Project: Gamer Ver. Error, File Not Found
Anime Adjacent Entry: 067
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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22/7/1993
The question on quite a few sets of lips was 'What is an Adamant Knight when it's at home?'
The mages in Kyoto were livid at the disrespect the armored man showed to their vaunted traditions. Almost as furious as they were at the lunatic casting magic on live television.
The mages in northern Tokyo were a bit more mixed, having much to do with the fact that their traditions were only a little over one-hundred years old and less heavily rooted in the unyielding past.
They were still feeling nervous at the blatant use of unknown magics but their reaction was far less than their Kyoto counterpart.
As for the 'Adamant Knight'?
Areru was actually spending the day at home, idly working through a book he needed to write a report on. The concerns of old men, clinging to power they stole and hid in the shadows meant little enough to him as to be less than a passing thought.
He had greater concerns.
Putting the book down after flipping a page, the young man looked over the table to a quartet of rather curious devices.
Diamonds, rather large ones at that... though not the ones he needed for a later spell. Rather, these were shells. Areru had manufactured a quartet of diamond containers, each of them made of two parts that bolted together to form a clear container with a small wire of silver that fed into them. They'd been further reinforced with the old, old spell Augment Object, significantly improving not just the hardness but also their fragile durability.
Inside of each container? Magic.
Pure magic. Aspected to the four traditional western elements of Fire, Water, Wind and Earth.
Areru lifted one of the containers up so that light could filter through it and tilted it from side to side, tipping his head in the opposite direction as he tilted the crystal before pursing his lips and setting the glowing jar back down on the table.
It wasn't ready, yet.
Areru hummed, his voice quiet, as he pinched his fingers around the wire of the Fire-filled crystal and focused for a moment to push more Fire Magic into it. The wire glowed red and the light within the crystal grew in intensity...
Until Areru cut off the magic and returned to his book.
The magic concentrators that Areru had manufactured were not a new idea for the teen. In another life, he'd made something similar out of Darksteel and filled it with his own raw magic, manufacturing a crystallized orb of magic that was uniquely suited to him and him alone. It had gone on to form the heart of an artificial body, helping the teen restore a lost, wandering soul to the world of the living.
This... was a similar methodology, on the surface, but the process was intended to have radically different...
Well, no, Areru supposed the end result -would- be rather similar, wouldn't it?
Still. These were merely lesser parts that would lead to further steps down the line.
As for why he needed four crystals of significant elemental potency?
Honestly? They were... something like a third option where the first one was impossible and the second was impalatable. The four crystals he was in the process of manufacturing were, rather simply put, Alchemy reagents.
The normal recipe tree for what Areru needed called for materials that simply didn't exist. Not so far as he knew, anyway. Not on Earth.
The second option, the one that he had no intention of following through with, required Areru track down, kill, and harvest the flesh of Apex Spirits attuned to the elements. The simplest option would actually be to use the Gate spell to do so, but...
Well. That was honestly just kidnapping and murder followed in short order by the desecration of a corpse. It wasn't as though there was some wild Fire Spirit somewhere out there, following the will of some psychopath that Areru wouldn't feel guilty about gutting.
...Was there?
Areru flipped another page and continued reading.
He supposed it wouldn't really matter if there were. Unless he could track down spirits of the other three elements, the odd one out would completely imbalance the end result which would skew the later reactions.
It was better to keep things stable and balanced, at least where he could.
A chunk of Red Stone, one that was thoroughly energized at that. A concentration of the four elemental energies. Outside, Areru's other half was working with a small army of wraiths to manufacture a few ingots of Adamantine metal.
Honestly, the teen felt rather energized. He hadn't touched Alchemy in... well, he'd done bits and pieces but he'd avoided any large undertakings. He certainly didn't have access to any Alkahest any longer, a miraculous material harvested from the restless dead that could be used to reverse most forms of magical crafting. Which meant that any mistakes he made could be costly and permanent.
Although, Areru idly thought as he flipped another page in his book. He was not looking forward to acquiring the missing ingredient in that particular mix.
Well. He'd see to it when it came time to get it, he supposed.
Any further ruminations on the future were put on hold when someone began poking Areru's side. Putting his book down and looking over, the culprit appeared to be a rather excited and grinning Ryoko. The spirit was waving her hands rapidly, going through signs too fast for Areru to really make out before she just pointed at the television.
Where a giant mass of bone and muscle was fading to the bottom of the screen and disintegrating.
"You beat it?" Areru asked as he got up. He hurried over to watch the final cutscene with Ryoko, the woman hovering right at his shoulder as he did so. "You beat it!"
The story of Final Fantasy Four felt like it should have been familiar to Areru. He felt like he should have known the words, the maps, the... everything.
And yet he didn't. Every twist and turn in the romantic drama of Cecil and Rosa had been just as new and exciting for him as they'd been for Ryoko.
Areru reached over and squeezed the woman's hand, a smile on his face as he saw tears form at the edges of her eyes as one of the characters, Golbez or Theodore or whatever name he wanted to be called, accepted a fate of isolation to atone for the crimes he'd committed against his will.
That was the mark of a good story, he knew.
If it made you cry, if it made you feel something...
Something other than frustration at the idiocy of the characters, anyway.
Then it was a story worth experiencing.
Oh, low blow! 
