Andre’s fingers stayed on Kael’s gauntlets a second longer than they had any right to, like the metal itself offended him and fascinated him at the same time. He turned one glove over, squinted at the seams where the rune sockets met the arm-guard, and then clicked his tongue like he’d just bitten into grit.

"But..." Andre said as he placed the gauntlets down, "This won’t do. Can’t make it, not like this." He sighed.

The gauntlets landed on the workbench with a dull, heavy clack. Not loud, just final. Kael felt that sound in his teeth more than his ears. He’d walked in here half-expecting Andre to fix everything with two grumpy swings of a hammer. Instead, the dwarf was looking at Kael’s pride like it was a house built on wet cardboard.

"Wait, why, the idea is solid though, even I can make it, but I need your hammering and forging skills," Kael said.

He leaned forward without meaning to, palms braced on the edge of the table. The forge light flickered against the metal mesh of the gauntlets, highlighting the texture Kael had been proud of before it became something Andre called "drunk ogre work."

Andre didn’t even flinch at the pushback. He just shook his head slowly, like he was watching someone argue with gravity.

"No," Andre shook his head, "Ain’t about the forgin’, it’s the material. To find somethin’ that can handle runes... without wastin’ energy, that’s the real chore. And look here," he said as he pointed at the fire rune.

Kael’s eyes followed the stubby finger, and for a moment his brain refused to register what he was seeing, because it didn’t match his assumptions.

The fire rune sat where it always did in his mind: permanent. Stable. Tower-proof.

But on its surface,

A fissure. A hairline crack that hadn’t been there before.

It wasn’t dramatic. No chunks missing. No pieces flaking. Just a thin fracture that caught the lantern light at the wrong angle, like a tiny fault line in stone.

Kael took it from the table and held it closer, rotating it slowly.

"Wait when did that happen?" he frowned.

The crack made his stomach do something unpleasant. It wasn’t fear exactly, it was the sensation of a tool failing, the way a bolt shears or a cable frays when you’re halfway up a scaffold and the only thing under you is air.

"Don’t know. Maybe ye’ve been pushin’ the rune too hard."

Kael’s fingers tightened. He hadn’t felt it weakening. The rune still burned. Still answered. Still spat fire when he asked. But that didn’t mean it was fine. That only meant it wasn’t dead yet.

"I thought runes were permanent..."

"They are, if ye use ’em proper. But you’re usin’ the fire rune as the output itself. It’ll break, sooner or later. A rune’s meant t’ be a conduit and a source... not the whole blasted mechanism."

Kael stared at the rune like it had personally betrayed him. He’d treated it like a battery and a nozzle at the same time, because that’s what he had. Because he needed something that worked now, not something "proper."

And the tower had let him get away with it.

Until it didn’t.

Kael forced himself to breathe through the frustration. "Is there anything else I can use as a source then?"

Andre’s eyes slid up and down Kael the way a smith judges scrap, what’s useful, what’s wasted, what’s salvageable.

"Depends..." Andre said then looked at Kael, "Though... truth be told, ye might already have it."

Kael’s patience thinned. He didn’t like riddles from people who clearly knew the answer. "What is it then?" Kael asked.

Andre’s gaze flicked briefly to the workbench, to the gauntlets, to the belt mechanism Kael had built, then back to Kael’s face like he was measuring whether Kael would actually listen.

"Didn’t ye take down the first floor’s boss? If I recall... an Ifrit, aye?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Drops a core every time down there. Ye got it?" Andre asked.

Kael hesitated only because it still felt surreal that he’d even had an Ifrit core. That wasn’t supposed to be a "day one" item. That was the kind of thing guild leaders flexed in taverns while everyone pretended not to stare.

"I do," Kael said as he pulled out the red Ifrit core.

The orb’s glow wasn’t bright, but it had presence, like a coal that refused to cool. It painted the table with a thin red sheen and made the air around it feel a fraction warmer.

"I also have another," he said as he propped up the Basilisk core.

The second one sat heavier in the eye. Darker. Not just in color, its feel was different. Dense. Like it had mass in places mass shouldn’t exist.

Andre’s expression changed immediately.

Not awe, Andre didn’t "awe." But interest, sharp and sudden, the kind of focus a craftsman couldn’t fake if he tried.

