Dimensional Descent

Leonel exited his Dream World and smiled, taking the little Metal Spirit into his hands and playing with it again.

"This'll be our first project together, Tolly. Are you excited?"

Tolly split into numerous balls of silver, jumping around Leonel's hands like little globules of mercury. The little guy didn't need to speak for Leonel to know that it was excited.

Recently, Leonel had been feeding it a lot of metals. Earth might have not been a Fourth Dimensional world just yet, and as such, was lacking in high quality minerals that came with this evolution. But, they as a people had squeezed everything they could out of the materials they did have, creating alloys that this little Metal Spirit loved to eat at its current stage of evolution.

Tolly's favorite snack was an alloy of platinum and iridium. Using it, the little guy had already reached the Fifth Black Tier.

Leonel was very careful not to overfeed Tolly, though. According to the hazard lesson, doing so could cause 'Overflow'. It was a dangerous state spirits could enter where they sought to devour everything.

Toward this, Leonel could only shake his head. His father had actually likened the state to a stomach ache. How such a catastrophic event could be as simple as a stomach ache was beyond him.

Leonel took a deep breath and went into a state of meditation. This time, however, it wasn't to enter his Dream World, but rather to prepare his mind and settle his heart. His father said that the most important thing in a successful crafting was one's state of mind.

His oppressive aura unwittingly surged out from him, causing the playful Metal Spirit to grow silent and solemn. It was easily affected by Leonel's presence, its own will becoming somewhat suppressed.

The first step in crafting was exactly this, Spirit Unity.

the process, Leonel and Tolliver would have to work as one. It was necessary for

moment, Leonel's dull gaze became bright once more and two familiar ores

each one of his palms as he grasped toward the first

Ore'. It was part of the 'Urbe' class of metals. Those of this class were exceptionally good at forming alloys and

They were a foundation piece in almost every treasure in existence and were key components in treasures that needed to fuse

lowest grade. However, if it was combined with the high level metal technology

the strongest such world in the history of

mind and the sniper rifle he took from Xinghai's corpse would

time to begin the second step:

purifying a metal. In the world of Force Crafting, 'purification' wasn't as simple as removing impurities. It was more accurate to say that this was the process of a Force Crafter 'treating' a material to create a

a certain concentration of added carbon. If Leonel's goal was to make steel, then his 'purification' process would be taking iron

that even amongst steel, there are various stages, purities and strengths among them. This is all decided by the process taken in forging the metal. Urbe ore, likewise, works in

to temper the Black Urbe ore such that its chemical structure was perfectly suited to the alloys of the sniper rifle. How well he performed this task was decided by a 'Compatibility' rating. Depending on the metals and materials used in the

or Oscillation. Leonel had already learned all three,

became like a bouncing ball trapped between the

and wrists were locked in place, his fingers continually flicked at the ore, causing it to slowly, but surely, turn a deeper and deeper shade of red as its body became hot. However, the odd part was that

It was the process of agitating the chemical structure of the metal and raising its heat. But, it was special in that it could target

impossible for beginners. Of course, Leonel wasn't really controlling things on an atomic level. He was simply able to use his

to create a 100% Compatible Metal as that would require being able to use his Internal Sight to scan minerals at the level of chemical bonds.

while 40% was passable. Something like 70% was already above average, 80% was elite, 90% was legendary, while