Instantly, Lindle noticed several things the moment he activated [Artifice Crafting]. The first thing was the change to his [Ethos Sense]. As he looked over the various objects arrayed in front of him, Lindle could suddenly understand the powerful Ethos’s movements and alignments inside of each of them at a new level. The closest thing Lindle could compare it to was going from each aspect evoking a certain feeling tied to a memory that allowed him to identify them, to each aspect being actual words in a language he could read.

  He stared in slight wonder, pouring his attention into the earth elemental core as he could clearly pick out the mixtures of earth, clay, rock, animation, toughness, sliding, cliffs, amorphous shape, patience, deeper and deeper into more specific and complex aspects as he broke aspects down or identified where they mixed. Nearly endless possibilities filled the gemstone, different perspectives to view the core from, but the deeper he went, the smaller they got, and Lindle couldn’t make a house from a single ice cube.

  He pulled back. He could probably stare into each item for hours, but right now, he had a job to do, and this elevated state of comprehension would be a major help. Lindle could probably thank his mom’s potion for this increased self-control.

  “Is this what having high Charisma feels like?” He wondered aloud. All of his mental stats being boosted to the limit of what his level could take at once was somehow both a heady feeling and an extremely clarity-inducing one. Charisma especially, drawing deeply on it, he could easily ignore the urge to get distracted.

  Near Journeyman levels of boosted self-control and awareness. I should have been plying your mother for Charisma potions to feed you much sooner.

  Lindle smiled at the snark, Nothing’s words barely hiding their anticipation. Looking at the homunculus, even with his potion-empowered sight, Lindle still couldn’t make head or tails of their inner workings, but that was fine; they hadn’t planned for him to be able to do so in the first place.

  He grabbed the first piece, the elemental core. He could easily rip away its Pelos, but first, he held it up to Nothing. The homonuclus lifted a little inky black tendril and pressed it against the gemstone, and just how Lindle’s flowed up his arms to fill his hands, a spark of active Ethos traveled to the tip of Nothing’s tendril and connected with the core. Together, the two of them pulled, and core crumbled to black dust, and they both touched a round chunk of Pelos. Well, Lindle touched it. Nothing was connected to it, their tenril sinking into the Pelos.

  “The connection work?” Lindle double-checked.

  Nothing nodded their head.

  Yes. I’ve linked my Ethos to the cores. You put the aspects in place while I program its item identity to match mine. Remember, physical shaping last

  Lindle nodded his head and began to concrete. Unlike the other times he created artifacts, he didn’t physically mold the Pelos as he worked the aspects. That would only come once Nothing had connected to all four object’s, making them all a part of themself, and Lindle had locked all the aspects in place. It would be tougher to mentally configure his intentions without a direct visual of the object to project his ideas onto, but Lindle was ready for the challenge.

  The earth elemental core was to provide the basic form and shape of Nothing’s body. A tough, hardy body of earth, but like an elemental, they would be able to reshape themselves to a limited degree, switching between stone, soil, and soft clay with a thought. They had spent subjective months, and likely actual centuries, in the amphorous slime-like form of an unfinished Ethos being after all, and they weren’t interested in completely leaving behind that part of themselves. Lindle easily picked out the required aspects to do the job, drawing stone, clay, mud, and soil, and with a single quick burst of [Ethos Ignition], he melted them together into a more complex earth aspect that would freely hold all of their properties.

  He then lured up the animation aspect present in the core, equally as powerful as the complex aspect he had created. It was a strange aspect, sorta similar to life and undeath aspects, the mark that this Ethos had once belonged to a living or thinking creature, but it was clearly different to both. An alternate mode of life. It felt fairly neutral; it wouldn’t reject life or death like the two would each other, and it wouldn’t seek out more of itself to grow and spread. Instead, it would allow itself to be colored by a distinct piece of nature, in this case, earth. It was quite foreign to Lindle, but to Nothing, this type of existence appealed to their nature as a homunculus. He didn’t change it much, simply lowering its singular connection to earth, freeing it up to more connections so Nothing would be able to apply it to the parts of their body that weren’t completely made of earth.

  Lindle mentally presented them both to Nothing, and after a moment was met with approval. He took a glance at Nothing’s half of the process, watching the core’s inner Ethos mix with the incredibly complex version of Ethos Nothing sent through their tendril. Since this was going to be the easiest of the four objects, Lindle had a little time before Nothing was done, so he went after the other aspects in the core going unused, convincing them to shift into more relevant versions of themselves before using [Ethos Ignition] to add them to the complex earth aspect and the animation aspect, giving them more weight and subjective mass.

  Once Nothing had signaled they were done, Lindle locked the aspects in place with a firm mental grip before he held up a finger to the point where their tendril connected and, with a flash of [Ethos Ignition], made it permanent.

  Next.

  Lindle pulled the Cyclic Saphrosprout closer next. The fungal plant hybrid shifting slightly as he moved it. He swiftly depotted it, and it began to wriggle. Nothing quickly grew another tendril and pressed it against the side of the plant, and with a grimace, Lindle pulled with them. The plant stiffened and then crumbled to black dust. Lindle didn’t miss the extra second the plant took to transform to ash; he didn’t want to think about what death via Ethos extraction was like, though thankfully, small magical plants were the upper limit of his ability to affect living creatures, even if it probably would have been useful to kill monsters by turning them to dust.

