Chapter 34. First Ever Equipment: [Wind Leaf Amulet].

It took Flor four hours to suddenly wake up with a start, as her brain remembered that she was speaking with Liu Shu. 'I fell asleep? I must've been tired…'

Rubbing her eyes, she looked around the vault and saw something different from yesterday. 'Hm? What's this?'

The large pile of items at the corner was still there, but it was much more messed up. Clearly, Liu Shu had been searching for things inside of it. "Then, the things Liu Shu searched for... Ah, there they are."

With a quick glance, the Rose Fairy Queen spotted a new pile of wooden materials. Thanks to her affinities, Flor realized that all the materials here had some affinity for Air Aether Mana. 'Hm… What does she want to tell me? First, she told me to come here and showed me six piles of many different items, one of them being clearly bigger. However, her intention is not to show that to me.'

Flor rationalized. 'Still, Liu Shu was in quite a hurry for a tree. So, what can make our tree feel nervous or excited enough to call me here in a hurry?'

To help her understand a bit, Liu Shu used one of her beautiful roots to squeeze around the pile of air-related wooden materials. As the roots became smaller, more and more pieces of wood fell from the sides. Flor looked at that action and saw the roots squeezing more and more until all items fell from the sides. 'She didn't grab…Oh. OH!'

Flor, this time for real, smacked her forehead with a loud and sonorous smack. "… Ouch."

She saw that she had actually shaved off five points of Phoer Body Shards, making her lips twitch. 'This hit will leave a handprint, won't it?'

Flor, leaving that problem for later, asked, "Do you want me to gather more materials of this kind?"

Instantly, her mind was bombarded with happy feelings from Liu Shu. The World Tree was clearly excited, making Flor smile as well. "Sure. We'll make a group search for materials with wind affinity. What about the others in the pile? Do we search for them as well?"

This time, Flor received a much less enthusiastic response, but it was a yes nonetheless. "So… We search for them, but with less priority. Got it." Then, Flor asked. "Was this all, Liu Shu?"

After receiving one final affirmative response, Flor flew out of the vault with one piece of wood from each of the materials to use as an example. When she was out, she realized that the Sun had yet to start rising, but since it was a new day, she approached Liu Shu and started using her Royal pollination on her.

The red dust her wings released quickly filled the air around the World Tree, and then Liu Shu received nine experience points.

She had been asleep for one week, and adding today's share, she had received a total of 87 experience points.

'Now, let's create those amulets!'

Liu Shu didn't waste time as everything had been prepared for a while. First, she cut off her <World Tree Eye> from relaying information anywhere other than the vault, where she would do the Woodcrafting.

First, Liu Shu activated her skill, allowing her Aether Mana and Anima energy to flow through her roots and surround the entire <Lignified Vault>. Usually, a room specially prepared for this needed to be used.

Rooms for Woodcrafting were surrounded in arrays, something akin to circuits that conducted energies to increase the density of energies and also fed the tools the wood crafter would have in their workplace.

Liu Shu had none of this, so she had to make do with her own energy and create a similar environment inside the Vault. Thankfully, the vault was entirely surrounded by her roots, so controlling this had many fewer complications than one would imagine. All of this, taking into account Liu Shu's nature as a World Tree.

It took a while to create this proper environment, around 30 hours. Liu Shu had even to stop <Enchanted Growth> to have more room for maneuvering. However, now that she had created it once, recreating it would be much easier as long as the vault's door wasn't opened often.

'Now, let's begin with the easiest one to familiarize myself.'

Her roots extended from the walls, slowly reaching out and taking the materials for the Basic-Grade, Flawed amulet.

'Hm. Following the book's instructions, I should first infuse the <Shards > with energy until they are completely activated.'

Her roots gently spread over the 20 shards, ten Sylvanium Shards, and ten Etherium Shards, then, she fed them with the energy required.

For Etherium, Aether mana was enough. However, Sylvanium was different.

Sylvanium was considered the most precious of the five materials because if an item were done with just it, it would give all types of stats. Yet, the drawback was that to activate the shards, you needed the same energies that they gave.

The use of Phoer Body Shards to create items was risky for some, to the point that there had been previous deaths while creating items that were much higher level than what the crafter could do.

As Liu Shu fed them, she felt 200 Aether Mana, 100 Phoer, and 100 Anima Energy get sucked out of her. Not only that but because Sylvanium also affected the mind like Cognium would, Liu Shu became a bit dazed.

This didn't faze her, in any case. With the knowledge she had learned, she knew why it was happening, so she ignored it. 'Good. Now that they are charged, I can set them aside and work with the materials until the shards are needed later.'

