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.

would have to work as one. It was

once more and two familiar ores appeared

of his palms as he grasped toward the first

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

resource no matter which world one was talking about. They were a foundation piece in almost every treasure in existence and were key components in treasures that needed to fuse two

Ore was considered the lowest grade. However, if it was combined with the high

Fourth Dimensional worlds, Earth was incredibly advanced. If strength was strictly compared, Earth was most definitely the strongest such world in the history of the universe. Actually, it wasn't so exaggerated, but

mind and the sniper rifle

to begin

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

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

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 this

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 craft, the

Leonel had already learned all three, respectively, via the techniques [Melting Hands], [Dancing String] and

to use [Delicate Touch]. The ore became like a bouncing ball trapped between the cage that was

became blinding. Despite the fact his arms 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

process of agitating the chemical structure of the metal and raising its heat. But, it was special in that it could target very specific chemical bonds, causing them to break

alone made the Oscillation method the most difficult of the three. Controlling things on such a micro level while ensuring that the heat wasn't spread was nearly impossible for beginners. Of course, Leonel wasn't really controlling things on an atomic

able to use his Internal Sight to scan minerals at the level of chemical bonds. However, about

veteran Black Grade Force Crafters would find 50-60% acceptable while 40% was passable. Something like 70% was already above average, 80% was elite, 90% was legendary, while 100% was basically folklore.