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  They got to work on the chunk of Pelos. Lindle first pulled together the plant, growth, and herbal aspects and fused them together with Ignition. For Lindle, as both an artificer and an alchemist, magical plants were by far the type of resource he used the most when crafting. They provided easy access to a wide variety of Ethos aspects and plenty of useful alchemical recipes. Lindle heavily relied on his mom's herbal stores, wild monster plants in the Black Wood, and Thalia bringing him things from the True Grove for crafting. However, he wouldn’t be able to do that forever. He would leave home eventually, but he’d still want access to those same plants. So, Nothing had suggested growing them themselves. With both earth Ethos and plant Ethos, Nothing could easily become a small living garden that also had the ability to consciously control and use the plants they grew. It also helped that they would be able to grow more mundane plant matter as part of their body to control as extra limbs or armor at a much faster rate.

  Lindle sectioned off the fungal aspect and devouring aspects together, fusing them. Nothing would need energy to fuel his abilities, and an Ethos-backed ability to take in a variety of different forms of energy would be extremely useful. Adding the fungal aspect would create the delivery mechanism for the process. The ability this aspect would create was going to work together very well with their plans for the Moonstone.

  Lindle and Nothing repeated the process to permanently lock the chunk of Pelos to Nothing, moving on to the pelt of the Cackling Tundra Paw.

  This object’s purpose was to provide Nothing with the tools to ensure their own safety. Nothing’s purpose was to be a crafting companion after all, not a fighter. Avoiding direct combat would be a top priority for the homunculus in any dangerous situation. On top of that, even after completing Nothing’s body, it wasn’t like the two of them were abandoning their previous level of secrecy. The specialized aspects suited for stealth of the Cackling Tundra Paw would allow Nothing to stay out of sight even while they traveled with Lindle and his party.

  Lindle would take the aspects representing the Cackling Tundra Paw’s ability to dampen its footsteps, avoid the perception of predators with superior senses, and slink through the ice tunnels of the Reach, and combine them into a powerful combined stealth aspect with [Ethos Ignition]. There were a few more aspects relating to the Cackling Tundra Paw’s auditory attacks and spells, but they didn’t appeal to Nothing, so Lindle shifted them to simply empower and feed the fused stealth aspect.

  He then lured and fused together what would be the smallest primary aspect of Nothing’s finished body, a fur coat aspect. It would allow Nothing to give their outer layers the properties of the Tundra Paws soft fur coat. It would allow Nothing to keep their body moderately warm even when exposed to the cold, important for keeping the plants growing on them alive. There was a less… functional reason for why they were using that method specifically, though. They would also be using the same property-granting ability to allow Nothing to make the texture of the plants and earth their body was made of match that of a soft fur coat. It was probably a little silly, but Nothing had grown curious about displays of physical affection after so long in a state with limited access to it, and if Lindle had the opportunity to give them the ability to enjoy that to the fullest without sacrificing functionality, he would.

  Another inspection and flash of [Ethos Ignition] later, they moved on to the last object, the Moonstone.

  Even despite the fact that the Cyclic Saphrosprout had been a living thing, the Moonstone was by far the hardest object to extract Ethos from out of the four. It didn’t actively resist him, it was simply just that dense and powerful. With a combined effort, however, Lindle and Nothing pulled out the thick chunk of Pelos. The Moonstone's glow and the invigorating feeling it emitted suddenly disappeared so quickly that it almost came as a shock to Lindle’s senses, but with a glance down at the Pelos on his table, he saw the aspects that represented them, the Ethos dense and powerful.

  Lindle let out a breath. He wasn’t sure how long they had been at this. He had never been good at keeping track of time while crafting, but it had definitely been over an hour. He could see the Ethos strain creeping closer and closer to his limit, and despite the fact that Ethos strain wasn’t something he could feel, Lindle’s mental exhaustion was growing. He shook his head, drew on his boosted Resilience stat, and let that feeling fade into the background.

  With that rising exhaustion in mind, Lindle dove deep into the Moonstone’s mix of aspects. Moonstones were powerful and rare objects, and there were only two ways to get them. Deep in dungeon zones, and after they fell from the sky after breaking off from the moon. Madam Holly had apparently found her’s atop one of the giant ice spires out in the tundra. Her theory was that the System liked to whisk Moonstones away into dungeon zones if they weren’t claimed fast enough; they definitely qualified as sufficient motivation to lure adventurers inside.

  Moonstones would endlessly give off heat and light, enough to keep groups traveling long stretches into the truly cold areas between civilizations without needing to continuously expend Mana for spells or Aura to resist freezing to death. The Glacial Reach was cold, but the influence of the True Groves that Glacerhine cycled between meant that life was still sustainable here. On other parts of the continent, or over the sea? A heat source that could keep an entire group warm for days on end without emptying their protector's energy pools was invaluable.

  Lindle would take that life-giving, endless energy aspect and give it to Nothing. Not only would that allow Nothing to act as a pseudo-Moonstone, though Nothing would be able to actively choose when they emitted their energy to avoid becoming an extremely expensive beacon, but it would provide Nothing with an inexhaustible energy source to power their abilities without requiring direct moonlight or food sources to grow their plants, storing that as excess power instead. Most homunculi, according to Nothing, had to rely on minuscule Mana and Aura pools for their personal powers, but Lindle and Nothing could get around that limitation by exploiting the fused fungal devour aspect with a Moonstone. They wouldn’t be capable of big expenditures unless they stocked up, but they’d never run empty.

  Lindle poured these intentions into the fire of his [Ethos Ignition] to create the final primary aspect, locking it in place and fixing the last tendril, Nothing and all four chunks of Pelos now one permanently linked mass.

  He wiped away some sweat. “Finally, all four connections are complete.”

  Nothing’s response over their link held only contentment and joy.

  Yes, we’ve done it. This feels… wonderful.

  Lindle gave their friend a soft smile.

  Now you just need to mold my physical shape.

  Sighing would probably ruin the moment. Though, it was a close thing.