Elemental Cats

While Joshua kept playing with Lucy and the other cats, Joan decided to talk a little with Toz. Toz had only been sitting around, and inspecting his sword's progress, so he didn't mind Joan's interruption.

"What's up?" Toz hadn't even turned around until after he asked his question. Joan thought she had walked pretty quietly in case she would disturb Toz, but her presence was still easily picked up by Toz's perception.

"Oh! Uhm. It's just that we have been relying on your kindness so much, and I was wondering if there's anything I can do to help." Since she was startled by Toz's question, she stuttered at first before she managed to tell Toz what she wanted.

"Well, what can you do? You mentioned enchanting the other day, didn't you?"

"That's right. I have a production type inclination that's suited for enchanting fabric and clothes." A lot of people usually hesitated when telling other people about their inclination, but Joan seemingly didn't have any such inhibitions.

"Though, I can only do basic self-repair and comfort enchantments. However, I have also learned how to work with clothes a little bit. How about I fix your coat using the fabrics in the boat?"

Toz looked up at Joan.

"Yeah. You can go ahead and give it a try." He didn't know how well a third level enchanter would do when trying to fix his coat made of several different medium level materials and that had received several complex spatial enchantments. But after removing Rick's letter and the grimoires, he still took off the coat and handed it over to Joan.

Joan also got her own doubts when she held the coat. She wasn't an expert on fabric, so she wasn't surprised she couldn't tell what the materials were. But her professional expertise told her it was high-quality material. Since the coat had been so worn out, she had been unable to discern its true value.

For a moment, she wondered how Toz had survived the beating that the coat he wore had endured, but only for a moment. She remembered that Toz had mentioned Treblor Forest before and used that as a guideline for his unwilling departure into the Void.

Joan had never heard of Treblor Forest before the war broke out. But no matter what situation humans were in, gossip and information spread like wildfire. And during the war, one of the most whispered-about topics were the appearances of beings, both humans and demons, referred to as demon lords.

Although every time a demon lord appeared, it was only partially. An arm, an eye, or a leg popped out of a portal and caused overwhelming devastation. At least an entire plane was destroyed each time a demon lord showed itself. One of the more famous instances was the demon lord who smashed Treblor Forest since it caused the collapse of two planes and a rare phenomenon. There were even rumors that the forest had been an important resource to the human realm.

There was no wonder that Toz's jacket was so torn if he had managed to survive an attack Joan had heard about in another kingdom.

Joan didn't let her thoughts wander anymore as she started focusing on her work instead. She didn't have much experience with actually making clothes, but she was used to working with them. And while Joan hadn't ever worked with something of Toz's coat's level, she would do her best since she had promised Toz she would fix it.

The first thing to do would be to investigate the enchantments and make sure that no problems arise as she goes to work on the coat.

However, Joan was unfamiliar with several of the enchantments on the coat and didn't know if they were completely broken or relatively intact but inactive. Simpler runes like automatic mana absorption and distribution were basics that every enchanter knew. A few more advanced enchantments looked familiar but more complex versions of what Joan had made before, so those she understood to some degree.

But even if some of the enchantments looked familiar, there could still be differences in the craft since almost every enchanter works their magic in different ways. While most enchanters use runes or some other type of script as a way to make the magic effects permanent, some enchanters with suitable inclinations don't need that and can enchant things with merely their will.

While Joan had an inclination fit for enchanting, it wasn't anything extravagant. She could draw runes using a stylus and her mana to enchant fabric and cloth. She couldn't enchant things that weren't made of fabric, and since she didn't have her own attribute, she had to learn runes for the different elements if she wanted to create an enchantment with an elemental attribute.

But on the flip side, those limitations made Joan's enchantments more specific and efficient as long as the right conditions were fulfilled. Her enchantments were better than another enchanter of the same skill but who could enchant everything. And since she has neutral mana, she isn't limited to making enchantments of a single attribute, even if she has to spend more time and effort learning elemental versions of each enchantment she wants to create.

Joan continued inspecting Toz's coat and making mental notes of the various enchantments she found and the state of them. Since she didn't have a proper workshop or the right tools, she was limited in what she could do. The replacement materials for Toz's coat couldn't quite measure up to the original.

Although Joan didn't know where Toz had gotten the coat from or where the materials were from, she could tell they were medium level. The fabrics she had used to cover and warm herself and her son were low level materials that she had brought with them when they fled. During their search for safety, Joan had stopped and given people fabric enchanted with rudimentary stealth and warmth capabilities. Just thinking about how Tasha had said that they might need them in the Void had Joan tearing up.

Joan hoped Toz would be understanding if the results of her work were less satisfactory than what the original coat had been.