Chapter 19
Eight hours.
Seven, accounting for the drive.
Seven hours until the meeting that would decide whether I died a slow, agonizing death or got a real shot at survival.
Every minute of that time needed to count.
And I knew exactly how to spend it.
Back in the garage, I looked over the order I'd imposed on the space.
Every tool in its place, every surface clean.
But instead of satisfaction, I felt a hollow space open up — and immediately, something rushed in to fill it.
A want that was sharp and all-consuming, almost painful.
Not a whim.
The call of my Creator's Spark, amplified many times over by skill and the weight of decades of absorbed experience.
The call of the Master Clockmaker, demanding that something perfect be made right now.
It wanted a watch.
Not just any watch.
A high-quality, mechanical wristwatch.
Something that would make ninety-eight percent of the mass-produced goods in any store look like cheap novelties.
My new knowledge was honest about the limits, though: crafting a true masterpiece from raw materials was impossible right now.
Smelting specialty steel for hairsprings, growing synthetic sapphires for crystals, sourcing rubies for jewel bearings, working with proper machine tools — I had neither the equipment nor the months it would require.
A workaround was necessary.
My skill allowed me to work with speed and precision that wasn't human, which meant I could take a high-quality Swiss movement blank — an ébauche — as a base and transform it into something altogether different.
Skip the craft stage.
Go straight to art.
As I called a taxi, I was already building the shopping list in my head.
The inner miser, who had spent years counting every dollar, set up a loud protest as the approximate total came into focus.
I crushed it without ceremony.
The Creator's Spark has no patience for something as base as money.
I was heading back to the Diamond District, but this time not as a customer browsing pawnshop windows.
I was going in as a specialist with specific requirements.
Arriving at the District, I saw the shop windows differently now.
My trained eye cut through the clutter immediately, locking onto quality.
In a small, dusty shop packed floor to ceiling with parts and tools, I found what I was looking for.
My eye landed on an ETA 6497.
I felt its potential at once — the large, reliable hand-wound movement gave me the perfect canvas for decorative finishing.
Five hundred dollars moved from my pocket to the till.
Next, the case.
A 316L stainless steel case, perfectly polished, 42mm in diameter.
Two sapphire crystals, so the movement — my future creation — would be visible from both sides.
A silver blank for the dial, a set of hands in blued steel.
For the strap, the master in me demanded I make one myself, but the pragmatist understood that time wouldn't allow it.
It was a painful compromise — I chose the best available handmade option in thick natural leather.
Another eight hundred dollars.
Then the tools.
My existing setup was solid for electronics and rough fabrication, but watchmaking demanded something else entirely.
I bought the best: a Bergeon screwdriver set, antimagnetic tweezers, a full file set, polishing compounds, exotic gentian root sticks for the final polish, a Dremel with attachments, and a timegrapher.
The bill for $3,500 made me wince for a moment.
Total: $4,800.
More than a quarter of my cash reserves.
Enough money to buy a respectable Swiss watch off the shelf.
But the Master Clockmaker inside me snorted.
Wear something made by someone else's hands?
What an insult.
Even the parts I'd bought he treated as a concession, a temporary compromise.
A true master creates everything himself, from the first screw to the last.
But months wasn't a luxury I had.
Returning to the garage, I felt like a surgeon preparing for the most important operation of the year.
The table was cleared, everything superfluous removed.
Almost reverently, I laid out the new, gleaming tools and components across the clean surface.
Out in the world, a meeting with a Vampire hunter and a possible death sentence waited for me.
But in here, for the next few hours, only I, the metal, and the quiet, steady passage of time existed — the time I was going to tame and seal inside a steel case.
I began the magic.
There was no better word for it.
Yesterday, this had been a dream.
Today, I was making it real.
I dove into the work headfirst and the outside world ceased to exist.
No Vampires, no Blade, no mortal danger.
Just me, gleaming tools, and a microscopic universe of gears and springs being born under my fingers.
The first stage was finishing — not just a step in the process but a sacrament, the thing that separates a standard movement, however high in quality, from a work of art.
I fully disassembled the ETA 6497.
Each component, each screw was polished to a mirror shine that threw back the light of the lamp.
Then came the anglage.
I leaned over each part with a file in hand and entered the state of flow.
My movements were inhumanly precise.
I cut and polished perfect bevels by hand along every bridge in the movement — work that would consume days or weeks of painstaking effort from an ordinary watchmaker.
It took me just over an hour.
The decoration was a creative release.
With the Dremel, I applied a perlage pattern and dressed the bridges with classic Geneva stripes.
Then the dial.
