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.

work as one. It was necessary for

gaze became bright once more and two familiar ores appeared

two, coating each one of his palms as he grasped toward the first

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

a strategical resource no matter which world one was talking about. They were a foundation piece in almost every treasure

lowest grade. However, if it was combined with the

the strongest such world in the history of the universe. Actually, it

sniper rifle he took

was time to begin the second step:

simple as removing impurities. It was more accurate to say that this was the

of added carbon. If Leonel's goal was to make steel, then his 'purification' process would be taking iron and smelting carbon into it, thus producing the desired

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,

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 Compatibility of a metal prepared, even in the same exact way,

he had to choose from were Smelting, Macro-Separation, or Oscillation. Leonel had already

Touch]. The ore became like a bouncing ball

slowly, but surely, turn a deeper and deeper shade of red as its body became hot. However, the odd part was that this red only

one of Induction. 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 very specific chemical

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

was impossible for the current him to create a 100% Compatible Metal as that would require being able to use his Internal Sight to scan minerals at the

like 70% was already above average, 80% was