Dominic laughed at the thought of painting the shield to make it match Alexis’ usual tabard. It would work, but if he didn’t make the face much more ornamental, it would just look bland and gaudy.

Though, if he did something simple for the guards, like a quartered design, similar to the Wistover battle standard, it could look good on a very simple shield face.

That could also be painted on, repaired as needed by anyone with a paint brush, and kept looking good without specialty metal polishes.

However, the next one was for Alexis, and that meant it needed to look better than any of the others.

Not just because she was his wife, but because she was a Princess, a Royal Paladin, and officially the Commander of the Wistover Duchy’s forces. She shouldn’t be mistaken for a common soldier, unless she did it intentionally.

So, he spent an extra fifteen minutes drawing her personal heraldry into the clay that made up the shield before he transformed it into mana steel to begin the enchanting process.

"You know, this imperfect magitech orb is a wonderful thing. Or whatever you want to call a product that only malfunctions on certain spells for one person. I need to make one just to carry around with me, so I can create slightly advanced metals." Dominic joked.

Amie laughed, "Before we leave here, we can all make one. Yours might be the only one that will malfunction on transmutation spells, but they’re just generally useful orbs to have around.

I don’t know why we didn’t make more of them to begin with."

The old man shrugged. "How many cores and gems are you willing to wear? It’s one more that needs to be socketed into an item touching your body so that you can use the effect, so unless you’re going to work with a shield strapped to your back, or hold the orb in one hand, you’ll need to remove another spell from your equipment."

The number of sockets that you could realistically put on items was limited, and the more that you had, the more likely it was that some of your spell gems and magitech orbs would conflict with each other.

So, it really wasn’t practical to keep one of these with you at all times.

However, they did change equipment when they were working in the forge, and that was one time that allowed Dominic to focus on only a single ability. He made the materials, then shaped and enchanted them.

Most days, he only had two items on his equipment. The Trade Skill Core of a blacksmith, and the magitech orb that increased growth rate, which he had gotten ages ago, trading his first rare pistol to Bella.

Adding one more item to the collection would be fine.

The Elder nodded. "You make that fancy shield for the Princess, and I will make you a new orb, so you can keep up the fancy metals. I would love to see what happens if you use that while trying to create copper. Or stone. Yes, seeing what happens when you try to transmute stone for roads, or the [Fieldstone Wall] spell would be quite the educational experience."

It would also be something that the Sect would try to do on purpose if it worked properly.

Making magical stone walls by default, instead of upgrading them with protective spells to ensure that the Mage Tower didn’t easily fall to attack, would be not only a great safety measure, but a point of pride for future generations.

There was still a huge amount of work around the Duchy that needed to be done, but their own home was always a priority.

Especially now that they had prisoners who needed to have old indoctrination cleared from their minds so that they could become productive members of society.

Dominic finished the shield just as the orb was being completed, and transformed it to mana steel before getting to work setting the extra layers of circuitry on the back.

Before he continued, Dominic mounted the new orb to a thick gold chain necklace that had dropped during their fight against the monster horde, and hung it around his neck. The necklace just granted some extra strength bonuses, nothing exceptional even by the standards of a level fifteen uncommon grade item.

But strength was always useful, and the important part was the socket so that he could add a third orb to his workwear.

Dominic sorted through his collection of cores in the storage cube, which were all from the last few fights of the battle. The others had been donated to the shared loot bag, and he realized that he was going to have to search through his share of the loot to find the one that he wanted.

He wasn’t going to use the Yeti Lord’s core on this shield, he would save that for later. But he needed something near that level, and preferably of an ice or similar element, to give the shield the appearance he wanted.

The Adventurers had been kind to him. They had given him many of the higher level cores, instead of giving him a bulk shipment of Goblin and Hobgoblin cores.

Their logic was that he could use them for bulk purchases for the Duchy, while they would have to find someone who had enough wealth to make change for a higher level core. That was a pain if they only needed a personal amount of something and had no coins, so they had kept all the Goblin cores for themselves, and used the stronger monster cores to pay Dominic.

Now, that kindness was paying off, and he had real options.

Ettin mages, with their fire affinity, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Yeti. He would be able to make quality tempering oils in a half dozen varieties for the foreseeable future, and that wasn’t even getting into the hundreds of Gnoll cores that he had obtained near the end of the battle.

Dominic chose a Yeti Core that felt a bit more like ice magic than the others, and ground it down for the shield, keeping half aside to be used to imbue an oil pail later.

It was just strong enough for their purposes, and it sparkled gently on the surface of the shield as Dominic prepared to finish the enchanting.

{Shield of Frozen Vengeance} Rare Grade, Level 21