The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

"Sounds like you've accomplished something."

Oscar turned to Draven, who appeared out of nowhere, holding a hammer with blue swirls on its head and a handle of some kind of oak. "Reporting to Master, I have successfully made the nodes as they should be."

Draven took a look at Oscar's handiwork on the buckler and nodded. "It is good that you realize the singularity of the nodes. I could have told you the answer, but I trusted your intuition. To create the formation is to complete the armament; you must have a good intuition for how it should be, and every single one varies."

Oscar was grateful for Draven's praise, bowing before lifting his hammer to resume.

"Hold on for a moment." Draven held out the hammer in his hand. "Try this."

Feeling the hammer in his hands, Oscar knew it was lighter than the hammer he was using. He poured his Ein into it, and the blue swirl patterns glowed dimly. "What kind of hammer is this?"

"That is a good hammer for a one-star fabricator and is specially made for you. I had it designed to make the most use of Reis. With it, your refinement will be faster. Take this as my gift to you." Draven took Oscar's old hammer and tossed it aside.

Oscar tapped the new hammer on the anvil, hearing the clear sound it induced. Next, he flowed Reis into and slammed it down. The Reis went through as if the hammer wasn't there, sending a loud shockwave that fanned the flames higher. "This is incredible! How does it do that with the Reis?"

"Specially made. Armaments are meant to be easy conductors of Ein, but we can modify it to allow Reis to flow just as well. It requires a certain finesse to create such an armament. I can teach you much later when you're a better fabricator."

The armament was repeatedly bashed on the anvil as its shape began to take hold. Oscar was sweating bullets and pale, but his eyes stared through the glass visor with great concentration. With a final strike of his hammer, the last node embedded itself.

Oscar heaved and wheezed; his fingers trembled from the exertion. He realized this was true forging; putting all his heart and soul into creating an armament was the hallmark of a fabricator.

Gritting his teeth, he soldiered on, hammering to connect the nodes into his formation. As each line formed to connect nodes, Oscar could feel the armament getting tighter as if something clamped onto it.

"One more!" Oscar shouted, bringing his hammer down for one final strike. As he did so, the nodes and the connecting lines crackled, coursing sparks through the armament. The formation was now complete.

Oscar quenched the armament in the glacial oil, but instead of smog and smoke, a burst of Ein came forth like a font of power. Oscar was nearly blinded by the light if not for the dark visor helping to diminish its brightness.

"How is it, Master?" Oscar placed the finished buckler on the anvil and sat down to recover. The buckler was black with turtle shell patterns on its surface with blue tinges on its edge.

Draven held the buckler, tilting his head as he spun it. "Not bad. It can count as a grade-one armament, but more work can be done to improve it. Bring me the fragments of your old buckler."

Oscar retrieved his old buckler scraps from the corner; it had not moved from there since the beginning.

"Put it in the crucible." Draven scraped his hammer across the new buckler.

Oscar tossed the scraps into the crucible and watched as they heated up and slowly began to melt. He felt nostalgia, seeing it break down, remembering the first day he got it at the Foundry with Emily. The moments when it cracked against the Rainbow Didus flashed through his mind.

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It had been his good companion throughout all those endeavors and trials.

Draven appeared beside Oscar and grasped his shoulder. "To feel for your armament is a good trait of a fabricator. But it had served its purpose. Now it is a supplement for this."

"For what?"

Oscar nearly yelped when Draven tossed the finished buckler into the mix. Oscar was horrified to see his formation breaking down and his hard work going down the drain.

"It is time to rebuild. While this is melting, let me show you the improvement." Draven took out a core. "This is the core of the Ashback Snapping Turtle. Inside the cores are an array of lines and patterns akin to formations. To use it, we must extract it."

"Watch closely, or else I'll poke your eyes out." Draven spouted such terrifying words so naturally, that Oscar felt he would do it.

Oscar silently followed his master to the anvil and stood at attention.

"The core is the idea. The core is the essence. The core is the entirety of being. The formations within it are everything about the Exalt Beast. In the case of the snapping turtle, we should care about two parts: one for its tough defense and another for its nasty bite." Draven surged his Ein within, showing Oscar the array of formations within like he saw at the Grandoak Auction.

"Now for the extraction process." Draven placed the core in a pot of boiling water and put in his Ein to further cook the core. "The heat of the water, compounded by the power of your Ein, will lower the resistance of the core. Send forth Ein in and fill in every part of it. You will learn about its qualities as your Ein travels through the formation."

"Do appraisers accomplish the same?" Oscar asked.

Draven shook his head. "They have a unique sight to see into the core and extract its information. Not many would have that power. Pay attention."

Then a loud cry resounded from the pot of water. But Draven flicked his finger, increasing the Ein, inducing more cries. "The core is where the Exalt Beast will fight back the hardest. But it's nothing to me."

The cries died down. Draven took out the docile core and placed it on the anvil. The formation of nodes and lines was visible on the surface of the core, much more pronounced than before.

Oscar watched as Draven took a pair of tweezers and pulled on a node. The entire formation was torn from the surface of the core with the node. The core dimmed and lost its luster, becoming stone-like.

"Behold, the formation of the Ashback Snapping Turtle." Draven spread out the lines and nodes on the anvil.

Oscar was amazed at the complex structure, like the blueprint of a building with many twisting corridors. "That seemed easier than I thought."

"It's only the core of an Apprentice Exalt Beast; what can it do against my power? Be wary of trying it as the realms go up. The cores can bite back like the materials, but much worse." Draven cut out a part of the formation with a sharp Ein on his fingers, leaving it aside while throwing away the rest. "Oddly enough, Exalt Beasts consume these without any issues."

Draven strode to the crucible and nodded at the finished result. He poured it into a mold for a flat plate. But before hammering, he took the stripped portion of the formation from the core and placed it on the molten metal.

He hammered hard onto it. "Build on from this starting formation. As you do this with different kinds of cores, the more complex you may have to make the formation to accommodate it. Bind the core formation with the materials."

Oscar was silent, gazing with eyes like a child in a candy store. His eyes locked on the formation now embedded in the center of the armament. He could only think about how amazing it was.

A part of his heart stirred and trembled. He smiled, wanting to work on that armament, to create the formation and complete it. It was an instinct to push aside his master and take up the hammer.

Draven noticed this change in Oscar but didn't say anything. This was the kind of obsession that all fabricators had. They were all selfish creatures, so enthralled by the work in front of them with no regard for others.

They craved nothing but the chance to keep working and fighting over the jobs.

'This cheeky disciple wants to take over my place. Just wait there; your time will come in the future.'

Oscar continued to watch with sparks in his eyes. Draven's hammer strike was beautiful; each motion was elegant but landed powerfully on the armament. Every node his master made was incredibly deep in color, and the lines formed a beautiful shape like a spiraling flower.

"Incredible…." Oscar murmured.

Draven quenched the buckler and presented it to Oscar. It had a turtle shell pattern and was obsidian black with blue edges but shined rainbow-like from the flickering flames.

"With the formation of defense from the Exalt Beast core, its defensive capabilities are increased. With each armament, there is a purpose for its creation. Find a matching core, such as sharpness for swords or flexibility for spears. Incompatible elements will not result in a good armament."

Oscar lost his breath, holding the new buckler in his hands. He could somehow hear the roar of a beast from within.

"It is yours now."

Oscar gripped the buckler and bowed. "Thank you, Master."

"Don't thank me with words first; prove it with your actions. You have two months left here. You can barely qualify as a one-star fabricator, so let's finish up."

"Yes!"

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