OBS Chapter 187: Let Him Cook
Chapter 187: Let Him Cook
Will mused, inspecting the armor for the umpteenth time.It had been one of the four rare Relics that Thea Oilton had bargained for. It had an interesting and unusual effect of making the wearer bigger based on how many wounds they had healed since donning it…and simply that.
It was…not Will’s cup of tea, to be honest. He didn’t like the idea. It lacked a certain…snappy flair that Will had realized he enjoyed, involving speed and a dazzling flourish of magic, but…
Becoming a big, slow, stupid mountain and crushing everything in his path was obviously what Caddock was thinking he would do, and thus it was a viable strategy.
By itself, the Goliath Armor was…pretty good. But Will knew how to make it better.
Will reminded himself, turning his attention to the barrel that had been working on his new ring. He could tell that it was finally done.
On her shopping trip, Ria had found a couple extra copies of Will’s baking rings, and a hat that had similar effects. Will had poured all of them, along with some juiced-up Resistance gear, into the same barrel.
The last two weeks had been solely dedicated to making his new baking ring. It was cutting it pretty close, but Will was hoping the extra speed could let him finish the other equipment in record time.
Will popped the top off and fished around in the depleted Relic Dust for a moment before his fingers touched on metal.
Will pulled out the plain gold band and inspected it.
+20%
The ring’s Resistance bonus wasn’t as high as the resistance ring, but it was more specialized, And Will was willing to bet that he could condense all the Sourdough-ing down to one day if he slotted this ring in his Phantom Hand.
Will mentally checked that there was nothing inside the Dimensional Storage of the snake, before giving the mental affirmative, overwriting the Ring of Resistance.
A shudder travelled up Will’s spine as he felt his middle finger blacken and slough off. The phantom snake in turn, blackened and unraveled, replaced by what Will could only call an egg.
A week later, Will was bumping up against the time he’d decreed that they would be leaving. Thea wasn’t having any money problems anymore, since she’d purchased enough farmland and businesses to make their headquarters somewhat self-sufficient.
The people were eager to leave, though. The caravaneers had stayed in this place where they couldn’t lie over a month, where any misspoken word might lead to a lifetime of regret. It was gradually wearing on them.
On the other hand, Will had plenty of time to acquire and organize his Relics by type to make the ‘Caddock-crushing’ sets, as he called them.
At the end of the week, Will awoke to a rush of strength, and he knew without checking that the new ring was finished overwriting the previous one.
Will brought it up.
+111%
Will took a healing potion and downed it, using Sourdough as he did so.
As usual, Will retained a little red nodule in his hand. It was bigger than usual, but nothing…
Will’s eyes widened as the nodule unfolded like a crumpled piece of paper, becoming a full-sized healing potion in a matter of seconds. Curious, Will tapped it with his fingers and shook it around a bit, even opening it and smelling the potion.
Same acrid mixture as before.
With the ring slotted, Will’s efficiency with Sourdough had become so high that the percentage of the original consumable item he retained had finally exceeded 100%, and the ambient Miasma was enough to reactivate it.
Sadly, it did not bud a second consumable starter to grow into a second potion. As cool as that would’ve been, The Tower didn’t like infinite glitches, so Will was stuck just retaining the same potion basically for free.
The funny thing was, Will had so much money and space in his Dimensional Storage that he could pack pretty much as many consumables as he wanted for a long trip, rendering the ability to preserve them…an amusing parlor trick.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Will thought with an amused snort.
But the more powerful Relic-baking aspect of Sourdough…That was still very much of interest to Will.
Will gathered together twelve Relics to create a soft set with the Goliath Armor.
Four thorns Relics, two Lifesteal, two inertia, and four ‘speed on taking damage’ Relics.
Will grabbed the first basic Thorns Relic and studied it. it was a steel collar with nasty spikes coming off of it at odd angles that surely wouldn’t be any fun to wear.
Will thought, using his bolt-cutter to snap the collar above the barrel for his ‘thorns’ baking.
Something strange happened.
Instead of everything falling down through the funnel Will had set up, a plume dull, nonmagical Relic dust floated up and away while the glowing stuff drifted down into the barrel.
Will thought to himself. The effect from his ring was causing the impurities to simply float away, unable, or perhaps unwilling to contaminate his batch of sourdough.
This reminded him of the bowl outside the Tower that could do the same, condensing the good stuff to the center while the nonmagical dust was scraped away from the outside.
After a moment of deliberation, Will grabbed an extra Thorns relic.
Will destroyed three more Thorns relics and tossed them in before putting a ring in there to bake.
Why a ring? Mostly because they were portable and fit nicely into the tiny barrels. He wasn’t planning on keeping them around anyway.
Will followed that up by creating another three mixes using the other ingredients, and stacked the Goliath Armor on top of them, mentally labelling them ‘Speed titan’
Will then turned his attention to the bespoke illusion Relic he was obligated to make for Travis.