On the silver blank, I engraved minimalist hour markers and my own logo — the idea arriving fully formed, as though it had always been waiting: a stylized blacksmith's hammer.
A symbol of everything the Creator meant, of the Celestial Forge's gift.
Assembly was the culmination.
After sterilizing the workspace, I began the sacred act.
Wheel train, pallet fork, balance wheel — everything seated with absolute precision.
Microscopic drops of different oils landed exactly where they were supposed to.
Not a single error.
Not a single grain of dust.
I set the assembled movement on the timegrapher.
The device beeped and drew its diagram across the screen.
I adjusted, and kept adjusting, until I reached something remarkable — a deviation of zero seconds per day across all six positions.
The level of the world's finest chronometers.
With the adjustment done, I fitted the dial, mounted the hands, nestled the beating heart of the watch into its case, sealed the caseback, and attached the strap.
"Beautiful..." I whispered, holding up what my hands had made to the light.
The matte gleam of the steel, the deep blue of the blued hands against the silver dial, the perfect waves on the bridges visible through the sapphire crystal.
They were the equal of a Patek Philippe or a Rolex.
For me, they surpassed both, because a piece of my own soul was in them.
In that moment, I felt a pride unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
The System seemed to agree.
[Small Watch Mechanism Created. Difficulty: Normal. Received +200 OP!]
200 OP.
For five hours of light, absorbing, almost meditative work.
And more importantly — this was the first major reward for something I'd created entirely by my own choice, not from a System blueprint.
I wasn't just an executor.
I was a Creator.
I slipped the watch onto my wrist with the kind of care you'd give a priceless object.
It sat perfectly.
Noting that I still had time before the meeting, and riding the wave of that success, I decided to press my luck.
I opened the System window and spent 350 OP on another spin of "Forge the Universe."
[Received Information Package (Common) — Ritualist-Optimizer (Azeroth). Unlock Cost: 100 OP]
Description: Your skill in magical rituals allows you to halve the resource costs for Enchantment and Inscription spells while maintaining their full effectiveness. For example, a ritual that requires the blood of ten virgins, you can perform with five. Scientific processes, such as creating robots, cannot be optimized.
I read it several times.
Azeroth.
A skill pulled from World of Warcraft.
The disappointment was almost physical.
A skill that was completely useless to me right now.
I knew nothing about magic, ritualism, or inscription.
The 100 OP unlock cost only underscored how narrow its application was.
No cheat perks today.
And grinding 400 OP or more for the next spin was getting harder.
Time to move.
I cleared space in the garage, pulled the Honda out of the Inventory, and parked it inside.
I had a potential plan involving the car, but I wasn't ready to reveal the Inventory yet.
I called a taxi and headed for the Lily and Millie Cafe.
The place was a nightmare.
Gaudy pink walls, an overpowering vanilla scent, plush toys lining the shelves.
It had absolutely nothing in common with the image of a grim Vampire slayer.
Then again, based on our brief conversation, Blade seemed to enjoy defying expectations.
I ordered two signature burgers, a couple of milkshakes, and settled in to wait, watching the light play across the facets of my watch.
"Cool watch. Where'd you get it?"
The low, rough voice came from directly over my shoulder, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
I hadn't heard him approach at all.
"Relax, rookie," he continued, lowering himself smoothly into the chair across from me.
"I'm one of the good guys. You ordered a burger, I hope?"
Black fitted turtleneck, dark jeans, sunglasses — even though twilight was already deepening outside.
It was him.
How he'd identified me in a crowd remained a mystery.
I steadied myself and, feeling the pleasant weight of the watch on my wrist, found a sliver of confidence.
"I built it myself. Literally right before this meeting," I replied with a small smile.
"The burgers are on their way."
He tilted his head slightly.
Even through the dark lenses I could feel the weight of a studying, penetrating gaze.
"Yourself, huh. That's something. Skilled craftsmen are hard to come by these days — everyone's switched to pushing buttons. You take orders?"
Casual question, but there was a hook in it.
A test?
"Possibly," I said, meeting his unseen gaze steadily.
"But before I can fill any orders, I need to still be alive to do it."
"Pfft, relax. You think I flew halfway around the world for nothing?"
He waved a hand.
"Every now and then I do a sanitation run on particularly brazen bastards and pull some poor sap's hide out of the fire in the process. Never for free, obviously. Alright — fill me in. No bullshit this time. Not a single drop."
I nodded.
The moment of truth.
"No bullshit..." I said quietly, reaching into my jacket pocket.
I felt Blade's whole body go taut in that same instant — a compressed spring, ready to move.
