[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 155 – Incarnate Deeds

“If you want,” Matt added, “I’ll go scour the area for more.”

“You’re a true friend, Matt,” Sam told him, spilling out the [Demon Coins] from one pouch.

Matt gave a jaunty wave and departed as the sound of heavy coins clinking together filled the dome.

While it was true that Sam didn’t have any sort of ore sense, Blacksmith did appear to give him an innate understanding of what sort of metals he was holding.

It wasn’t complete, and he doubted he’d be able to tell much more beyond the basic metal components. For example, he didn’t know what his [Dullahan Greatsword] was made out of just by touch.

But the coins, those were easy. Probably because they were relatively pure.

The slightly wobbly round coins were bronze. Sam couldn’t feel either the copper or tin within, but he knew that they were obviously present because that’s what bronze was made from.

It wasn’t good bronze. If there was such a thing as pig iron, then this was the equivalent in bronze. It was hastily put together, poorly done, and they were all over the map in terms of production quality.

However, that didn’t matter much because Sam needed a lot of these coins to make ingots. He could pick out the best and worst of the bunch for future projects when he had more skill. In the meantime, the constant variations between coins would average out when they were all smelted down.

He might even be able to improve them a little bit, but he wasn’t holding his breath.

The triangular coins were much heavier, and as Sam sorted through the purses of demon coinage, he realized that these were made of iron. Again, poorly made, but iron nonetheless.

It was clearly a higher denomination because these were cared for more than the bronze pieces. There was a certain weight to them, that told him even the demons seemed to understand their worth.

Despite the decent quantity of coins, it would take a lot of them to create even a single ingot. But Sam needed to start out small. He couldn’t just immediately break down advanced armor and expect to get anything useful out of it.

He also gained more Experience than he otherwise would, making even simple things worth more of his time in order to get the basics right.

If Professor Nihl was around, he would ask him, but Lenal had gone to speak with him and for right now, Sam wanted to try things on his own. To get a feel for the Profession without any guidance spoiling his intuition.

Not that he was a genius by any means, but after his conversation with Volquist, he had a better understanding of how the Shardrune worked with its people.

It was something of a shepherd, watching and judging how people used their abilities and gifts, then offering up certain paths that aligned with that gift and their actions.

Over time, it became better and better at selecting things that you would be likely to pursue, given an infinite number of options.

If, for example, you imagined the road you were on as straight, then it would offer other paths that diverged at 45-degree angles. If you did something very different than your Job, Profession, or Path suggested, it might even give you a 90-degree branch.

Alternatively, if you kept in line with your road, then the Shard would give you 10 to 15-degree alterations, always trying to stay true to what you did and how you did it.

If all you did was follow another’s guidance, then the Shard would think that’s what you wanted, because all evidence would point to it.

That was how, according to Volquist, the best Professions, Jobs, and Paths were created. From people who forged ahead without the help of masters or trainers beyond perhaps the initial stages.

It was why famous Guilds would eventually be eclipsed by others, because the members of one Guild would learn the exact same way from the master who then taught their teachers, and so on and so forth.

Stagnation was something the Shard actively abhorred, and it tried very hard to push people to grow and improve themselves. However, if you did nothing but study scrolls and were guided by trainers, you wouldn’t have anything unique to show for it.

On the flip side, it also allowed people to share their road of progress and strength, and why Volquist couldn’t tell Sam anything about how he became a god because it was something you could follow.

Sam could heed every word of advice that Nihl gave him as a Master Smith, and become a Master Smith himself.

However, he would become the same type as Nihl himself had been. Which wasn’t a bad thing, but it wouldn’t be Sam’s Profession anymore, it’d be Nihl’s.

The farther along down that road you traveled, the harder it was to break out of it. Not only because levels became increasingly more difficult to acquire as you leveled up, but because the changes you would need to make would be harder and harder to come by.

The Shard would keep trying to adjust your road of progression but by smaller and smaller degrees. You wouldn’t be able to make big changes when you were in your Fifth Order as you could have when you were in your Second Order.

All of these things were based on Deeds. For Sam, they were Incarnate Deeds, harder and more difficult to come by, but worth more as a result.

Deeds were something like achievements, but on a lesser scale. It was almost a hidden stat. And it was what the Shard and its progression systems based their offerings on. In that way, you could acquire much the same Deeds as another person if you followed in their footsteps.

How you made your first ingot mattered, the way you adjusted and molded it, how you smelted it. All these things were tiny but amounted to a singular Deed.

The example that Volquist had used was one that Sam was rather proud of. He had changed [Power Stance] through the use of Deeds. Fighter had given him [Power Stance], and through it stances worked a very particular way.

