New opportunities

Up until last week, John really didn’t like going to the workshop. He might’ve been somewhat artistically gifted, but when it came to crafting anything other than paintings, his hands were all thumbs. He had tried his hand at sewing some cosplay but quickly gave up on that as the costume just looked absolutely horrible.

His dad, the one had been calling dad up until now, had convinced him to give it another shot, but so far nothing had stuck with John. And Ms. Brooks, his teacher for the period, knew that. She didn’t dislike John, evident by the +3 on her Observe info, but she didn’t like him that much either.

As the students gathered in the central area of the workshop, Ms. Brooks kicked off the period with some news, “I have some good news for the ones of you that want to try something new. We have just ordered a brand new and state-of-the-art 3D printer from the budget of the workshop. The printer and the materials should arrive here early next week, and the people that want to work with it will undoubtedly be many, so I’ll give you a competition: You’ll start and finish a new project today and hand it in to me. I’ll judge them against one another, and the best ones will get the first chance to work with the printer and the 3D plotter to make something that they can keep. If anyone isn’t interested in this, then you can keep working on your regular projects and use this as extra time. For those of you that want to try their hand at this competition, make me a box. Everything else about it, like materials, details, and size are completely up to you. I’ll judge your work on creativity, intricacy and the methods used to create it. You’ll get your work back next week and can keep it. Everything clear? Then get to it!”

Most of the students immediately rushed to various workstations with lots of materials from storage, fighting each other to get to specific stations first. John took his time with selecting his materials since he had no real need to use any of the tools on the stations, he had Craft for that. He had been interested in 3D printers for a while now, but the cost had always put him off (granted, most of them did cost less than the information package that he had just bought), but the idea of modeling a piece of something on a PC and then simply print it with a thermoplastic. He really wanted to see what these kinds of things were capable of first hand, so he had some real incentive to do something to win. And with his Craft skill, he was sure that he would be able to beat his competition.

John left the material storage with multiple small boards of olive wood and some hinges. He had to give credit, the workshop was in damn good shape, and the materials stored there were rarely of bad quality, which spoke highly for the enthusiasm of Ms. Brooks and the other teachers teaching at the workshop. Speaking of Ms. Brooks, she watched with a curious look as John went to a woodwork station. “Well Mr. Newman looks like I just have to give you an incentive to put in some work and suddenly you put in some effort.” She didn’t wait for an answer though as she went to help some student with a drill.

There were multiple stations in the workshop for working on wood, and most of them were pretty isolated so that someone wouldn’t be startled when they were working with dangerous machinery. One of these stations was still empty as no one else seemingly dared to use the sharp machines there. John didn’t plan to either, but the ability to have some privacy was good.

Once he made sure that he wasn’t watched, John used Craft to instantly create a box out of the wood and the hinges that he had with him. He had a simplistic design in mind, which seamlessly closed, leaving only a small stub of wood to pull up the lid that was attached with the hinges. The result looked pretty much as he had wanted, but the edges were a bit rough. John took a piece of fine sandpaper and started to round the edges as he thought about what to craft next. He still had some gear slots that needed filling, so maybe he should do something with that?

He decided to get to work on a belt, first and foremost, so he activated the mental link to Sarai and asked her to bring the Elemental Furs and Elemental Fangs to the entrance of the Nexus so that he could pick them up quickly without too much suspicion. Opening the doorway in a dark corner proved to be easy, as he could easily as he could enter the key card between two big pieces of wood. He as he looked into the Nexus, he saw that all the materials were already shipped there by the drones. Quickly taking it into his inventory, he closed the Nexus again.

Sarai had apparently thought farther than he did, as she also put the two units of leather, some Scrap Metal, and the gemstone in the pile of materials. John was sure he would likely not use the gemstone yet, as his Craft skill was still evolving, but the Elemental Furs and the Fangs would be okay since he could easily farm them again by going into the monastery Barrier. But, with the materials in his inventory now, he cast Craft with a belt in mind to see the options he would get:

Leather Belt
Armor (Belt)
+1 Def
Light Armor
Requires: 1x Leather

Shoddy Belt of the Magic Hunter
Armor (Belt)
+2 Def
Light Armor
+3 Damage against magical creatures
Requires: 1x Elemental Fur, Craft Lv.2

Shoddy Belt of the Fire Wolf
Armor (Belt)
+2 Def
Light Armor
+2 Fire Damage
Requires: 1x Elemental Fur (Fire), Craft. Lv.2

Shoddy Belt of the Thunder Wolf
Armor (Belt)
+2 Def
Light Armor: Movement Speed reduced by 5% (only highest Armor class will be deducted from speed)
+2 Lightning Damage
Requires: 1x Elemental Fur (Lightning), Craft. Lv.2

Studded Leather Belt
Armor (Belt)
+3 Def
Medium Armor: Movement Speed reduced by 10% (only highest Armor class will be deducted from speed)
Requires: 1x Leather, 1x Scrap Metal

Explorers Belt
Armor (Belt)
+1 Def
Light Armor: Movement Speed reduced by 5% (only highest Armor class will be deducted from speed)
+5 Inventory slots
Requires: 2x Leather

Enhancement Options:
Elemental Fang: Bonus Elemental Damage
Enchanted Gemstone: +5 STR, +0,5x Crit Multiplier

Level of Craft not high enough to use specific materials in inventory

There was some nice variety in the different kinds of belts he could craft. If he looked over them right now, his first instinct was to go with one of the elemental belts, because the other ones either had merits he didn’t need or would slow him down in a way that would be against his combat style. And seriously, five inventory slots was nothing by now…

So he picked the fire wolf belt with the fang enhancement.

Shoddy Fanged Belt of the Fire Wolf
Armor (Belt)
+2 Def
Light Armor
+5 Fire Damage

Craft, Lv.3: New recipes crafting options unlocked. Crafting yields better results.

Nice, so the next thing he’d create would be even better!

As he thought about crafting something else, he could hear the footsteps of Ms. Brooks behind him. Quickly putting away everything that wasn’t the box, the teacher entered the room with a curious look, “Mr. Newman, the period is going to be over in a couple of minutes, let’s see what you can do when you’re motivated.”

He handed his box that was longer than wide, built for keeping brushes and pencil in there. Ms. Brooks took the pencil case and looked it over with a very critical eye, “If there weren’t some minor flaws in the construction of the box and the marker of my wood on this thing, I would’ve said that you bought this thing. It’s very good, very simple, but for someone with your apparent skills, this is very good. I’ll see what the others have produced. You can go now; you’re obviously done already.”

Huh, so she didn’t suspect a thing, well that was good! John then left the woodwork station after his teacher and left the workshop altogether.

He sat himself down in front of the school where he’d suspect Kim to be waiting for him later and sat down on a nearby bench where he started to use Meditate.

Why not use the free time he had to regenerate some of the Mana he had used up today?