God Of Crafting

The task of going through the wares Chirio and Leila prepared was nowhere near as easy as it sounded.

Just like with everything, even the simplest of tasks would grow into monsters of a job once they were put to the scale through which rich people operated.

Stocking up a small shop was one thing. Stocking up the shelves of a massive hypermarket, however, was a whole different topic.

This was one of the two reasons why just checking what resources we had on hand turned from an easy, almost leisurely job into a properly arduous task. The other reason being how I couldn't just go through each of the boxes simply checking what they were stocked with, for, as it quickly turned out, I wasn't familiar with the great majority of the resources prepared!

And so, rather than just going down the boxes one by one, I had no other choice but to take my time, reading through the specifications of pretty much three out of every four items I checked.

'A repulsion stone,' I thought after reading through its manual. 'When infused with spiritual energy, it can create a shockwave to repulse all that isn't infused with the caster's spirituality.'

Into one of my pockets, this simple stone went, waiting for when I would fill all my pockets to make the trip back to the table.

'Absorption stone that can suck the energy out of the incoming spells? That's quite useful!'

'Djenga stone? The hell is that?' I thought, taking my sweet time to go through the item's manual properly for the very first time.

And as it turned out, it was one hell of a complex stone, considering just how simple its use was.

'So it's a formation stone that can house three different sets of runes, actively changing which ones are active by activating either of its three infusion gates?'

I shook my head.

'That's pretty neat, but I don't really see a way for me to make any real use for it, not unless I would want to craft something massive,' I thought, giving myself some time to run through the potential use cases of this fist-sized stone. 'That, or maybe I could make a mage staff?'

I raised my eyebrow as the idea popped up in my head.

'The question is, while it surely would be a fancy toy, how practical would it really be?'

Giving up on those childish ideas, I put the stone back into one of the last few free pockets in my robes before moving on.

"I've got a few of them done. Would you like for me to list them out?" Claire asked as she arranged the fifth item on the table.

"I will go through just one more box and will be right over!"

Wasting no time as I approached the next crate, I quickly pushed it open and reached inside while already using my other hand to reach for the manual… only for my right hand to find nothing but padding.

'Huh?'

Puzzled, I climbed up on my tiptoes to peer into the box, only to realize that the entire crate… housed a whole single, azure-colored crystal sitting on a pillow softer than what I've ever used in bed.

"Maybe I shouldn't be all that careless around this one…" I muttered to myself while pulling my right hand back as I focused on its manual instead.

'Kryburst stone - can store a seemingly infinite amount of spiritual energy, but will inevitably explode once the process of feeding it is over.'

Contrary to the extreme padding within the box, the manual attached seemed… lackluster.

"Where are the ratios? Conversions? Area of effect?" I muttered to myself, allowing the manual to drop out of my hand as I turned around and moved over to where Claire nicely stacked her collection of items.

"Okay, here they are as follows," she happily started the introduction as she pointed at the first item, an ordinary-looking pebble.

"This is a bouncing Pete. While it's as firm as stone, once infused with just a bit of energy it will hardly lose any of its inertia when bouncing around stuff. This," her hand moved over to the next item, this time appearing like some sort of leaves frozen within a cube of ice, "is the premade potion blend. You just need to put it in some sort of container and melt the ice. By the time it fully thaws, the water melted out of it previously will boil all the ingredients to the point the cube becomes a herbal potion."

One by one, Claire continued to elaborate about her findings, ranging from simple parts, crystals, or stones infused with all sorts of different and weird qualities, through weird mixes like that ice potion, all the way to two items marked as "unknown."

"That bouncing Pete could be quite deadly if used as the padding of the fragmentation grenade," I thought out loud while rubbing my chin with my fingers, all the while allowing my thoughts to freely float through all the possible applications of our findings so far.

"Then, on my end…" As soon as I was done processing the stuff Claire prepared and making a mental note out of everything, I then started to pull out my own findings before arranging them in a separate line on the table. "Starting from the left, we have a repulsion stone, absorption stone, djenga stone…"

Following Claire's example, I took my time explaining what each of the items was, only to then go for the extra step and add a comment on the potential use I found for each of them.

"That djenga-stone magic staff… Why do you think it could only be used as a toy?" Claire asked but only after waiting for me to finish the whole explanation. "I know that just a few runes won't be able to create complex structures, but…" She bit down on her bottom lip, only to sneak up a measured glance up my face.

"Since when does a spiritual spell have to be complex to carry great weight?" she asked while cutely leaning her head over her shoulder again, giving me the slightly weirded-out look. "I mean, even if it won't amount to much as a crutch, why not just make it into a handy tool with limited yet original use?" she then suggested while spreading her arms open, only to then put on a wide smile on her lovely mouth.
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"After all, why use complex magic when you can solve some issues with simple ones? And why not simplify the process of casting ordinary yet convenient spells if you can easily do so?"