After learning the basics of the skills from Arthur, Jacob was left to work on them by himself, as Arthur had duties to fulfill as a farmer. His father was correct in that Jacob needed to feed those chickens, but they could wait a while longer while he solidified his gains.
Before he could really make any progress, though, Bran loudly threw open the side door of the barn before walking up to the workbench and slamming his hands on it to get Jacob's attention.
"You're back, and no one told me?!" Bran half-yelled at Jacob. "What the hell?!"
Jacob leaned back on his stool, momentarily startled by the sudden noise, before breaking into a wide grin at the sight of the young tinkerer.
"I just got back yesterday evening, Bran," Jacob said, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "By the time I actually sat down for dinner, it was already getting dark. Then there was the Harvest Festival and my system awakening. There hasn't exactly been a lot of time to send out messengers. Besides, we met your parents at the festival, and they said you had been cooped up in the workshop for a week working on something."
Bran squinted at him, his eyes dragging up and down Jacob's new physique. "I guess I was a little distracted, and I can visibly see that you've been busy. Did the guildmaster have you pulling plows by yourself out there? You look like you ate the old Jacob and turned him into muscle."
That caused Jacob to laugh a little, "I'll take that as a compliment. I was wondering, though, what you were working on in that workshop of yours? Mechanical wonders beyond my comprehension, I hope?"
Bran waved a hand in the air, struggling to find the right words. "It's actually hard to describe. Honestly, it would be much better if I could just show you, but" Bran paused, considering Jacob's new build again, "Do you have the ability to carry someone while flying? I saw you land near the well a few times before you left, but I never saw you carrying passengers."
Jacob broke into a wide grin. "It shouldn't be a problem at all. I actually developed a carry spell, Gentle Hand, for moving the pigs around before I left for camp. With my new mana density, carrying one person will be a breeze."
Bran looked a bit skeptical at being compared to a pig, but his excitement over his project easily won out. "Alright then, let's head to the shop."
They stepped out of the barn and into the crisp morning air. Jacob focused his magic and nearly instinctively cast his flight spell while grabbing Bran with Gentle Hand.
Their liftoff was a bit rough as Jacob had to balance his intent to fly and carry Bran at the same speed, but he was able to figure it out without too much difficulty.
He wouldn't admit to it, but Bran yelped a little right when they took off.
The flight to Ruvka ended up being a smooth journey. The spell held firm, completely insulating Bran from the rushing wind, thanks to Jacob also splitting the air by directly manipulating the air molecules. It was a little trick he picked up on his way home from the grove.
They glided over the familiar tree lines and dirt roads, arriving behind the wainwright's shop in a matter of minutes. Jacob gently touched them down near the large double doors of Bran's private workspace.
"If I can figure out how to craft a flying machine, then I'll never walk again," Bran muttered, smoothing out his tunic as his boots hit the dirt.
He unlocked the heavy wooden doors and pushed them open. The workshop smelled strongly of machine oil and burnt metal. In the center of the room sat a massive object draped in a heavy canvas tarp. It took up as much space as a medium-sized horse carriage without any wheels on it.
Bran walked over and grabbed the edge of the canvas. "I started putting the frame together a couple of weeks after you left. I kept scaling it up as the blacksmith in Thornhold delivered the brass gears."
With a dramatic heave, Bran pulled the tarp away.
Jacob stared in absolute awe, his jaw slightly hanging open for a moment.
Standing before him was a hulking, mechanical war-golem. Its frame was built from thick, treated timber heavily reinforced with iron plating.
Massive, segmented arms hung at its sides, ending in heavy bludgeoning fists that seemed to be set up to flip over within the arm and expose large chopping blades.
Exposed brass gears and pulley systems lined its joints, waiting for a power source to drive them.
"It's magnificent," Jacob whispered, stepping closer to inspect the dense craftsmanship as he ran a finger over the metal plating.
"It's a giant paperweight right now," Bran sighed, crossing his arms. "I got the mechanics working perfectly. The joints articulate with the tuned weight distribution, and the gear ratios are flawless. But it lacks any form of autonomy. Without someone manually turning the crank, it doesn't move. It also falls apart even if I do crank it manually."
Bran huffed a bit in frustration before he continued, "I built it after a dream I had, but it's not working out as well as I had envisioned. After the failure, I was hoping your magic could eventually give it some sort of a brain or way to control it directly."
Jacob's mind was already racing with possibilities. Layered intent shaping, kinetic transfer runes, perhaps even a dedicated core binding to serve as a central power source, and his linkage runes he had used to connect several pieces of enchanted gear in the past in order to create some sort of controller for Bran. It was the perfect blank canvas for his tier 1 magic.
"Bran," Jacob said, a wild spark of excitement in his eyes. "This is exactly the kind of project I need to work on. I'm actually putting a team together to complete the 'Big 3' system quests, and having something like this backing us up would be unbelievable."
