At first there was a slip, as if James' chisel had gone awry during etching, and it threw him off balance. He redoubled his efforts, pushing with all his mental might on the enchantment.

It felt significantly harder than it should have.

As far as James knew, at this stage in the enchantment process, there was nothing left but to force his mana onto the object until the enchantment set. Normally, this just involves applying the enchantment pattern – made up of magic stone dust – into the metal substrate via the Aqua Magia, which enchants the object.

But now essence was involved.

And not just a little stray amount, as in the sword Jared had forged and prepared for the Enchanter Meridox.

And not just unintentional contamination manipulated into a more optimal orientation, as with James' Earth War Hammer.

No, this was a piece of armor saturated with as much undine essence as it could hold. And while James had, by pure instinct and good guesswork, oriented the essence close to optimally for the given enchantment pattern, that only brought the difficulty of the enchantment down from "impossible and utterly preposterous" to "barely possible with inordinate effort."

And this is why Enchanters typically receive boosts to [Willpower] upon taking their class.

One does not alter the fabric of reality lightly.

James continued to press his mana onto the object, and sweat was forming on his brow when he noticed the first change: the bracer had started to glow an incredibly dim and faint blue.

He felt exasperated.

When performing his simplest and easiest enchantments, there was a flash and his mana burst onto and into the object and it was done, in the space of a breath or less.

When performing his harder enchantments, the object glowed brighter and bright before finishing, as it had with his Earth War Hammer. But even then, the hammer had started glowing right away.

Not several minutes into the process.

The Enchanter persevered. James stopped worrying about how long it would take, and how slowly it was going, and simply focused on his breathing and on maintaining his mental push on the bracer.

Inhale. Push. Exhale. Push.

He settled into a rhythm and the bracer began to glow slightly brighter.

And then brighter.

And then a lot brighter.

Although the enchantment had started slowly, as he pressed his mana down on the bracer the undine essence began to move, taking on the pattern of the enchantment, empowering and fixing it on an even deeper level in the Blue Iron.

The effort required remained the same but the process accelerated continuously, until suddenly there was the brightest flash of blue light James had ever seen and it was done.

And James was nearly completely drained of mana.

He clenched his core muscles, seated where he was, to avoid collapsing entirely, and a wave of dizziness washed over him which he endured by clenching his eyes shut and focusing on his breathing until it passed.

The bracer sat heavily on the stone in front of James. He could tell. Even with his eyes closed and not touching it, the bracer now had a weight to it, a denseness in reality that was undeniable.

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After several minutes of recovery, James cracked an eye open and gazed upon what he had created.

[Appraisal]: Water Bracer, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 12/12, Enchantment: Water Resistance (36)

James had set a new record for that funny little number and more than doubled the [Water Resistance] compared to before.

He cracked a weary smile and looked at his full set of Blue Iron Armor. He had a lot of work to do… And now he was out of mana for likely the rest of the day, if not tomorrow as well. He took it slow, taking some time even before he attempted to stand up, and spent the rest of the day busying himself with chores around the campsite. He prepared food, disposed of waste, and the myriad other chores that are simply part of life. After lunch, his mana deprivation had lessened to the point that he was no longer dizzy, and his hands had stopped trembling, so he busied himself forging more chain, to pass the time.

The next day he awoke and was not yet fully recovered from the prior day's enchanting, so he donned his Green Iron Armor and explored the other side of the lake area. By now he found it easy to approach the passage leading to the upper floor, only growing slightly anxious as he did, but he simply topped up the wards around it and moved on, shield and hammer in hand.

He explored all morning, or at least until he felt hungry enough to eat a lunch of bread from his magic bag, but this side of the area was much the same as the latter, excepting that the lake shore was much closer to the cavern wall on this side. James was cautious, and kept his shield up at all times, but no water spears came flying at him, and he kept quiet so as not to attract unwanted attention.

There were more crabs here, and even bird monsters, but by this point they posed absolutely no threat to James, and he had no trouble smacking them out of the air as they divebombed at him, even from his blind spots. They only moved in straight lines after all.

He made a point of dragging the carcasses back with him, two bird monsters and two crab monsters, tied up with chain. They were heavy, but he was growing concerned with the lack of monsters near his camp.

He was so acclimated to the Dungeon by this point he didn't find it odd to worry about a lack of monsters near where he lived.

By roughly mid-afternoon, after butchering the monster carcasses, James felt that his mana had fully recovered.

James warmed up some more of the undine essence saturated Blue Iron and forged it into a mirror image of the bracer he had created before. It was easier to orient the essence now that he had a skill for it, and before long the undine essence was evenly spread throughout the bracer. He spent the rest of the evening etching the tiled [Water Resistance] pattern, and went to sleep.

In the morning, he applied the Blue Magic Crystal dust and Aqua Magia, and repeated the ordeal of enchanting the bracer, once again using up almost all his mana in the process.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Essence Manipulation] has reached level 2.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Basic Elemental Enchanting] has reached level 5.

[Appraisal]: Water Bracer, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 12/12, Enchantment: Water Resistance (36)

And with that, the second bracer was done.

Day by day, James worked at forging and enchanting his new set of armor, while exploring the other side of the lake while he waited for his mana to recover. There were several alcoves, but nothing terribly interesting in them. No large bird monster nesting area, either, just sporadic nests on the cliff wall. At its closest, the lake shore came up to about fifty yards from the wall, but it was still as James passed as quietly as he could, and there were no problems. Eventually, he made it all the way to the other side, where he found the snowy passage and his disorganized pile of chain.

There were only two ways out of this area: the stairs to the upper floor, or through the snowy passage.

He tidied the chain and recharged the ward around it, and headed back to his camp.

Eventually, he finished. He had started with the smaller pieces of armor and worked his way up to the larger pieces. The cuirass had been last, with the most surface area, and he had actually passed out upon finishing the piece, but he had finished it.

The armor set was complete.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Essence Manipulation] has reached level 3.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Essence Manipulation] has reached level 4.

[Enchanter] Class Skill [Basic Elemental Enchanting] has reached level 6.

[Synergy] Skill [Efficient Crafting (Smithing and Enchanting)] has reached level 5.

[Synergy] Skill [Efficient Crafting (Smithing and Enchanting)] has reached level 6.

[Appraisal]: Water Visored Helmet, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 18/18, Enchantment: Water Resistance (32)

[Appraisal]: Water Cuirass, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 19/19, Enchantment: Water Resistance (30)

[Appraisal]: Water Armored Skirt, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 10/10, Enchantment: Water Resistance (34)

[Appraisal]: Water Codpiece, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 10/10, Enchantment: Water Resistance (32)

[Appraisal]: Water Greaves, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 12/12, Enchantment: Water Resistance (32)

[Appraisal]: Water Cuisses, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 13/13, Enchantment: Water Resistance (36)

[Appraisal]: Water Left Pauldron, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantment: Water Resistance (34)

[Appraisal]: Water Right Pauldron, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 12/12, Enchantment: Water Resistance (38)

[Appraisal]: Water Bracers, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 12/12, Enchantment: Water Resistance (36)

[Appraisal]: Water Boots, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 16/16, Enchantment: Water Resistance (30)

[Appraisal]: Blue Iron Round Shield, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 15/15, Enchantment: Reflect (29)

James was ready to see what lay beyond the snowy passage.

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