Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Second expedition(3)

Putting aside my questionable life choices I headed into my workshop to powderize this stuff and store it in hard crystal cubes till I needed it, nice and neat like. This took me little time at all with my powers and had that nice and set for my trip. Next I grabbed my metal detector compass and looked over the cursed technique and restrictions on it and felt annoyed at how amateur it was. I had come so far since I made this piece that just looking at it's inner workings made me embarrassed.-

'Yeah might as well upgrade this while I'm at it.' I thought with a shrug.

I activated my technique and the compass melted immediately since it was only made of level one materials. I pushed the bones refinement to it's limit and past it to ascension. I discovered to my great surprise that the bone besides reaching level two in quality gained a property related to the cursed technique it had as a compass. Specifically it had an innate sensitivity to metal ore now.-

'Is this a coincidence or did the material gain properties of the technique on it after having them for so long?' I pondered seriously.

This was a big fucking deal as if it was the latter of those then it meant that I could purposefully create materials that had the properties of whatever cursed technique I wanted which would massively increase the potency of the tool made from it. Unfortunately I didn't have any cursed tools old enough or made of materials I could ascend to test this on. Still I at least could create some for cheap and let them sit for a while to "settle". Anyways I turned the newly ascended material into yet another compass just like it was previously but with my new level of technique this time.-

I was quite satisfied with the final product as it had a range of five miles in every direction and even ignored any ore that had already been harvested from the dungeon thanks to the insight into the super structure I got at the cost of it almost killing me. I admit that I was tempted to try and turn the material into a cursed spirit that sought out and harvested the ore by itself but that left a serious possibility of adventurers capturing it or killing it thinking it was a monster.-

I could get away with calling it a golem as while rare the magical constructs did exist but they were in high demand and I wasn't willing to share the fact I could make the things. That reminded me that I forgot to see if I could make positive cursed spirits now that I had RCT. Putting that on my "to do" list I moved on to my preparations for the dungeon expedition again. I mostly just made an updated water ring and a plain hide armor without any bells or whistles since I didn't have the materials for such a thing at the moment.-

Still the dark gray leather armor along with my mask/helm made me cut a fearsome image. My final preparation however was to create a new set of communication coins for myself and put one of them in the chatterbox. It was only when I did that that Hestia seemed to realize something was off, well more so than normal.-

"Spill it! You are clearly planning something!" she said pointing at me accusingly.

"Just getting ready to delve the dungeon again." I said with a grin.

"How long?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"Tch! I'm becoming predictable. Fine then, I am preparing for another expedition in the dungeon. Not past the Great tree labyrinth though." I said slightly annoyed at her getting wise to my trickery so soon.

"Promise me you won't antagonize the dungeon while you are there and I'll allow it." she made her demand clear.

"I don't like you very much right now. Fine I promise that I won't intentionally antagonize the dungeon during this expedition. Happy?" I shot back in a poor mood.

She had used my rule about not breaking promises against me which was a low blow even if she had good intentions.

Like I get it, I don't exactly have the best track record with not messing with the dungeon but to flat out force me to avoid it with a forced promise was hurtful. I didn't think less of her for it since she had the best intentions and just wanted me to be safer but that didn't mean I wasn't angry at her for it. Clearly she was prepared for my anger as she only flinched a little at my cold tone before nodding determined.-

Like that my day was officially ruined and I went back to my workshop and slammed the door behind me causing the entire building to shake from the force. I reigned in my anger when the cursed energy in my workshop began to warp in resonance with my pissed off self. Being mad when it didn't do anything was all well and good but when it threatened the entire city and/or world it needed to be pushed down. Having the dormant cursed energy become active and thus turn into cursed spirits would be VERY bad news for the city what with the veritable ocean of the shit floating above the place.-

If we were lucky only an army of weaker spirits would spawn but if we were being realistic there'd be at least three special grade entities popping up. If my understanding wasn't wrong that was to say three level six or even higher entities with murder boners and sadistic streaks the size of the dungeon showing up in the middle of the city, not a great scenario. One needs to consider that special grade entities had levels of power to them and weren't all the same kind of threat. The weakest of them was probably new level six in terms of danger but as far as I know there was no upper limit to how dangerous they could become.-

Poor mood or not I refused to be the reason such calamities came into existence and suppressed my anger the moment that resonance started. So it was that I just sat in my workshop dumbly stuck between being outraged at Hestia's actions and swallowing said anger down to save the city. At some point I flat out started creating cursed tools out of goblin teeth to keep my mind off my anger and directed at something else.