Cid slowly appeared in Earth's inner core. A moment later he made a safe space out of mix of his normal mana, Fire Realm's mana, and Earth's core mana. Not for himself; he wanted to make sure rings will not be damaged in the process.

So, what Cid wanted to use as the shank of the ring? He had several ideas, but in the end opted for the most challenging and interesting: cooling down the core's magma. Yes, in theory, this is gonna be one hell of thing to do, but he had Fire Realm, Shadow Realm, and Faith energy! Not to mention his own knowledge and Beasts' help!

In the process of cooling he will also use Serpent's scales; these things were resilient enough to practically ignore the surrounding heat, could pair nicely with the magma itself if he doesn't mess up, and, that's the important part, were of matching color scheme with Shadow Garden style! As for gems, these things would go matching with girls. He just hopes he doesn't mess this up…

And with that he slowly started the crafting process. Of course, not having proper tools somewhat slowed the process, but he managed to make a detailed figurine with a crowbar, what's making rings by hand and mind compared to that?

Right, Cid, focus on the task. Obviously, trying to manipulate magma can't compare to using slime suit: one is something that he spent years of researching and perfecting, and the other one is thing that he took his hands on for the first time in his life. About slime suit, by the way…

He slowly looked over the melting liquid. Yeah, it was no longer comparable to his level. Figures, considering that slimes are actually the weakest monsters in fantasy world. He doesn't deny the possibility that there might some kind of Slime God that was top-tier monster even by his new world standards, but he didn't see it as of yet. Which meant that he had to create one!

Yes, Cid wanted to upgrade the slime suit first so he could use it in making rings later. And for that he will use an interesting combination…

First, he would need some Serpent's scales, the surrounding magma, and his own flesh and blood. Serpent's scales will be used to grant a bit of of their resilience to slime, magma is for granting suit the ability to withstand extreme temperatures (because scales are rigid and magma is somewhat liquid… somewhat), and the parts of his body for… hell if he knows what for. Theoretically, it's to bind the suit to himself, but in practice Cid just wanted to see what adding the blood of min-maxed human will do.

Moreover, exactly this slime suit should be able to take everything well and not be destroyed in the process, because it bathed in his mana for a long time and should have grown accustomed to it. Yes, that's because it was still, technically, living (at least, his version; he doesn't want to know what Eta did with her version).

He carefully took out one scale (because all of them are freaking huge; if Sanctuary wasn't a subspace with lots of room, he doesn't know how they would store the Serpent's remains…) and placed it outside of safe space. And true to his thoughts, it completely defied the surrounding temperature and pressure and just stood proud. Cid had to admit, it was strong. That's what made it a great choice!

He has grown a lot since his battle with Serpent, and the scales themselves, not being supported by gigantic… worm?… were way less sturdy. He still had to use a lot of his strength to do what he wanted with them, but it was not to the point "waste 10% of your reserve to make a small hole" as it was before; now Cid could use just his physical prowess to bend scale however he wanted. And with usage of magic he could now also melt it and give it a new structure.

And at this moment Hams appeared and gave an advice: what if he makes instruments and tools out of these scales? Cid had to admit, the idea held merit. Considering how good the scales proven themselves to be in area of magic conductivity (70%, by the way) and how sturdy they were, he had all reasons to think that these things would prove a great material for mage's working station. He himself was salivating at the thought of being in a proper workshop; what about Eta, then? Would she lose all inhibitors once he gifts her something like this (and he 100% does it: wedding gift, after all)?

After a minute of brainstorming they decided to make the following set: anvil (because anvil is cool), forge (with usage of his new Fire Realm it would go on indefinitely, allowing them to melt anything), slime suit (all-in-one tool), and artifact station with amplifiers and analyzer.

The last one is not for him… well, for him too, but in another way: in normal artifact making the mage had to sit down and patiently carve every rune by themselves; Cid could do it simply by his will, but he still had to concentrate a bit to create the enchantment. That's where the station comes in: by Hams' design, it would contain the molds of pre-existing rune enchantments; user only had to place the item they desired to enchant and then choose one of the molds, the station will quickly engrave and activate it.

