Chapter 242: Renna’s Favorite Color

As soon as Magna returned to camp, he rushed straight to Renna’s tent, hoping to find her there.

Just as he had hoped, she was inside when he lifted the tent flap.

"Hey, I need..."

Before he could finish, a ceramic cup came flying at his face.

He didn’t even dodge it. The cup shattered against his face as he backed out and closed the flap again.

’I deserved that.’

Unfortunately, or fortunately, he wasn’t sure which, closing the flap couldn’t erase what he had just seen. She had quite a fit body, with well-defined muscles in all the right places, and her choice of underwear was red.

This time, he waited patiently outside until Renna came out shortly after.

"Why... you..." She was glaring at him furiously when her attention shifted to his hair. "What happened to your hair?"

He had only left a short while ago. Seeing him return with hair hanging down to his waist was enough to distract her from her anger.

"I changed my shampoo," Magna answered before quickly adding, "That’s not important. I need that Shadow’s armor. Can you give it to me?"

"Shampoo?" Renna looked confused, though his serious yet excited expression soon drew her attention to his request. "It’s in the main tent."

She started walking toward it, with Magna following behind. After a few steps, however, she suddenly stopped.

"How much did you see, exactly?" she asked without turning around.

Magna paused, taking a moment to realize she was talking about what had happened in the tent.

He gave a sheepish laugh and answered with a joke. "All the way back to the creation of the universe."

He didn’t want to lie when it would be so obvious, but he wasn’t about to tell her he now knew her favorite color either.

Renna turned her head slightly to give him a fierce sideways look before continuing without pressing him further.

Once they entered the main tent, she led him to a large wooden box at the side. It looked rather like a coffin.

She lifted its lid, revealing the empty armor inside.

"Here it is. It’s been cleaned, so you don’t need to worry about wearing it."

Magna stepped closer. This time, he took a proper look at how it had been made.

The dark red metal seemed perfectly shaped. Lines resembling flowing magma still moved across its surface, making him wonder how they worked. They almost looked like a trick of the light.

The more he examined it, the more he wanted to understand the craftsmanship behind it.

"Do you have any books about artifact crafting?" he asked, looking up at Renna.

He hadn’t found anything about artifacts in her spellbook, so he thought there might be a separate book for them.

Renna shook her head. "That isn’t knowledge you can just find in a book. There are only a few artifact masters. If you want to learn how to make artifacts, you’ll have to ask them."

Before the apocalypse, she was sure none of those masters would have taught Magna their craft. Now that the Witch World was in such a desperate state, however, everyone had started openly sharing whatever they had left.

That included knowledge.

There had already been very few people capable of crafting artifacts. With half of them losing their lives during the invasions, passing on their skills had become even more important.

Finding people who could learn those skills was another problem.

Artifact crafting was far harder than simply learning to cast spells as a Witch. Even the 5 Grand Witches were paying special attention to anyone with talent, hoping to find and train new masters.

None of that helped Magna right now, though. Seeing the disappointment on his face, Renna sighed and reached into her robe for another book.

"It’s not a proper guide, but I have some notes from when I studied it a long time ago."

Magna’s expression brightened. He immediately took the book and opened it.

The handwriting matched her spellbook, leaving no doubt that she had written this one herself too. The information inside, however, was nowhere near as detailed.

Reading it felt more like watching an elementary school student write down their thoughts on differential equations while trying to solve them.

Now he understood why she had been reluctant to give it to him. She was embarrassed.

Still, he didn’t need a master’s knowledge for what he wanted to try. A basic understanding would be enough to give him somewhere to start.

"You said Grak Steel is the main material used in all the armor. What other metals go into it?"

He kept reading as he asked, trying to understand exactly what the armor was made of.

"Grak Steel should only make up about 40% of it. As far as I know, there are also Giant Crimson Lizard scales, Flame Tortoise shells, and Volcanic Snail shells for durability. Then there are Desert Hare tendons, Sky Locust parts, and a few other ingredients I can’t remember for the other effects. The full material list is a page or 2 ahead."

Magna turned the pages. Sure enough, he found the materials and the general steps for crafting armor for the Fire Unit’s Shadows.

The list was longer than he had expected. Despite his usually excellent memory, he had to read it several times to keep all the materials in his head.

Some entries had even been crossed out and replaced with substitutes. Certain creatures had gone extinct, while other materials were no longer available.

Seeing those changes helped him understand why they had no spare robes or armor. Forget the crafting process itself. They couldn’t even find some of the necessary materials anymore, while others were extremely difficult to obtain.

’I wonder if I can recreate the materials.’

He had turned ash into soil. Perhaps turning an ordinary piece of wood into Grak Steel was possible too, though he could only guess how much mana that would cost.

It was something to consider later anyway. Right now, he had another use for the spell in mind.

He spent the next few hours reading the book and talking with Renna, asking about everything she knew that might help him understand artifacts. Once he felt he had learned enough of the basics, he was finally ready to try.

"Thank you." He handed the book back before returning to the armor.

"You’re welcome. But what are you actually trying to do?" Renna had spent all that time explaining what she knew, yet she still couldn’t see what he was planning. If anything, her curiosity had only grown.

"You’ll see." Magna smiled before pointing his finger at the armor’s chest and beginning to form the spell pattern.

The strange green light flowing from his finger was enough to surprise Renna. Then words began appearing within it.

She tried to figure out which main element the spell belonged to. Magna hadn’t invoked any honorable names, so she couldn’t use those as a clue either.

From what she could see, it didn’t resemble any element she knew, which was remarkable enough on its own.

As she tried to figure out what the spell actually did, the armor beneath the green light began to change shape.