"Mana crystals are solid mana, right?" he asked as he looked at the gems, wondering if they were the crystals the teacher was talking about.
"Uh, yeah, how do you know?" He was honestly a bit surprised that this was not common knowledge or even knowledge for humans.
"weird guess. Those stones have been emanating mana since you took them out, but the mana feels weird," he said, saying the mana was different from the one in the atmosphere or within his own body, almost like the mana had its own nature.
"Ah, so you noticed. Indeed, mana crystals are formed when mana is concentrated in an area in dense amounts over a very long period of time. Depending on the area, the mana crystal formed may also absorb nature or property along with the mana. And that's how we get these. These are called infusion gems since they are used for infusion," he said, pointing to the table where the five gems that were inside the hollow gem were. They were of five colors: red, yellow, blue, white, and purple.
"Each color of the gem represents what kind of infusion you can perform with it. Infusion means, as the name states, infusing the object you have created with a certain mana. There are a lot of mana natures out there; you'll learn them over time, but as an inferior rank, only these 5 are the ones you'll use. red for fire, yellow for lightning, blue for water, white for light infusion, and purple for poison infusion."
"So what exactly does an infusion do?" Does it increase durability? defensive capability? offensive capability? give the item its skills? what exactly?" He asked with a confused look as he picked up the yellow gem in his hand.
"Well, the answer would be all of the above." upon saying that he got just the face he would have expected from Jack. As he sighed and spoke, "You're currently of inferior rank, so you can only apply one of those things to the armor, and that too is randomized. While using an infusion gem, it's more or less a gamble what the effect of the infusion will be, but it's generally one of those that you mentioned. Skills are the rarest, and durability increase or electronic resistance is the most common. As your own rank increases, you will be able to apply multiple effects, but as an inferior rank, only one can be done." Jack was smiling as a chuckle left his lips upon hearing the word gamble. almost as if this was made for him. "One more important detail is that only nature can be infused with any object at once. So don't try to fuse two or kaboom." Jack nodded, understanding and knowing better than to rush things anymore.
He nodded as he had to choose what infusion to fix on his armor. While fire and electricity seemed like the obvious good choices, he also had to think about the rest of the tutorial being in the jungle. He also had to make sure he didn't burn down anything, but fire resistance seemed like a great thing to have. Honestly, he couldn't decide, so he didn't. He put all five gems in his pocket and mixed them before picking one.
"Fire—that's the easiest to infuse. I would have suggested that personally for the first time."
He sighed. Now that one had been chosen, his mind was thinking about the others, but it was a lost cause. He only sighed, and the hologram flew over to the other side of the altar.
"Now use the opposite side of the hammer to make a singular hole in the armor no bigger than a millimeter," he nodded, and instead of slamming down his hammer on the armor, he lightly pulled it on and started tapping on the back of it until he felt it had gone deep enough.
"Good, now plate the tip of the gem you want to infuse at the hole and crush it while, channeling your mana into the armor through it." He nodded as he placed the tip on the hole he had created and pulled his hammer back while channeling his mana through the gem into the armor. The hammer was brought down on the gem as it was shattered to pieces, embers flying in every direction. Suddenly, a very hot feeling engulfed his hands as if they were burning, but he didn't move until all the mana was transferred. After the infusion, a red dot appeared where the hole used to be. It was hot to touch, but he could tell it worked.
[Congratulations on crafting an intermediate-grade item.]
[+100 merits have been awarded.]
[The item has a tamed will.]
[+50 merits have been awarded.]
[The item has a skill.]
[+50 merits have been awarded.]
[Obsidian Flaming Armor, II
Armor crafted from the will and hard work of a prodigy blacksmith. The color is dark as strong flames are infused into the armor.
Abilities:
Solar flare: The user can release an attack of flames that will burn anything and everything within a 10-meter radius. The flames are hot enough to melt steel.
Poison resistance: made from the scales of a basilisk and hosting its spirit, this armor resists 80% of all types of poison damage.]