Demon's Virtue

The Craftsman hammered down onto the hot metal that he created from one of the eggshells. Even Eiro could tell that they all had slightly different properties to each other, depending on which child's egg they came from.

Eiro wasn't entirely sure, but considering that Armodeus preemptively split the metals up into smaller pieces made the Demon think that Armodeus already had specific plans for everything. Right now, he was working with the metal created from the Frost Dragon's egg.

It gave off a slightly chilly feeling, as if a cold breeze ran over Eiro's skin. At first, the Demon wasn't sure what exactly that metal was actually supposed to turn into. But for now, it didn't even turn into anything yet. Armodeus was still just preparing all the different metals to work with them later on. He was even mixing some parts together, folding them into each other after heating them up, without actually evenly mixing them.

It was as if there were waves being created between the Frost Dragon's Metal, and the Fire Dragon's Metal.

It took a good while until Armodeus was satisfied with his preparation, and then the Elder Dwarf looked directly at Eiro, "Lad, I'm going to use all the replacement-parts you made for your hand. Is that alright with you?" Armodeus asked, but Eiro was confused and didn't expect to be asked this.

And then, he connected the dots, "You're making items for me?" 

"Something like that." Armodeus sighed, "I want to improve upon some of the pieces for your hand so that you can switch them out to strengthen some of yer spells. This metal ain't strong enough for normal weapons. It can only be used to improve on other items, ya know? And since they're highly magical, they should help yer spellcasting out. I also wanted to improve on your daggers, if that's fine with you."

Eiro looked back at the Dwarf in front of him and quickly nodded his head, "Of course. You're the one that made the daggers in the first place, so I trust that you don't break them. And as for the parts for my wooden hand... What exactly do you have planned for them?" The Demon inquired.

Without hesitation, Armodeus explained exactly what he was going to do in detail. The issue that Eiro had with this idea at first was that it might have messed up the state of the Prosthetic a little bit, stopping Eiro from using it to the same extent as before. But that would have only been the case of Armodeus were to replace full pieces.

Instead, he would only carve certain patterns into its surfaces and fill them in with the different metals to improve the flow of certain sorts of magic within it. It was barely different to a piercing or a tattoo, so Eiro was absolutely fine with this idea. Rather, if he knew that this was an option, he would have asked Armodeus for it earlier.

Eiro himself didn't know how to handle metal, after all. The only sort of craft that he was capable with was Woodworking, beside that Eiro was useless when it came to craftsmanship.

The Demon pushed himself off the ground and quickly made his way over to his carriage to go and grab the box that he had filled with different replacement parts for his hand. He had three full sets ready on top of some more parts for areas that broke or wore down easily.

But Eiro also had enough wood leftover to complete another set if he made use of those extra parts as well.

"Armodeus, how many sets did you have in mind?" The Demon inquired, and the Craftsman turned over toward the metal he had prepared, "Four, for now." Armodeus said bluntly, so Eiro quickly nodded his head and grabbed the box that he kept everything in, bringing it over to the Craftsman.

"I have three ready. I'll finish a fourth while you're working." Eiro suggested, and Armodeus swiftly nodded and looked at the pieces that Eiro properly arranged, before the Demon asked, "I'm going to guess that you know where all of them belong?"

"Hah, lad, you think yer talkin' to some amateur? I can put somethin' like this together in a quick minute." The Elder Dwarf winked with a smirk on his face. Eiro smiled lightly as he returned to sit next to Lognir, who stared at Eiro a bit surprised, "You are a Woodworker as well?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I am. When I worked under my teacher... well, my father, rather, I was taught the way of the Prosthetist. I made this hand myself."

Lognir raised his brows curiously, "Is that so? That is a rather interesting profession to choose... But you seem skilled, being able to create such beautiful prosthetics."

"Thank you. My father created the first prosthetic I used after I lost my hand, and then he taught me for years to be able to do the same things he could. But I can't say that I'm anywhere near as skilled as he was." Eiro pointed out as he prepared the pale blue wood in his hands so that he could work with it properly. The Demon snapped his fingers, and the door to the carriage opened up, "I'm sure you noticed it already. That is a puppet created by my late father. It was created to train me in different disciplines of combat."

