Homesteading in a fantasy world

I was in my office, standing in the middle of the room, and all around me were various items. My armour was so badly damaged that I couldn’t wear it properly after the war. The sword I had been able to fix up; it only had minor nicks.

Now, I would’ve liked to spend a year to learn how to be able to make low-rank three items, but I did not have the budget or the time to do something like that, especially because I might have a fight quite soon.

Until this point, I have been able to get by with purchased armor meant for Vikings. Of course, I have not pushed myself in any fight, which is also a reason why I have not needed anything better. Now, Roger had acquired me top-of-the-line rank two armor.

Getting rank three items will be something for the future. I also think that the basic knowledge I have from Earth will no longer function in crafting such items. The only reason I have been able to get by is thanks to my abilities.

There will be a need to actually study under proper masters. The biggest reason for the change is because from rank three, regular metals like iron and its alloys will no longer be enough. It was time to start learning about truly powerful materials.

Unfortunately, those would require a lot of energy to be used. That’s why I did not start learning about them. I also know the money I have would not be enough. Fortunately, with my defensive abilities, the armor around me should be enough to defend me against anyone the queen is capable of acquiring. I still think the bodyguard is the most likely opponent I will have.

I started to test out the pieces of armor. They were made out of iron-based alloys, but there was heavy use of unique materials. It was one of the jobs that I was still doing actively: identifying unique materials.

As we have opened up more mines at more locations, the number of these materials has grown a lot bigger, but I’ve also gotten the help of other people with abilities that help identify the properties of these materials.

One of the more unique elements I can sense in the alloy is a crystal that was probably just normal quartz at some point but now seemed to have a property that allowed the iron alloy to have a better molecular structure that is strengthened by additional energy.

It was a fascinating piece of... I don’t even know what to call this material science, crafting expertise? Well, whatever it is, I’m quite certain that the metal was made by someone surpassing rank two. Perhaps one of his apprentices has made this set of armor.

Fortunately, Roger had been able to get a set that wasn’t enchanted or heavily runed. It had durability and slow self-repair, and it seemed like they wanted to add more, but Roger was probably able to purchase it before any more were added.

For anyone else who didn't have many defensive abilities, runes and enchantments are not just recommended but are necessary for their survival. For me, they would interfere with my abilities.

There probably aren’t many medium armors, or perhaps medium-heavy armor users, with strong enough defensive abilities to not enhance these types of armor. I am a pretty big oddity in this world, as most with my types of abilities would wear the heaviest armor possible to enhance their defenses as much as possible. But since I usually fight alone and also have excellent damage capability, I need extra movement, and of course, it's always better to just not get hit.

I did need to make the straps bigger, but I had planned for that. There will be plenty of weak spots because I’m a bit too big for the few plate armor pieces I will be wearing. Fortunately, Roger was able to get proper chainmail.

The gambeson was made by Emma. She did a really fine job, and I did give her a few of the fiber plant seeds I had been able to make a bit stronger over the two years. All of these items will be fine for now, but even in the outer ring area, it will soon not be enough.

After quite a few hours, I had placed all the armor pieces onto an armor stand and sat behind my table, looking at my sword. It was quite a powerful tool, and I had grown quite attached to it. Now, I wasn’t certain about this, but I think it will still be able to handle the beginning of the third rank. But later I think the enemies and the forces will start to be too strong, even for it.

Still, the fact that rank one dragon blood could make such a weapon that it could still comfortably compete two ranks above it was quite amazing, even if it will not be able to handle the third rank fully.

It truly is a legendary sword. At first, even I was a bit confused when I saw in some of the stores weapons and armor marked as epic or rare. My immediate thought was, how could something made out of rank one material be epic? Any rank two weapon should be able to destroy it easily.

That’s where I was wrong. Basically, it turned out that it was not just epic but a rank one epic, meaning that this rank one item could compete with regular rank two items.

Rare was something that could survive against items one rank above. Uncommon was also a rank, but it's just signified that it could survive a few attacks from items one rank above. Legendaries were weapons that could fight two ranks above their original rank.

This system seemed a bit flawed to me after I learned about it because rank three at the beginning was so much weaker than the peak. Fortunately, when I was researching information about making a rank-three organization, I finally understood my mistake. Rank 3 is split into three different ranks: Low rank 3, then mid rank 3, and high rank 3.

There was also mention of mythic and divine rank, three and four ranks above the original item. Apparently, there were a few such items recorded, but mostly they were like my sword, technically using low-rank materials but the properties making them function at a much higher rank.

Achieving the same results at a higher base rank was almost impossible. From the knowledge I’ve been able to get, never has there been a legendary rank 3 item. Now, I was quite certain that wasn’t true; there must be a few out there, but that part of the book made it quite clear that it would just be a lot easier to use rank 4 or rank 5 materials to try to push rank 3 material so far.

I felt quite saddened by this fact. I had done so much with this weapon, yet soon it would most likely join the wall of the other weapons I had retired. There was, of course, a chance of using a dragon that was at a higher rank, but for that, I would need to study crafting as a whole for quite a while and then try to get the necessary dragon blood.

Of course, that's easier said than done. There was, however, still a chance. Dragons so strong aren’t going to be blown here by a storm. They are too strong for that. There is one place with enough crazy people who actually go hunting for dragons and a few other strong creatures.

In the western shallow sea, at the very edge of the sea where it meets the ocean, is an island. On that island, there are many ports, but not for seafaring ships. So close to the ocean, it's simply too dangerous for ships to sail the seas.

There are, however, airships who brave the ocean and fly quite far out. It seems that dragons hunt those oceans because there are huge fish and other creatures who are probably a decent and perhaps the only food source to such strong creatures.

It's an incredibly dangerous occupation, and if you fly too close to the ocean, creatures that could swallow a whole airship could easily jump out of the water and swallow you whole.

It was hard for me to imagine such an occupation and what those people might have seen. But if you brought back a dragon corpse or even a high-ranked fish, well, you could retire off of that. It could give you the capital to gain the resources needed to continue pushing forward. That's why most people went and tried something so dangerous. It’s a known fact that if you are stuck as an adventurer, buying better gear will allow you to keep pushing forward.

My secretary came in and brought a few more papers I needed to look over. I stopped my daydreaming and got back to work. The day ended quite fast. Tomorrow will be an interesting day. Early at 7:00, I had my first portal out of the capital.

It was finally time to go and finalize my organization. Fortunately, we now had presences in many major and minor cities. Thanks to that, my portal route was preplanned, and it would only take me a few hours to reach the world council headquarters. I once again looked towards the armor. I didn’t know if I was looking forward to the fight or not, but I knew that if they didn’t try anything, I would be disappointed.