Chronicles Of The Crafting Hero [REMASTERED]

In the workshop, Tyler sat on the bench, scrolling through his inventory, his eyes settling on the tally beside his Crimson Hides and Gloomfang Hides. *That's a lot.* He let out a breath through his nose. *I killed a lot of these things.*

He glanced to his side. Hector stood a few feet away, dragging a dry cloth down the flat of a blade, the metal catching a dull gleam with each pass. Behind him, the window had turned a deep orange, the setting sun pouring through the glass and laying a long stripe of light across the workshop floor. Tyler blinked at it, the realization settling into him slowly.

*It's that late already.* The day pulled at his shoulders all at once, the walking through the monster zones, the wolves, the slimes, the man in the forest and his body seemed to remember all of it in a single breath.

"Well, it's getting late, so I gotta go." Tyler pushed himself up off the bench, and the system panel blinked out of his sight.

Hector glanced over, the cloth pausing against the blade in his hands. "Yeah, it is a bit late. I'm closing in an hour."

"All right. I'll come in tomorrow."

"Sure." Hector's attention dropped back to the blade in his hands, the cloth resuming its slow drag along the steel.

Tyler crossed toward the shop, his steps slowing beside one of the crates near the wall. He looked down into it, the ingots he'd made from the scraps he'd pulled from the pit earlier caught what was left of the window light, smooth and even in their shapes. He'd done it before he left so he wouldn't forget.

All the while he'd been sitting there, he'd had Kai working through designs for him. Kai had shown him a few already, and every time, the result had surprised him, they were sharp and clean, exactly what he'd described. But he wanted more than that. He knew he could craft anywhere, anytime, without needing any of this. This time, though, he wanted to be the one deciding what the items looked like.

He stepped through the open iron door into the shop. Kai sat on the stool behind the counter, shoulders hunched forward, brows drawn together in concentration as the quill pen moved across the parchment in slow, careful strokes.

Tyler eased up behind him, leaning just enough to see over his shoulder. The drawing took shape beneath the quill, it was a coat, the Gloomfang coat that Tyler had described.

It fell long, past the knees, a collar rising at the throat. At the center of it's back sat a symbol: a solid black dot anchored in the middle, and from its edge, curved lines spiraled outward in even, sweeping arcs, like the arms of a galaxy caught mid-turn. The lines kept expanding, curling wider and wider until they met the inside of a larger circle that closed the whole design into a perfect ring.

Tyler's eyes lingered on it. *This.* This would be his label, the mark he'd put on every weapon he made from now on. The corner of his mouth lifted into a small, private smile as Kai's quill moved on to the back of the coat, filling it in.

He could already see it playing out, the same way a signature label had once meant something back in his old world. Word spreading. People recognizing the mark on a blade and knowing, without needing to ask, that it had come from him. That it was good. It felt like a solid plan, something worth holding onto.

"That's pretty nice," Tyler said.

Kai jerked upright with a sharp intake of breath, spinning around on the stool so fast it nearly tipped. His eyes went wide, locking onto Tyler's face.

"Woah, it's just me." Tyler lifted both hands, palms out.

Kai's shoulders dropped as the breath left him in a rush. "You scared me."

"Ah, sorry." Tyler's mouth curved into a small, sheepish grin.

"You looked so focused."

"I was." Kai's voice dipped, a thread of disappointment running under it as he glanced back down at the parchment.

"Oh. Sorry." The grin slid off Tyler's face, his brows drawing together.

"Oh no, it's fine." Kai's hand was already moving, lifting the parchment off the counter. "Actually, it's done." He held it out.

Tyler took it, and his pulse picked up as his eyes moved over the design. "This looks great!" His gaze traced the high collar, the length of the coat, the pockets stitched into the sides. Beside the main drawing sat a smaller one, a front view, measurements inked carefully along the margins. A complete blueprint now, the same kind the system needed, matching the others Kai had already handed him.

Hector's fingerprints were on this too, in a way, his knowledge of average sizing for medium-built armor had shaped the numbers on the page, and Tyler trusted every figure because of it.

"This looks great. Thanks again, I really, really appreciate it." The parchment pulsed with a faint blue light in his hands, then dissolved, folding itself away into his inventory.

