It didn't take me long to make my way to the private hangar, since it was purposely close to the bridge. The bay had a few droid guards on duty, watching the doors, as well as several other droids scanning the ship for any faults. The starship hadn't even seen much action during the mission to save Clan Galti, but routine maintenance on such complicated machinery was still necessary.

  I greeted Calima as I made my way through the ship, the pilot happily reading in the lounge, sitting on the couch. After grabbing myself a drink, I made my way back through the ship and settled into my enchanting room, which was actually pretty well kept at the moment. I was in between major batches of enchanted gear, which meant the room was still neatly organized from the last time I had used it. I would likely have to start making another batch of equipment soon, but for now, I was still well stocked from my most recent Kyber crystals hunt and filling mission. At this point, I had made four such trips in total and was fully stocked with charged soul gems.

  After settling in for a moment, I grabbed a few filled gems and placed them on the table, once again going over the plan in my head. I had three enchantments in mind for my new sword: one passive, something that would typically go in armor or a shield, and two active enchantments that would generally go on a weapon.

  Passive enchantments, like strength or dexterity enhancement, drew energy from around the wearer, which was why you couldn't get them too close together. For example, wearing two rings on one hand would cause the enchantments to starve each other of energy and weaken themselves. However, they did not interact with active enchantments, which were fed directly by soul gems. This meant I could use an everlasting passive enchantment while stacking as many active enchantments as I wanted.

  Well, technically, I could use as many active enchantments as I wanted, but realistically, there was a hard limit. The more active enchantments a weapon had, the more and more power-hungry it became. At my skill level, which was very much on the higher end, having two active enchantments on one item would require refilling every other battle or so. If I tried to stuff any more active enchantments into the blade, I would be constantly having to feed it soul gems in order to keep it working. Not only was that not cost-effective, but it was also dangerous, as the enchantment could cut out in the middle of a fight, stunting something your fighting style may depend on.

  After much deliberation, I finally began, starting with the passive protection enhancement, which was technically designed to make armor tougher but would do the same to the sword, making it even more resistant to damage. I would, undoubtedly, be fighting more people with lightsabers, and while beskar was considerably resistant to them, it was not invulnerable. This extra layer of strength would close that gap considerably, meaning I wouldn't have to reforge or retemper it every time I tapped it with a lightsaber.

  This first enchantment took hours, as I was pushing myself hard to get the most out of the soul gems and the enchantment as I could. I knew my brain would be toast when I was done with all of this, but I was too excited to have a kick-ass magic sword to care.

  When I was done reinforcing the sword, I took a moment to recover. I was pushing my limitations here, and while my skill with enchanting had grown massively as I kept my people stocked with enhancements, this was still putting a strain on me.

  When I had fully recovered, nearly an hour later, I immediately started on the first active enchantment, an edge enhancement that would make the already dangerously sharp weapon even sharper. Luckily, it would only activate as I swung the sword, or I would be worried that it would cut through its own sheath. I was hoping the enhanced edge would allow the blade to cut through lower-quality armor, but I would have to wait to test it. Either way, it would help with hacking through bones and other stuff likely to catch a standard weapon.

  The moment I finished the first active enchantment, I immediately started the second one. These needed to be done one after the other in order for the two to work with each other, otherwise, their energies would settle at different rates, leading to the enchantments conflicting and potentially even ruining the blade. This was the last addition to the sword, but I was only about twenty minutes in when I felt myself faltering. Putting on two massive enchantments in a row was more than I could handle. I should have reduced their size and potency, which would have drastically reduced the difficulty.

  For a moment, I teetered on the edge. I could feel myself starting to fail. My concentration wavered, my consciousness receded until my sight was a constricted dot, and I nearly lost control of the enchantment thread of mana.

  Unless I did something, I was going to fail, and this sword was going to explode like a beskar grenade.

  Throwing caution to the wind, I grabbed the mana threads and transferred control to one hand. Miraculously, this didn't destabilize the process any more than it already was, though I could feel my fingers burn as the threads cut into them.

  With my now free hand, I instinctually cast Respite, the effects of the spell washing over me. The relief was palpable, so intense I almost lost control again. I cast it twice more, followed by a trio of Fast Heals, before finally transferring the control back to both hands, just barely in time, the enchantment wobbling dangerously.

  Now, with partially renewed vigor, I focused back on completing the enchantment, concentrating deeply on the blade.

