thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 4 - Growth - Chapter 48
🕑 Added 2019-03-31 20:39:11 +0000 UTCThomas read over the description of the fan and shook his head. That was just rude. He decided to test the fan before calling it a day, he needed to know how long it would run on a full charge. He turned the fan around in his hand and placed his index finger on the mana crystal. The moment he began to charge it with his mana the fan blade started to spin at a relatively decent rate and produced a continuous stream of wind. Once Thomas felt the mana crystal was fully charged he stopped feeding it mana and waited.
Nearly fifteen minutes later the fan slowly came to a stop. Fifteen minutes of continuous wind for a few seconds of mana charging seemed like an excellent trade-off, in his opinion. He made his way over to the forge and carefully removed the bellows from it. He was extra careful since he would need to pay for a replacement if he broke it. Once the bellows was out of the way he fit the fan he'd created into the same spot on the forge and once again charged it with mana. The fan started producing wind that was fed into the forge and increased the temperature of the coal.
Thomas stepped back to observe and grinned as he looked at the roaring flames inside of the forge. This little fan of his was going to make life just that much easier. When the fan ran out of juice he carefully banked the coals. He planned to do some forging with the Origin Steel first thing tomorrow. As much as he liked using his metal magic to create the weapons and tools he desired, he wanted to have a primary and secondary melee weapon. With them, he could use the weapons and cast offensive spells at the same time, obviously.
Thomas cleaned up the workroom and stored his Origin Steel ingots away. It's not that he didn't trust Hekrin... but he didn't trust Hekrin to not go crazy if he left them sitting out in plain sight. There was a small part of him that worried about negative attention from using the Origin Steel to make items. However, he didn't really think it would be too big of a deal. Players would be very unlikely to even know what a 'heart' from a material even was, let alone what two combined would be like. As for NPC's, only ones like Hekrin and Rock were likely to know the metal ones. In short, only the well informed would be able to tell just how great what he had was.
Once the room was perfectly cleaned up, he collected the dozing Snowlily. She perked up when he picked her up and looked at him curiously. He laughed, "We're done for today, time to go get some dinner."
At the mention of dinner, her little tail began to wag happily. He laughed again and gave her a wry smile, "Is Martha's food really that much better?"
To his shock, Snowlily nodded her head affirmatively. He let out a somewhat depressed sigh and carried her in his arms as he made his way to The Swans Nest. Together they enjoyed a delicious dinner together before retiring to their room for the night. Thomas went through his usual routine before the two of them slept for the night.
After breakfast the next day the two of them returned to Hekrin's workshop. Thomas had plenty of things to work on still. He got started by getting the forge going properly once again. Thanks to banking the coals last night it was quick and easy. Not that it would have been hard to use a little fire magic to get things going. Once the coals had ignited he stepped to the side and fed some mana into his nice new fan. While the fan fed a constant stream of air into the coals he retrieved an ingot of Origin Steel and set it inside of the flames.
He felt free as he moved over to the wall and selected a proper pair of tongs to handle the hot steel with. It was so nice to be able to step away from the forge without having the flames go down. He carried the tongs over toward the forge and set them down on the anvil he intended to use. He also retrieved his Origin Steel hammer from his inventory as well and set it on the anvil next to the tongs. He fully intended to hand forge the items he was making today.
He could, of course, use his 'Transmutation' to shape the ingots and save himself a lot of time. It's just that he felt there was something... less about making items that way. Plus it was just less fun for him! He waited a bit for the ingot to start glowing orange then plucked it from the flames with the pair of tongs. He set it on the anvil and hefted his hammer. He started striking the ingot while channeling his mana into the hammer.
The sound of steel striking steel rang out inside of the workroom as he hammered away at the ingot. Over the course of several heats, he thinned and stretched the material out to length. At first, he'd thought about making something exotic or unique but the more he thought about it the more he felt that wasn't what he needed. As he worked the metal he felt like it was speaking to him.
He drew the steel out to a length of around 75 cm with a width of around 4 cm. The weapon he wanted, no felt, he should make was a shortsword. It wouldn't have as much reach as a longsword but it was good at thrusting and slashing and felt like it would match well with his Peace Maker. He could just shoot anything out of reach of the short sword. Once he got the steel to a proper length he used a hot cut tool to cut off the excess material. He could forge it into a crossguard later.
With the Origin Steel forged into a flat bar, he heated it and began working on the edges. He held the bar at an angle as he started pounding on the edges to form them into an angle. These angles would become the edges of the sword that would be used for slashing. He also hammered on the tip of the bar, working it into a point. He would flip the sword back and forth to hammer the edge to make the point then lay it flat on the anvil to hammer it flat again. He wanted to keep the point nice and flat so that it would fit between the gaps in armor.