"I see... Then your 'father' must be a rather skilled Demon to be able to create this." Lognir pointed out, but Eiro turned toward him and shook his head, "My father wasn't a Demon. My father was an elderly human that I met naerly eight years ago. He taught me, and he became like a father to me."

"Well... Not that I didn't expect something like that already, but it's still surprising to actually hear." Lognir pointed out, and Eiro smiled lightly as he got out his tools as well. Eiro pulled out his Three of Swords and quickly started connecting it to specific tools, before he quickly started to carve into the wood that he was holding in his hands.

Eiro managed to cut it apart rather quickly and the moment that Lognir turned back around from inspecting the puppet, he seemed a bit surprised, "You're... Rather swift in your work."

"Hm? Of course, this is nothing much. I've done it a couple of times before. And this wood is already like the rest of my body, so I can handle it even easier than other sorts. It was created using my own mana and some of my life force, after all." Eiro explained, "...Maybe I should go and see how that tree is doing... And maybe give it a bit more magic..." The Demon muttered to himself.

He figured that it might be a good idea to do that. It's been a while since then, and he did get quite a bit stronger and gained new sorts of magic as well. Feeding those to the tree should be a good thing for it. It should be deeply connected to Eiro anyway, growing alongside with him. He and the tree were connected in a similar fashion as Eiro was connected to Lugo or Nelli, Gondos and Sarius. He was connected in a way that went beyond the physical.

Eiro continued to work with the wood that he was holding to create the pieces for the fourth hand, all the whilst Armodeus started to improve upon the parts that Eiro had already given him. Of course, Eiro wanted to keep a hand that wasn't worked on at all just in case something went wrong with those metals, but he was still rather curious about the effect of those metals that were set into the wood.

It didn't take long until Eiro was able to finish up the pieces for the hand, and quickly placed them on the table that Armodeus prepared for himself.

"There you go. I'm also going to put my daggers here. If you need anything else, just let me know." Eiro said with a light smile on his face, glancing at Armodeus as he slowly filled in the carvings that he created on the small pieces of wood. It was a bit weird to Eiro, the metal was so hot that it was literally glowing, but the wood wasn't being burnt due to the Elder Dwarf's incredibly careful work and the level of his expertise. And he did it without even much thought.

It was as if Armodeus had more than two hands, with numerous more limbs growing from his back. Of course that wasn't really the case, it just seemed that way. This man was truly worth the title of <King of Craftsmen>.

Eiro heard that most people weren't even able to follow the movement of Armodeus' hands, considering that he had the card that gave him <Ultimate Dexterity>. And even Eiro could tell that this was something absolutely unachievable by this Demon, although Armodeus wasn't even particularly trying. He was able to move his hands and arms to start doing one thing, and after a single blink, he already finished. The small pieces were being inscribed with everything one after another. And he was even holding back quite a bit.

Either way, Armodeus was an incredibly impressive craftsman, more so than anyone else Eiro had ever seen before. When it came to craftsmanship, even in the field of woodworking, Armodeus was an objectively better craftsman than Jura was. But at the end of the day, Jura's focus wasn't only woodworking, but it was the creation of 'life', basically. So in that regard, it somewhat made sense, even if it hurt Eiro to admit it.

Especially Lognir, who had never seen Armodeus work before, was incredibly impressed. Especially because Armodeus was such a nervous wreck before.

Soon, the Craftsman finished the first hand. It was one that had the Frost Dragon's Metal set into it. Instead of replacing Eiro's whole hand at once, he wanted to see the basic difference to start it out with, and swiftly pulled some parts off of his own index finger that he replaced with the ones Armodeus improved on just now.

Eiro knew the level of his magic when he cast it normally, he remembered it perfectly, so it wouldn't be hard to figure out any difference if he cast a spell like this.

The Demon poured his Ice Magic into his index finger and pushed it out. Immediately, he could feel a difference. It wasn't an immense difference, but it was most likely something that others would be able to see even without the Five of Pentacles.

And once he cast the spell, a simple spell to lower the temperature of the air in front of him, he was sure that this 'improved prosthetic' was something that would make Eiro's magic even more potent.