Chapter 199: Chapter 191

The group made their way into Demor’s manor. True to Ethan’s words, many of the enchantments in the mansion seemed to be focused on containing things in the basement. Alice ignored those as Demor showed the group upstairs.

“There are some rooms available here for all of you,” he said, nodding at them. “The two rooms closest to the stars are for Immortal Ethan and Allira – I had time to prepare for your arrival, and since I know many of your hobbies, I set them up in advance. Allira, you will find a variety of instruments in the room with black paint.” Allira didn’t say a word to Demor in response. It looked like she was still debating whether she wanted to punch him. Her facial expression had transitioned out of the near-murderous rage from earlier, but she still looked irritable. Demor ignored her irritable expression.

“Ethan, your room is the one with the dark green paint. I have procured a set of books you will likely find interesting, as well as some rather interesting enchanted items. If you try training your organic and kinetic magic with them, you will get some interesting results.” Immortal Demor grinned turned towards Jonathan. “I was not aware that a third Immortal would be coming, so I apologize in not having a room set up for you. You’re Immortal Jonathan, yes? Ruler of Superbia? I believe you specialize in farming?”

Jonathan gazed at Demor, as if debating whether or not he actually wanted to answer. Finally, he nodded, although his expression looked slightly stiff. Alice realized that Demor’s little speech hadn’t exactly made Jonathan into a fanatical supporter of the man either. After all, Jonathan was practically the epitome of a non-combatant Immortal. The man basically only had raw stats to go off of when it came to a fight. He was capable of handling stray bandits or monsters, but not high level [Assassin].

“Well, if you wish, you may use my gardens as you wish. Please stay away from the potted plants, though. I have been trying to raise plants that grow monster cores as a type of fruit. I doubt that it will work, but leave them be anyway. As for your room, you may use the dark brown room at the end of this hallway for now. I will prepare something a bit more specialized for you later.” Allira glanced at the potted plants, and Alice found herself wondering if the potted plants in the hallway would soon find themselves ‘accidentally’ eaten by a giant shadowy maw. She also found herself more than a little curious about Demor’s actions. Surely Demor wasn’t dumb. He had reached Immortality, after all. It would be hard to reach Immortality if one was stupid. What did he gain from antagonizing Allira and possibly Jonathan like this? His actions were… odd. Or perhaps he simply had an abrasive personality, and that hadn’t changed after he became an Immortal?

Heedless of Alice’s thoughts, Demor’s voice continued ringing through the hall. “As for the rest of you, I have not prepared specific rooms to suit your tastes, but you may choose from any of the other rooms in this hall. There are more than enough of them, and they will suit your needs well enough.” With that, Demor gave the group one final nod, before he turned towards Alice. “As for you… you may contact me after dinner. I should be set up by then. I intend to show you the process of artifact creation, step by step. Please wait until after dinner, though. I am still in the midst of preparing a batch of materials that will be helpful for you. Dinner is already in the cookpot, and it will be done in an hour or two.”

With that, the group broke up. Alice saw Allira deposit her things in her room, before almost immediately exiting again – likely, she was off to hand over the request for aid that Fendrallia’s capital had requested they deliver.

Alice picked one of the other rooms in the hallway. Cecilia chose a room right next to her. Jonathan’s family organized themselves into other rooms, although Alice noticed that the youngest girl, Mimi, didn’t get a room of her own. Instead, Jonathan’s wife dragged her into Jonathan’s room, along with her own luggage.

When Alice entered her own room, she didn’t think much of it at first. It seemed just like an ordinary, if somewhat spacious, room. However, there was a certain… lack of abnormalities in the room. Every other room that Alice had slept in over the past year had clearly been under the influence of the System. There were always little signs of perks being used here and there. Corners that were too clean for ordinary human hands to have cleaned them. Beds that were a bit too comfortable for the materials they were made of. Other, subtle oddities that weren’t obvious at first, but started to stick out like sore thumbs once one paid attention to them.

For some reason, those little touches were absent in the room.

In fact, she hadn’t thought much about it before, but there was a distinct lack of… [Servants] in this manor. Which was something Alice wasn’t that used to, at least when dealing with Immortals. The beds that she had seen all had a certain level of normalcy to them that beds in this world just didn’t usually have. And yet, everything was still obviously clean and well-taken care of.

How… odd. And concerning.

