Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

My mind sorta fogged out at this point as I focused entirely on the blade and my cursed energy flowing along it. Yet much like when I tried to turn my energy to flame earlier something was missing and I couldn't push the energy into the blade more than just a little. Opening my eyes with a frustrated sigh I felt like swearing that the cursed energy was unfairly difficult to use. Left with no way forward at the moment I set the blade aside and grabbed another oddity I possessed, the variant skull.-

I knew that variants had guaranteed unique drops upon being killed but it was never the same. Not only that but it was very rarely worth making the things artificially as if you had the strength to do so you were also probably too powerful for whatever drop came from the variant unless it was a very specific type of monster or one from the deeper floors. For example lets say a level five wanted to get a powerful healing type item but couldn't afford to commission one from a deep floor unicorn(yes those were real here) for whatever reason.-

That same level five could in theory find something really weak like say an Almiraj(red eyed horned white rabbit of fluffy death) and then force feed it a damn near lethal amount of healing potions or ingredients before stuffing magic stones down it's throat. If they are lucky the thing will evolve in the direction they want due to the healing potions as a catalyst. Then it is merely a matter of force feeding the thing magic stones until it reaches level five or six in terms of power and healing potency before killing it and hoping it's drop has the properties you want.-

As should be clear however this is a very time and resource intensive project and also a huge risk as not only is it highly illegal but you may not get a drop item with the properties you want at the end if you do take this route. In addition the drop will also be weaker than a naturally more powerful monster such as a unicorn. All in all unless the monster is by itself extremely rare or valuable then artificially creating a variant monster is not worth it.-

What I mean to say with all this information was that this skull was either very good for me or totally useless and I had no clue which it was. Obviously I could refine the thing but again the question of whether that was worth doing popped up. According to the Artemis familia a good smith could take one look at a drop and tell if it was worth something or not but I was neither a smith or appraiser. I was just a dude with a really useful cursed technique and a newbie adventurer. Unfortunately my gut was silent on the matter with the skull so here I was staring at the skull like this was Hamlet.-

Honestly the only thing of note as far as I could tell was the hardness of the thing. That and how fucking sharp the teeth were after I sliced my finger open on one of the things after barely touching it. The skull surprisingly enough was totally fine after I hit it with my hammer to test it's durability. In fact there wasn't a scratch on it which of course lead to the current moment where Hestia walked into the room to see me about to cleave the skull with the sword.-

"I know this looks bad but I promise I have a logical explanation." I said after seeing her shocked expression.

"What could possibly make this make sense?" She asked disbelieving me.

"Well this skull is a drop item and I am testing it's durability, if it's good enough I am thinking about turning it into some armor." I said trying to sound convincing.

She looked suspicious but told me to continue as i was and with a might swing I achieved nothing besides losing my grip on the handle of the blade because of my poor form on impact. Luckily I did hit the skull and found that even still it didn't have any marks on it at all. I couldn't help but grin when I saw this since this meant the thing would in fact make a good piece of armor. The trick was I had to figure out what sort of armor to turn it into as it was not very big and thus a few options were totally out. After a bit of internal debate I chose to turn it into a set of bracers.

There was just enough material for me to barely make it work to cover my forearms and as an added bonus I could take the teeth and fuse them into the axe side of my weapon to make it stupid sharp. Obvious I wasn't going to do all this now but later when I have enough energy to do so. Still I told Hestia my plan and she approved of me getting armor since it would help me stay alive in the dungeon. We ate and I told her about my day while she mentioned that the butchers wife liked the figurine she got.-

After that we went to sleep since we were both rather tired otherwise. The next morning I got up and after stretching set off for the dungeon. I stopped by the hostess and enriched the ingredients again for another three thousand valis. Syr once again gave me a meal she made for me while telling me that she remembered my advice and it helped a whole bunch. Dungeon square was active as always when I got there but to my surprise Hroldar was waiting for me near the dungeon entrance. He had on his armor and surprisingly had a god with him as well.-

The god was a tall man with dark skin and a mostly bald head with the exceptions being five short beaded dreadlocks at the back of his head. The gods clothes were a simple open chested sleeveless vest and shorts that showed off his muscular body.

"Morning Alex! I hope you don't mind but after I told Ogun about you yesterday he wanted to meet you personally." Hroldar said with a smile as I walked up.

"Alexander Drake, he only said good things I hope?" I said holding out my hand to shake the gods hand.

"Ogun and yes he spoke positively of you. It is rare he takes a shine to someone so I make a point of meeting those he does." The god spoke calmly as he shook my hand but I could feel the power in that grip, this was no soft god but a warrior in his own right.