Chapter 187: Let Him Cook

Goliath Armor

+10 Strength

+10 Resistance

Whenever the user heals, they temporarily gain a small amount of size that persists as long as the armor is equipped. Other Equipment worn by the User scales to match. Vastly increased size may damage the User if their Resistance is not high enough.

New equipment scales to match as it is attempted to be worn.

User and their equipment return to normal size when the armor is unequipped.

Hmm…. Will mused, inspecting the armor for the umpteenth time.

It had been one of the four rare Relics that Thea Oilton had bargained for. It had an interesting and unusual effect of making the wearer bigger based on how many wounds they had healed since donning it…and simply that.

It was…not Will’s cup of tea, to be honest. He didn’t like the idea. It lacked a certain…snappy flair that Will had realized he enjoyed, involving speed and a dazzling flourish of magic, but…

Becoming a big, slow, stupid mountain and crushing everything in his path was obviously not what Caddock was thinking he would do, and thus it was a viable strategy.

By itself, the Goliath Armor was…pretty good. But Will knew how to make it better.

Basic steps, basic steps first, Will reminded himself, turning his attention to the barrel that had been working on his new ring. He could tell that it was finally done.

On her shopping trip, Ria had found a couple extra copies of Will’s baking rings, and a hat that had similar effects. Will had poured all of them, along with some juiced-up Resistance gear, into the same barrel.

The last two weeks had been solely dedicated to making his new baking ring. It was cutting it pretty close, but Will was hoping the extra speed could let him finish the other equipment in record time.

Will popped the top off and fished around in the depleted Relic Dust for a moment before his fingers touched on metal.

Will pulled out the plain gold band and inspected it.

Ring Of Explosive Doughmaking

+8 Strength

+30 resistance

+6 Focus

+20% potency of Brewing and baking Abilities.

Creates ideal environmental conditions for brewing and baking Abilities, such as temperature, moisture, pressure, etc.

Baking and Brewing performed by the wearer is substantially hastened, without compromising quality.

Wearer creates, purifies, and mixes powdered ingredients much more quickly and thoroughly.

Scales with Resistance.

Explosive, huh? Let’s find out how Explosive.

The ring’s Resistance bonus wasn’t as high as the resistance ring, but it was more specialized, And Will was willing to bet that he could condense all the Sourdough-ing down to one day if he slotted this ring in his Phantom Hand.

Do you wish to sacrifice Ring of Explosive Doughmaking to Phantom Hand?

Will mentally checked that there was nothing inside the Dimensional Storage of the snake, before giving the mental affirmative, overwriting the Ring of Resistance.

A shudder travelled up Will’s spine as he felt his middle finger blacken and slough off. The phantom snake in turn, blackened and unraveled, replaced by what Will could only call an egg.

…oh right, it’ll take a week to regrow after overwriting one…damnit.

A week later, Will was bumping up against the time he’d decreed that they would be leaving. Thea wasn’t having any money problems anymore, since she’d purchased enough farmland and businesses to make their headquarters somewhat self-sufficient.

The people were eager to leave, though. The caravaneers had stayed in this place where they couldn’t lie over a month, where any misspoken word might lead to a lifetime of regret. It was gradually wearing on them.

On the other hand, Will had plenty of time to acquire and organize his Relics by type to make the ‘Caddock-crushing’ sets, as he called them.

At the end of the week, Will awoke to a rush of strength, and he knew without checking that the new ring was finished overwriting the previous one.

Will brought it up.

Ring Of Explosive Doughmaking

+44 Strength

+167 resistance

+33 Focus

+111% potency of Brewing and baking Abilities.

Creates perfect environmental conditions for brewing and baking Abilities, such as temperature, moisture, pressure, etc.

Baking and Brewing performed by the wearer is vastly hastened, without compromising quality.

Wearer creates, purifies, and mixes powdered ingredients vastly more quickly and thoroughly.

Scales with Resistance.

Wow. The original use of Sourdough is to retain consumeables. I wonder if…

Will took a healing potion and downed it, using Sourdough as he did so.