  The third enchantment was the one I spent the longest debating. There were a few I was considering, but I eventually settled on Absorb Vitality. With that enchantment, every successful hit would drain the target's health and stamina, feeding it to me through a quasi healing spell enchantment, keeping me up and fighting through both injury and overwhelming numbers. It was a powerful enchantment I unlocked in the most recent upgrade, and while it was a bit on the vampiric side, its usefulness vastly outweighed the negative connotations. Besides, it wasn't like I would ever draw my blade and swing it at someone who didn't need to be dead.

  This was not a blade you sparred with.

  When I finally finished the enchantment, it was late into Nirn's night cycle, and my brain was barely functioning. I could feel blood dripping from my nose as I healed myself half a dozen times, adding the same number of Respites, before crashing into my room on board the I barely managed to lean my leaning against my nightstand before collapsing, somehow managing to avoid cutting myself as I did.

  The next morning, I woke up drooling onto the bed, still dressed, laying over the covers in a heap. After a few healing and Respite spells, I managed to climb out of bed. I still felt like I had run my brain through the main thrusters, but I steadily ignored it. As I climbed out of bed, I grabbed my sword and headed back to the enchantment room to grab its sheath. With my weapon properly housed, I finally made my way out of the saying goodbye to Calima as I did.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  My sword was finished, but now it was time to test it.

  I headed through the ship, first to a storage bay and then up to Pola's workshop, where the young armorer was happy to lend me a sheet of unmolded beskar, assuming I brought back whatever was left of it. Rather than go anywhere, however, I asked to borrow a corner of his workshop for a moment, before plonking down a stormtrooper helmet, which I had pulled out of storage. Lastly, I affixed the beskar plate sheet to a vice grip attached to a table, tightening it firmly before stepping back.

  After a quick look around to ensure everyone watching was far enough away, I swung my sword at the helmet. The enhanced blade sliced through the polymer armor with a cutting "plonk!" The top half of the helmet popped off into the air before touching back down on the workstation, spinning around for a bit before lying still. The remainder of the helmet had barely even moved.

  Once I was finished laughing maniacally at the power of my new blade, I sized up the beskar plate.

  This was the true test of my blade.

  I knew I would likely be able to at least damage it, especially from past experiences, but I was unsure how much my enhancement would actually affect it. I was also slightly worried about how my blade would hold up. The extra reinforcement woven into the blade should mean it could easily handle it, but I couldn't quite squash the nervousness that I was about to turn my amazing, nearly perfect sword into a homemade sawblade.

  Before I could lose my nerve, I pulled back and thrust the blade forward, aiming at the center of the metal sheet. With a single spark and the sound of distressed metal, my blade punched through the sheet. I quickly pulled the blade free, raised it high, and chopped downward, cutting it down into the sheet.

  This time, the sound of tearing and cutting metal was louder, and quite a few more sparks flew from the impact site. Look at my strike, I could see I had cut through a good five or six inches of material, which would have definitely meant cutting into whoever was wearing the armor had the plate been actual armor. Even better, it had been noticeably easier than killing the dark trooper with the beskar knife had been.

  I tossed the helmet parts into the trash before handing Pola the now damaged sheet of metal, the armorer tossing it into a pile of especially isolated beskar scraps, most likely for re-smelting.

  "Is that… a beskar sword, Boss?" Pola asked with a raised eyebrow.

  "Yeah, it was a gift from Vi Galti," I explained. "I just finished putting some enchantments on it, so I wanted to test it."

  I placed the blade on a table and started carefully examining it, not only for chips and divots, but for any cracks or other damage to the blade, including the tip. As far as I could see, the blade was as perfect as it was when it had been handed to me.

  "It will be good to have, with the Empire stealing our idea," Pola said with an annoyed frown. "I've been talking to Miru about a possible standard beskar weapon, and she said she has some designs set but was worried about using up too much beskar."

  "It's definitely a concern," I agreed. "I want everyone to have the best weapons possible, but outfitting everyone with something is going to be rough."

  Personally, I already knew the optimal method for dealing with beskar armor. With a decently designed rifle, a by local nomenclature, and a beskar-tipped bullet, anyone with good aim and experience with that type of weapon would be able to take down anyone with beskar armor relatively easily. Hell, with a shotgun design, you wouldn't even have to have good aim. Unfortunately, it was a weakness of beskar that I was not willing to expose, not when we were wearing the same thing.

