Things were smooth-sailing after Sofia returned from her short punitive trip. Word of what had happened to the assassin had spread like wildfire through the city, and now everyone was on their best behavior.

Sofia had dreaded that she might have to deal with a mountain of paperwork again, but Ihuarah ended up basically taking control of the city in the few hours she was away. In other words, after dealing with the case of the dead dwarf, he had simply started working on all the remaining boring and tedious administrative work. Sofia quietly decided to let him work, worried that he might decide to stop if she interrupted him.

She spent the next few days with Alith, Astelia, and the Engineer skeleton, all working together in Erredis’ workshop. Under the Dragon’s guidance, they managed to craft some exceptional gear. Astelia learned how to operate the Odalite forge and began to upgrade every single piece of equipment for everyone in Sofia’s group, including herself. Alith managed to master some sneaky draconic tactics to layer enchantments on her indestructible rapier despite being unable to carve anything on it, and Sofia worked on her glove.

This was her idea for the Philosopher’s stone. She absolutely could not afford to lose it, and since it couldn’t be soul-bound, the next best thing was to embed it inside of another piece of equipment like Victory’s crown was going to be embedded into her new helmet.

The glove’s description said it cannot be damaged but Sofia had long noticed that as long as it was her toying with it, it was basically just a regular black lace glove.

Was messing with the glove that Aphenoreth gifted her a good idea?

Absolutely not.

She still did it anyway. Prying open the glove’s lace patterns with extreme caution over the course of a few days, she slotted the Philosopher’s stone inside, and tightened the lace back around it. Out of everything she owned, that glove was the only thing that never left her, no matter what. She could be blown up to a fine dust and the glove would still be on her hand when her body reformed. Now the Philosopher’s stone was part of it, the name and description of the item even changed.

[Inquisitor’s philosophy] : Was it always meant to end up this way?

Contains: [The philosopher’s stone]

Cannot be damaged. Soul-bound.

The end of the joint crafting sessions happened when Erredis started slamming a bunch of rocks into the almost finished helmet. They were not quite the same as the perfect chaos enhancement stone Sofia had used to upgrade her staff, and had a much higher chance to result in negative outcomes, but Erredis made up for that with sheer wealth, burning through hundreds of stones until she got the results she wanted. When Sofia asked how much that had cost her Erredis categorically refused to answer. She also hid the helmet’s stats from everyone else as she worked on it.

Nothing stopped the Dragon’s hubris on her path to crafting a perfect item, she even added short blades in a crown-like pattern on top of the helmet. The reason? She had designed the entire thing from the ground up with the hope that the helmet would count as enough of a physical weapon for Sofia’s catalyst to be able to upgrade it even further.

Even Pestle was shocked beyond words when the helmet got upgraded into a ‘spellcasting capable weapon’ with an extra random magic effect and a catalyst slot. After that she started calling Erredis by her proper name like Sofia bringing up the number of names she wouldn’t butcher up to two.

After much anticipation, everyone watched the finished helmet coming out of the Odalite forge. It was quite wide, designed with special space inside for the bone armor to add its protective layer within. The design was imposing, with a flat top, the thin blades at the top arranged like the tips of Pareth’s crown. The seamless faceplate was designed to look vaguely like Sofia’s demon face and had no openings, but was completely transparent from the inside, it could be opened with just a thought from the wearer, and had the helmet’s catalyst slot in the middle of its forehead. It all came with an articulated gorget that gave full neck and head mobility while covering the upper chest, and could effortlessly connect with both Sofia’s armguard and her bone armor. The entire thing shimmered with a magical glow, and its thick external Mithrium layer had shifted not purple like Erredis’ weapon but to the exact same dark blue as the dragon scale armguard, making them look like they had always been parts of the same armor.

Erredis ceremoniously picked up the helmet, and placed it on Sofia’s head, sharing with her every last detail of its effects.

[Tempered Hollow Holiness Great Helm +11]

Now has the capabilities of a mithrium focus for spellcasting purposes.

