THE NEXT WEEK

After days of shopping, visiting abandoned warehouses, and hoarding metal I have finally set myself up something that could be called a decent forge. I had converted the shed in my backyard into my smithing area, but only after figuring out how to fireproof the building using magic and also soundproofing it so that the noise of me forging wouldn't disturb my neighbors.

That was honestly one of my biggest concerns when it comes to my forging. Hitting a piece of metal with a hammer is not a quiet thing and because I make magical weapons, I am a bit terrified of the noise attracting some supernatural attention. This led me to developing my soundproofing spell, which was not overly difficult all things considered. Creating sound via magic is something that was included with the knowledge that my kidnapper gave me, so I already had the components and with a bit of experimentation, I eventually created a barrier that blocks out sound. The only real problems are that the barrier is still physical which means that anybody could run into it and discover something is wrong, the other is that the barrier blocks noise from both directions, meaning that I won't know if anybody is sneaking up on me. I should be able to fix both of these problems eventually, but I would need some books or a teacher to guide me through more advanced magics.

I had been getting by with my makeshift magic forge in my basement, but that was by far not the best place to do anything forging related, my basement was now my magic research and practice area. I kept all of my notes down there, documenting the progress that I am making along with written out spell structures and potential ideas for spells.

Going back to my newly finished forge, and my progress with smithing, I have made decidedly good progress. I was mostly focusing on my magic, but I made sure to set aside time to practice forging, and only good things have come from my progress. The quality of my forging has already vastly improved, and they were finally looking like proper weapons. What I have created so far still hasn't reached the level of descent according to my knowledge, I was still making plenty of mistakes. However, I have gotten even better at imbuing holy into whatever I am creating, and I think that my weapons would deal a good amount of damage to a Devil just from its holy property. I was really looking forward to being able to imbue other abilities into my weapons.

On the other hand, I had also finally begun looking into forging and creating things outside of weapons. My knowledge easily gave me the ability to do so. Armor and other things of the like, especially real armor which nothing like the nonsensical armors from anime, would be a good boost in defensive abilities, and one I don't have to waste energy on casting or maintaining.

I had only recently dipped my toe into the enchanting sections of my spellcasting systems and along with my ability to imbue holy and eventually other abilities into things, I had a solid three complete systems of enchantment/enhancement to figure out and master. The enchantments and enhancements that come with my spellcasting systems tend to be weaker than what I believe I can get from my holy smithing. I think I might be able to have all three systems coexist on a single item if I do things right. I wasn't going to be doing anything like that anytime soon though, I was still doing my best to get the quality of my forging improved.

Magic is also something that I made vast improvements on. Even more than I made in forging. I could now proudly say that I should be able to hold my own in magical combat. Probably not very long as I have never fought in combat before and have only been practicing magic for over a week, but my point is made I hopefully shouldn't be able to be curb stomped by anyone in my general ballpark. The majority of all of that stems from how much more experience I have compared to earlier in molding and using my mana. The knowledge grated to me easily allows me to create and understand basic spells of both of my spellcasting systems, but without experience I have been unable to actually cast anything decent.

Now though! Now I have gotten a good handle on my mana and so many different doors have opened up to me spell wise. My greatest achievement though over the past week has been my progress on my flexible barriers. I had actually managed to make something along the lines of what I was looking for. I had to do a lot of blind experimenting because while I was granted a very good understanding of the basics, it is only the basics, I know the how of the spell casting and what each component does for the most part, I don't know the why of the spellcasting.

The barrier, if it could even be called that, had as much durability as a wet piece of paper, a bit discouraging, if not for the fact that I could change the shape of the barrier as I please. I am going to have to further modify it with more parts of illusion spells so that I can perfectly mimic things and work on fixing up the spell matrix so that the spell can actually handle something more durable than a wet piece of paper, because at the moment feeding more mana into the spell only increases the size of the barrier but not its strength. I could fudge the durability by folding the barrier on itself, but that is not what I am looking for.

Besides this I made some progress on some of the other spells on my list. Specifically, the high-speed movement spells and the generalized buff spells. For high-speed movement, I created a spell that created a localized explosion that is funneled by a barrier to propel me using its explosive force in a certain direction. I am still getting the hang of using the spell, but my basement only has so much space and I think I need to find a larger open area to truly make some real progress in the spell. It took a while to be able to cast it anywhere on my body instead of just line of sight, but I think that the effort was worth it. On the plus side, I could also use the spell to sabotage my enemies if they aren't too strong. I took to calling it mana burst.

As for the buff spells, I kind of got what I wanted. I ended up creating something I prefer to call reinforcement. What it does is increase all of my capabilities, which is good, the bad part is that my body can only handle so much reinforcement at once. Supposedly as my body gets stronger the amount of mana in reinforcement, I should be able to create. I had essentially created a mana version of Touki, something that I would love to learn along with Senjutsu if I can find myself a teacher. I found that reinforcing the amount of control over my body and awareness while forging has led to some very quick improvements in my craft.

Another subject that I am doing my best to learn is basic combat. I am mostly learning from various online videos and step by step guides, and I have no doubts that what I am currently learning is going to be a lot less effective in actual combat, but at this point any actual knowledge about how to fight is going to be a vast increase in my combat capabilities. I also wasn't focusing on any overly complicated styles, mostly just how to properly punch and kick, some grappling, and how to make sure I don't fuck up my body while doing all of the above. There are still problems though. While I can imitate and practice and shadowbox, I have no real way to test my new knowledge in combat without potentially revealing myself, and I did not have nearly enough personal power for me to feel comfortable doing that. Besides that, I am essentially learning combat from scratch, so anything I mess up now can have lasting consequences and lead to me forming bad habits, sadly at this point int time I prefer to risk bad habits if it meant even an inch of extra survivability in combat, I could always fix said habits later, death is permanent.

