Junichiro carefully ran his index finger over a shallow groove he'd just finished carving into a silver colored ring. It was the final part of a rune on a slightly overly wide ring covered in runes.
Finding that the carved line was smooth and perfect for his purposes, he picked up a nearby spool of gold wire. He was a bit clumsy using his wooden right hand still, it'd only been a week since he got it, but he'd found his work had suffered from it.
Not unexpected but definitely annoying.
Thanks to that drop in quality, he'd decided to make something to help him with the strength and control of his prosthetic, a Ring of Minor Telekinesis. Unlike making a wand with a limited charge, a ring could have a spell impregnated into it that would use the casters own pool of magic.
So, the ring could only work as long as he had power to spare. On top of that, the materials used to make it, Mana Steel and Gold, along with the low tier runes, gave the ring a hard limit on how powerful the telekinesis could be. Thus, minor. Though, anyone familiar with D&D could equate it to a much stronger version of the Mage Hand cantrip.
Junichiro cut off a small piece of gold wire and placed it in the carved groove on the ring. Then, using a jewelers hammer, he carefully tapped on the gold to gently crush it into the groove.
Doing so would lock the gold into the ring and some gentle sanding would smooth out any excess gold to leave a perfectly smooth surface.
Once all of the gold was tapped into place and wouldn't come back out without some serious effort, he removed the ring from the small vice and examined the entire surface looking for any defects. The ring was as wide as two normal rings giving him more space to cover in runes.
The rune set he chose actually looked similar to tribal markings so any mundane person seeing it wouldn't pay a whole lot of attention to it or even be likely to think it was fake arcane stuff. His whole goal was to attract as little attention as possible. Not something that's all that easy being under Azazel's wing and all... He'd still try though dammit!
Finding no flaws with the ring, he moved onto sanding the excess gold off the surface to smooth it all out. After that he'd polish it to a nice shine before pouring his mana into it. Once he had the ring he had something else he wanted to make.
He set the ring down and took a small box out of his pants pocket. Flipping it open revealed a dozen or so hand rolled cigarettes. He plucked one out along with a cheap lighter. A moment later it was lit and Junichiro was taking a slow drag on it.
Interestingly, the scent that came from the cigarette and the exhaled smoke smelled nothing like any tobacco on the planet. Several of the herbs that Azazel had gathered for him worked best when burnt and the smoke inhaled.
That didn't mean they couldn't be used in other fashions, but they lost some of their effect. In this case he had a blend of the herbs that had been finely chopped, mixed, and made into cigarettes. When smoked the combination of herbs boosted focus, stamina, mana recovery, and overall health. The burnt herbs didn't do any of that to an extreme degree, but having it all in one package that he could smoke all day long was pretty nice.
…
It also made him feel cool.
It also didn't help that he'd been a bit of a smoker in his previous life. He hadn't realized how much he missed that particular aspect of his old life. At least what he was smoking now wasn't anywhere near as bad for him as tobacco cigarettes. Though any form of smoke would always do some form of damage to a humans lungs, they weren't meant to inhale smoke.
Hell, when a building was burning down the smoke killed people long before the fire could for that very reason. That wasn't going to stop him though. Plus, he really liked the scent of the mixed herbs as they burned. It'd probably make an excellent incense stick.
He smoked away until he finally finished the last bit of polishing on the ring. Having high end machines made the process significantly faster and easier. After a final once over to make sure the ring was pristine and as perfect as he could make it, he slipped it onto his left hand ring finger. It fit perfectly, naturally.
With the ring on he channeled some of his magical power into it and felt the connection form. He looked at his bench and focused on a scrap of sandpaper. After a moment of concentration on his part, the sandpaper wiggled and slowly rose into the air.
Junichiro grinned as he proved the ring worked. He'd need some practice with it, but it would make things a lot easier for himself in the future. Especially when he decided to make his second prosthetic arm in the near future.
Before then though, he needed to make some money so he could purchase replacement materials from Azazel. The leader of the fallen had been extremely generous with everything that he'd provided but there would be no more free handouts. Thankfully, he could use the new item to improve his workmanship back up to the appropriate level and sell some kitchen knives. Though, he would much prefer to get some custom orders again.
Those always brought in the most money and in the supernatural world he could charge a real fortune for something nice.
He continued to think about how he should move forward to make some cash to buy more materials.
His grind loop was pretty standard, though what he made could change at his whims. Speaking of, rather than forging, maybe he should change to Alchemy? Potions could have all kinds of crazy effects, yet he wouldn't need to get into that territory.
The simplest most classic kind of potion would be worth a fair bit in this world.