Normally, Alice would have assumed that this was just a lifestyle choice from Demor. However, the mansion did seem a little bit unnerving in how quiet it was. Now, people’s beliefs were also starting to shape reality. If things got a little out of hand…

Alice’s mind started spinning in circles as she wondered why Demor didn’t hire any [Servants]. It obviously wasn’t a money issue – the man was an Immortal [Enchanter]. He could make money quite easily if he wanted to. The cost of hiring a few [Butlers] and [Maids] should be negligible to him. It also made her wonder who was making the soup. If Demor didn’t have any other servants… did he have a [Chef]? That suddenly seemed less likely to her than before. If Demor didn’t have a [Chef]… was he cooking the food himself?

Alice found herself overwhelmed by a mix of curiosity and worry, so she went to Ethan’s door and knocked on it.

“Come in.”

Alice entered the room, and scanned it. It was a bit barebones, but there were a small pile of metal balls in one corner of the room. Alice wasn’t quite sure what they did, but she could clearly see that they were enchanted. She wondered how Ethan was supposed to practice Organic magic with a pile of metal balls. Kinetic magic made sense, but… organic?

Alice decided not to worry about it now. Instead, she wanted to know why such a large manor seemed to only be inhabited by one person.

“Alice. May I ask why you’re here? I expected that you would either start doing some dream experimentation, or perhaps messing with the manaborn monsters again. Do you need something?”

“Why are there no [Servants] in the manor? I’m just curious. It seems odd to me.”

“Ah. That’s your question.” Ethan glanced around the room, before he shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know either. I’ve asked him the same question myself in the past, but he refused to answer. My best guess is that he’s afraid of assassination. [Servants] in a manor can make life far more convenient and nicer, since the [Servant] class gets so many Perks that make cleaning and such more convenient. But [Servants] also introduce spots where a [Spy] or [Assassin] can slip in and kill you, or steal valuable information. If you don’t have any [Servants] at all, that becomes more difficult.” Ethan sighed. “I actually had an incident about two centuries ago where a [Spy] managed to steal several papers from my private lab.” Ethan chuckled. “I always wondered why that [Spy] even bothered. I may be an Immortal, but I’m not exactly focused on research. Do I even have research documents worth stealing? I mean, the spy must have thought that I had something worth targeting, but… I wonder how disappointed they were when they stole the documents. The employer must have been furious. Most of my research projects go nowhere.” Ethan chuckled at those words.

“So do you not worry about it because you don’t care?” asked Alice.

Ethan nodded. “I have very little that is actually valuable enough for a [Spy] to steal. I do have some military intelligence regarding Illvaria’s troops… but that’s mostly locked inside of my brain. I burn most confidential information after reading it. So it’s not like there’s a physical copy of it to steal. Apart from that, well… you saw the battle with Emilia. I am nowhere near the top of the Immortal food chain… but I’m not at the bottom, either. Not to mention, my mom and my dad are both Immortals too, and I’m a combat-oriented Class. Most [Assassins] steer clear of me because they’re more afraid of me than I am of them. Of course, sometimes a particularly ‘bright’ level 70 or 75 tries to assassinate me anyway, because humans tend to believe they are much better and smarter than their predecessor from several decades ago. They think that times have changed, and this is their chance to pull of something amazing!” Ethan rolled his eyes. “Then they die.”

Alice nodded thoughtfully. If level 70 or 75 [Assassins] still semi-consistently targeted Ethan, despite being totally outclassed, that was a reminder of what her own future would look like, if she did manage to become an Immortal. She could see why Demor was so insistent on Immortals being combat oriented… even if he was a jerk about it. Then, another thought crossed her mind.

“So you’re saying that Demor is afraid of assassination attempts?” asked Alice. Just a few hours ago, Demor had been lecturing Alice about how every Immortal needed to be prepared for assassination attempts, and to be a strong combatant. Was someone like that really afraid of an assassination attempt? Maybe Demor was more afraid of his research being stolen?

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Either way, it seemed odd to her.

Ethan shrugged. “I’m saying it’s my best guess for why he doesn’t hire [Servants], and does all of his cooking and cleaning on his own. My second theory is that he actually has some sort of golem do it. I have never seen any golems while in his house, but he did invent a new type of golem a few centuries ago. That means he has a pretty good understanding of how to make them… even if I can’t figure out if, or where, he uses them. Either way, it doesn’t really matter much to me.”

Alice frowned. If Ethan had never seen one of Demor’s golems, that might mean that they didn’t exist. Furthermore, something about the whole situation just didn’t strike Alice as perfectly logical. She spent a few more minutes thinking about it, but just couldn’t figure out what the solution was. Frustrated, she returned to her room to wait for dinner. She spent that time taking a closer look at her two mana gems, to see if she could discover anything new, but didn’t find anything she hadn’t seen before in the time before Demor called the group down for dinner.