Her gaze moved and landed on the first pile of materials, and then her <Woodcrafter (E Rank Level MAX)> skill started working.

Tendrils of energy spread from her roots, entangling the materials in what other wood crafters would call nothing but beyond perfect control.

Her tendrils coiled around and pierced through the materials as if they were foam. But these tendrils were ethereal, so they could both hold and pierce through the material.

Her energy seeped inside, further consuming her Aether Mana and Anima Energy. While others usually didn't speak about it much, the Willpower stat was also extremely important.

The system interface didn't show an "Energy" pool, but mental power could be exhausted, and with it, energy consumption increased. Thankfully for our cute World Tree, she had an absurd 30 points in the Willpower stat.

As her tendrils worked, the materials started changing forms as if they had lost their rigidity. This state was similar to what happened to metal when heated up by the forge; it became malleable enough to be hammered into shape.

With Woodcrafting, it was similar. Instead of increasing the heat of the material to loosen energy bonds, the World Tree infused enough pure energy to make those bonds weak and, thus, create a material state similar to that of heated metal.

Of course, while Liu Shu made it look easy, it was nothing but such.

In fact, this step separated who could and could not become a Wood Craftsman in Society.

When the materials became softer, Liu Shu began molding them using her actual roots. They still weren't as deft as proper hands, but their range of motion was better than hands in some aspects.

Liu Shu focused and continued, gradually merging the materials and making them take shape. While she transformed the materials, some of the Sylvanium and Etherium began flying, being attracted by the energies released by the wood crafting. Liu Shu felt happy. 'Oh? Perfect! The equipment is created perfectly when the Sylvanium and similar don't need to be manually placed; instead, they fly into where the crafter intended. After all, the energetic attraction created by the spots left for them could, in theory, attract things like magnets would.' Liu Shu paused. 'Or so the book says… What are magnets, though?'

While she was curious, she was as quick to leave those thoughts aside and refocus on her current task.

So, as Liu Shu crafted the amulet, the shards that were not bigger than half a fingernail slowly moved and merged into the craft. The amulet was meant to be tiny as it should be worn by 20-centimeter-tall women.

But that was not a problem. Once the Sylvanium and Etherium melded in their spots, they would melt and become one with the piece.

That's why rings of extremely high tiers could be created. If not, for top-tier materials that needed exaggerated amounts of materials, it would be impossible to make them small enough to fit around a finger.

The amulet shaping continued for a while, and finally, after much effort, a neat amulet with the shape of a leaf was created.

[Congratulations! You've created [Basic Grade Wind Leaf Amulet (Flawed)]! You've received one experience point.]

[Congratulations! You've created [Basic Grade Wind Leaf Amulet (Flawed)]! You've received five proficiency points.]

Liu Shu looked at those two messages with a deadpan. 'Oh.'

Our cute tree understood that these were too easy to create, but they took their time. For example, to create this one, she needed around 20 hours.

Her lack of proficiency was largely at fault as well. Most probably, in the future, she would be able to do them almost unconsciously, like she was currently growing flowers and feeding them to mature quickly into delicious fruits.

Liu Shu, curious, decided to take a look at its stats.

[Level 3 Wind Leaf Amulet (Basic-Grade Flawed Level)]

+26 Aether Mana

+0 Phoer

+0 Anima Energy

Aether (+6), Physique (0), Anima (0), Willpower (0).

Aether Resonance (0), Physique Refinement (0), Anima Affinity (0), Mental Palace (0)

[Windy Currents (active)]: Use to increase movement speed by 20% for a short 2-second duration. It can be used every 10 minutes or by using 10 Aether Mana.

Note: This is the first item created by Tianlian Liu Shu. It's crafted decently, and it gives the stats she aimed for. Overall, it's a decent item for the low-level materials she used.

{Author Note: Following this, stats that are 0 won't be shown. I just wanted to show the general "interface" for equipment. Also, don't expect "notes" on all equipment, hahaha.}

'Level 3? Oh… I can't make equipment of a higher level than my level?'

Liu Shu became a bit sad. She thought that quality could raise the level of the equipment, but she seemed to be wrong. 'Well… Then… Should I wait until I'm Level 4? I'm not that far away, after all.'

After pondering for a bit, Liu Shu chose to wait. While she wasn't that worried about the slight loss of stats, as she would be creating as many of these as possible, she didn't want to waste the F Rank material they had.

'Nice~. I'll call Flor to see if she likes it~.'

With a happy tone, Liu Shu checked around her, and when she found Flor, she began sending spam messages. 'Flor, come! Come! Flor~. Flooooor! Flor? Flor~. Flor Flor!'

A certain Rose Fairy Queen somewhat regretted teaching the World Tree how to communicate.