PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Of course, it was still quite surprising to Desmond to see Aisha pull an entire forging workshop out of one of her pockets. Desmond only recognized a few tools in Aisha’s hands, like the hammer and anvil. Still, even these were filled with rune carvings and energy circuits.

“As expected of a race of craftswomen.” Desmond thought to himself as he felt the power fluctuations from every tool in the workshop. Most of these emanated three-star class energy fluctuations. One could imagine the kind of results that could be obtained with such a workshop.

“Give me your hand.” Aisha demanded out of nowhere as she extended her right hand toward Desmond. Desmond held out his hand and watched with interest as Aisha threaded her fingers through his. “She is probing the exact properties of my mana.” Desmond thought as he felt Aisha’s Aura enter his body.

Desmond watched Aisha’s expression and demeanor for a couple of seconds before letting go of clenching his fists. If it had been anyone else, this probing would have been an absolute taboo, and Desmond would have responded with immediate violence to such a thing. Still, he just couldn’t react that way to Aisha.

Deep passion in a pair of pure eyes was all Desmond saw in Aisha. In the girl’s mind, there didn’t even seem to be any consideration for harboring ill intent. Aisha was utterly focused on sensing Desmond’s mana’s exact nature, frequency point, purity, and density. As a proud ancient magma heart valkyrie, it would be below Aisha to make a generic item. She would create something that perfectly resonates with Desmond’s mana, which was her most basic standard.

During her probing, Aisha got a free pass from Desmond, who didn’t use his mana to interfere in the slightest, so it didn’t take long for her to feel the three elemental seeds inside Desmond’s heart. Although she came from a higher species, Aisha was still shocked to find not one but three elemental seeds within the heart of someone in the two-star class.

Aisha’s race was highly esteemed because of her superior affinity for fire mana. This affinity came from the elemental fire seed they were born with. Precisely because of that, Aisha was well aware of how rare it was to find a human being with one; she could also tell that these elemental seeds came from an external source.

Aisha couldn’t help but ask with a slightly nervous and cautious tone. “It may be rude of me, but may I know where you got those elemental seeds from?”

.....

Although Desmond found the question somewhat strange, he didn’t have much of a problem with giving a vague description of how he obtained the seeds, just leaving out Titania’s name. Hearing that Desmond had received the seeds from various groups of fairies from different elements, Aisha found it surprising, but she was inclined to believe it.

Now feeling rather relieved but somewhat embarrassed, Aisha explained herself. “Sorry, it’s just that I’m a bit sensitive to elemental seeds. At a time, our race was hunted to gather the elemental seeds we were born with. This was a way to gain an elemental seed before advancing to the three-star class and gaining our fire mana affinity.”

Desmond was sympathetic. Back then, Kyuru was being hunted by a group of imbeciles who coveted her even without understanding her worth. One could imagine how Aisha’s race was back then under a hunt motivated by greed.

Seeing that Desmond didn’t say anything, but his eyes became kinder, Aisha felt quite warm. She preferred this silent yet sincere empathy to a bunch of empty words. “I finished analyzing your mana, as well as your structure and physical condition. It seemed to me that you favor close combat quite a bit. I will make you something suitable.”

Aisha walked over to a workbench with sketch sheets and design tools in her makeshift cave workshop. Desmond felt that she was watching an artist develop her masterpiece. Flames of passion and inspiration literally burned in Aisha, with the patterns on her body glowing red hot, as if magma was going to burst from her skin at any moment.

Aisha’s hands practically became a bunch of dancing shadows, writing a bunch of names of materials, alloys, and their properties. Complex formulas came out of Aisha’s hands and mind, predicting possible alterations in the materials and the reaction of their different characteristics.

In his ignorance, Desmond could only guess that Aisha was planning to create a perfect material before moving on to the design part. She probably already had a concept and desired effect in mind and was working on it. Aisha kept muttering under her breath, externalizing her thoughts as her mind worked at high speed and her hands worked nonstop.

Suddenly, Aisha stopped; the happiness of having found such a fantastic answer filled her eyes. Aisha discarded the sheet she was working on. She began to write on a dozen materials and arrange them into a formula, which she adjusted for a couple of minutes before stopping. “This is the perfect ratio.” Aisha muttered.

Immediately after finishing designing the alloy, Aisha began working on the sketch of the item itself. Desmond wanted to take a look, but she wouldn’t let him, arguing that she wanted to leave at least that much as a surprise.