"Oh... now that’s interestin’. Female core... ain’t seen one o’ these in a long while."

Kael blinked. "Are they rare?" Kael asked.

"Aye, rare enough. Hard for a group t’ coordinate well enough t’ bring her down. Findin’ one this early? That’s somethin’. Most folk only ever see the one left behind in her nest, her partner’s core."

Kael’s mouth twitched. The memory of bargaining in Baltak’s shop flashed through his mind, and he immediately felt that familiar, bitter itch, the one you get when you realize you’ve been played.

"Oh," Kael said, too casually. "I sold that one for a hundred cores..."

Andre snorted, "Hah, ye got fleeced. Though I reckon ye needed the cores. Still, these’ll do, better replacements for that fire rune... and that darkness one ye’ve got."

Kael stared at him. "I never realized they could be used as catalysts."

Andre nodded as if Kael had finally caught up to a fact everyone else learned the hard way. "They’ll break in time, same as anything else, but unlike runes, ye can swap these out easy enough."

That line stuck. Swap these out easy enough.

Kael’s brain immediately began building systems around it. If runes were delicate conduits, and cores were disposable power hearts, then he didn’t need to risk cracking a rune every time he wanted output. He needed a socketed "engine" that could be replaced.

Which meant his gauntlets weren’t just weapons.

They were platforms.

His eyes returned to Andre. "So about the gauntlet, what materials do I need? To replace them?"

"I don’t know," Andre shrugged, "Haven’t worked runes this deep before. But ye’ll need somethin’ sturdy, light, and able t’ carry mana clean. Only thing comes t’ mind is somethin’ ye won’t like."

Kael’s brow furrowed. "What is it?"

"Mithril... and don’t go gettin’ ideas, lad. Ye’re better off not chasin’ it. Adamantium could work too, but that’s heavier. Same problem either way."

Kael exhaled through his nose, half a laugh without humor. Of course it was mithril. The word alone sounded like "expensive," and if the tower loved anything, it was making the best solutions inaccessible on purpose.

"Just tell me the issue with those materials old man."

"They cost a bloody fortune," Andre said.

That answered the obvious part.

Kael thought for a second. If he couldn’t afford them...

"Can they be mined anywhere near?"

"Not on these floors, no. Ye’d have t’ make it up t’ the fortieth floor if ye want t’ mine it yerself."

Kael’s face went still. Forty floors wasn’t "later." Forty floors was a journey, a long one, a bloody one, a "years in the tower" kind of one.

"I suppose people who have mithril on this floor were those who climbed high enough to obtain it."

"Aye. That, or their guild handed it t’ them. That’s where guilds earn their keep. Might want t’ think on joinin’ one if ye need the support."

Kael’s lips pressed into a line.

He could almost hear the pitch: Join us, and we’ll provide. And he could also see the hidden text behind it: Join us, and you’ll be owned.

"And then be bound to their whims and wishes, not for me, not right now," Kael said.

Andre’s eyes narrowed, not angry, just... unimpressed. "Ye’re no Fist King, lad. Think on it proper," Andre said.

Kael didn’t answer immediately. He was thinking. He just wasn’t thinking in the direction Andre wanted.

A guild wasn’t the only way to get materials. It was the clean way. The safe way. The polite way.

Kael had never been afforded polite ways.

His mini-map wasn’t a "guild," but it was better than one if you knew how to abuse it. Treasures existed. They moved. They were owned. They were lost. They changed hands. Kael could hunt opportunities the way others hunted monsters.

And he didn’t need permission.

"For now, hand ’em over. I’ll fix what I can with what I’ve got. Ye can pay me back the rest when ye’ve got it, and don’t go dyin’ in some ditch before ye do." Andre said.

The offer wasn’t warm, but it was real. Andre wasn’t "nice." He was practical, like the bartender said. Practical meant: you’re useful, so I won’t let you be wasted.

Kael didn’t hesitate to hand over the gauntlets.

This time it wasn’t surrender. It was investment.

If Andre improved even a fraction of what Kael built, Kael would learn more from watching that process than any tutorial, any rumor, any half-drunk advice in a tavern. He’d see the difference in how a real smith treated metal and flow and balance, not just how to make something work, but how to make it work well.

And more importantly.

How to make it work without breaking the very runes keeping him alive.