Transmigrated as a Ghost

Hearing Edzard's plea to introduce him to Lilia so he could get a grasp on force magic and integrate it into his own works, Marcus could only shake his head.

"Sorry my sister already put up with my own studying and testing and it was pretty hard on her, I doubt she could put up for it with a stranger. And while I do respect you and appreciate your allowing me to use your facilities, I am afraid I will not be divulging any of my secrets."

With his expression turning into a frown Edzard nearly offered Marcus a ingot of adamantine but seeing the resolute look in his eye decided against it.

Sighing Edzard said, "Very well, we all have our secret techniques and such, so I cannot fault you. Well thank you for showing this to me, it has been awhile since I have had a chance to see such good work from anyone else."

Marcus winced a little hearing this since many of the members of Edzard's Cobalt Forge were around and could hear him and looking at their faces Marcus could see the displeasure on their faces.

Of course, what Edzard had said was true, most of the people working here were not above level twenty-five and only three of them other than Edzard could make truly quality work.

"Now since you showed me what you have been working on, how about I take you back to my workshop and you can look at my most recent project."

Edzard then turned around and started heading to his private work room and Marcus followed behind getting irritated gazes from those working in the forge.

Naturally they were displeased that their boss and in some of their cases their master, was showing such favoritism to Marcus, but Edzard really did not care, having someone close to his skill level to talk to was rare and he was not going to pass it up.

Walking into his personal work room, Edzard immediately moved over to one of the tables and brought back with him a mithril bow.

"Here is my most recent creation, which is for the coming-of-age ceremony for the city's victory's daughter."

Taking the bow and looking it over, Marcus as impressed by the workmanship and the details on the bow.

However, it definitely took in aesthetic over effect, but that was actually quite normal for weapons used by nobles.

"It is impressive, I do not doubt that the viceroy and his daughter will be quite pleased with it. And since you showed me this, I suppose I should show you the other things I had been working on."

Taking out his and Lilia's new weapons along with his armor, Marcus laid them out on one of the empty work benches and let Edzard inspect them.

"Impossible!"

In a state of shock Edzard looked at the three masterpieces that Marcus had just pulled out.

He had never expected to see three different items that had been recognized by the system since he only rarely created one even with all of his experience.

Needing a minute to get a grip of himself, Edzard took a deep breath and asked, "Did you really just make these."

Nodding his head Marcus started explaining the basic qualities of each one as Edzard listened intently.

"Terrifying." Edzard mumbled under his breath while listening to Marcus. 

He had never heard of someone making so many different pieces of such high-level equipment in such short succession. Making two items recognized by the system back-to-back would already be considered a miracle but three seemed like an impossibility.

'Thabon, you have found yourself a real monster.'

Edzard continued to thoroughly examine Marcus' work and he only became more and more impressed.

Certainly, he had made better but only with far superior resources, and if he used the exact same supplies as Marcus, he doubted he could produce items of the same quality.

"You have given this old man a real surprise Irene. To think you could make such items, to call you a genius would be an understatement. These are better than even some items I have seen made out of adamantine."

Happy to receive such praise from a master Marcus had a proud expression on his face as he said, "Thank you for the compliments, I have worked hard to perfect my craft, though I do admit I have certain advantageous over most people."

Marcus then explained that he had a blessing that increased his affinity with working with metal and Edzard nodded his head.

"Yes, those with blessing like fire and the like, do give people an edge in forging. However, one's talent is only a part of it, their hard work is what shows in the end."

The two of them then continued to talk about forging for a bit with Edzard constantly commending Marcus for his fine work.

"Well, I think it about time for me to go. I have left my sister on her own for five days now and I have a meeting I need to get to tomorrow."

A bit reluctantly Edzard let Marcus go telling him that if he ever wanted to work on something together, he knew where to find him and that he was welcome at any time.

Exiting the Cobalt Forge the first thing Marcus did was try to ascertain Lilia's whereabouts.

'Roxene, do you know where Lilia is.'

Contacting his beast companion via their link, Marcus wanted to see if she knew where Lilia was, but Roxene responded saying, 'No idea where she is, I have been busy trying the finest dishes in the city, so I have not seen her in a couple of days.'

Hearing this Marcus shuddered since he had no idea what kind of trouble Roxene had gotten up to, but he figured eh could worry about that latter.

'Looks like a dead end, let me try Blitz.' 

'Hey blitz do you know where Lilia is.'

Waiting for a couple moments Marcus got a response from Blitz who said, 'Yes she is currently on a job outside the city walls my liege. A den of gnolls have been making trouble so she is dispatching them.'