Outside of my own supernatural activities, I think that the peerages might be following me. It is more of a hunch than anything, but if I was in their position, I would probably want to check up on a new variable in town every once and awhile. I wasn't sure if I had done anything suspicious around either the Occult club or the Student council, but better safe than sorry. I hadn't exactly run into any other Devils except by accident… I hope. I know that I definitely sensed one when I was getting groceries in the past week, and of course I occasionally passed by one of them in the hallways, but once again, what do I know?

Besides the potential supernatural stalking, I did get called to the student council room at one point to check in with how I was adapting to everything after the loss of my family. I was a bit surprised that losing my family was part of my provided background to be honest. I had decided to be a bit honest about my situation, this mostly meant telling them that I wasn't getting a ton of sleep, but I was getting by. Sona was a bit understanding and let me go after that.

School has continued to be the joy killing existence that it always has and forever will be. Being a transfer student meant that I was playing catch up with the rest of the class as I figured out where exactly the class is on what topics. This was of course made easier by the fact that I am mentally older than my physical body, not by much, but being a couple years ahead in education has left me with enough leftover knowledge that some of my classes are honestly just review at the moment. I wasn't having any fun with the classes that weren't review for me though, I know nothing about Japanese literature or history.

I still haven't really interacted with any of my peers or made any friends. The majority of people here have already formed friend groups and I was the odd one out in the school. The fact that I sat next to Issei and talked with him on the first day probably has also affected how willing people are to approach me. Hell, the fact that I am taller than basically everyone here doesn't help the fact either. I sure as hell wasn't going to be approaching people myself unless I have to, the whole situation tends to make me very anxious.

As for the one person who I was actually interacting with, Issei, has been acting like how he normally does. Besides the fact that he still tries to get me to go peeping with him and his friends in his quest to make me realize the majesty that is boobs, Issei has realized over the past week that because I have just moved, I no longer have a stash of porn mags. This was seen as a travesty on his part and he began to try and give me some of his… I declined of course.

I tried to shift the topic to anime, as I have been trying to find some good ones to watch in my free time, and surprisingly that worked. Issei is apparently also a fan of anime, I guessed that from what I remember, but I may have underestimated how much he enjoys certain animes. I ended up sitting down as he began introducing me to the Drag-So Ball series, which sounds like a Dragon Ball knock off to me, and the whole conversation has been the longest that he has talked to me about something other than boobs.

I did my best to seize upon this opportunity and hopefully change the topics of our conversations to be about anime and other things like that. Talking about sex and boobs is uncomfortable for me discuss in public, something that Issei apparently disagrees with. I ended up asking if he had the anime on DVD, and he did! This was followed by asking if I could borrow them for a bit to watch and catch up with him in the series, so we could talk about it more.

I ended up hanging out more with Issei in the first place because of when I was invited over for dinner the first time by his parents. Apparently upon learning that I have recently lost my family, they have taken it upon themselves to put some effort into helping Issei's only non-pervert friend. This really only consisted of them inviting me over for dinner again and sending over Issei occasionally to try and get him to hang out with me. They succeeded obviously. On a side note, Issei has left some of the porn mags that I had declined to accept behind when he comes over. I mostly just dropped them off back at his house after ringing the doorbell or knocking.

All of that finally leading to this exact moment, with my greatest creation as of yet. The whole entire process so far has been going along great and I have been making less mistakes than usual. I was trying to make a holy blade with the imbued ability of generating a constant electrical shock equal to the input of mana from the wielder. The weapon itself is a short sword and for once my creation looks like a proper sword. The whole process had taken me much less time than it would a normal person due to enhancing the entire process with mana while making the blade holy in the first place. I was just putting the finishing touches on the blade when my enhanced senses and awareness allowed me to hear somebody ringing my doorbell. I pause for a second before returning to the last couple things on my sword. As soon as I finish, I stow the sword away and make my way to the front door.

Upon opening it I see something I find surprising, or rather someone. Before me stands Issei, one who isn't holding porn mags, manga, and anime, one who is actually looking a bit concerned. I wonder why. We looked at each other for a bit, him in his cleanliness, and me fresh out of the forge.

"Sorry if I was interrupting anything Adrien, but are you okay? We heard a lot of clanging from your shed in your yard, and we were wondering if you were okay." Huh, I wasn't expecting that. I smiled at Issei. "Yeah, I am fine, I was actually just finishing up with something, you want to see?" Issei groans a bit. "Come on Adrien, why can't you tell me what you were up to first?"

I chuckle before speaking up. "Alright, fine. I managed to set up a forge in my shed and I was making a sword, do you want to see it?". Issei only shrugs his shoulders. "Sure, why not". I move away from the door to let him pass though as I lead him towards my forge. In hindsight I just realized that I just made a magical sword and probably shouldn't be showing that to Issei, but he has no idea of how to activate its abilities or even sense the fact that the blade is holy.

I made my way over to where I had stowed the blade and after taking it out, I revealed to Issei my greatest masterpiece so far. Issei was decidedly not in awe of what I have created. I couldn't really blame him; this wasn't his bread and butter. I talked to him a bit about forging and what I did to make the sword, but it all probably went over his head. He headed back after 10 or so minutes and I moved the blade down to my basement where I stowed all of my other magical weaponry.

I would finish it later; I need to get something to eat before switching over to more magical research. I have a lot of progress to make before the plot begins, and I am currently racing against the clock because I have absolutely no idea when the plot begins in relation to today. Tonight, I am going to be focusing on improving my mana constructs along with giving them the ability to change colors.