Chapter 151: You Pick Your Armor

There were several full-body armors that were lined up in front of him that had been properly set on wooden mannequins. Overhead, the Ember Orbs brightened, and Elias sucked in a deep breath when he saw the metal men standing in front of him, who smelled of metal and oil.

They had all been properly taken care of, polished and gleaming, and from the way that the light seemed to be absorbed by the dark burnished steel, he knew that this metal was not your average metal.

Coming closer, Elias could see veins of a darker metal running through the armor, and he smiled because he recognized that this was Profound Iron, and to have so much of it worked into joints and reinforced into critical points spoke of the talents of their maker.

A closer look at them would also reveal that the metal had a faint, almost imperceptible blue sheen when the Ember Orbs catch it at the right angle, suggesting it has been treated with alchemical processes or perhaps even infused with Lumina over the years.

The Stoneward Asylum may barely hold a dozen people at this point, but there was a time in its history when it was the only reason that the city of Stormfall existed.

Armies had dwelled inside its walls, and in the armory, only the best weapons and armor remained, waiting here in the dark, for the day that they would be used again.

Elias stopped in place as he eyed these armors, and he wondered if the plans of the Commander went through, and the Heavenly Canopy and all of the Restrictions spread around the entire world were to vanish, then the world would become a much more dangerous place, and this armory would no longer be full.

He had seen enough to know at this point that it was not a matter of good or bad, as this entire situation was far more complex than he could ever imagine, and only in the future would he have all the facts… if he could survive till then.

With all the armor in front of him, you would think that Elias would be spoiled for choice, but he was not… He had been inside the armory before and seen all of these heavy armors that were meant for Siphons and would have crushed him underneath their weight, and he had allowed himself to fantasize about what it would be like to wear this armor.

As always, his fantasies carried him to one particular armor… There was nothing distinguishing this armor from the rest, but the only reason Elias picked it was that it carried more battle scars. It had protected the user many times in battle, and the scars proved it.

Or its previous wearer could just be a bad warrior who only knew how to depend on his armor for survival, but if that was the case, Elias also found the armor to be more special. If it could protect the worst warriors, it could protect him.

His legs carried him to his choice from the start, and he looked at the full suit of battle-forged plate, clearly designed for a Siphon warrior of considerable stature and experience.

He had been much smaller then as a mortal, and there was no way he would have fit into this armor without it being resized for him. Still, at this point, his present body was the perfect shape for this armor; it was almost as if a part of him had recognized that his body would grow to fit the armor.

There was nothing pretty about the armor; it was a functional war-gear, meant to turn blades and survive the shock of supernatural combat.

Elias placed his hand on the armor of his choice and simply picked it up alongside the mannequin. The armor should weigh around 195 lbs, along with the mannequin, making the total weight about 225 lbs.

With his present strength, this sort of weight was negligible, and it did nothing to slow his movements as he returned to his place. If armor was important to the Art of Stone, then Elias could not be coming to the Armory every time he needed armor.

Lying on a shelf near the armor, partially hidden behind a stack of shields, Elias spots it—the matching helmet. It must have been set aside when the suit was mounted on the mannequin, perhaps because the previous owner preferred to display the armor with an unobstructed face, or simply because it had been knocked loose and never replaced, and he swiped it before moving on.

Elias dodged every opportunity to see his teachers, because he did not want to be delayed, and also he did not want the Passenger to ruin his mindset by visions of their broken bodies.

He returned to his quarters, and he locked the doors behind him before taking the armor to the last room and setting it up in the middle of the room in the space he had previously cleared out.

Elias stopped in front of the armor and looked at it with a more critical eye. There were faint scratches across the surface, places where the metal had been dented and hammered back into shape, patches where the color was slightly different, and sections have been replaced.

He was looking over this armor with the careful attention of a craftsman examining a tool. Just because it had been carefully maintained did not mean there may not be imperfections, and Elias would never take faulty tools into combat.

Elias began feeling a return of his steady nature after days of madness and uncertainty as he circled the armor, taking in the full scope of the suit, noting how the plates connect, where the straps and buckles are located, and how the weight would distribute across a body.

He was thrown into a Fragment of Divinity, and from that point, nearly everything that he had experienced was out of his hands, and Elias hated this fact, but now, the act of slowly mastering his abilities and discovering its secrets was placing him back in the mental state of the hunter.

His fingers trace the edges of the cuirass, feeling the thickness of the metal, testing the give of the leather straps that hold it together. The careful inspection was not useless, as he found the points of wear, the places where previous owners had stressed the armor most.

His hunter’s mind is already cataloging, as Elias whispered to himself, “This suit protects the vitals well, the joints are reinforced, and the weight is balanced. You have made a great choice, Elias.”

This armor has seen battle; it has kept someone alive through horrors, and as Elias touched it, he felt a strange resonance inside of him, and he gasped because this was the first time he had felt the power of the Art of Stone moving inside him.

It was cold, as if ice was beginning to flow in his veins, and this chill slowly turned warm, and this warmth was so comforting that Elias kept his hand on the armor for much longer than necessary.

“That is interesting,” he muttered and took back his hand, then he began disassembling the armor so he could wear it. He paused and went over to bring a workbench because he would need it for ease of access to other parts of the armor, since he did not have anyone helping him.

An armor like this was not made from a single piece, but it was a collection of interlocking components designed to be assembled on the body.

Elias begins by unbuckling the pauldrons, lifting them free and setting them aside on a nearby workbench. Then the arms, one by one, as he carefully slides the articulated pieces off the mannequin’s wooden limbs.

A growing sense of expectation was rising in his heart as the warmth of his Art of Stone began to send out waves of warmth throughout his body.

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