Date: Unspecified Time: Unspecified Location: Myriad Realms, Lil. Red Storm, Seed World, Trophy Section, Duel Realm, Crafting Sector, Venue: Chaos Dwarven Forge.
"Poison Blaster Mounted Full-Body Rainbow-Scaled Armour," Wyatt said, shaking his head slightly at the memory, reminiscing about the armor. He created it taking inspiration from a hit movie franchise back on earth. He recalled giving that armor card to Susan to feed it to her origin card. "Does it mean something? It doesn't matter; it sounds so cool. I knew you were just saying it to console me," Dulas said with youthful enthusiasm, her bright eyes glancing at Wyatt with admiration.
"You think that's a cool name, kid, clearly something is wrong with your naming sense," Wyatt replied, smiling gently and shaking his head, finding Dulas's childlike innocence both cute and heartwarming.
"Contestant, aren't you afraid I will share all this information with my uncle to help him?" Dulas asked suddenly, looking downcast and fidgeting nervously. She realized that the unknown demon merchant was more supporting and kind to her than her own uncle, who seized every opportunity to call her an idiot or an incompetent fool. She knew she wasn't as skilled as her uncle when it came to crafting or anything else, but every time he called her those names, it hurt deeply. She couldn't help but wonder, 'Why can't Uncle be more unknown contestant?'
"That's because of two reasons. Firstly, I trust my craft and have confidence in the items I create. Secondly, I trust you," Wyatt said sincerely, looking directly at Dulas. However, he had already appraised Bigold's corpse puppets with his soul pupils while crafting his own and concluded they posed no threat to his creations.
That fool, Bigold, had completely ignored the racial advantages of the Froslings, instead focused on increasing their strength and durability while teaching their artificial wills various ice-elemental martial arts. To put it in game terms, he had taken the corpse of an excellent ice-elemental mage and turned it into an average ice-elemental fighter.
Bigold's skills as a crafter were indeed worthy of pride and arrogance, but as a corpse puppet crafter, he was just a novice. He had crafted the Frosling puppets into corpse puppets as though they were like any other. If the chosen species for the duel had been sturdy ones, such as dragonoids, giants, behemoths, or leviathans, his approach might have resulted in excellent corpse puppets. However, this wasn't the case. This glaring misstep highlighted Bigold's limited knowledge in crafting corpse puppets.
Now Wyatt understood why he could only find corpse puppets of species with humanoid shapes and sturdy physiques in Bigold's workshop. It wasn't because the workshop array was determining his preference based on his race, but because these were the best of Bigold's work. He realized he had overestimated Bigold, mistaking his arrogance and pride for the mark of a truly skilled craftsman. He had fallen victim to the exaggerated reputation of the chaos dwarves and their crafts.
Listening to the unknown demon merchant's words, Dulas suddenly felt a surge of inspiration. She wanted to be like him—confident in her craft to the point where she wouldn't have to worry about anything else. She imagined letting her work shoulder all her worries and risks, allowing her to move forward without letting the world bend her to its will. Instead, she wanted to carve her own path, growing unhindered, with a one-track mind focused on her goals. Her eyes glimmered with newfound determination as she clenched her fists slightly.
"So, if you don't mind giving me your contact info, I will contact you if I need any help with crafting. I won't impose on you—you don't have to help me unless you are free and willing to," Dulas said shyly, her voice tinged with both hesitation and hope. She fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve as she awaited his reply, her heart racing at the thought of learning from someone like him in the future.
"Sure, let's exchange contact info after the duel," Wyatt replied with a sly grin, his sharp eyes glinting with amusement. Watching the naive girl eagerly step into his trap was almost too easy. However, his ambitions were greater than just her; Dulas alone wasn't enough to satisfy his appetite. He needed her to bring her friends along too. As he studied her with a calculating gaze, Wyatt couldn't believe that a genius capable of crafting an S-rank item using soul crafting in under half an hour was being relegated to the role of an attendant at the Chaos Dwarven Forge.
'Clearly, the Chaos Dwarves had too many talented crafters if they didn't mind delaying her growth by decades,' Wyatt thought, his grin deepening. 'Well, that's their loss and my gain.' He was more than willing to take ambitious talents like Dulas off their hands and turn them into valuable members of his crafting assembly line.
"Great! But you can't tell this to my uncle," Dulas exclaimed suddenly, her enthusiasm bubbling over as she bit her lip nervously. Her hands wrung together as she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone. "He doesn't like it when I learn crafting from others. He thinks it's disrespectful. But he doesn't teach me anything! All he does is order me around. Dulas, do this. Dulas, do that. Ugh!" She puffed her cheeks in frustration, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.Dulas paused, glancing at Wyatt, and then continued venting with her talkative quirk in full swing. "I swear, when I become a true crafter, I'm going to teach him a lesson! He acts like I'm just some tool for him to boss around, but I'll show him! Just wait and see!"
Wyatt listened, his smile softening slightly as Dulas poured her heart out without holding back. Her passion and innocence were almost endearing, and he could see the fire of ambition burning in her. 'Perfect,' Wyatt thought to himself. 'The more frustrated and undervalued she feels, the easier it'll be to mold her into exactly what I need.'