“Hey, Crafter!” I called as we approached the crafting zone. The man—if I could call him that—was there, completely still with his arms crossed, sitting on a chair. His expression was lost in the distance.

  He didn’t reply or turn, but when we got closer to his bench, the man suddenly moved like some kind of robot that had just been activated.

  The movement was so sudden it made all of us jolt in place.

  “I’m sorry if I spooked you!” He was as polite as ever, but his grin was still terrifying.

  “You’re good. It was just strange, you moving all of a sudden,” I said, trying to be polite. The last time I talked to the man, he seemed a little offended when he realized we were scared of him despite his obvious attempts at being nice.

  “Oh, that?” he asked, his grin widening. “That wasn’t me!”

  “It wasn’t you?” Mary asked. “But we saw you just there.”

  “It’s a hologram of me. I’m working from home, actually. The Empire teleports me here every time someone needs my services,” he explained as if that were the most normal thing in the world.

  “And you can share this but not your name?” I asked.

  “The Empire forbids me from telling my name for security reasons. You have no idea what some people do when they know your name or where you live out there in the multiverse.” He smiled.

  Actually, I had a good idea. Doxxing seemed to be a problem both in the multiverse and back on Earth. We had some cases at the office just to deal with people who’d been victims of it and decided to ask for restitution from the perpetrators—and pursue them.

  “My father… he’s working for the Empire now. Do you know if he’s okay?” Mary asked, and the gray man seemed puzzled, unsure if he could or couldn’t share the information.

  He decided to do it, though.

  “I can say, from my experience, that when my planet was colonized, working for the Empire gave me a better life than I had before. But that’s my experience. I know people who don’t share the same opinion.” Then, he suddenly went quiet, his image becoming stale again.

  He’d been teleported back to his home. We shared a look, knowing something was happening with the Crafter.

  Thankfully, though, he reappeared not long after.

  “Sorry, had to do something back at my place.” He smiled, as friendly as before.

  “And what about what you were saying before?” Tress pressed, and the gray man grimaced ever so slightly before putting his smile back on.

  “Forget about it. It’s a thing of my race… to ramble. What do you need from me?”

  Mary stepped forward, ready to ask him again about the Empire’s jobs, but I held her hand and shook my head. I understood she wanted to know more about her father’s situation, but pressing on it was clearly bad for the Crafter, and he’d been nothing but helpful to us. I didn’t want to be responsible for him being punished, and I was sure Mary would share the same idea with a cooler head.

  “We have these.” I removed the items from my inventory and showed them to him on the palm of my hand.

  “Oh, these are very good.” He whistled. “Can I touch them?” he asked, and I pushed them forward so he could grab the objects.

  He lifted them up and let the moonlight shine against them.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “I can’t use the two horns to create a single armor, but I can do a full armor using the drake scale and the minotaur horn. It’ll cost you two thousand credits, and the results will be great. You’ll be ahead of most people on the first tower.”

  “Go ahead,” I told him.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, just like the system always did when there was a negotiation underway. I confirmed, and he started working.

  He grabbed a plate from beneath his bench. It was a chest plate much like the one I had owned, but instead of having muscle engravings, it was plain and made of gleaming metal.

  In the next second, he delicately placed the scale above it, then summoned his hammer from his inventory and brought it down onto the scale with force. The scale shattered into a million tiny pieces that, instead of flying off, adhered to the metal—as if sinking into it.

  It was hard to see, but after a few seconds, the scale was no longer visible. Instead, it had been “eaten” by the metal, and several small scales appeared over the metal plate. It was like looking at the drake’s body again, though clearly artificial. It was beautiful.

  Elk was the most impressed, stepping closer to take a better look.

  The Crafter, however, didn’t dwell on our amazed faces. He placed the horn above the scaled armor and hammered it unceremoniously.

  Again, the horn shattered into a million pieces and sank into the armor. This time, with each piece entering the plate, it glowed a deep orange—like the magma the minotaur had thrown at us.

  The Crafter stared at it for a few seconds, dismissed his hammer, and looked at the armor with both hands on his thin hips.

  Then he sighed, as if he’d just finished a very hard job, and grabbed the simple plate with both hands, handing it to me.

  “Equip it,” he said as I grabbed the quadrangular shape. That didn’t look like armor, but he was the blacksmith, not me.

  I commanded the plate to equip, and in the next second, it formed itself around my whole body. It removed my clothes and set itself over my skin in a fraction of a second. No one could see it, but I felt it.

  The thing formed from bottom to top—the scaled boots forming first, then the thighs, hips, torso plates, arms, and finally, a helm over my head.

  There was a chainmail beneath the plate, and under that, a cloth that felt very comfortable against my skin. The armor seemed perfectly molded to my size.

  Its scales were a deep orange, almost crimson, and the helm ended in horns like those of the minotaurs. It was completely weightless, and when I checked it, I was more than impressed by its stats.

  Blazing Scaled Armor – Epic

  Armor made of the scales of a mighty drake and imbued with the magic of a blazing minotaur. While wearing it, you're immune to fire attacks. The armor is quite resistant and has a 10x multiplier against piercing attacks.

  +5 Constitution.

  I read and reread it a few times.

  “This looks awesome,” Mary was the first to speak, her voice laced with excitement.

  “You look like a true warrior,” Tress added, “clad for the wars of the old days, like the heroes from the stories.”

  Elk was the only one in silence, but when we met gazes, we shared a smile.

  It didn’t go unnoticed that Tress’s Piercer skill was still stronger than the armor itself—and it was epic—so her arrows would probably be more than deadly for most enemies we encountered.

  The second thing I noticed was that the equipment I had in my storage was still contributing to my stats even if I wasn’t wearing any of the items anymore. It seemed like as long as I had them in my inventory and had used them once, I’d always keep the stats. That was good to know.

  I dismissed the armor, thanked the Crafter, and walked away with my friends at my side.

  The next two days passed quickly. We tackled some dungeons and crafted armor for Elk, though his was simpler—made from a piece of cyclops armor plus the minotaur horn.

  However, he asked me to break the horns as soon as he had it on.

  “I don’t need them now, and if they grow again, I want you to break them again,” he told me right after removing the helm for the first time.

  I nodded, understanding his point.

  We grabbed a few Constitution Shards that we gave to Mary, but besides that, we spent most of our time managing the town, deciding how things would unfold.

  We expected the town to arrive as soon as the programmed day reached midnight. However, it only happened at noon.

  We were all eating at home when the world shook. We left our plates on the table and walked outside.

  Right in the middle of the forest, a giant monolith began to rise from the ground. It was completely black, made of a material I’d never seen. It was beautiful and eerie at the same time and seemed to drink the sunlight.

  I was just starting to think about the hassle of reaching it when a blue portal appeared right at the center of town.

  Above it, the letters were clear:

  “Enter to have a chance to climb the tower and earn the first major challenge of the Ascension Games.”