Kai blinked, his head drawing back, a small motion, barely there, but Tyler caught it anyway.

"What?" Tyler asked.

"Nothing, it's just that—" Kai turned toward the open window, his gaze drifting out toward the darkening street. "I can't seem to get used to that."

A short laugh pushed out of Tyler, more breath than sound. "Someone keept saying the same thing."

"Really? How many people know about this?" Kai's eyes came back to him.

"Not a lot. Just you and Hector, and somebody else. But that person is gone now. They don't live in this town anymore."

"Oh." Kai nodded slightly, his gaze dropping.

"All right. Thanks again, but I'm heading out." Tyler lifted a hand, waving him off. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye. Goodbye, si—Tyler." The correction caught halfway out of his mouth.

Tyler's mouth pulled into a small smile, and he shook his head as he pushed the door open and stepped through, pulling it shut behind him.

The cold night air pressed in against his skin at once, sharp after the warmth of the shop. Around him, the marketplace crowd had thinned to scattered figures moving between the stalls. *When will he ever get used to calling me Tyler?*

He turned onto the main road, already walking toward the inn to rest.

Tyler walked through the dimming, darkening street, the last color of daylight draining out of the sky above the rooftops. His pace slowed as a thought caught up with him mid-stride. *Oh damnit, I forgot to ask Hector about the rune skill,* he thought, his feet still carrying him forward out of habit more than intention.

*He's certainly going to be surprised when I tell him tomorrow.*

"I wonder what he's going to say." The words slipped out under his breath, barely louder than the sound of his own footsteps against the packed dirt of the road. He thought back to how James had told him about helping Hector grow stronger and acquire skills, about how Hector had wanted the rune craft skill more than anything, one of the rarest skills a craftsman could hope to have.

Instead he'd gotten another. Something tightened in Tyler's chest at the memory, a pressure that settled low and uncomfortable beneath his ribs. It felt less like sympathy and more like pity, heavy and familiar in a way he didn't like.

Pity for Hector, who had worked so hard toward something and still come up short. Tyler had felt that same weight pressing on him more than once in his previous world, and it wasn't a feeling he wanted following him into this one.

He picked up his pace, his boots striking the ground harder now, as though he could outwalk the feeling clinging to him. But another thought pushed its way in before the first one had fully faded. The new recipes he'd unlocked after finishing the quest still sat untouched, waiting on him. He wanted to work through the ones he'd already been given first though, to finish every last one of them, sell them, and finally see how they would hold up out on the floor of the shop.

He didn't expect a flood of customers right away. He understood things like that took time to build. Even Hector, who had been running his stall there for years, still didn't pull in much of a crowd, and Tyler knew exactly why. The old man, the other craftsman in town, drew in far more business because of his skill alone.

But now Tyler had that same kind of advantage sitting in his hands. He only needed to master it, to learn how to wield it properly, and maybe then he could pull in customers of his own, maybe even more than the old man managed. And beyond that, he held something no one else in this world seemed to have.

His weapons could carry skills inside them, skills that other people could actually use once the weapon was theirs. As far as he understood it, everyone around him believed something like that simply wasn't possible.

But he was going to prove otherwise. He was going to catch every one of them off guard, show them plainly that it could be done. His mind stayed wrapped around the future of his craft the whole way there, and before he fully registered it, the inn rose up in front of him. He stepped inside, offered the innkeeper a quick greeting, and made his way down toward his room.

He pushed the door open and stepped into the familiar quiet of the space, everything exactly as clean and orderly as he'd left it that morning.

He shut the door behind him, and his leather armor lit up with a faint blue glow along its seams before folding away into his inventory, leaving him standing there in the plainer clothes beneath it.

He crossed to the bed and lowered himself onto the edge of it, breathing out slowly through his nose as his shoulders dropped. The tension that had built up in his muscles throughout the day began to loosen, draining out of him bit by bit. The springs beneath him groaned under his weight, the whole frame giving a small, uneven bounce before settling still.

He planted both elbows against his knees and pressed his hands together in front of him. The system panel appeared before him again, laying out his inventory in front of his eyes.

His gaze caught on the Gloomfang Alpha hide sitting among the list, and his brows drew together at the sight of it. *Why didn't I use it again,* he thought, frowning harder.

