Demon's Virtue

650 Excitement

Eiro finished the engraving, running his fingers over the shallow lines that he had carved into these thin metal sheets. He didn’t particularly like working with metal all that much. It simply felt so cold, even if it was shining brightly into his eyes as he took it out a forge. It simply wouldn’t bend to his will, and there were too many things that he didn’t want to bother with. That was why he only worked with it when he had to; which was, when he was learning the basics of smithing as well as things like how to take care of his metal weapons properly. Otherwise, he really wanted to stick with wood, something that was practically the opposite to metal.

Different to the corpse-like metal, wood, even if it had already been petrified, was still so full of life. It laid in his hands with a comfortable weight and practically seemed to shape itself when he worked with it. Maybe part of that was just his experience in regard to dealing with wood, and the emotional attachment he had to the craft he learned from Jura, but to Eiro, wood was superior to metal.

Nonetheless, since Partax told him to, Eiro worked with the metal sheets that he was provided. Different materials obviously had different physical strength, and this was the case for magical strength as well. Eiro knew this quite well too; different materials simply allowed for a better flow of magic through them. Materials like wood simply allowed mana to travel through them much more easily than metal, so the latter was preferred for things like this. At first glance, that might sound counter-productive, since you should want magic to flow through the material as good as possible, but that was only part of it.

Through the process of carving these sigils, an artificer created channels that magic could flow thorugh, and you wanted that to be as precise as possible. If the material allowed mana to leak out of those channels, then that was the worst possible outcome. It would not only weaken the final result severely, but depending on what it was you worked on, it was possible for unpredictable and catastrophic side-effects to occur. For example, a timed activation condition could be altered to activate in ten seconds, instead of ten minutes, and that without the creator’s knowing. Obviously, that would cause a few issues.

Hence why it was much easier to control the flow of magic through an artificed object if metal was used instead of wood. Though, due to Eiro’s preferences, he was already thinking about what kind of tree to plant that was as resistant to magic as possible. Even if a tree like that might resist Eiro’s attempts at speeding up its growth through nature magic, so it would be a tough material to get a hold of regularly.

“Show it,” Partax said, and one of the mechanical arms was eagerly held in front of the Demon’s face. Eiro gae it to the hand and the sheet was brought closer to Partax. He pulled up one of the small gadgets that were attached to his seat, a number of magnifying glasses that would most likely help Partax inspect the quality of the engraving. After looking at the technical skill first, Partax nodded approvingly, “If it were any worse, I’d have been disappointed.”

“...While I’ve only really worked with wood so far, my carving skill also applies to things like this,” the Demon pointed out bluntly, but Partax clearly didn’t pay any attention to him. Instead, he was already busy analyzing the array of sigils, and his naturally disgruntled expression turned bright, “Ah, a simple spear trap! Let’s give it a try!”

Before Eiro could protest at the fact that Partax was trying to use this inside of this decently small room, the halfling had already thrown the sheet onto the ground. Partax pushed his thumb into his mouth and drew a bit of blood, which he quickly spread onto a small pebble he inexplicably kept in his pocket, before throwing it onto the metal sheet. Immediately, the metal sheet lit up, starting with the engravings. The heat quickly spread through the rest of the metal sheet, before a loud combustion happened right above it. Flames quickly filled the room, but Eiro was of luckily able to stop any of the clothes or papers from turning to charcoal. As for the individuals in this room, they were fine as well. Eiro and his duplicate weren’t affected too much by flames like these, since they weren’t even supposed to be an attack, just a side-effect of the actual attack forming above the sigils. Partax had already protected himself with a seemingly magic-resistant barrier around his whole body. The only one that was affected a bit was Armodeus, even if only mentally, with just some slight physical effects. Armodeus was an Elder Dwarf and a Master of Smithing. Eiro wouldn’t be surprised if Armodeus had higher resistance to flames than him, even. On the other hand, he did have a weak heart, so the combustion surprised him incredibly and was hard on his aging heart.

Before anything else could happen, the flames of the combustion pulled back a bit, before stopping practically instantly as the second phase of the engraving was activated. The flames were frozen by ice magic. This was a trap meant to do just what the name suggested; trap its victim. Fire magic was able to spread the fastest while keeping a whole area within it encased with its magic, so only few individuals would be able to react in time to get out of the way. And if they couldn’t, they would soon become trapped as the flames turned solid around them, engulfing them in a block of ice. Best of all, since flames wrapped themselves around things easily, even intricate forms, it would be possible to immobilize even large enemies since they would have less, or no, room to move any further.

.....

Right now, in the center of the block of ice, was the blood-covered pebble that Partax had thrown into it. The explosion had shattered it into some small pieces, so it was just some dust spread throughout the ice, but nonetheless it was a pretty decent demonstration of what this trap could do.

“The hell was that, you maniac?!” Armodeus yelled out, quickly grasping at his chest before he even processed what happened. More than three quarters of the room were now filled with a large block of ice, that Eiro of course quickly melted, “A surprisingly efficient first item using my method!” Partax exclaimed, as if t hat were enough to explain Armodeus and satisfy him to the point where he would just be able to return back to his own work without further ado. Of course, the Elder Dwarf started to grumble into his beard and pulled the leather apron over his head, before throwing it to the ground annoyed and stumbling out of the room.

Eiro sighed, “Can’t you at least try to remember that you’re borrowing this space? Be a bit more aware of Armodeus.”

“Hah! He should just be more aware of us! Anyhow, good job,” Partax exclaimed. He had been so annoying and critical before, but it seemed like he at least enjoyed what he had come up with. Well, it was one of Eiro’s spells that he had painstakingly created while increasing its efficiency as much as he could, so even if it had been translated into those sigils, Eiro would be a bit annoyed if Partax called it trash. But the halfling still wasn’t finished, “In particular, I liked the method of activation! Sensing life force in a certain area right above the engraving... oftentimes people would create such traps to activate based on simple things like weight or noise, but those were easily circumvented or disarmed! Even a trap activated by sensing mana could be disarmed from afar, but a trap based on a force that only few know even exists? Marvelous!”

Eiro sighed, “Right, but you were able to disarm it so easily anyway.”

“That may be so, but that is only because I was able to look so closely at the sigil, but that was only possible because it was just armed after I placed it onto the ground! Anyone else would never be able to figure it out as easily as me,” Partax pointed out, as if he was proud of Eiro’s work, “And if you really worry about it being disarmed, just make sure the trap is only activated if it senses a certain amount of life force! That way, my trick would never work unless I pour my blood onto it directly!”

Unable to stop himself from smiling, Eiro nodded, “Alright, I’ll add that into the next trap,”

“Right, right!” Partax exclaimed curiously, “This time, try to make it more complex somehow! You already created a dual-stage process, so try to add a few more steps into it, whether it’s in the actual trap or the activation conditions! Try to use as much of the space on this board as you can!” the halfling suggested, and Eiro nodded nodded. He knew that it was the right choice to ask the Masters for help. In just a day; no, a few hours, Eiro had already learned thing that would help him immensely in the battle against the Devil. Not only that, he would be able to do quite a few more things than just that. He could fortify the Monster Village, and he could make the disguises of the Monsters in the manor more efficient. The things that he was learning here were absolutely remarkable.

With a smirk on his face, Eiro quickly followed the instructions and suggestions of the halfling man excitedly looking over his shoulder.