  No matter how cool I thought killing a dark trooper with a revolver would look.

  I could only hope that the general consensus that slugthrowers were inferior would keep anyone from thinking of beskar-tipped bullets.

  Eager to see the designs that Pola mentioned, I said goodbye to the armor department and made my way to Miru's domain, entering the large cleared space at the back of the repair and production areas of the large hangar. Miru was easy to spot, as she was elbow-deep in an ARC-170, or at least the majority of one's fuselage. She was talking to one of her fellow engineers when she spotted me.

  "Just a second, Boss," She called out over her shoulder.

  "Take your time."

  She nodded and continued to talk to her underling, pointing out something inside the starfighter before pulling her hands back and nodding. The underling leaned over where she had been while she jumped down to the floor and made her way to me.

  "So, how's that project going?" I asked, looking at the mostly disassembled starfighter.

  "Really good," She responded, looking back. "The ARC was always decent, but it was handicapped by being used as a general fighter rather than flourishing in the roles it was intended for. We are basically cutting out the multifunctional aspects and doubling down on it being a flying tank with heavy weapons. In a week or so, the final update will be finished, and we can start upgrading the ones we have. After that, we can start building them."

  "That's good, I'm excited to field them. They sound like the perfect counterpart to the improved A-wings," I responded with a smile. "Do me a favor and put together a briefing for its new capabilities, something I can hand out to pilots and the ship captains. There's a whole lot of training involved with something like this, and that will give them a leg up."

  "I'll have someone throw something together," She agreed with a nod, wiping grease off her hands. "So… did you just come to chat?"

  "I should have. It's been a while since we just talked," I said, shaking my head. "Unfortunately, I wanted to see your ideas for the beskar weapon. Pola said you have a few designs."

  "Ah! That's old news," She said, waving my statement away. "We settled on one design late last night. One of the new guys came up with it out of nowhere. It's good stuff. Come on, I'll show you."

  She led me out of the main floor to a small office by the side, stepping inside, and heading for a desk. After climbing into the chair, she gestured to the seat on the other side, pushing some parts around on her desk so that the holoprojector was clear. After that, she tapped on the controls, and suddenly, it was projecting the image of a slowly rotating knife, though that was clearly not all it was.

  "This is a," She explained, gesturing to an image. "It's based on a high-end model that we could probably produce, but you can buy them without blades so you can mount your own for a hundred credits so…"

  "We can just buy a few hundred and be set for a while," I finished for her with a nod. "Are you suggesting beskar vibroblades?"

  "Nope! I'm suggesting beskar vibroblades," She corrected, tapping on the holoprojector controls, the edges of the blade suddenly highlighted. "We fuse beskar to a spine of another metal, reinforcing it and making it tough enough to punch through beskar armor, while only using a fraction of the material."

  "How much of a fraction?"

  "Including the fuller and assuming that the beskar edges are an alloy rather than pure, around twenty percent," She explained. "For the cost of one suit of armor, we could arm several hundred people with beskar vibroblades."

  "That sounds like a solid solution, Miru," I said with a nod. "Make a few prototypes and run them through the wringer. Test them against different purity levels of beskar and with different strength and purity levels for the blade. When that is done, run the results by me or Tatnia. Either of us can give you the go-ahead to start producing them."

  "Sounds good, Boss," She said with a smile, typing up some notes while I sat there. After a moment, she looked back up at me, a bit confused. "Umm, what?"

  "Nothing, I'm… I'm just incredibly proud of what you're doing," I said with a smile, looking around the office, which was filled with designs, blueprints, and parts. "You have massively stepped up, Miru, and I couldn't be prouder of what you've accomplished."

  "Oh! Well.. thank you, Deacon," She blushed a little, but her smile was absolutely radiant. "That means a lot to me. You guys mean the world to me and… well, I've been having so much fun and…"

  "You wanna take an early lunch break?" I suggested, looking at a clock on her desk. "I think Tatnia is on the as well. We could steal her from whatever meeting she is in..."

  "...Could you make us something?" she asked. "Luke's mentioned the Pizza you made a couple of times…"

  "Sure, I can make something for us," I said, standing and walking through the office, the young woman running around to follow me. "Do you want pizza or something else?"

  We talked about what else I could make her from my home, pausing only long enough for her to tell her second-in-command that she was heading off for an early lunch meeting.