Bran's eyes lit up at the mention of the system quests. "A team for the Big 3? Count me in. If we can get this big guy walking, I'll ride on its shoulder the entire time. I've been needing to complete the Big-3 for a while now, but the workshop always keeps me busy."
"I just need to work on my flow of power when enchanting," Jacob said as he continued to inspect the golem, "I don't want to make parts of this project explode into small pieces of timber and metal."
"I noticed the small pile of metal and wooden scraps that used to be a mallet in the barn next to the workbench," Bran replied, "I wasn't going to say anything, but I also think it would be preferable if we didn't do that to the golem."
Jacob sighed, "Yeah, that was me. I think I'll need to get used to enchanting these less-durable types of materials with intent before I try using them, but runic enchanting still works just fine. It seems to regulate itself. The only problem is their rigidity; it would take hundreds, if not thousands, of runes to get a similar effect to layering intent shaping onto the base of runes."
Bran handed him one of his tools as he made a suggestion, "Well, why don't we try working on it while we have some time?"
Nodding his head, Jacob tried to trickle a bit of magical power into the tool with intent. He focused on simply strengthening the material. He could feel the magic taking shape and starting to change the structure to a more stable form.
That's when he started to feed more of his power into the tool, but it started to whine under the pressure before it cracked while Jacob was focused on his intent, so Bran knocked the tool out of his hands with a wooden handle he had picked up.
"That was too much power," Bran stated as he grabbed a wrench off the bench and handed it to Jacob. "I have no idea what to tell you besides suggesting that you ease up on the magic."
"Easier said than done," Jacob replied as he focused his intent once more.
He kept his magic to a bare trickle. The iron wrench in his hand vibrated as the mana flowed into it.
For a moment, the structure held, and his intent began to set correctly. Then, his dense tier 1 mana naturally surged to fill the empty space within the tool. Without feedback to push against his mana, it seemed his density was too much for the blank mana field of the tool.
The iron let out a groan, and a hairline fracture spiderwebbed across the handle.
Jacob cursed and dropped the wrench onto the workbench before it could detonate. "It's like trying to fill a clay pot with rocks by throwing them from across the barn, except the damned pot is acting like a vacuum in this case and destroying itself."
Bran picked up the fractured tool. "Don't worry about it. Just watch this."
The tinkerer closed his eyes and placed his hands over the cracked iron. An amber light suddenly gathered around his palms.
The split edges of the fracture softened, and the metal seemed to flow backward, fusing together perfectly until the wrench looked brand new. Jacob didn't even feel any heat coming from the process; it seemed to just naturally flow back together.
Jacob stared at the restored tool. "You have a repair skill?"
"I sure do," Bran said with a grin. "And repairing magical damage gives it a massive boost. I gained a level just from that one repair. Let's go again."
For the next hour, the workshop turned into a bizarre training ground. Jacob would pick up a tool, focus his intent, and inevitably push too much dense mana into the material.
The wood would splinter, or the iron would warp. Before the tools could completely shatter, Jacob would drop them, or Bran would slap them out of his hands, and the tinkerer would step in with his amber light to mend the damage.
It was a cycle of destruction and restoration. Jacob felt a bead of sweat roll down his face as he ruined his seventh chisel of the morning.
Even though he was failing to control his mana output, he could feel his intent-shaping skill getting a microscopic workout. Bran, on the other hand, was unperturbed as he grinned with satisfaction every time he used his ability.
Eventually, Jacob set a warped pair of pliers down on the bench and let out a heavy sigh.
"I'm done," Jacob conceded, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "My control is getting a little better, but we're not getting anywhere close to the precision I need for the golem. Or any intent-based enchanting for low-level materials, for that matter. I need to figure out a better way to throttle my mana."
Bran nodded, looking a bit tired himself but highly accomplished. "We made some good progress on my end, at least. My mending skill leveled up twice. Once you develop that ability into a system skill, I bet it will be much easier to tweak the output."
Jacob looked at his friend, a sudden thought occurring to him. He had been so focused on his own system integration that he had neglected to ask about the people around him. "By the way, what is your class anyway?"
Bran paused while wiping grease off his hands with a rag. He gave Jacob a highly confused look. "I told you what I was a long time ago."
Jacob tilted his head. "You did? I don't remember you mentioning a system class."
"I said I was a Tinkerer," Bran replied flatly.
Jacob froze. His eyes went wide as enlightenment washed over his face.
He had spent the last six months thinking 'tinkerer' was just the village term for a mechanic or an apprentice wainwright. He had completely failed to realize it was Bran's literal, system-assigned class.
"Oh," Jacob said, a sheepish smile forming on his lips. "Right. The Tinkerer class. I definitely knew that."