*Primal Subjugation is just sitting there doing nothing. Maybe if I'd used it on the boss monster, it could have actually worked.*

He shook his head almost immediately, cutting the thought off. *No. It clearly said I could only use it on a monster ten levels below me.* He sat with that for a moment, turning it over. *I guess I'll use it next time, if I even remember. I always forget the second I step into those monster zones. But if I do remember, what kind of monster would I even want as a pet?*

The different monsters he'd crossed paths with in the monster zones began surfacing in his mind one after another. The slimes. The wolves. The pixel. The brolin. Even the slither.

The thought of owning a slither as a pet sent a cold, crawling tremor straight through his body, and he shook his head hard, his teeth clenching together as a hiss forced its way out between them. "No way. Why the hell would I even think of owning that thing as a pet." He let out a long breath afterward, as if trying to physically push the image out of his head.

*But I guess having one of the wolves wouldn't be so bad. It might be kind of like owning a dog, right? Except this one would actually hunt alongside me.* He pictured the size of the Crimson Alpha in his mind, and the Gloomfang Alpha beside it, both of them massive in memory.

He pressed his palm against his forehead and let his gaze drop down to his boots. *The only problem is they're only going to get bigger the stronger they get.* He pictured the Gloomfang Alpha stretched out across the floor of his room, breathing slow and heavy the way a dog might, tongue hanging loose to the side.

The image sat wrong in his mind almost instantly. It felt far too big for a room this size, and something about picturing a creature that massive curled up in his space felt deeply, unmistakably wrong.

"I'll think about it when I need to." He let the words settle into the quiet of the room as the panel faded out of his sight without a trace left behind.

*Before I start crafting, I have to see if I can still learn more about this new skill from the system itself.*

*System, how do I use the rune skill?* He held the question there in his mind for a moment, waiting.

*It should be able to answer that. It's kind of similar to asking about a description, right?*

A system panel appeared before him, the words laid out plainly across it.

[THE USER NEEDS TO WRITE A RUNE ONTO AN ITEM TO ACTIVATE IT.

NOTE, THE USER CAN INQUIRE ONE RUNE SYMBOL A DAY, BUT THEY WILL BE GIVEN A RANDOM RUNE EVERY TIME]

Tyler's eyebrows lifted as he read through it a second time, letting the words settle in fully. *Oh, so it's just like the other skills.* Then another thought caught him mid-breath. *But wait, do I also get a rune once I complete a quest?*

The panel disappeared from in front of him, and no second one rose to take its place. He sat there in the quiet that followed, left alone with nothing but the question still hanging unanswered in his own head.

*I guess not.* He turned the thought over slowly. *It should have given me a rune after I completed that quest, but I only got recipes for the other skills. This one must only work through inquiries.*

"All right, system, give me a rune." A panel rose in front of him, a circular bar turning steadily in its center as it loaded. It disappeared a moment later, and another took its place, wider than the last and stretched long with lines of written text filling it from top to bottom.

Tyler's eyebrows rose again as his eyes caught on a symbol set apart from the rest, standing out in black against the blue of the surrounding words. The symbol sat at the top of the panel, a circle cut through by a diagonal slash coming in from the right. The rest of the panel read:

RUNE: SILENCE

TYPE

Utility (sound-based)

EFFECT

The item produces no sound of its own. This extends to a 1-meter-diameter zone centered on the item any sound generated within that zone (the item's own contact/impact/friction, or the point where it touches something else) is suppressed. Sound outside the zone is unaffected.

Current Level 1: sound within the zone is muffled, noticeably quieter but not entirely gone.

DURATION

Standard rules apply, up to 1 week at Level 1.

CONSTRUCTION

Stroke 1 — Circle (the boundary):

Mana Pressure: 1/2

Draw Time: ~1.5s

Stroke 2 — Diagonal slash (the cut):

Mana Pressure: Full

Draw Time: ~0.4s

"Wow." The word left him on a slow breath as his eyes traced the symbol from top to bottom.

Something about it struck him before he'd even finished reading the description beneath it, understanding rising in him as if he'd once known the symbol's meaning and only now remembered it. "So that's what it meant."