Sourdough

180 Charges Remaining

As usual, Will retained a little red nodule in his hand. It was bigger than usual, but nothing…

Will’s eyes widened as the nodule unfolded like a crumpled piece of paper, becoming a full-sized healing potion in a matter of seconds. Curious, Will tapped it with his fingers and shook it around a bit, even opening it and smelling the potion.

Same acrid mixture as before.

Okay, I like the ring. I like it a lot.

With the ring slotted, Will’s efficiency with Sourdough had become so high that the percentage of the original consumable item he retained had finally exceeded 100%, and the ambient Miasma was enough to reactivate it.

Sadly, it did not bud a second consumable starter to grow into a second potion. As cool as that would’ve been, The Tower didn’t like infinite glitches, so Will was stuck just retaining the same potion basically for free.

For now, anyway. Gotta be a way to increase the cost in exchange for budding another consumable. Some way to tweak how I use it. Ghoul always suggests things are less rigid than they appear. Is over-Charging an Ability possible?

Question for later.

The funny thing was, Will had so much money and space in his Dimensional Storage that he could pack pretty much as many consumables as he wanted for a long trip, rendering the ability to preserve them…an amusing parlor trick.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

That money-saving aspect I was drooling over a year ago is too little, too late, Will thought with an amused snort.

But the more powerful Relic-baking aspect of Sourdough…That was still very much of interest to Will.

Will gathered together twelve Relics to create a soft set with the Goliath Armor.

Four thorns Relics, two Lifesteal, two inertia, and four ‘speed on taking damage’ Relics.

Will grabbed the first basic Thorns Relic and studied it. it was a steel collar with nasty spikes coming off of it at odd angles that surely wouldn’t be any fun to wear.

Collar of Thorns

+5 Strength

+5 Resistance

+5 Focus

12% Thorns

Well, in you go. Will thought, using his bolt-cutter to snap the collar above the barrel for his ‘thorns’ baking.

Something strange happened.

Instead of everything falling down through the funnel Will had set up, a plume dull, nonmagical Relic dust floated up and away while the glowing stuff drifted down into the barrel.

Create, purify and mix powdered ingredients, Will thought to himself. The effect from his ring was causing the impurities to simply float away, unable, or perhaps unwilling to contaminate his batch of sourdough.

This reminded him of the bowl outside the Tower that could do the same, condensing the good stuff to the center while the nonmagical dust was scraped away from the outside.

After a moment of deliberation, Will grabbed an extra Thorns relic.

I don’t think the Tower is going to let me retain more than 80% of each Relic’s potency, but I’ll bet this extra purity will make room for a fifth Relic without substantial loss.

Will destroyed three more Thorns relics and tossed them in before putting a ring in there to bake.

Why a ring? Mostly because they were portable and fit nicely into the tiny barrels. He wasn’t planning on keeping them around anyway.

Will followed that up by creating another three mixes using the other ingredients, and stacked the Goliath Armor on top of them, mentally labelling them ‘Speed titan’

Will then turned his attention to the bespoke illusion Relic he was obligated to make for Travis.

He went back to his pile of Relics and began plucking things out.

Let’s see, if higher purity allows me to use five Relics in each layer, then I’ll need…twenty of them plus the one to be baked. Ugh.

Let’s cover the basics, Will thought as he drew a handful of relics from pre-made piles. Illusion potency Relics, Focus Relics, Acuity relics…Then we need a soft-set effect.

Will scanned through the pile of Relics until he found an effect that interested him.

Eidolons created by the user gain Strength and Resistance. Scales with Focus.

Right. When he used the Wraith Vessel to grant his illusions physical bodies, they became illusion/eidolon hybrids, which gives them all the benefits and penalties of both.

For example, Travis’s illusions could now be dispelled by anti-illusion and anti-Eidolon Abilities, but they could also benefit from Relics that applied to either.

…Travis’s problem was his illusions were only as strong as the materials they copied. This could address that, Will thought, tossing the amulet in the pile.

Will didn’t really need it. Phantom Hand was plenty strong. Will kept looking, finally finding Relics with effects that made a nice little synergistic ecosystem.