God Of Crafting

Running through those ancit woods was, quite surprisingly, a lot of fun.

Ev though I joyed crafting in the peace and comfort of Claire's villa, my last five years of experice made me crave some serious exercise after such an unusually long time of slouching.

And now, as we cut through the dse vegetation while running at full speed while filling my lungs with the clear, fresh, and just slightly cold, refreshing air…

It simply felt great, to put some strain on my joints and stretch my limbs by means as simple as just moving a.

Yet, the novelty of this kind of fun quickly wore off, only to be replaced by the unpleasant mix of my growing anticipation accompanied by creeping suspicion… that Claire's clan's parcel was hidd somewhere much deeper into this zone than I initially expected.

I've only got to take a look at how it appeared through the cameras, never getting the shot to actually learn where it was located.

Most likely, it was a safety measure to prevt anyone from stealing the information over that place's location… But still, not knowing for how long we would have to continue running wore down my excitemt.

After all, while the chances of anyone seeing us in a random spot of this ancestral forest were supposed to be abysmal… Judging by how many cameras Claire had in her room, I couldn't help but feel as if this tire place was sneakily rigged to the brim with all sorts of measuring and spying devices.

'I wonder if that place of theirs is as safe as they hope, or if their emies have simply yet to act upon what they could spy off them.'

This was another part of the problem.

The deeper we wt, the greater my suspicion grew over just how kindly people treated each other out in those woods.

"Don't sulk like that," Claire laughed from just a bit up ahead, leading the way as the one who actually knew the directions… and somehow could still guide us through the extremely dse vegetation of the lower strata of the massive, old forest. "We are almost there."

It was good to hear… Especially after nearing nearly two hours of night constant sprint!

Sure, we didn't move anywhere as fast as a cultivator would, limiting ourselves to just our physical ability. In those woods, no one ever knew what kind of dangers lurked a, meaning, our spiritual ergy was too precious to waste on just cutting the travel time.

"It's better to be far than sorry," Claire shrugged, before finally coming to a stop after taking a turn by a boulder nearly as tall as the nearby trees, behind which hid a forest clearing shaded by the massive boulder that overlooked the skies above it.

"Welcome to Camp Chica," Clarie grinned as she turned a on her heel and spread her arms op, eagerly taking on the role of a host.

"This place sure looks nice…"

If I wasn't any wiser about what this place was, I would likely take it for some low-effort resort in the warm, tourist destination where a shed and a bed by the shore were ough to rake in cash from the foreigners.

This time, however, rather than looking towards the nice, cozy-looking huts positioned a the perimeter of the shaded area… I turned my eyes towards the rather big, op space hidd right underneath the stone.

"Finally," I breathed out before patting the dust off my clothes and th raising my head with the scythe-hiding pouch still wrapped a my wrist. "Can I?'

Claire raised her right hand only to rest the face of her sword down on her shoulder and th drop her other hand to her hip.

"Sure, go on," Claire grinned while wiping out a single tear of sweat from her forehead. "I'm quite curious to see what this other quality of it is, too."

The corner of my lips shot upwards, pulling my mouth into an excited smile.

'Finally.'

With a pull of my cord-holding finger, I undid the wrap on the pouch's d, releasing what seemed like a big seed or something from its insides.

The momt this black, spherical object fell out of the pouch, the barrier of its shell tore apart. And as the subspace collapsed, my scythe materialized seemingly out of thin air.

In its unawaked state, this scythe… didn't really look anything out of the ordinary.

'I mean, sure, scythe surely isn't an ordinary weapon to use, to begin with, but beyond that…'

My smile softed a little.

"Just a simple, metal scythe for a nerd into this shit," I muttered under my nose, smiling as I looked the weapon up and down.

In its unawaked state, this scythe wasn't all that impressive at all. It looked like just a simple, cast blade curved inwards with an added splinter blade on the rear d for added stability and balance of the strikes.

But the very momt I grasped at its handle and infused it with just the silver of my spiritual ergy…

The scythe came alive.

It was an unintded effect of using the precious wood for its handle. And while the isolating agt did a great job at separating the flow of mana through the shaft and through its inner core… Infusing the weapon itself over its circuitry led to some interesting effects.

For an outsider, it looked as if the whole weapon suddly grew a few ts of perct in volume, as the aura of the spiritual ergy gathered all over the shaft, the blade, and ev the cloth-covered butt of the tool. The blade turned from just a thin strip of metal at the d of the weapon's body into a cutting edge of spiritual force itself.

And wh I took a stance and struck with the blade at the air in front of me…

The cut itself lingered in the air for a short while after the blade left. As the original owner of the ergy that my scythe dispersed in its path, I could tell how this lingering cut was actually ev sharper than my steel or ev my spiritual edge could ever be!

But that ability I've already tested, back wh I first made the weapon. And now that its design was fully cleared out, the effects reached ev greater heights than before, all at a cost… of what I could consider as the ergy I was radiating out anyway as a result of the complex process that was behind my fifth cultivation stage.

"Actually, I don't want to do something reckless, so it's going to take some time before I can use the second quirk," I announced as I turned to the girl with a slightly helpless, embarrassed smile.

In return, however, Claire's face lit up a bit, only for her to th run up to me and throw herself in my arms.

"Yes! That's right! Make sure to take care of yourself. Don't you dare overdo it!" she alternated from a praise to a stern warning… "And leave everything else to me," she th added in a much lower, fainter voice as I could feel by the twist of her body how her atttion sharply moved elsewhere.