Of course, that was function for a mere user; for someone who was proficient enough in artifact making on their own, the station offered a large amount of tools to help them out in this task: special instruments like carving knifes, quills, pens, and inks that were preloaded and could be replaced at any time. They were made with combination of Serpent's scales, Sanctuary's walls, and the flowing magma.

Another interesting thing he managed to add was analyzer. Its function was simple: you place the artifact in special case, place a bunch of books about the language it uses, and analyzer deciphers the artifact. It could also copy a mold for future usage… Who said something about magical printer?

The station could also be opened if user wished to study the molds that already came in or replace them with their own… Though Cid had all reasons to think Eta would not replace any of them in foreseeable future; his own designs should be way superior to anything fantasy world had to offer, and he planned to load a lot of them: defensive, offensive, mundane life… Anything you could think of.

But the most important parts in artifact station were amplifiers. By Hams' design (what the hell does Todd even do all the time?… oh, he was busy making contracts and melting gems), these things served as focus for user's magic and tremendously lessened the magic loss. The station magic conductivity should already be at about 70% (it could drop depending on how good other materials will be), and amplifiers will take the parasitic losses back and use them once again. Anything that could not be used would be stored in the special crystals that then could cover the magic if the user for some reason depleted their own reserve.

Of course, for Cid himself this station was but a small help: he was already able to do anything the station could, and it could only serve as a way to spend less time on mundane things like mass enchantment. But for Eta that thing could tremendously lessen the workload and help her focus on the more important parts of research.

Of course, other girls will get their wedding gifts, too! He already had ideas in mind what to gift each Shade…

With help of Hams and Todd Cid managed to craft two sets. Why two? One for Eta, the other one for his Beasts. Yes, for some reason they needed it… Alright, he actually needed one himself to make sure he doesn't mess up in slime suit and ring crafting. He only had one slime suit that was used by him for a long time, yes, the one he is wearing right now. Mistakes can't be made!

Now that Cid made the proper crafting stations, he could continue with making the upgrades slime suit. The first thing he did was, of course, melting the serpent's scale; with brand new forge, his own powers, and surrounding environment it was a piece of cake. The challenging part was to fuse the melted scale with slime suit and not destroy the latter in the process. But he managed! Though it was still not a proper fuse, and he was now practically naked until he finishes the upgrade… No biggie.

The next step was adding the magma. He needed to cool it down enough so it won't melt the slime to puddle, but also let it be hot enough to not become a stone. He spent a good hour or two forcing the conditions to meet, before finally managing to make a perfect balance.

The slime almost evaporated, but being held by his magic power (and Faith; if something goes wrong drop some of Faith and have faith for the best) allowed it to 'survive'. And now comes his flesh and blood.

By his theory, his body parts now contained a large amount of life force, surpassing even that of Diablos (aka Aurora (aka Violet)), and by Diablos cells' example he knows that it's possible to add them into another living being, either forcing it to mutate horribly or obtain new powers while maintaining the original structure. The problem with Diablos cells' was, they were not given out of free will. They were harvested by scientists… which, if Cid is being honest, knew nothing about proper biology; if they knew, they would not make so many mistakes…. Back to the point; Violet did not want to grant her cells to anyone.

And that meant that they carried over her residue will, the will to break free, which caused the Magic Overload and subsequent random mutations, which rarely ended well. In his case, not only he has the knowledge of technologically advanced Earth and his own magic research, but his cells are given out of free will with "I want to help this poor slime to survive and evolve further" wish.

And so Cid took out a bit of his blood and a chunk of his flesh. He already did it once with Epsilon, but back then he completely cleared off anything related to him and replaced it with Epsilon's own DNA to make sure the process goes smoothly. This time he will not clear anything and allow his monstrous lifeforce to support the slime suit.

The process started: he placed the barely alive slime together with his body parts onto the artifact station and started working through the amplifiers. Slowly, but surely his flesh merged with magma and scales parts, while his blood supported the slime itself. Slowly, bur surely suit came back to life.

And then, everything stopped. The suit before was a conglomeration of original slime, Serpent's scales, cooled magma, and his flesh; now, it was an uniform liquid that contained everything in certain proportions. Cid curiously injected his mana to it with intention to wear, and slime suit immediately obliged. In fact, he could say that the response was even faster than before.

