Chapter 89: Epic

He kept thinking of how to do it, and the thoughts weren’t random. They were structured. Practical. Engineering-brained. Kael wasn’t some random guy dreaming about armor fantasies. He was a former top student when it came to engineering. He knew how forces traveled. He knew how heat transferred. He knew the difference between a clever idea and a stupid death.

And with a hammer that could create his wildest designs and make them into reality… a metal glove wasn’t hard. He could create anything his mind could imagine if only he had the materials and time.

The metal glove, which was merely an idea, became a fact that he had to achieve, a goal to survive, and a means to climb. He could already see it, as he shot flames against foes that surrounded him, against enemies that wanted him dead. Not even the Snakes or the Sun Clan would be a threat if he realized his small goal.

He shook away the thoughts for now, dreaming of a future when the present isn’t certain was a fool’s errand.

Right now, he had more things to worry about. As the basic diagram of the leather-padded glove locked into place in his mind, another thought hit him, heavy, grave, and annoyingly simple.

“The crowbar is still just a crowbar…”

He said it out loud, and it sounded like an accusation.

It was true. The crowbar was merely a crowbar. Not a mana item. Not a tower-crafted metal. Just a human-made tool that had already been abused beyond its intended life. He’d repaired it, reshaped it, turned it into a staff, and it had survived… but survived didn’t mean safe.

If he built a steel gauntlet out of that, and the rune overheated it,

Worst case scenario?

It would melt.

And molten steel didn’t just burn you. It sticks. It encases. It becomes a death sentence that wraps around your hand like a coffin.

He couldn’t take that risk.

Kael exhaled slowly and let the idea settle into the back of his mind like a plan for later.

’For now, this should be good enough,’ he decided. ’If I ever find heat-resistant material, I might probably use it for that idea.’

He filed it away, important, but not actionable. The Tower punished people who acted on ideas they couldn’t support.

Then he turned back to the table where the many green scales still sat, waiting.

The hatchling scales looked almost innocent compared to the obsidian adult ones, softer color, softer sheen, less threatening. But now he didn’t see “inferior.” He saw “raw material.”

He grabbed all of them and placed them on the ground in a tight cluster like he was arranging stones for a test. Then, without wasting a second, he aimed at them with the fire rune and blasted.

The fireball struck them.

There was no shove. No scattering. No pressure wave. The scales didn’t even slide. It confirmed what he’d suspected earlier: the fire he was throwing was mostly heat, not force. It washed over them like an oven blast, licking their surfaces, making the air shimmer.

And right then, one by one, like ink spreading through paper, the scales darkened.

Green vanished.

They turned obsidian-dark.

Not painted. Not stained. Changed. The color deepened into something that looked older and harder, like the scales had been forced to remember what they were supposed to be.

Kael’s breath caught. He stepped forward and picked one up, turning it between his fingers. It felt different too, cooler, denser. The edges sharper. The surface glossier, like it had been tempered.

He inspected it.

[Black Basilisk Scale]

[Highly Resistant to flames.]

A smile grew on his face, slow and sharp.

He didn’t even need to speak it. The thought was obvious.

He could now finish the jacket.

Kael moved quickly, like he was afraid the Tower would change its mind if he took too long. He removed the jacket and placed it on the table, laying it flat and smoothing it like he was about to perform surgery.

Then he began putting the scales, the “evolved” ones, onto it.

One after one.

He placed a scale, aligned it, then struck with the hammer. The hammer tap seated it like a rivet. The leather accepted it. The seams tightened. The scale locked in place with that same satisfying finality he’d seen before.

He worked in patterns, overlapping them so there weren’t gaps that would invite a blade point. He covered the chest first, because if you got stabbed there, it didn’t matter how good your back armor was. Then the sleeves. Then the sides. Then, anywhere he could imagine a blow landing.

The motion became rhythmic: place, tap, place, tap. His hands moved with growing confidence. His mind was quiet for once, focused on the work instead of the next disaster.

Eventually, every bit and part of the jacket was coated.

And once it was, the jacket didn’t feel like leather anymore.

You couldn’t feel the individual scales above the leather from how tightly packed they were. It felt organic, like the skin of a snake, smooth when your hand slid over it, tough when you pressed. The surface gave just enough to feel alive, but resisted enough to feel protective.

Then the notification hit like a hammer strike of its own.

***

[Congratulations, you have completed [Journeyman’s Leather Jacket]

You are the first person to ever create an Epic Tier item on the First Floor!]

[Journeyman’s Leather Jacket]

Item rarity: -Epic-

Item Level. 20.

Creator: Kael Ardent.

+20% resistance to Cold.

+20% resistance to pierce damage.

+33 Resistance to Heat.

+10% Stamina regeneration.

Lore: A leather jacket made from superior materials that were meant to create [Basilisk Leather Armor]. Though the original work was crude, it was very innovative and a different approach to the normal methods of creating items in the tower. It has now been completed. And to a far better degree than a normal Basilisk Leather Armor.

[As the creator of this item, the Level Restriction to wear and use it has been omitted]

***

“Damn!” Kael said, and it wasn’t even forced. He held the jacket up, letting it catch what little light existed in the room. The scales reflected faintly, obsidian-black swallowing the blue glow and giving back a subtle sheen like oil on water.

It was… beautiful, in a brutal way.

It seemed that finishing it with the remaining material had added more than just stats. It added cohesion. Identity. The jacket didn’t look like a desperate patchwork anymore. It looked like something made by a person who knew what they were doing. Or at least, a person who was learning terrifyingly fast.

He put it on.

It fit him like a glove.

The weight settled on his shoulders with a comforting heaviness, like a promise that the next flame wave wouldn’t turn him into cooked meat immediately. The inside felt snug, the outside smooth and armored. He rolled his shoulders once, testing movement, and it didn’t bind.

It moved with him.

The only awkward part was the pants from the tracksuit given by the tower. Cheap cloth under a jacket that looked like a predator’s hide. The mismatch was almost funny, in a depressing sort of way, like wearing a king’s crown with peasant slippers.

But he still had material leftovers to work with.

Hatchling leather.

And now he knew the trick.

Once heat-treated, they’d be usable too.

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