When I focus back on Master Marin, I remember that I had actually asked him for help before rudely ignoring him.

  “Sorry,” I apologise. “I got a bit distracted there.”

  “No need to explain, my lord,” he waves away. “It was interesting to watch you test it – and gratifying to see how easily it responds.”

  “You’ve definitely done an excellent job,” I praise. “And I guess the gaps aren’t an issue when I can grow the armour to cover them.”

  “Ah, that wasn’t what I meant. If you touch the mana within and think ‘fusion’, you’ll see.”

  Curious, I follow his instructions and feel the armour shift around me. The edges of the gloves seal themselves to my sleeves; the hood presses tightly around my face and the edge seals itself to my jacket. When I check the tops of my trousers and in my boots, I realise that those have sealed too. I’m basically in a drysuit with only my face still open to the air.

  “Impressive,” I admit. I think ‘separation’ at the armour and it unseals again. “The Separation/Fusion enchantment at work, I take it.”

  “Exactly,” the leatherworker agrees. “Now, as for the other features, this armour contains seven primary enchantments. We’ve already discussed two of them, but the others are Stealth, Shield, Fire-affinity, Impact Absorption, and Self-repair. Would you like any explanation on these?”

  “Stealth makes the armour quieter, I assume.”

  “And makes it blend better with your environment. It doesn’t make you invisible, though,” the leatherworker warns.

  “I didn’t assume it would,” I assure him. “Self-repair seems obvious, though I’m surprised you put that in here – can’t I repair it myself with Flesh-Shaping?” I certainly sense that it should be possible.

  “You can,” agrees Master Marin, “but unless you also have a talent in enchanting, manually regrowing it risks the enchantments not properly setting in the new sections. The self-repair function ensures that the whole piece is brought back to its original state – eventually. It is only a minor enchantment, so it will take days to tendays rather than flames to repair damage. Of course, the more damage, the longer it will take. Your repairs to the physical fabric will reduce the repair time – unless in doing so you cause significant damage to the enchantments.”

  I suppose that makes sense – healing with Flesh-Shaping is more complicated than just replicating skin cells. Unfortunately, I don’t have a talent in enchanting.

  “Will my efforts risk damaging the self-repair enchantment itself?” I ask seriously – if so, it would be better for me just to let the armour do its own thing.

  “It’s unlikely,” Master Marin reassures me. “Unless you send a good deal of magic into the armour with the intention of wiping it clean of outside influences, the self-repair enchantment is robust by nature. It’s designed that, as long as even a small piece of it remains, it can regrow its host back to the original blueprint.”

  That sounds uncomfortably like a fungus or virus – magical version. It also makes me wonder whether I could take a piece off the armour and regrow it into a second copy of itself. I suspect not – otherwise the market would be saturated with them – but I’m curious enough to try later to see what happens.

  “Alright, so that’s self-repair. Fire-affinity just makes it more resistant to and malleable by fire magic, I would guess.” Master Marin nods in answer so I move on. “What about Shield?”

  “Ah. Once per day, you can activate a shield that doubles the armour values for a limited duration. Specifically, ten flames. It absorbs ambient mana to recharge itself, so in poor mana environments, it may take longer to recharge. Conversely, good mana environments may increase how often you can use it.”

  “How will I know when it’s available?” I check, making a mental note of his comments.

  “Once more, reach into the armour with your magic and think ‘shield’,” Master Marin answers patiently. I do so and immediately sense what he’s trying to tell me. When I think about the enchantment, I instinctively know whether it’s available to me or not. If it’s anything like the tattoos I have which seem to work on a similar basis, I will have a vague sense of the recharge level too.

  “Great. Now, Impact Absorption?”

  A hint of a self-satisfied smile touches Master Marin’s lips at my question.

  “That is something of my own design, my lord. Given that the blunt impact resistance of this armour is unfortunately lower than preferable, I wanted to give you something that made up for it. This enchantment takes some of the energy of an impact and transforms it into energy that can be used to power other enchantments.”

  “Impressive,” I comment. “There’s no risk of overloading the enchantments, is there?” I check, considering how electronics work and how important it is to make sure they have the right amount of electricity. Which reminds me – maybe Lady Renaye’s daughter can help me figure out how to safely charge my own electronics.

  “No,” Master Marin reassures me. “All these enchantments are designed to be impossible to overload, no matter how much mana or Energy is channelled into them.”

  I wonder briefly if that extends to being dipped in Pure Energy, since I know too well the corrosive-like effects of that on most substances. But it’s not like I have any to hand even if I wanted to risk losing my amazing new armour.

  “You’ve done excellent work, Master Marin,” I praise. “I’m itching to try it out in a fight.”

  “Please do not hold yourself back on our account, my lord,” he replies, gesturing to Athos who has been keeping quiet all this time. Honestly, I’m not quite sure why Master Marin brought him, unless it was to give him the experience of visiting the lord’s manor.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Alright, I will. And you’re welcome to come along to see how it holds up,” I invite. Master Marin bows.

  “We would be honoured,” he assures me. “And if it does not hold up to your expectations, I will offer it to you free of charge,” he vows.

  My eyebrows twitch upwards – talk about putting your money where your mouth is. He’s put in hours of work on this in the last tenday and a half. Days, even. To risk the remuneration for all that…he must be very confident.

  “Then, let’s test it,” I reply with a hint of challenge.

  Half an hour of controlled testing on the training grounds proves that Master Marin had good reason to be as confident as he was.

  “I’m impressed,” I admit. I watch as one of the holes Iandee made with his spear visibly reduces in size. There are scorch marks on the scales from River’s reduction skill, but the armour stubbornly resisted the majority of the damage she’d normally cause. Bastet’s fire-breath barely even felt hot as the armour seemed to drink her flames and purr for more.