'Okay when she is back in the city send me a message.'

'Understood my liege.'

With nothing else to do Marcus decided to take a stroll into the dungeon and test out the new items he had made. 

Going into the familiar forest zone, Marcus pulled out Lilia's gauntlets first to make sure that they worked as intended.

Jumping into he air, Marcus activated one of the enchantments on the gauntlets and made a wind platform under his foot.

The platform only lasted for about a second but by chaining them Marcus was able to hop around in the air quite effectively.

'Well, it works pretty well, and now Lilia can engage flying enemies in the air.'

Landing back on the ground Marcus smashed the two gauntlets together and activated the enhanced fortification ability on them.

Marcus then hit himself and could tell that the gauntlets were working as intend and increased his toughness.

Testing out the remaining enchantments Marcus found them all to work perfectly, and he was quite satisfied with his work.

Next Marcus pulled out the six lens he had made and brought one up in front of him.

'Let me see how well these actually work.'

Casting a shining lance spell, Marcus tossed it through one of the light crystal lens and watched as the lance sped up and increased in power, before smashing into the side of the dungeon wall and leaving a deep hole.

'Hm I would say that one is an increase in power from somewhere to ten to twelve percent.'

Continuing to test out his floating lens Marcus found that each individual one only gave a slight increase in power but when stacked together they compounded on each other.

'Laser.'

Firing his tier four light magic spell through all three lens Marcus watched as the beam became more focused and cut through everything in its path for a far greater distance than normal.

'I have to say that these have worked out better than I thought they would. Most people use staffs to increase their magic but with these I can wield my scythe and use these to augment my spells.'

Marcus continued testing out the floating lenses' effects for a bit, but unfortunately found they did not work well with radiance scales since the spell had such a wide range and worked automatically.

Yet the rest of his spell benefited greatly from the lenses so all in all, Marcus was quite happy about it.

He then was about to test out his scythe when he received a message from Blitz that Lilia had entered the city again after successfully completing her mission.

'Guess it is time to go.'

Running back out of the dungeon Marcus had Blitz keep him updated on Lilia's position as he moved to meet back up with her.

Thus, he began making his way towards the adventurers guild where she was going to turn in her completed requests.

Arriving outside Marcus quickly noticed Blitz who had been tied up and gave him a nod indicating that Lilia was inside.

Walking in Marcus scanned the room and saw Lilia was at the reception window turning in the proof of her completed requests.

However, even after that Lilia did not leave and the guild employee handed her a number of pieces of paper before sending her off.

Lilia looked a bit dispirited as she walked away but when she saw Marcus waiting for her, she perked up immediately and ran right for him.

She then jumped at him and gave him a big hug that probably would have killed someone with a low level.

"It is good to see you too Lilia. Let us go get a seat at the bar and we can talk about what we have both been up to."

Lilia nodded her head furiously and nearly dragged Marcus towards an empty booth where they could sit down and catch up.

"I see, sounds like you have had a couple of wild adventures, but I am glad that you managed to complete all of your requests without too much trouble."

During their time apart Lilia had been quite active doing the few lower leveled requests that the guild had and had actually started to make a name for herself.

With her young age and relatively high level, many of the lower ranked parties in the city had tried to recruit her, though Lilia had rejected all of them.

In fact, she told Marcus that one party that was angry at her for taking all the good requests even attacked her outside the wall, only for her and her beast companions to beat them within an inch of their lives and turn them into the authorities.

"I have also been pretty busy and while I am not go to whip them out here, I have made you a new set of armor and gauntlets that are much better than what you are currently wearing."

Lilia's eyes then seemed to beam with light hearing this, as she had started to notice that her current gauntlets were not able to keep up with her strength like they used to.

"Oh yeah I nearly forgot, the receptionist told me that I needed you to sign this so that I could apply for becoming a silver rank, which I just met the requirements for." Lilia said with a proud smile on her face.

Taking the couple pieces of paper from Lilia, Marcus looked them over before finding a pen and signing them.

Apparently, Lilia need permission from her guardian to be allowed to take the silver rank advancement test since she could incur injuries during it and was still a minor.

But Marcus was not worried at all since he was confident that Lilia was more than strong enough to become silver rank.

"There you go, I have signed them so go ahead and turn them in."

With a bright smile Lilia took the papers and went back up to the reception windows and waited in line to be served.

After that was done, she came back to Marcus and told him that her test would be conducted in three days.

This caused Marcus' mood to fall just a bit since he would already be gone at that point and would not be able to cheer Lilia on, but that was just how it was sometimes.

"Okay I guess lets get out of here and go back to the inn where I can give you your new gear."