Moreover, compared to all the previous experience where slime suit barely held itself onto his body when he let his control go, now it stayed in one piece even when he stopped the supply of his mana; though Cid could feel that once its own reserve runs out, it will fall down, but compared to previous iteration where without mana it immediately becomes a pile of liquid, that was a large upgrade. It also seemed like it was… connected to him?

Oh, right. His flesh and blood were a part of upgrade, and so once it felt the familiar signature, it immediately connected to his wishes. That's nice, he supposes?

It did not lose any of its versatility, though. In fact, it just became easier to use. Before that he had to concentrate constantly to make sure it works properly, and while it was fine for the most part, any precise work on a small-scale was nigh-impossible to do. Cid did, but it was very hard. Now, however, it obeyed his smallest wishes, to the point where he could work on millimeter level properly and make an accurate sentence with ease… yes, he just tested that out on a random stone.

Which meant now he had all the tools to create rings. And, as laughable as it was, with proper instruments it was a piece of cake to create shank! Really, he just need to merge magma with melted scale, then create a shape out of it and let it cool down. Then with artifact station he placed some minor enchantments: additional mana reservoir, in-built light spirit, place to store slime suit, some of his healing abilities, and the direct channel to his Faith containers like with Pylons.

Even Hams and Todd agreed that girls themselves were a treasure far more valuable than anything they had in their possession, and there was no point in holding back for them.

The shank itself was somewhat black, but with occasional purple lines; the black was from the cooled magma, while purple was from Serpent's scales. It went very good with Shadow Garden's color scheme!

Now it was time to make the ornaments. Cid honestly did not give a single fuck about any beliefs related to gems; what he wanted to do is make sure the gems' colors matched girls' eyes.

First went Eta's ring; after a moment of consideration Todd took out a single large amethyst.

Then they finished Zeta's ring: they used amber here for large gem and a couple of smaller yellow topaz gems.

Epsilon got herself emerald and aventurine.

Delta was a tricky choice, mainly because she and Eta had a similar eye color; fortunately, Todd turned out to be an expert (self-proclaimed) in gems and advised to place black jade. His source? "Trust me".

Gamma undoubtedly got a large sapphire, like, really large; she was really Todd's favourite, huh…

For Beta they took out aquamarines.

And Alpha's ring was special. Despite all the claims he made, he couldn't deny the fact that Alpha was the closest to him. She always supported him, made everything for him, and even the Shadow Garden as a whole was created because she wanted to make organization worthy of him.

Cid wanted to answer her feelings in the fullest, but just finding the most expensive gem in the existence? That was not his style. And then he realized: if he can't find one, why not make it?

Now they all stared at the gem they made with Serpent's scale, Sanctuary's wall brick, part of his heart, a unit of each other gem, and Faith. They could not understand it at all.

If you look at it from one angle, it looks like sapphire. But if you look from another, it shines with Serpent's purple. And then you tilt your head, and it suddenly shines rainbow! Some unknowable thing they created, but it was 100% safe and had a good synergy with their enchantments, so it was a success!

Cid wanted to prepare to leave when Hams suddenly said that his sister would be very worried about him, and it would be good to prepare a souvenir for her. And Alexia was still his girlfriend. Rose's coronation would require a small gift, too.

Well, his beloved sister Claire will get a Serpent's scale necklace with rubies, then. Two rubies, actually!

Alexia will have to do with a simple bracelet made out of magma stone with ruby and two small diamonds. Magma stone and gems should not be that rare compared to flying snake's scales, right?

Rose?… Oh, yeah, Tyrant Queen. Crown made from Serpent's scale mixed with Sanctuary bricks. A good combination of purple and white!

Anyone else?… Hm, Nishimura will get a graduation gift: a single emerald with enchantments that will be inserted into her crowbar. Nice and with style!

Victoria?… Well, if she was the one behind the cult of his, then he will give her a handmade necklace with that spooky four-star eye symbol made out of Serpent's scale… You know, isn't that too much women in his life?

Nah, it's probably fine. He still has to think about gifts to all other Seven Shades… There's no way he fucked up with gems, right? Everything should go well, right?

Cid went all out. Now he has to create wedding gifts.

Eta gets herself a set of crafting stations so she can enjoy science and magic in peace. Anything else for other Shades?