Kou hesitates. He doesn't want to reveal his workshop's true power. But Lillie offers a trade: a rare (used for advanced alchemy) in exchange for a single durable blade.
The table whirs to life. Nanites (or magic particles, it's ambiguous) swarm around the materials. Within three panels, a gorgeous, leaf-shaped dagger with a crystalline edge appears. Kou hesitates
She returns to Kou’s workshop, breathless and terrified. Not of the goblins—but of him . The table whirs to life
Lillie takes the dagger to the forest. The chapter cuts to a silent, near-wordless action sequence. Lillie, who was previously struggling, now dances through the goblin squad. The dagger cuts through the Armored Goblin's steel hide like paper. The "Silent Edge" allows her to take out sentries without alerting the horde. She returns to Kou’s workshop, breathless and terrified
Lillie, the elf ranger, returns, this time not as a suspicious stranger but as a customer. She has a problem: her hunting knife shattered against a new type of monster that appeared in the eastern woods— Armored Goblins . These aren't the standard low-level goblins. They have metallic hides and crude iron weapons.
"You're not a craftsman," she whispers. "You're an artifact smuggler. No... worse. You're a creator ."
This is the heart of the chapter. Kou accepts the commission, and we get a breathtaking 11-page montage of crafting.