During the next phase, Desmond could barely keep up with Aisha’s work. She was a fast and well-calibrated machine. Desmond watched her put at least three ingots of different metals into a furnace, waiting until they were melted. Aisha added a fist of dark metallic powder and a diamond-shaped chunk of silver metal to the molten metal. Aisha raised the temperature of the furnace, forcing the newly introduced materials to melt. She continued to file away some kind of crystalline-textured bone during the process, dropping the remains into the alloy inside the furnace.

After a couple of hours of melting, Aisha poured the alloy into a mold, resulting in a dark metal ingot with silver streaks and a crystalline sheen. Desmond was about to say something when he watched as Aisha reached for a new container before putting the ingot into it and placing it in a different furnace.

The new furnace looked somewhat strange, it didn’t seem to have a fire source inside, and it had devices and slots that Desmond couldn’t identify. As Desmond wondered how this new furnace worked, Aisha made a move. Aisha parted her loose blouse from the center, revealing much of the outline of her round, plump breasts and a huge pattern of magma lines in the center of her chest.

The pattern was intricate, somehow giving the impression of being shaped like a flower. However, Desmond had never seen anything quite like it. The lines of magma around Aisha’s body converged at that place; it was not necessary to add two and two to realize that such a pattern was important.

Placing her hands in front of her chest, Aisha drew a flame from herself and poured it into the furnace through her hands, using the fire from her own heart and core to fuel this smelting process. Even a fool could see those flames were not normal; the normal fire would not give that sensation of purity and vitality.

As the ingot slowly melted, many particles could be seen being incinerated, significantly reducing the volume obtained. Only now did Desmond realize what Aisha was doing; she was refining and purifying the new alloy.

Another two hours passed, during which Aisha paused for a brief moment before pouring some sort of mineral liquid into the furnace. From Aisha’s murmurs, Desmond knew this was a special type of purifier that helped drive out and draw out the impurities within an alloy.

By the time the second stage of smelting was finished, the original six or eight liters of molten metals had turned into an ingot the size of Aisha’s palm. Such material’s efficiency seemed quite ridiculous. The alloy in Aisha’s hands hadn’t been forged into an artifact yet, but it already emitted high-intensity mana fluctuations; Desmond couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

Aisha took the small alloy ingot and carried it to another workbench, where she had many molds and carving tools. Aisha made a few strokes on the porcelain-like surface of the workbench, and three molds came out on their own.

Three ring-shaped molds, each varying slightly in dimensions, but all seemed quite compatible with one another despite their subtle differences. Satisfied with the molds, Aisha took the new alloy ingot and placed it directly on the magma pattern in the center of her chest.

The intense flames that came out of Aisha’s core were like solar flares, melting the alloy in two seconds. Under Aisha’s careful control over her fire mana, the molten alloy was distributed in the right proportions for each mold.

Aisha used what she called “Vishir’s Liquid Ice” to cool the molten metal in the molds in record time. According to her, this valuable cooling liquid also had a formidable tempering effect.

Having cooled the metal, Aisha removed it from the molds to reveal what Desmond identified as three pieces of a composite ring. Aisha smiled happily at the wonderful metallic sheen of the three pieces and proceeded to take her carving tools.

What followed left Desmond speechless, like watching Michelangelo carve one of his masterpieces. Aisha had perfect control and mastery over each of her carving tools, and she fluently combined them as the runes and circuits were carved into the three pieces in an almost artistic manner.

Desmond could feel the powerful and intense energy fluctuations emanating from the carving tools and Aisha herself; they were even a little intimidating. However, the carving process still took another couple of hours. Finishing, Aisha assembled the three pieces into one. Desmond almost doubted his eyes; he couldn’t find any trace of the separate pieces. It was as if they had merged into one.

Desmond thought Aisha was done, but he refrained from making any hasty comments, and it was the right decision. Having already assembled the ring, Aisha took it to another workbench, where she used a pressing tool to hold it while she set gems into the ring.

From Aisha’s murmurs, Desmond identified the tiny cross-shaped center gem as a gem called a “Reversal Mirror.” In addition to that gem, Aisha put four small diamond-shaped gems on each side of the center gem. Apparently, these gems were mana boosters.

Once the gems were placed, Aisha placed her hand on the ring and murmured some words in that language that the hunter’s book could not translate. Desmond only understood a couple of words. “Melt...accept...name...Destined Star.”