Pops came back in a moment later, as Dominic was considering whether he should be making weapons for the Officers, or mass-producing Axes. Likely the axe heads, as they were easier to make than some ornamental blade.
"Ah, apprentice. Welcome back. I see that you made it back somewhat safely. But I come bearing excellent news for you.
You have the next two days off from forge duties to repair your equipment after your journey and prepare yourself for the next weapons push."
Dominic smiled. "Are you certain? I see that you’re making axes, and I’m not bad at those."
Pops snorted in amusement. "I made my ten thousandth axe before your father was born. Now shoo. You’ve got plenty of repairs of your own to make, and you will be expected to have suitable formal armour for social events involving the military beginning next week."
That had not been in the briefing, but Dominic left the old man alone with his work and returned to his room.
His very crowded room, as there were parcels all over the bed and floor.
New work uniforms, formal outfits, hats, a new coat. No, make that three new coats. Mage Robes, and even nightclothes, all in higher quality than his standard apprentice issued versions.
It was a good thing that he had been given a second storage device with his reward inside, Dominic realized. Just putting all of this away would take up the majority of the room in the one that he had grown up with, and if he had to consolidate all the rewards from this trip plus all the new clothes, he would not have enough space.
But the new item, a plain gold ring with no identifying marks, held nearly four times as much as his beloved storage cube, despite being a tiny ring, and not a palm sized cube of magitech.
This had to be proper Spatial Magic, not a Magitech device. Dominic couldn’t see any way that the workings of a storage cube could be condensed into an object that small, much less one so oddly shaped.
That one had much more space, but Dominic preferred to keep all his personal belongings separate from the valuables. At least that way, if someone robbed him, they would likely only take one or the other.
There was also one more advantage to the ring shaped storage device. If you didn’t need anything out of it, you could hide it much more easily.
The number of cores that were currently in Dominic’s storage cube were as many or more than most Smithy workers would be likely to ever have on them, so if he hid the ring, then nobody would be suspicious about hidden wealth.
With that in mind, Dominic removed the ring from his finger, and carefully slid it on his toe.
Once his socks were on, and back in his boots, Dominic found that he could actually access the ring just as easily as the storage cube that he wore inside his robes. Why he had associated the distance from himself with a distance from his hands, he didn’t really know.
He had always kept the cube at his waist, where he could touch it to move things in and out. But in his sock, he was always touching it, and the smooth ring didn’t chafe.
At least, not that he could tell so far. If it did become uncomfortable at work, he would reconsider his plan.
However, Pops was right, he had a lot to do, and that started with repairing his armour. The forge in his room was well stocked, but the ’Cogwork Armour’ that came from his recipe only bore the name thanks to the gear shaped magical circuit pattern that was emblazoned on the chest plate.
There were no other gears involved, and the armour fastened with magic and metal latches. The spell closed the latches when you put the piece on, and held it closed until you, or someone else, deliberately attempted to open a latch.
The plate he had been wearing was completely destroyed, to the point that even the enchantment was damaged. There was no salvaging that, so Dominic used the metal as a base for the rebuild, and then the supplies from the forge to blend a better alloy which might survive a hit or two.
He had a couple of days, so Dominic planned to redo the whole set. If they were supposed to go fully armoured to some of these events, he could at least not embarrass his skills as a Blacksmith while he did it.
Dominic quickly checked his new storage item to see if he had gotten a recipe from among the loot, but found that it was just a collection of Goblin and Ogre crafted common grade magical weapons.
So that left him with no other options for armour other than the Cogwork Plate.
He got to work right away, and then realized that he could actually make these armour pieces much better than the ones he had previously been wearing.
Crafted equipment relied almost entirely on the materials, especially the mana cores. Assuming that you were crafting an item with that method, and not the mana oil bath.
He had a number of Ogre Mana Cores in his storage right now. They were originally intended to be for the creation of the rifles, but they were all level 15 and 16, and the bonuses that they could create on an item were far beyond what he could get from the much lower level Mana Cores sourced from Goblins and Hobgoblins.
With that sort of upgrade, he would have defensive abilities on par with any of the Officers, even if it was still an Uncommon Grade plate.
That shouldn’t draw anyone’s attention, as it was issued to Sergeants and others among the Enlisted soldiers, so Dominic didn’t see a good reason not to make the armour the best he could.
Creating Rare items might cause him headaches in the future if they were going to be worn exposed around the Palace, but everything under that shouldn’t be an issue.