He went back to his pile of Relics and began plucking things out.
Will thought as he drew a handful of relics from pre-made piles.
Will scanned through the pile of Relics until he found an effect that interested him.
For example, Travis’s illusions could now be dispelled by anti-illusion anti-Eidolon Abilities, but they could also benefit from Relics that applied to either.
Will thought, tossing the amulet in the pile.
Will didn’t really need it. Phantom Hand was plenty strong. Will kept looking, finally finding Relics with effects that made a nice little synergistic ecosystem.
Will had been going through Relics so long that he didn’t even look at the name or the sat bonuses, focusing solely on the effects.
Will would probably use the combination he was looking at to dump all his Charge into making a tiny little illusion of a stick that could be easily snapped despite being a hundred times stronger, which he would put in a pocket or behind his ear. Every week or so he would make a new one.
Later, during a fight, Will could snap the stick and heal any wound or resurrect his entire illusion army. possibly both.
Will thought.
Will thought, grabbing from the lifesteal pile and dumping a few of them in.
Will then snapped all but five of the relics, leaving aside the most unassuming band to be the base ring, then putting the other four in the barrels full of swirling miasmatic dust.
Why the most unassuming band? Because Travis was sure to complain that it was too plain. Plain was good, though. It made it less likely to be stolen.
…And it irked Travis.
Will set the stack of bread-box sized barrels and the ring aside and turned to the other three unique Relics.
There were three left. A book, a sickle, and a bow.
The sickle reminded Will of his Cold Harvest, lost to the sands of time, so he reached for it.
It was plain and looked like beaten steel pitted by weather and neglect. The handle was plain wood that looked a little loose, like bugs or weeds could sprout out of the gap at any second.
As his fingers got closer to it, Will got a strange, squirming feeling in his chest.
Will thought, pausing for a moment. It gave him the same cursed feeling as Bakton’s saber.
He took a breath and picked up the sickle, inspecting it.
mean
Will dissected the description, looking for ways to exploit it.
The way it was described implied that the enemy would be aware of the existence of these ‘seeds’, and as long as they paid close attention those seed wouldn’t be a problem, but if they stopped for an instant they would sprout.
Will realized.
It was like asking someone to fight while juggling with one hand, and the seeds were the balls.
It could be done of course, but they sure as Abyss wouldn’t be fighting at their best.
And if they dropped a ball…all their debuffs come out to play.
Will immediately thought of Jason’s jaw-harp that attracted enemy attention.
If he got a relic that could draw enemy attention, that would be like jostling their arm while they were juggling.
All will needed after that were some Relics that specialized in applying debuffs.
Will thought as he scrounged through the pile. Despite how good it was, there was no way he would destroy his set item for a soft set he was making for one fight.
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Try as he might, Will couldn’t find an item that a debuff in a way that he liked, which was critical to the soft-set he was trying to arrange.
Will frowned, resolving to put it aside until he found what he was looking for.
He turned his attention to the next unique relic, the book. It gave him the same squirming, uneasy feeling that he was beginning to associate with debuffing items.
Will quickly got that batch started and set the sickle on top of the barrels, then turned to the bow. It was kind of gaudy with white wood and gold evoking lightning shapes across the arms.
Bows weren’t typically on the table due to the unreliable nature of Will’s off-hand, but as a slotted item? Absolutely.
Will mused. In his experience, that was probably the case, since he benefited from the lifesteal on Cold Harvest back when he’d had it slotted.
Over a year ago now, the general store owner had told him that 30 degrees of correction it where rings of accuracy really began to get crazy. Like, shooting people around corners, and shooting around them to damage them from behind.
After everything was said and done, the bow would probably have somewhere around 15 correction, which was great, but not quite ‘shoot around corners’ great.
Inspired, Will began rummaging through his accuracy rings, plucking out the ones that worked well with what he had in mind.
Next, Will rifled through his rings, amulets, and ranged weapons.
Will paused on a sling.
The next find that Will plucked out was an amulet that chained lightning damage to nearby enemies.
Once Will had filled up all 20 relics, he got that batch of barrels cooking.
Will turned back to the Goliath Armor and grabbed one of the barrels underneath it, shaking it around, using his senses to detect the movement of Miasma.
It was cold and dead inside.
The Relic was already done baking.
“Breakfast is on, you almost done?” Anna asked, peeking into Will’s tent.
“Oh yeah, just another few minutes, this is going gr-”
“William Oh, what have you done to your room!?” Anna demanded, causing will to flinch.
Will froze and glanced around his room, studying the quarter-inch of grey relic dust that covered every surface of his tent, including his bed and desk. As amazing as it had been for the purifying effect of his new ring to exclude the chaff from his experiments, those impurities had to go In this case, his clothes, his bed, his desk, his shoes, his pillow, his chamberpot, etc.
It looked like his entire room have been covered in a fine layer of volcanic ash.