I drew my hand out slowly, a vial already materialized from the Inventory held in my fingers.
"This is a Potion of Intellect. It runs the brain at peak capacity for a couple of hours. It's how I figured out it was Vampires after me and not just ordinary criminals — and how I tracked you down. You can scrub most digital footprints, but not absolutely everything. Old web archives, dusty forums... I stumbled onto the Order of the British Empire, awarded to one Eric Brooks in 2003."
"Alright, I follow you, I'm not slow," Blade said, cutting me off.
At that moment the waitress arrived with the burgers.
Pink buns.
I stared at them for a moment, genuinely uncertain what I was looking at.
"Don't give me that look," Blade muttered, picking up his portion.
"Best burgers in the city. So — Ghost Orchid is the main ingredient?"
"Yes," I said, taking a cautious bite.
He wasn't wrong about the burger.
"It's not the only thing I can make. But it's what got me into the most trouble."
"To be fair, that watch could get you into trouble too," he said through a mouthful.
"Walk into the wrong neighborhood wearing that thing."
"I know. But it's my first. Like the first dollar you earn — you don't spend it, you frame it. I couldn't show up to this meeting without it. It's... a calling card."
Blade stopped chewing and looked at me.
"You're serious. First watch you've ever assembled, and it comes out looking like that? A Ghost Orchid Potion... and something else you're wisely not mentioning yet. Kid, you are a walking stockpile of surprises. And the frightening thing is — you're not lying. I can feel it."
"You said no lies. I'm doing my best."
"You're absolutely still lying, even if leaving things out technically counts as its own skill," Eric chuckled.
"Alright — situation's roughly clear. Here's a piece of free intel: the Anhoriel clan would pay the price of a private jet for the recipe behind your Potion. They've been trying for centuries to create their own Potion of Higher Wisdom, and your formula is probably the missing piece. They're one of the few tolerable ones in the bunch. Just so you know."
"That's... genuinely interesting. Thank you. Could they be the ones behind this?"
"Were you listening?"
Blade looked at me like I'd said something spectacular and stupid simultaneously.
"I said 'tolerable.' Anhoriel are hermits. Animal blood, philosophy of non-violence. Vampire Buddhists, basically. I am the world's leading authority on these creatures — trust me on that."
"Then who?"
"Obviously the clan that considers the spot where you grabbed the flower their territory. Where was it, exactly?"
"A park near Bowling Green."
"Financial District. Right. Only top-tier players hold territory like that in the clan wars. Clans with three or more purebloods in their ranks. There are four of those in New York: Mistiel, Kriegers, Haskiel, and Moksha."
He took a pull from his shake, giving me a moment to process.
"We can cross off the second and the last."
"Why?"
"Because the Kriegers are thick-skulled berserkers. They'd have ripped you apart in the middle of the street and then blanked the witnesses' memories. And Moksha — they're seers. If they'd wanted you gone, you'd already be gone. You would have slipped, fallen onto a rebar, and that would've been the end of it. They have their own methods."
The fact that prophetic abilities likely didn't work on me, I wisely kept to myself.
"That leaves Mistiel and Haskiel. Cunning technologists versus old-school aristocrats. The first group relies heavily on modern weapons and hardware — they'll reach for a thermal-scope rifle before they resort to fangs. The second are corporations, hedge funds, high-society connections. They prefer not to show their faces, to operate through intermediaries. Relatively manageable — but only if you're an equal or someone stronger than them."
"So what do I do?"
"That's your question to answer. You didn't come here with an empty head — I can tell. What are you thinking?"
Testing me again.
I took a breath.
"I have a Honda in the garage. The one I used to shake the pursuit. It's already compromised," I said, watching his reaction carefully.
"If I drive it through the Financial District... we can try to draw them out using bait."
A slow, predatory smile spread across Blade's face.
"I like you, kid. Let's skip the rest of the pleasantries and get to your place."
"We haven't talked money yet."
"We'll sort that on the way. Money doesn't particularly bother me. But potions... if yours work the way you're describing..."
I didn't let him finish.
"Here."
I handed him the vial.
Then, reaching back into my pocket, I materialized an injector there and brought it out.
"And this. Muscle Stimulator. It pushes all physical parameters into superhuman range for fifteen to twenty minutes. No side effects. I don't know exactly how it'll interact with your physiology, but it shouldn't be any worse than baseline. Think of it as a deposit. And an investment in a longer-term arrangement."
Blade took both vials without a word.
He examined them carefully, turning them over in his fingers.
His smile widened.
"Hm. I'm liking my decision to fly over here more and more."
As for me — I could only hope mine was the right call too.
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