Introducing Madam Holly and Nothing to each other had been an interesting experience. She had been less interested in the implications of their existence than his mother and the adventurers, taking their strange amorphous body in stride, finding the unfinished homunculus charming. When they had explained the details of being a homunculus and Lindle finding them in the dungeon, she had been amused by the idea that she was meeting someone technically older than her, and yet also from a certain point of view also a child, if you considered becoming finished a form of adulthood.
Nothing had told Lindle later that his complaints about her seemed overblown, much to his exasperation.
After giving her a much more detailed explanation of Artificing, together with Madam Holly, the three of them worked out the details of Lindle’s training for the foreseeable future. It wasn’t a rigid schedule, simply an outline of how much time he should spend on certain activities combined with times that would be convenient for Madam Holly to dedicate to him. She was an elder after all, and despite how much responsibility she, proudly, worked to avoid, as the raid approached she’d need to spend more and more time preparing the village as a whole. Monster hunting in one form or the other, keeping anything dangerous away from Glacerhine or the route the Wolven caravan used. As well as bringing in edible monster meat to boost their reserves.
His mother came in later to give her two coppers, mostly when it came to rest days and how Lindle wouldn’t be missed too often working at her store.
Lindle couldn’t say the next several weeks passed by in a blur, but certain portions did appear more as repressed memories than anything else in his head, so that might be a similar if inaccurate comparison.
Those days mostly consisted of his dedicated training with Madam Holly. It had been similar to when she had taught him [Flow], but instead of one straightforward mostly mental Technique, she was teaching an entirely new fighting style combined with three distinct Techniques.
She called it “The Flinging Ape.” Lindle had detected a hint of laughter when she had told him that, making him suspect she wasn’t being entirely honest or that there was a joke going over his head, but he didn’t comment on it.
The style had two distinct forms, the first focused on creating distance from foes in melee by leveraging Lindle’s height and the length of his arms to keep enemies at bay, as well as always keeping at least one arm in position to quickly reach into his pouch to use a handheld object in a pinch, and then rapidly retreat or maneuver into a more advantageous position.
The second form focused on keeping Lindle mobile while also constantly being able to throw objects. The idea there was that he’d be able to always be just out of reach while flinging potions or bombs.
Like any good martial style, the cornerstones were the Techniques the style was built around, and this style had three. [Savant Toss], [Repelling Knuckle], and [Primeval Climber]. The first, [Savant Toss], was almost like an upgrade to his basic [Throw] Technique. It involved Lindle imbuing some of his Aura Points into a small object he intended to throw, allowing him to throw it with an enhanced trajectory and force. Unlike [Throw] however, Lindle maintained a modicum of control over the aura in the object, and with some simple gestures, he could cause the object to veer in a new direction, allowing him to adjust his aim mid-flight.
[Repelling Knuckle] doubled as both a combat and a movement Technique. It increased the amount of force his fists could deliver by a small amount, but by pushing Aura out in a burst on contact, it would wrap around and fling away targets, allowing him to push away enemies. If he hit the ground instead, he could invert the way his Aura traveled, targeting himself and allowing him to essentially leap large distances quickly.
[Primeval Climber] reminded Lindle a bit of [Trek] since it was sort of a passive effect, though it affected all of Lindles limbs instead of just his feet. It had two main effects, the first allowed Lindle to redistribute his weight across his limbs, giving him a supernatural amount of balance, and the second created a kind of clinging field around his arms and legs, his Aura giving him more leverage on things he attempted to grip. These two effects combined to allow Lindle to maneuver his body and climb insanely easily in a way he had never been able to before. He had never felt clunky, but now he could easily climb up buildings and trees that would have needed [Levitate] to scale with practically only one limb, hand or foot, as long as he was constantly moving. The technique had amazing unexpected synergy with the spell as well.
That is to say, he didn’t get good with any of them overnight. It still took Lindle weeks and weeks of work to gain any amount of proficiency with the Techniques and when it came to the fighting style as a whole, Lindle would still be considered a novice. That was also skipping over the fact that the training itself was grueling.
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Half of learning most Techniques wasn’t just the mental manipulation of Aura, but also mastering the associated physical motions. On days he spent with her, Madam Holly had Lindle throw punches over and over until felt like his arms would fall off. She made him punch rocks, ice formations, trees, restrained monsters, Humphrey, himself, and her. The last was of course the most painful target, and he had flung himself unintentionally more often than not.
