Everybody Gangsta Until Science Meets Magic

47 - Crafting Tab

After Aiden and Eara had rested briefly, Aiden moved his seat beside Eara and began to demonstrate how the crafting function of the system worked exactly.

"The crafting function introduces three new elements. Raw materials, system materials, and item recipes. Raw materials are all the items that have not yet undergone any system processes, so all the wood we have now-- actually, all items we have right now could be considered raw materials. Whether it could be used to craft something depends on set conditions." Aiden explained, retrieving a branch he chopped off from some tree earlier.

"This branch can be a raw material, but it can only create wooden rods that aren't thicker than the branch itself. It can't be used to create wooden blocks or anything. For wooden blocks, that's where the tree logs come in. Wooden sticks, wooden logs-- those are considered system materials. All system materials that have the same ID tag are geometrically similar to each other to the finest detail."

As a demonstration, Aiden brought up the crafting tab and clicked on the plus sign beside the text 'No Raw Materials Registered.' A panel appeared, asking him to select a base item to be used as a raw material, and he selected a tiny chunk of wood in his inventory. This chunk didn't have anything except the wood part of a tree. There was no bark, leaf, moisture-- it was fundamentally just wood.

"Do you know what's the name of the trees here?" Aiden asked Eara before he named the raw material.

". . . I think they're laspar trees."

Upon confirmation, Aiden then named the raw material as 'Laspar Wood.'

He then stood up and clicked on a button with the text 'Deploy Recipe Recorder,' making a table appear in front of Aiden. Hologram-like screens stood at the edges of the table, with a hologram screen also enclosing the top part. This area on and above the table was where the system recorded crafting processes for a recipe.

Eara stood up as well so she could watch Aiden do his thing.

He retrieved a branch and held it above the table, close to the center of the hologram enclosure. He then cast a connective spell to secure its spatial coordinates relative to the table. When he let go, the branch was perfectly still in midair.

Eara's brows furrowed as she looked at the floating branch, then he looked at Aiden.

". . . It's something I learned from the past week. It's a basic spell-- actually, it's not even really a spell. It's a state of mana." Aiden smiled.

Eara just blinked a few times, before shrugging it off.

"Anyway--" Aiden continued with his demonstration. With hand gestures, geometric planes appeared, phasing through the branch. In truth, he didn't really need to move his hands, as thoughtography was what made the 3D shapes appear and move. Gestures only assisted Aiden with visualization.

Once multiple geometrical planes were crossing through the branch, a panel appeared before Aiden, asking for confirmation. When Aiden confirmed, cutting spells were cast along the geometrical planes, slicing off parts of the branch cleanly. In an instant, the leaves, bark, and some wood fell to the table, leaving a long, rectangular prism made of wood.

Eara, despite not coming from Earth, was mesmerized. Although she didn't know that certain iron dude from a certain cinematic universe that also invented awesome things ands used hologram interfaces, she was amazed by Aiden's creation.

Another panel appeared, requiring the item's name. Aiden named the item 'Wooden Rod,' specifying its dimensions afterwards, so that it didn't stack with 'Wooden Rods' of other sizes.

"Alright. I've got one recipe." Aiden hid the recipe recorder and opened the crafting tab. This time around, there were two things displayed. One was a raw material, which wasn't interactible, and the other was an item recipe-- the recipe for the Wooden Rod.

Upon clicking on it, specifications appeared. Laspar wood used as raw material needed to be have a wood volume of more than 3 x 3 x 30 cm. It also specified how much stored mana it would use to craft the item.

Not bothering to read the specifications, Aiden just clicked on [Craft]. As the item was stupidly simple, the crafting process was finished instantly. A new Wooden Rod appeared in Aiden's inventory. He then pressed and held the [Craft] button, crafting a total of 20 wooden rods.

Aiden retrieved a table along with all of the wooden rods from his inventory. He then placed them all on the table, looking at Eara with a proud expression. Each of the wooden rods were exactly the same in size and shape. They only looked a bit different because of the grain of wood.

Eara smiled at Aiden's proud look, also realizing how awesome his invention was. Still, she didn't know what to say exactly. "Congratulations . . ?"

Aiden chuckled at her response, before shaking his head and stashing both the table and the rods back into his inventory. "Anyway, let's quickly head to the peak before dusk! The sunset from up there should look awesome."

Eara nodded at Aiden, then both of them cast pulse maneuver and rapidly went up the mountain. Just around 15 minutes before dusk, the two panting messes finally saw the highest point of the edge of the mountain range. They weren't that close to the peak yet, but the trees had become sparse and the grass grew shorter.

The two slid to a halt upon seeing the peak, before leisurely taking their time to walk up to the peak. At this point, the wind was howling, which added to the ambience of the peak. Aiden retrieved a cloak from his inventory and wore it, not waiting until he felt too cold before wearing it. Seeing Aiden wear his cloak, Eara retrieved a normal cloak and wore it as well. With the strong winds, their hair and cloaks flapped around wildly.

"Still awesome." Aiden said aloud, looking around as he trudged up towards the peak. At this point, he could just walk along the high path and eventually arrive at Azerino. Speaking of which, the city of Azerino was visible from here, dotted with orange lights and a few minor lightshows playing above the city. The lightshows were like coordinated fireflies that formed patterns made up of various colors.

Eara caught what Aiden said, even through the sound of howling winds. "You've been here before?"

"Yeah. I also went up here when I took shelter in the camp grounds years ago. God, I remember how lonely I was back then. It was also around the time of Azerino's Festival of Light and Height, and I specifically went up this mountain to view the light shows from afar."

Eara didn't really have anything to say, so she kept silent.

The two just leisurely walked along the highest path on the mountain range until the sun finally touched the horizon. The duo just watched the sun sink, occassionally sending glances at the city of Azerino.

No words were passed between them, but that was fine. Aiden only wanted to go here to relax, and even Eara found herself relaxing at the sight. The two spent their time like this for about ten minutes, when Aiden suddenly furrowed his brows as he detected something with his magic perception.

". . . Hey, Eara. I sense people . . .  within the mountain." Aiden suddenly spoke.

Eara looked at Aiden and asked, ". . . Beneath us?"

"Yeah. Down from here opposite of our camp. They seem to be ascending . . .  from a tunnel?"

Eara frowned a bit and furrowed her brows. "How many are they?"

". . . I'm not sure. More and more people are entering the range of my magic perception, and there are more than a dozen people I sense at the moment."

For a moment, Eara fell into deep thought, before she decided. She nodded at Aiden and told him resolutely, "Let's check it out."

She didn't verbalize it, but Aiden could somehow tell from her expression that she didn't seem to like what was about to happen.