Namely, they required the Arts within to be performed to gain a stack of [Fury]. Sam couldn’t generate [Fury] any other way. Once generated, he could then choose to use his [Fury] on one of those Power Arts.

Through trying and fighting consistently, Sam had acquired enough Incarnate Deeds that showed the Shard he wanted to fight a very particular way. That he wanted to eschew the traditions he had learned through HEMA, and instead create his own road of progression forward.

With enough Incarnate Deeds to guide the way, the Shard changed [Power Stance], and presumably all future stances, to allow him to generate stacks of their unique resources with any normal attack, then to use one of their unique Arts to expend those stacks.

It was a fairly small change in the grand scheme of things, but it was a measurable one and satisfying to boot.

Volquist, as a god, was able to see some of the Incarnate Deeds he’d performed. Not that he could tell Sam what they were, not unless Sam already knew it.

Even if the Shard hadn’t restricted Volquist, he had told Sam that he wouldn’t give him further ideas, if only because it could change the course of his progression. And to do that to an Incarnate was a horrible thing.

Incarnates, more than other people, needed to create their own way forward in the world. It was a bit unfair, bordering even on the cruel, but it meant that each Incarnate was also unique.

Two War Incarnates would never be the same, and that was a good thing. Why it was, Sam didn’t know and Volquist wouldn’t tell him.

It was one of the more annoying things about talking to a god who knew so much more than you. There were a great many things he could have told Sam, but either chose not to for his own good, or was unable to.

In the end it amounted to the same damn thing, but it was still frustrating to get a font of knowledge about one subject, only to have it suddenly shut off halfway through.

On the whole, he had come out ahead and on that alone, Sam was grateful to Volquist.

Besides, the guy seemed lonely and in need of a friendly ear. So while Volquist answered a lot of Sam’s questions—leaving far too many unanswered for his liking—Sam in turn listened to the god’s problems.

A lot of them seemed silly or downright stupid, but people were people no matter if they had the power to dissolve beings into ash or struggled to lift their groceries into the trunk of their car.

That, Sam figured, was one constant that not enough people thought about. Whether you had infinite power or not, you couldn’t get away from being who you were. If anything, he was more convinced than ever that more power stripped away the fake shells of what you presented to the world and revealed the real you.

For good or ill, the stronger people became, the more they unveiled who they truly were. At least, that’s how Sam saw it. He didn’t bother sharing this insight with Volquist, who seemed to have confidence problems long before becoming a god and whose issues persisted to this day.

That was simply who he was, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Back to the task at hand, Sam knew from his Blacksmith brain-dump, that he had multiple avenues of making a [Bronze Ingot]. He could go the traditional route, that would be finding a crucible, some tongs, and a mold for the liquid metal to flow and cool into.

All of which was how he had seen any sort of metal work done before on Earth, albeit with machinery.

Sam very likely could have gotten a crucible from Nihl. The Aker Academy likely had Profession based equipment somewhere. It was an institution of learning, so it stood to reason.

On the other hand, he had more magical options available to him. Ones that felt more natural to him, and so he picked the one that called out to his very soul.

Cheesy, perhaps, but true all the same.

Sam let his own internal compass guide him as he gathered up the coins and, acting entirely on his instincts for what he should be doing, created a glowing orb of pure white light.

An [Artisan Orb].

After staring at what he had created, shocked and a bit impressed, Sam began pouring handful after handful of [Demon Coins] into the orb until he judged it to be full.

Step one completed, he picked up the cue-ball sized orb and set it into the [Mobile Forge].

He could have fed mana into it directly, set it into the Archflame, or any number of other methods. The road to a completed crafted item was as many and varied as there were stars in the sky, and each alteration led to different complications and results.

In the end, Sam chose a marriage between the magical and physical. It was, he felt, the way he preferred to exist and fight. He straddled that line, veering slightly into the physical side of things.

But he could not deny that he deeply enjoyed the magical aspects like his Void Arts and especially [Heavy Blade].

With a snap of his fingers, a thin trickle of Fire mana wove its way from the fire and into the [Mobile Forge]. The small thing came alive and belched flame right onto the [Artisan Orb] he had created.

Immediately the orb began to redden, but not because of the heat, Sam began to realize. It was becoming unstable, trending too far away from its baseline.

Sam reached out to the [Mobile Forge], sending threads of mana into the [Artisan Orb] to control and direct the flickering flames into the coins within.

He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Everything Sam did was going purely on intuition and instinct alone. And yet, he couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face even as he struggled to prevent the [Artisan Orb] from going nuclear and exploding.

While many people might assume crafting was a safe Profession, Sam recognized this for what it was. A battle. And he was never more at home nor more at ease than on the battlefield.

He was in his element.