Crusader King-Chapter 132: Beneath the statue(18)

The dagger ended up as quite interesting, it was about eleven inches long, slick appearance with a small handle that he had painstakingly carved with his far-too-big sword for such a task, it was serenely white aside from the tip where his own blood had somehow died it after he had tested it by stabbing himself in the finger, causing a surprising amount of blood to come out after he had somehow hit a small vein, giving him a bit of panic as it fist happened that vanished quickly after he became aware of the situation once more, first having fallen into a state where he had been looking around for an enemy that didn't even exist.

That in itself had been a small wakeup call for his own psyche, but he had tried to forget it right after, or at least as soon as he could, instead concentrating on somehow carving some simple but intricate engravings into the blade, mostly consisting of a hardening spell to bathe the blade in mana and hold it together better, enhancing both the durability and length of it's live, a task that had been difficult without a small blade, with him instead opting to use one of the stones on the ground, something that he could however not do with his new arm as he was intending to make it so hard it couldn't be cut by the stones, something he wouldn't be able to really work on with the stones but would rather need an enchanted blade, something that would be difficult to do with the stones as they were similar to glass.

After that he did the same with one of the thick scales the monster had dropped, one of the especially long ones that had been situated one special places, something that would also allow him to use the long spikes to manufacture his needles.

This resulted in a small but useful knife that had been made especially sharp, much sharper than the dagger, simply due to the materials if not anything else, sharp enough to simply cut him when he just softly pulled it across his skin with barely any pressure, something that still resulted in his own flesh starting to split like the ocean after a powerful spell, quickly healing once more after he had wholly pulled the small, almost surgical knife of about three inches length and a onyx colour away.

He hardened it with the same spells as previously, made much easier by him already having finished the entire thing and just copying the design on a smaller, more intricate scale, with far better tools to engrave the runic sequence than before when he had to just use his sword that was still there, thrust within the ground close to the gigantic corpse that had now began to somehow deflate, something that made him be quite grateful that he had already taken the mana organ, a small sack that was surprisingly heavy and full of some smaller mana stones, mostly of a deep yellow colour, out of the corpse before all that happened.

Nevertheless he continued on with his work after taking a break of about five minutes, recovering some of his concentration and willpower to continue on the tools, something that was boring him, something that was holding him back on working on his actual project, that being his new arm, something he was quite looking forward to as he had never made any before.

After he continued the rest of the tools ended up quite fast, he took a simple spike as the chisel he had envisioned, another spike was cut together to make a long, thing and relatively bendable needle for the thin crevices, another needle was kept thick but relatively thin at the top, intended on the really big ones, such as the long holes he would have to drill within the bones of the creature to finally use them within the arm.

Then, finally, he was done, and he could start with the arm itself, starting with making all of the separate parts, such as the fingers, which would most likely take the most effort out of any of the other parts, the two main parts, upper and lower arm, which would not take too long but be a bit annoying because they required a drill for the functions to work, and of course the shoulder piece, something that Cades knew would end up as quite.. painful.. if he really followed through with his entire plan.

He first started with the pieces the fingers were going to be made up of, first making three of them per finger and two big ones per thump, ending up with a total of fourteen distinct pieces that he would have to drill into with his new trusty drill that he had made out of bone and hardened on the handle he had put atop, a task he had been particularly proud of, be it not was proud as he would be of this arm when it was finally done.

He made about fourteen tiny spheres as well, those that he would polarize, or rather magnetize, using his artificing and turn them into whole fingers that could curl up when he put in a certain amount of mana through one of the crystals he would have to burn into his body, making small holes inside with some special additions that would heighten the effectiveness when curling up the fingers, mainly consisting of some smaller spinning gears that had been a pain to carve, even with his new blades.

After that he began on two long sticks that he intended to use as the bones, hardening them as far as he could manage to and softening the impact on them using some of the soft dirt hidden underneath the gravel, being careful not to pick up the gravel because of it's sharpness once he actually did it.

Once he was done with that he made two large covers for them as well as the base-part for the hand that turned out to be the most simple and yet most difficult to carve with all of the tendons and arteries it would have to unite into one, the most complicated parts, the fingers.

Speaking of arteries, this was also the moment that Cades began to infuse his blade with lightning and dry them, a process he knew would take long, opting to meanwhile draw some rough sketches in the ground while his hand and the tendons were being maltreated with the heat emanating from the blade, with him not even thinking about making an extra artifact for that purpose, being just too focused on fulfilling his magnificent sketch, an obsession that had tuned him into a respectable artificer once upon a time and into a madman willing to hurt himself at another.