[Greater enhanced self-sufficiency]

[Ultimate enhanced durability]

[Ultimate enhanced magic guard]

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[Ultimate enhanced heat resistance]

[Ultimate enhanced kinetic damper]

[Ultimate enhanced flight enhancer]

Body parts protected by this helmet are immune to all damage as long as your health is above 40%.

Relocates your mana heart’s default resting position to the inside of your skull.

When your health reaches 0, you may choose to trigger [Phageian void blast] for free.

Chance to trigger [Sight of glory and madness] +0.12% per divine essence held.

The following effects always remain active as long as this helmet was worn for at least one full day in the past month:

Contains: [Saintomancer’s Golden crown of Victory] and [Saint’s pride] with full effects.

Maximum memorization ability +1200000%

Maximum eyesight capability +120000%

Maximum reading speed +12000%

Maximum thinking speed +1200%

Processing +120%

Aura +12%

Chance to trigger: [Sight of glory and madness]

+1.2%

Catalyst: None.

Restriction : Sofia Aphenoreth.

[Sight of glory and madness]:

I can see everything.

0.1 (3.58)% Chance to automatically activate in dangerous or key moments.

Processing atomic data, available EV, and entropy, briefly shows all possible futures of the immediate happenings, highlighting the single best and worst possible outcomes.

Thinking speed augmented to consciousness limit during activation.

[Phageian void blast]:

The Alphageid’s ultimate trump card, now in humanity’s hands.

Absorb all nearby mana, including your own, converting it into temporary extra health equal to the mana absorbed, then unleash a violent black energy explosion with a radius equal to your far aura range.

Cooldown: unalterable 24 hours.

[Greater enhanced self-sufficiency]:

Nobody likes to pay a subscription just to wear clothes.

Reduce this equipment’s passive mana cost by 75%

[Ultimate enhanced durability]:

Theoretically not indestructible. Theoretically.

This equipment’s overall toughness is equal to the sum of its two toughest components.

This equipment’s toughness +100%

[Ultimate enhanced magic guard]:

Your ultimate spell?! AH! It won’t even leave a dent!

This equipment’s reduced magic damage taken +95%

This equipment’s user reduced magic damage taken +10%

[Ultimate enhanced heat resistance]:

I suddenly feel an urge to bathe in lava.

This equipment’s overall melting point is equal to the highest one of its components +1000%

Reduce heat felt by the user above comfort level by 95%

[Ultimate enhanced kinetic damper]:

If you crash into the moon, better to crash head-first!

Reduce impact felt when damage is absorbed by this equipment by 95%

This equipment’s user knockback and recoil resistance +50%

[Ultimate enhanced flight enhancer]:

Is this how the child of a Fae and an Avian feels like?

Reduce flight drag in all non-solids by 95%

Maximum flight speed +100%

Erredis took a step back, observing Sofia wearing her creation.

“If you claimed to have this world’s second best helmet, I don’t think anyone would dare to claim first place. This is even better than mine,” she said, oozing with smugness and pride.

“Lords,” Alith muttered under her breath.

Even Dopple and Astelia cursed as they read the description.

“How bad is the void blast?” Sofia asked, her thoughts muddled not only by the absurd effects of the helmet, but also by just how badly it messed with her senses. Her eyes were having a hard time to adjust to the sheer absurdity of the level of detail they could take in. At one point it even seemed to zoom endlessly so much that a single blade of grass would occupy her entire vision and all she could see were a bunch of strange wriggling shadows.

“How bad? I’d suggest you only use it in outer space,” Erredis casually said, “Anyway, now we need to make another one of those bone sprite catalysts to fill that slot, let’s go hunting for elementals!”

Without asking anyone what if they wanted to come, Erredis teleported the entire group, leaving only Pareth behind, due to his teleportation immunity. Pareth looked around, gave a shrug to the few people outside of the workshop who had witnessed the scene, and teleported to Sofia.