When Alice and the others showed up at the kitchen, she was treated to the sight of a large pot of soup. It was filled with potatoes, sausage, and a green vegetable that looked kind of like spinach. The soup itself looked a bit creamy, and a little bit thicker than a regular soup broth. Despite Alice’s general confusion and irritation, she still enjoyed the meal. It didn’t compare with some of the other meals she had eaten, but it was still above average.

After that, Demor gestured towards Alice. “I’m done eating, and all of the materials I needed are set up. Are you ready?”

Alice nodded.

“Excellent. Come with me.” After that, Demor began making his way towards the basement. Alice followed after him. Nobody else came with her, which made Alice feel a bit uneasy. She had been near Ethan and Allira for most of this journey, and having two Immortals ready to leap to her protection if something went wrong was a comforting feeling. However, a few moments later, Alice noticed a few of the shadows wriggle near her. That set her mind at least.

At the very least, Allira was still keeping an eye on her. And her shadow… minion… things were also ready to keep Alice safe if something happened. Combined with Doll’s armor, Alice should be able to survive long enough for help to arrive if monsters broke out of the basement or something.

Demor led Alice deeper into a basement, until eventually the two made their way into a wide room with a low ceiling. There were a variety of magical ingredients laying around. Most of them looked like the same materials Alice used for regular enchantments. However, there were three ‘materials’ that caught her eye.

The first one was a simple sheet of metal. Normally, Alice wouldn’t have thought much about it. However, this sheet of metal, like many other enchanting supplies, seemed to hold a certain number of ‘slots’ for instructions. But something about this ‘instruction slot’ seemed different to her. She couldn’t quite make it out without examining it more closely… but something unusual was there.

The second material that caught her eye was a vinebear, although all of its limbs had been removed. The monster was still trying to wriggle around, but with stumps for its limbs, it was incapable of doing anything. There were also several enchantments in place that kept it from using any magic on the two of them, rendering the monster incapable of escaping or attacking them.

Finally, there was a glob of pure mana laying on the table. Alice had never seen a glob of mana like it before. It was sort of similar to mana flesh, but also utterly different. If Mana flesh was a sort of ‘alternate muscle’ that had clearly been artificially developed, this glob of mana didn’t seem artificial at all. It was just a lump of solidified mana, somehow locked into a solid state.

Demor nodded at her.

“So, I’ll start out by saying that the process of creating an Artifact isn’t rigid. There are actually a lot of different ways you can go about doing it. Just like for a regular enchantment. You can use all sorts of different techniques, make different adaptations based on your materials, et cetera. So I’m going to show you what I consider the ‘easiest’ way to make an Artifact. It isn’t the most effective, or efficient. In fact, if someone wasted materials like this and they were my apprentice, I would scold them until their ears fell off. This is not a very efficient way to make an Artifact.” Demor shrugged. “But it’s also the easiest way to see exactly what’s happening, even if it kind of wastes the materials. Since this is a learning experience for you, I decided this was the best. It’s also the earliest form of Artifact creation humans practiced, at least as far as I know.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Ethan is paying me quite a bit for this, after all.” Demor grinned toothily. “Now, the first thing to note about creating an Artifact is that they are more… inherently magical than other enchanted objects. Other enchantments are magical, but only as long as they have a fuel source. They’re like fires. You have to keep feeding them firewood, or they burn out. For an enchantment, the fuel is the monster cores you give it. Ethan said that you’re a competent [Enchanter] already, so you should know how this works, yes?”

“Of course. I created many enchantments to feed myself before I became Immortal Ethan’s apprentice.”

“Good. In that case, this is the biggest difference between Artifacts and regular enchantments. Artifacts do not need you to restock their fuel source. Do you see that giant glob of mana over there? That is the basis for an Artifact. It is also something that, as far as I know, only Immortals can create. Upon reaching Immortality with a focus as an [Enchanter], the System will always give you the ability to solidify mana and a special type of raw ingredient into one of the orbs you see before you. Without an Immortal Achievement, you cannot create these orbs of raw materials, and you also can’t manipulate them very well. They resist the touch of non-Immortals. Without an Immortal Achievement, manipulating one of these glowing orbs is possible, but very difficult. Does that make sense?”

Alice frowned at the glowing orb of mana as she nodded. She could see the problem, although she was still hoping that she could find a solution.

