14 Volume 1 Chapter 14: Secrets to Enchanting
(Walson)
I was honestly surprised that Grace decided to party up with me. The future lessons required children to be grouped up, and I never thought that she wanted me with her.
Since the next lesson was a practical one, involving exploration and slime extermination, I had to make some preparations.
From what I could gather, they are going to allow us to explore the flatter - and less dangerous - parts of the mountain.
Then, we need to bring back some [Slime Core] and [Slimeball] as proof that we did indeed exterminate them, and not just frolic in the mountains all day.
I have a large reserve for both items inside the secret base, so all I need is to present those, and I can hog all that time for my own activities.
It would also be nice to watch the reaction of those snotty brats when I present a humongous amount of items.
They are CHILDREN, and they are really weak. I have absolutely no idea how they can be this prideful about their so-called 'strength'.
I snuck out of bed in the darkness, and was in my secret base.
By the way, Melon was still training with the wooden dummy, it's been an hour since I've arrived and she's still at it.
Sheesh, she's staying up really late! Not like I can judge her though, since I am here... and awake...
I wanted to test something that I always wanted to try out before.
*Bang* *Bang* *Bang* the sound of Melon's swift fists impacting the dummy echoed through the cave.
It was quickly followed by the frantic *Click* and *Squeak* from the turning of the cogs and wheels inside the dummy.
It's just the usual sounds when Melon was training. I have mostly tuned most of them out when a loud *CRASH* resounded.
A big block of wood then flew directly into my face, impacting it painfully.
Splinters followed its wake, but thankfully none of them came anywhere close to harming me. Extracting splinters is always a nasty business.
Thus, the [Spinning Dummy] was destroyed. May it rest in peace... or piece/s.
Melon rushed towards me to help, and I had to divest some time into calming her down.
She then apologized profusely, but I simply waved them off.
I told her to go take a bath in the hot spring to calm down.
I took out the [Enchanting Table].
This is the one that I had inside my [Inventory] when playing Minecraft. Its purpose is to enchant items, granting them extra function depending on what enchantment was given.
It can be used on most equipment, it can grant Protection, Fire Protection, Blast Protection and Projectile Protection to name a few.
Or on weapons, to make it Sharp, or granting it Fire Aspect to ignite foes on fire.
Anyways, there are a lot of different effects both big and small that enchantment can grant and augment, I will just skip through it.
The [Enchanting Table] looks like a black obsidian table, with a leather book that emits a soft life levitating over it.
I stood in front of the table and took out an [Iron Sword] to commence my experiments.
Placing the [Iron Sword] cautiously over the table, I reached towards the leather book a bit nervously.
The moment my fingertips made contact with the book, the light immediately dimmed... no, wait! The light converged inside the book.
I opened the pages.
...
?
... Huh?
There are words written inside the book, and I can clearly feel the magic coming from it, but I simply cannot read them at all.
This also happened back in Minecraft. So I suppose this is normal.
The enchantments are always randomly chosen, and the words are nothing but cosmetics that are completely unrelated to enchanting.
It was best to just pick an option and pray it's the one you wanted.
How does it function though? How can I control it to start the process?
My fingers slid through the words written in the book, feeling the hum of magic beneath it.
... Wait, I CAN understand it. It's trying to tell me something.
{Cost: 32 Levels}, that's what I am feeling as I continue to caress the words in the book.
Within the world of Minecraft, it was essential to pay the price in experience points and levels for enchantments.
But the levels were frankly only an integrator that marked how much experience points you have, and have zero impact on the growth and stats.
In this world, experience points and levels are essential to one's individuality, essential to one's growth, and affects you through your whole life. I sincerely doubt that it will literally take away 32 levels. Not that I had that much.
I absentmindedly gave the mental command to {Select} it. In theory, If I couldn't match the 'price', then the golden letters would be unavailable for me to select.
But it was available, so that means it's not really the levels that the book will be taking.
I wonder what it will take from me?
" □■▲, △● , ▣ⓞ. ◥-◥-►!" I exclaimed without even knowing what the words were.
Then I watched as the glowing letters I selected flew out from the book, glowing golden and swirling around me.
I immediately felt dizzy and light headed. This sensation... like something was sucked out of me.
Wait, my mana? I lost a big chunk of my mana, the big loss of it caused my discomfort.
I crumbled and fell on my ass from the dizziness while the golden letters suddenly stopped swirling, freezing in the air momentarily, and shooting towards the sword on the table as if they were birds of prey, swooping down for a kill.
Light shined from the sword, but it soon faded away to show it's coated in a purplish gleam that covered the whole sword.
It seems like this was a success!
"What in the name of the goddess are you doing now, Master?" Melon walked out from the bathroom.
She has been watching me for about three minutes, I let her think that I didn't notice her; hah.
"Oh nothing, just an experiment." I placed the enchanted [Iron Sword] into my [Inventory].
[Iron Sword_Enchantment: Sharpness(II), Knock-back(I)]
Oooh. Sharpness to increase damage, and knock back as well? Interesting.
I felt myself out to make certain how much mana it took from me.
[MP 301/621]
Hmm, approximately half of my mana is missing. So the price for enchanting would be my mana now?
I calculated it through my head again, and came to the realization that it took away exactly 320 mana. Wasn't the cost supposed to be 32 levels? Does this mean one level in Minecraft equals 10 mana here?
Which means as long as I take enough rest and allow my mana to regenerate, I can enchant anything I want as many times as I wish.
... I am going to abuse this to the nether, then back again.
I am just a lowly [Commoner] who has zero spells in their arsenal!
Normally, I'm never going to even be using mana! I got enough mana to spare.
"Melon, I'm leaving now." I stood up from the ground.
"Hn? You're leaving? It's really late! It might be dangerous."
"Yeah, I have to get up early to tend the farm."
Speaking of farming... I have run out of [Bone Meal].
I will have to somehow find more monsters to pilfer their bones for it, preferably, Undead Skeletons.
Troublesome.
"Looks like I'm running low on other things too... I'll need more monster loots/drops later..."
"Alright, I will watch out for mobs Master." Melon gave me an affirmative nod.
"Oh, by the way." I took out two new spinning dummies from my [Inventory].
"I'm so sorry!" Melon quickly ducks her head in shame, focusing her eyes on the ground.
It's not like she did anything special, but damn, she broke the dummies through brute strength alone. That's insane.
"I can quickly make more of them, so don't worry." A true statement. The reason it took much longer to make in the first time was because I diverted most of my effort and attention to the designs.
Now that I have already done it once, it's much easier to make more.
Thanks to the [Crafting Table], it will take probably less than a minute to get the dummy. It's the cogs and other small parts that give me trouble and eat up the time.
But even then, it's still relatively quick to make.
I already anticipated the destruction of the dummy, so I already made them a few days ago.
"I will be off then. Sweet dreams." With that said, I quickly made my way back to the Orphanage with the night breeze running through my hair.
