God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

Making a huge amount of items came with its own share of problems, the most vital being sourcing the materials needed.

Luckily for Cain, he had Pudding to help out with this.

He space around him folded in on itself and his body warped through to the other side.

He was immediately greeted with the cool embrace of the salty ocean breeze.

Standing on the shore once again, he waited for a few minutes before the ground beneath his feet rumbled.

Cain took a step back and watched as a giant sinkhole appeared out of nowhere.

A moment later, a collosal abomination the size of a train sprouted out of the ground.

Cain admired Pudding's harrowing beauty with raised brows,

"Well, this is something..."

For one, as the giant otherworldly worm grew, it didn't seem to be resembling its predecessor one bit.

The {Amethyst Silkworm} has been a titanic creature, with hard chitin that covered up the bulbous flesh underneath. It also had other terrifying features Cain didn't feel like recalling.

However, its most distinct properties were its meaty legs, horns, and wide mouth that spanned the entirety of its face.

In other words, according to logic, it had lacked any optical organs as far as he could tell.

'Then why...'

Staring at what looked to be an eye growing right in the center of Pudding's head, Cain felt remarkably uneasy.

The eye looked like a regular eye, if one was willing to dismiss the thick red veins attaching it to the creature's face.

Other than that, there were a few changes from the original design. The meaty legs were replaced with something more insect-like. They were still thick, but a bit more chitinous in composition.

Then, there were the horns.

Unlike the original's unremarkable horns, Pudding's horns were like trees of a vibrant amethyst gem jutting out of her head, stretching across the creature's back, all the way to its tail end.

It was beautiful.

But it was also scary.

Cain shivered,

"Could it be the difference in diet?"

Pudding opened her mouth and let out a strange sound, as though to greet her master.

Cain patted the creature's side.

He mentally communicated with it.

He frowned. Communicating with the worm was a bit more difficult compared to his communication with Ruby and the Dark Diver.

Still, he didn't mind.

The eye on Pudding's head stared at him for a few moments.

Then its mouth opened.

Its body wriggled and twitched, causing Cain to feel queasy in his stomach.

After a moment, Pudding began spitting out tones of metallic ore she had excavated from the depths of the ground.

The {Amethyst Silkworm} was a rather special creation.

A special acid in its mouth could break down useless rock, allowing the metal to enter its stomach.

In its stomach, some of the metal it consumed would be absorbed by the creature to be used for its sustenance and growth, while the rest would form large individual metal sediments.

It could then chose to either digest these sediments slowly over a long period of time, or in this case, give them to him.

Cain stared at a huge lump of glistening metal bigger than he was with a grin.

The {Eye of General Observation} came into action.

***

{Castille Steel}:n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Description: Born from a subtle radiance produced in the depths of the earth. Incredible strength and resilience, as well as the property to withstand corrosion and extreme temperatures without damage.

***

Cain nodded. It was a rare material, but it wasn't anything too special. There was probably an abundance of it under their feet.

Not only that, but its properties were perfect for weapon making.

However, that was not all...

***

{Crystal Flint}:

Description: A near unbreakable rock gem with an affinity to flames, capable of producing fire without the need for combustion.

***

Besides metallic ore, Pudding also has a tendency to dig out rather exciting gemstones from time to time.

There were many others like this amongst the pile, but only a few stood out.

Since they didn't have the time, Cain reasoned he couldn't afford to dabble with variety.

He sent a peculiar string of instructions with his thoughts to Pudding.

There was a moment of silence between the two as sparks of thought flew from man to beast and back.

Once he received confirmation on its understanding, Cain wiped the sweat of his brows and sighed in relief.

He gently parted the beast's side, to which it let out a rather cute squeal too.

Then, it dove back into the ground, covering the sinkhole back up with the dirt and broken surface rock it had upturned.

Cain smiled.

His request was for it to abandon its random digestion and focus on the particular metals and gemstones he had requested.

He didn't need anything that was super impressive or rare. What he needed were good ores that were of decent quality and could be found rather abundantly.

With that, he would have the materials to craft a thousand weapons in no time.

'In the meantime...'

He gathered up the metals and chunks of gemstone Pudding had dropped for him and placed them into his inventory all at once.

Then the space around him distorted and his body disappeared...

Reappearing a moment later in his cabin on Gwendolyn.

He took only a moment to relax, before he headed straight to the {Draconic Blast Furnace}.

The moment he stepped in, he was greeted with the sound of loud clangs from all the other craftsmen working in the forge.

This was one of the secret weapons he would be employing in his quest to make so many weapons in such a short time.

The noises stopped the moment they noticed he had entered the forge.

Their eyes locked onto him, excitement burning in them.

Haru quickly ran up to him,

"Boss! We are very prepared! We have readied our minds and bodies, sharpened our skills, cleaned out tools! All for this moment!"

A little overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of Haru and the rest, Cain couldn't help but chuckle,

"Alright, that's enough."

Then he cleared his throat,

"I won't say much. I need all the help I can get."

He paused for a moment,

"Not just swords, but spears, guns, and even bows. We will also be making a ton of ammunition. In other words, there will be no sleep, and as little rest as required this week. Do I make myself clear?!" Find your next read at empire

"Yess, Boss!" They all yelled in response.

Blushing a little, Cain cleared his throat again.

Then he emptied his inventory of the metals and gemstones,

"We have a lot in store when it comes to variety and quality, but what we need now is quantity. We'll create a chain that..."

As he explained the way he wanted things to go, Cain couldn't help but think to himself,

'Don't I sound like very cool right now?'

It felt a bit awkward. But it was something he couldn't avoid.

It was a privilege and a burden, both of which he had earned.

His knowledge and expertise was something he had worked very hard to build up. It was true treasure. Something he would lose only if his mind was tampered with by some abominable Eldritch nightmare that could feed on brains.

Once he was done briefing them, their work began in earnest.

Smelting down a large amount of metal could take a lot of time, so they quickly got ready.

In the meantime, Cain got to work translating and reading through the pages of the {Record of Akasha XXX}.

He was working on another chapter of the book, this time, reading as he translated the work.

He was so engrossed in the pages, he was barely able to track down the passage of time as he flipped through, his brows furrowed.

Finally, what seemed like a mere minute, Haru called out to him.

The forge was extremely hot thanks to the flames spouting out of the dragon maws.

Although he was somewhat resistant to flames, even Cain had his clothes drenched in sweat after staying in there for so long.

"Boss, it's ready." Haru said, his expression serious.

Cain nodded,

"Then the real work begins here."

He closed the book and threw it into his inventory.

Then, he calmly threw off his short to reveal his chiseled body glistening with sweat.

Light shimmered between his fingertips as he retrieved the {Burden of Xicina} from his inventory as well.

Under the light of the flames in the forge, the hammer glowed with mystery, one that was obvious to see.

"Prepare the crucibles! Get to work!" Cain barked out.

Like a well oiled machine, they began executing his orders.

Soon, Cain found himself staring down at a crucible filled with red hot glowing metal.

He gripped his hammer harder and his eyes shone with marvelous light.

The hidden aspects of the metal that even the system didn't point out were revealed to him.

He waited for the metal to cool a bit before pouring it out into a sword shaped mold.

Perfecting the shape a bit with the {Divine Essence of Metallurgy}, he raised the hammer over his head...

A split second later he let it fall.

BANG!