  It even protected me against a full blow from Kalanthia – not perfectly, but well enough that I could have got up and continued fighting afterwards. I felt more pain from my impact with the ground after she knocked me flying than from the strike itself. Apparently Impact Absorption is less effective against incidental damage from my environment. The giant leopard was rather put out at the realisation that all she’d managed to do was score a set of lines across my chest, barely even drawing blood.

  I got her to repeat the strike after the armour had repaired itself, this time activating the shield enchantment. Even more impressively, all she managed to do was make me stagger back a few steps. The armour itself wasn’t even scratched.

  Skills had a better chance of affecting me – Mathis, with a Skill-powered spear-strike – actually managed to make a hole in me. But given how much power I sensed behind the attack, I suspect that it would have usually exploded my shoulder rather than just making a clean hole in it. If the shield had been active, he might not even have got through the armour.

  I didn’t ask Reagen to use his Skills on me – given that the armour is weakest against blunt impacts, I don’t want to know what might happen if he swung his hammer into me. Laeman, however, was the most frustrated of all of my trainers – even with his Skills active, the best he did was get an arrow to graze my skin.

  As for the armour’s suitability for my own fighting style, the only way it could be better is if it adapted to all of my Shaping Skills the way it does to Flesh- and Fire-Shaping. Using those two is a dream – the armour doesn’t only let me use Flesh-Shaping seamlessly with it, but adapts perfectly to any new additions I make to myself. Like when I grew my wings – it let them out and then wrapped around their bases to cover my vulnerabilities without me even needing to direct it. Or when I grew spikes on the back of my hand – it allowed the points out, but wrapped around the rest of the protrusions.

  As for Fire-Shaping, the fire-affinity of the armour actually enhances fire mana that passes through it – my flame-thrower gained a heat and a stickiness to it that is apparently characteristic to the drake from which the hide came.

  Seeing the way a Master Leatherworker actually coaxes the natural advantages of the beast out of its hide and makes them available to the wearer is humbling. Master Marin was being kind when he evaluated my own attempts – with this masterpiece to compare them to, I can see that they truly were trash-tier.

  The only downside I can see to how Master Marin has emphasised the drake’s natural aspects is that it makes Earth- and Water-Shaping just a touch more difficult. But I’m not concerned – worse comes to worst, I can take off a glove and use them with that hand as normal. Anyway, working through my limitations might be what both of them need to advance.

  “You have more than earned your pay,” I tell Master Marin frankly, handing him six gold coins. I’m delighted with my new equipment.

  “My lord, this is too much,” he protests, trying to hand one of them back. “I quoted you five golders.”

  I refuse to take the coin.

  “Consider it an expression of my appreciation for your professionalism, and of how happy I am with your work.”

  Master Marin eyes me for a long moment, then dips his head respectfully.

  “Then I will thank you for it, my lord.” His voice is full of honesty. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is more money than he’s ever received at once. Six golders is enough to buy a house. A small one, yes, but a house all the same.

  “Thank you. And, as I indicated previously, after seeing the quality of your work, I would like to commission more of it. I have companions and future recruits to equip – quite a few of them.”

  Even if the mercenaries I’m hiring should have their own equipment, there are young men from the slums who have signed up and who have little to no armour, nor enough money to buy it before we leave. If I can have some armour to lend or rent to them for the expedition, that would be good. “The question is how much you’re able to do before we leave since we’re planning to go in a tenday.”

  Master Marin looks briefly uncertain.

  “My lord,” he starts hesitantly, not quite managing to meet my gaze. My eyes narrow slightly at him. “You indicated you’re looking for craftsmen to join your expedition.”

  “I am,” I confirm, my expression lightening as hope rises.

  “Will you…would you be willing to take us along?” he asks, indicating himself and Athos. I look over at Loran’s brother and see the nerves written on his face. Is this why he came along?

  “I would be delighted,” I answer him honestly. “Though, don’t you have a business here? The competition lasts five years – won’t your business suffer for that?” Not that I want to discourage him, but I don’t want him regretting his choices either.

  The Master Leatherworker makes an impatient gesture with one hand.

  “Not enough of a one to miss out on this opportunity.” He eyes me and seems to read the curiosity in my face. With a hint of a sigh, he explains. “It’s been an uphill battle ever since I was recognised as a Master and refused to work under the guild’s banner. And since I don’t offer anything that guild crafters can’t, I get the scraps where they have the meat. But if I can come back with hides from the Lost Continent, from creatures no one has ever heard of before….” His eyes glint with excitement and perhaps a touch of greed. “The upper-tier merchants love all things new – I’ll be able to establish myself before the guild even has access to the new products.”

  I nod slowly.

  “Fair enough. Well, regardless of the reason, you’re welcome to join.” I turn my head to look directly at Athos. “What about you? Master Marin has indicated that you wish to join too – is that right?”

  Athos looks off to the side – but not towards his Master. Instead, I follow his gaze and see Loran sparring with Thalon. Despite the difference between their sizes, he’s holding his own, a mask of determination on his face.

  “Yes, my lord,” Athos replies with quiet determination. “Though….” The nerves take over his expression again and I see his fingers shake. “My sister….”

  “Oh, Loran mentioned he has two siblings,” I comment. “She’s welcome to come as well. Especially if she has any Skills she could offer.”

  “She works with a seamstress, my lord,” Athos quickly informs me. “She’s not an official apprentice, but she will be useful, I swear.”

  “Then give her the option and let her make her choice,” I suggest.

  More people to be responsible for, and Loran’s only living blood relatives at that, I think to myself with dread. I’ll do my best to make sure we all come through this, but I know that I can’t guarantee it. All I can do is to use my time fully to prepare for what will come.

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