Throwing practice for [Savant Toss] wasn’t as painful as [Repelling Knuckle], but Lindle still had to practice throwing objects of varying size, weight, and shape for hours on end. Unlike [Throw], that Technique wouldn’t force his projectiles into a rigid straight trajectory until its power ran dry, he had to control everything manually.
For [Primeval Climber] they spent a lot of time in the Black Wood, where his training mostly consisted of staying in the trees as long as possible as Madam Holly tried to knock him to the ground. It certainly took the rank of the most stressful type of training. Having Madam Holly chase him through the trees once he had graduated from simple thrown objects had been nothing short of terrifying.
Compared to all of that, crafting was practically a semi-daily vacation. Where Madam Holly’s training had exhausted his body and emotional capacity for terror and frustration, artifice crafting only strained his Ethos and creative energy, which was unfortunate but at the very least was efficient in allowing him to not overwork any one part of himself.
Over the weeks, after he had felt like he had gotten the most practice possible from using minor magical herbs, and as his ability to absorb strain improved, Lindle transitioned to using more Ethos powerful material to make larger and stronger artifacts, with a focus on using [Ethos Ignition] to combine aspects from multiple sources. He had formed a habit of having a powerful primary source of Ethos and using something weaker as a secondary source to change the first source's aspects.
For Humphrey, he made Lynx Prints, a pair of boots with a powerful silencing effect that also made him and his tracks harder to notice. He also made several simple magical arrowheads from various fangs with penetrative effects. The ranger had told Lindle that he felt kinda awkward about the increased praise he had received from the other rangers over his apparent jump in skill.
Thalia received Decomposer's Palm, a glove made from bones of the undead they had fought as well as some powerful magic mushroom she had found growing in the inner grove. Likely grown by a necromancy-focused druid. It would allow Thalia to replenish MP from the small amounts of miasma given off by dead creatures and plants, as well as provide a boost to necromancy spells, which she had taken to learning despite the relentless teasing Lindle and Humphrey gave her.
Rosato and Dorothea had also finally taken Lindle’s offer of magical items, though they insisted on paying. Lindle had attempted to persuade Chip as well, but he had conceded after Chip pointed out that he doubted Lindle would be able to craft an artifact using a “holy” aspect of any kind. Nothing and Lindle had concluded he had been right after several hours of brainstorming and testing. It was mostly an issue of materials. extracting the Pathos out of objects Chip had blessed yielded no discernable holy aspect, and there was no other source he could think of to make one. Theodore on the other hand simply refused, not unkindly, but he didn’t offer any exact reason either.
Lindle of course made himself artifacts for his personal use as well. His favorite were his new Alzmeymical Gloves. A pair of gloves made from the breath sacs and scales of the Zmey he killed months ago, which allowed him to spend MP to empower alchemical reactions.
Despite his very full and busy days, his first priority over practically everything else was finishing Nothing and giving them a complete body. With each item he crafted, he improved his control over Ethos. Finishing Nothing wasn’t only just a matter of his skill, he also needed certain materials. As they designed a final body for Nothing to inhabit, they also detailed which aspects they would need, and Lindle researched which magical materials or creatures would most likely have one's powerful or specific enough.
Every so often he went on quests with Humphrey and Thalia to earn gold that he needed for purchasing anything he or Humphrey couldn’t or didn’t want to collect themselves. The gold from Rosato’s and Dorothea's commissions also went to this cause.
The quests also came with the added bonus of gathering XP. After level 5, Lindle’s rate of leveling slowed a fair bit, but between the quests and constant crafting, he climbed up to level 9. Meanwhile, both Humphrey and Dorothea had hit level 15 and gained their fourth class Skills, but hadn’t managed to level up past that yet. They had also earned at least one Feat each, but despite Lindle's best efforts, he hadn’t gained one.
Madam Holly had even taken to writing Lindle a list of extra tasks for him to attempt on each quest he had gained, but even with the self-imposed challenges, nothing had changed. Eventually, she concluded that Lindle must have been extremely close to earning a different kind of Feat, and he simply wouldn’t qualify for any other while the system considered Lindle in the middle of earning the first one. Lindle had never heard of that being how Feats worked before, but he didn’t question her experience.
After nearly two months, Lindle had collected everything he needed to finish Nothing, but his friend had insisted that before Lindle made the attempt, he had to do one last thing to prove he was ready. Lindle was going to craft his most powerful artifact yet, combining multiple sources of Ethos with the most Ethos-dense item he had, the tusk of the White Mammoth.
