanding or not caring that Joe was disappointed. Probably the latter. “Something like what I mentioned before, or did you-”

The Dwarf paused as the weapon template appeared in Joe’s hands. He took it and started examining it, his own fingers beginning to tremble as he unfolded the paper over and over. He shook it once, and the paper transformed into a three-dimensional diagram of a complexity that reminded Joe of a step-by-step guide for making a nuclear missile from earth. “Where did you get this? This is…”

McPoundy ran his hands over the shimmering document. “You have no idea, do you?”

“Not a clue,” Joe admitted cheerfully. “Didn’t even know it unfolded; I thought it was a single page of paper.”

The Grandmaster chuckled, high-pitched like the start of a panic attack. “You… hahaha… you’re holding a Sage-ranked template, and you calmly hand it over, thinking it’s just a neat piece of paper.”

“Sage-ranked?” Joe nodded with purposefully calm interest, pretending that he wasn’t screaming internally. “That means that this will become a… Mythical weapon?”

“It does, lad.” McPoundy shook his head at the thought. “I know that you don’t know what that means here, Joe. Let me be the one to broaden your horizons. Whenever you are crafting, you always have a chance of creating something of a higher tier. A Grandmaster trying to create a Sage item? That usually falls into about a one-in-four million chance. That’s a point zero zero zero zero two five chance. Having a template? That brings it up to one percent. One in one hundred.”

“In fact, the only way to step out of the Grandmaster ranks and into the Sage ranks is to craft a Sage item.” McPoundy clapped Joe on the shoulder. “This is my ticket into the Sage ranks!”

Joe looked at the smith, then at the diagram, and extended a hand. The diagram vanished into his spatial ring, and McPoundy started sputtering and grasping at him, his strong hands bouncing off Joe’s Exquisite Shell. “Human! What are you doing?”

“I’m now opening negotiations.” Joe chose his words very carefully. “I’m not just going to let you have a Sage ranked diagram to use for free.”

“It’s a weapon I’m making for you!” McPoundy roared in exasperation, staring at Joe’s ring hungrily.

“No, we already have a deal that you would make a weapon for me.” Joe shook his head and waved at the table containing all of the ‘trash’ that the Grandmaster had previously made. “Frankly, any of those ‘edgy’ ones would be fine with me. What are you willing to do so that the path of a Sage can be held in your hands?”

“Human… you could squeeze blood from a stone, couldn’t ya?” A long silence stretched between the two, until finally McPoundy started laughing. “Fine; what do you want?”

“I want to be able to make this,” the diagram appeared again between the two, though Joe didn’t break eye contact with the Grandmaster, “on my own. I want you to teach me.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

McPoundy ran a hand through his beard, then tugged on the hair as he stared at the diagram that was just out of reach. “Yer asking a lot. More than ya think. To make this weapon, a single discipline isn’t enough. Do you even know what it is? The weapon?”

“I don’t.” Joe beamed a brilliant smile at the Dwarf.

“It’s weaponsss that were made by some Sage in the distant past, and the end result is specific to a base class of Ritualist. Note the stress I put on that. I didn’t misspeak; this is a set of weapons that function as one weapon.” The Grandmaster ran his finger over some of the words on the paper, and they were suddenly legible to Joe. “I don’t know what they do, but look. This section requires enchanting. Here, to use, but