Demor shrugged. “This is what an Immortal [Enchanter] uses to create an artificial magic seed. It’s essentially the replacement for monster cores. As long as you have one of these, you can create an artificial magic seed. Of course, one of these globs of mana isn’t just created from mana alone – as I mentioned, you also need a material that work as a sort of ‘core’ for the artificial seed. Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart before it finishes taking shape. However, the material can’t be too stable, either. Interestingly enough, the final step of creating one of these artificial seeds is the destruction of the ‘core’ material. Once the mana is solidified enough, it starts to devour its origin material, until it becomes pure mana. This makes it much harder to get core materials, because if the material is too stable, the mana can’t consume it.” Demor grimaced. “And so you need to find a material that is stable enough to hold on to the shape of the pure mana, while also being unstable enough that the magic seed will absorb it later and create a finished product. Materials that hit these requirements are rare, which is why it’s so difficult to create Artifacts.”

Alice sighed. That… wasn’t good news. However, it also raised the question she had already thought of. The System clearly wasn’t using rare materials to create everyone’s class seeds… so how was the System doing all of this? Alice strongly suspected that it wasn’t by consuming rare materials. Most people had five primary classes, and a few random secondary classes. If the System needed 5-8 rare materials per human on this planet, there was no way it could ever keep up with consumption. There must be some trick that could sidestep this cost.

Heedless of Alice’s doubts, Demor continued with his lesson.

“Apart from that, Artificial magic seeds need to have specific shapes. I brought this vinebear over because I intend to create a healing artifact. Ethan said that’s what you’re looking into healing and the human body recently?” Demor shrugged. “Vinebears only have control over plant life and the feeling of ‘fear,’ so they aren’t really ideal for this kind of purpose. However, you aren’t actually going to be using this monster as a material at all. I just want you to see how similar artificial seeds and monster cores are to each other, and that’s easier with a live monster for comparison. All right?”

Alice nodded again.

“Good. Finally, we have this sheet of metal. This is a type of material that you also need for creating an Artifact. You see, Artifacts usually do things far more complex than a regular enchantment. How does that work? As an [Enchanter], I’m sure you’re aware of how ‘dumb’ enchantments are. Anytime they hit something that isn’t in their coding, they just… stop working. This type of metal is a solution to that. Most [Enchanters] call it a concept material. It started out its life as a relatively rare enchanting material. Specifically, it was able to hold eight instructions on its own – which is pretty good. Then, an Immortal [Blacksmith] takes the material and processes it into ‘concept-metal,’ giving it much broader ability to respond to things. The way this works is… complicated, and I think it would be easier to just show you in practice. It’s worth noting that metal isn’t the only material that works for this purpose. The base material need to be able to hold 8 instructions or more, and then needs to be worked by a high level Craftsmen to turn it into a concept material. However, those are the only requirements. If you use plant fiber, animal products, metal… anything works. It just needs to hold 8 instructions and be worked by a high level craftsman.”

Alice nodded thoughtfully.

“I see. Why eight?”

“With seven, the material breaks down during the final stages of processing, or so I’m told. I admit, my [Blacksmith] level isn’t quite high enough to interact with it myself. Yet.”

Alice frowned. The requirements to make an Artifact were truly quite expensive and difficult to replicate. In that case… how was the System doing this?

A few moments later, Alice had an idea. It was a questionable idea, but it was her first guess for how this might work.

“In that case, I have another question – or perhaps an idea. Would it be possible to create an artifact that helps stabilize the ‘mana globs’ for other artifacts? Like… an artifact that helps optimize the process for creating artifacts? It sounds like the biggest problem with artifact creation is the creation of these large globs of pure mana. Is it possible to make an artifact that can substitute the ‘core material’ for these?”

Demor blinked, and rubbed his chin.

“I don’t think so. I’ve tried something similar a few times in the past, but I’ve never had any degree of success. I’m sure others have tried it before, but I’ve never heard of anyone succeeding.”

Alice drooped in disappointment. It did seem like a good idea, but perhaps she was thinking in directions that were too obvious. Naturally, Immortals would have tried all sorts of ways to overcome their material limitations. However, the System was cheating those same limits without problems. What did the System have that these Immortals didn’t? Was it just System mana? Was there something special there that fixed this problem? Alice rubbed her forehead in thought, but couldn’t come to a conclusion. She just didn’t know enough about the artifact creation process to guess yet.

Demor grinned. “Naturally, I didn’t bring you here just to show you the finished products. Ethan was pretty specific about emphasizing that you needed to see most of the parts of the Artifact creation process. So I plan to show you how I work all of these materials into a finished product, then I’ll show you how the materials for an Artifact are made .Does that work for you?”

Alice nodded.

“Good. Then let’s start with the process of creating an artifact itself.” Demor picked up the materials, and with a relaxed grin, got to work.