Over the course of a few more heats, he worked the bar of steel into a shape that resembled a sword. He even hammered out a thick full-length tang that would help with balance and strength. It would just be terrible if the sword snapped at the handle the first time he hit something. He looked over the sword to examine his work so far. It was still in rough shape but he felt something wasn't quite right and needed to be fixed. He placed the sword back into the coals and charged up the fan.
Once he got the sword glowing orange he pulled it from the flames and used the back half of his hammer to strike the center of the blade. The flat angular portion of the hammer dug into the blade so he could create a fuller in the center. That's what he felt was missing from the weapon. A fuller or 'blood groove' had nothing to do with blood at all. Its purpose was to increase the strength of a weapon while letting it be lighter. He hammered the fuller into the center line of the blade for the majority of the length on both sides.
He looked over his work and smiled. The majority of the hammer work had been done. The next phase would be grinding it into proper shape by cleaning the lines up and smoothing things out. While he let the sword cool down he picked up the excess material he'd cut off and tossed it into the coals. While the main blade cooled he began working on the crossguard and pommel that would eventually adorn the weapon. He cut the material in half to make the two parts he would need.
He worked part the steel into a bar shape then punched and drifted a hole into the center of it that would fit between the blade and handle. As he worked on it he continuously checked the fit against the blade. It was still a bit early but would give him a rough shape to work with. Once the crossguard was finished he hammered the rest of the material into a circular shape that would become the pommel. By the time he was done the sword was cold to the touch and ready to be worked. He carried it over to the section of the shop dedicated to the grinding wheel. Unlike Rock's shop, Hekrin only had one stand for the grinding wheel and he would need to swap it out to change grits. He started with the lowest grit as it would remove the most material from the blade.
He used the pedals to make the grinding wheel spin and held the blade against it. Sparks flew as he ground the sword into proper shape. Thanks to his Power and Endurance he actually managed to do the work at an extremely proficient pace. Much faster than when he'd first started out in the game. After just a few minutes he was already swapping the grinding wheel out for one with a higher grit to get finer work done. The blade started to come into its own and take on a shine as he worked it through higher and higher grits.
He worked the sword until it was nearing completion but stopped before it was finalized. It would still need to be finished but there were steps to take before that. He set the sword to the side and picked up the crossguard and started to grind it into shape as well. He ground it on the wheels and checked its fit to the sword. As much as he didn't want to, he cheated a little bit at this point. He used his 'Transmutation' to reshape the hole in the crossguard so that it would be a perfect fit later.
Once he finished grinding and fitting the crossguard to the sword he set it down and picked up the piece that would be the pommel. He worked it on the grinding wheels as well until he'd ground it into as close to a perfect circle as he could. He picked up the sword to set it into the coals once again. It was time to heat treat and temper the blade. He fed mana into the fan to get the coals nice and hot so they could heat up the blade. Thanks to the fan he could pay a lot more attention to the blade as it heated up. Once he felt like it had reached a proper temperature he set out his barrel of quenching oil and dunked the sword into it. He moved the sword up and down in the oil to cool it faster.
He lifted the smoking sword out of the oil and quickly checked it for any warping. He hadn't heard the sound of the metal fracturing so there were no fractures big enough to hear. Seeing no warps in the blade he let out a breath and set it tang first into the hardy hole of the anvil to finish cooling. He picked up the crossguard and went about heat treating it as well.
Once the crossguard was heated and dunked in oil he set it to the side and picked up the sword. He wiped it clean and activated his 'All Seeing Eyes' to take a much closer look at the surface of the blade. There were no signs of cracks or fractures along the surface of the blade. With the quench done he carried the blade over to the forge and let the coals slowly reheat it again to just a few hundred degrees. When the tempering process was completed he carried it over to the workbench and pulled out various sharpening stones.
He carefully honed the edge of the sword with the stones and once again worked from rough grit to fine grit. Every step bringing the edge of the sword closer to a razor. He stopped before he got it too sharp. He still needed to make a handle for it and add the crossguard. He picked up the crossguard and carefully fit it to the sword. Thanks to his 'Transmutation' the crossguard fit against the shoulders of the tang perfectly. He didn't bind it there just yet. He wanted to see if something that wasn't a 'device' could be made into a Magitech device.
After setting the sword down he went over to the section of the shop with the selection of wood he'd dug through the day before. He picked up a piece similar to what he'd used to make the handle of his hammer. A bit of quick work with a hammer and chisel followed by various files and he had a nice piece he could use for his swords handle. The final work wasn't very hard, he simply fit the wood to the tang to make the handle and then placed the pommel where it belonged. Nothing had been finalized just yet though.
There was one thing he needed before he could finalize the weapon. He opened his inventory and pulled out the container holding the Elder Lizardman hide and opened it. The crate contained several large pieces of cured hide that were matte black on one side and covered in small shining black scales on the other. He ran his fingers over the scales and smiled. They felt a little rough and hard, like little stones. He could see how it would provide a fair bit of protection. At the same time, the small scales also provided a fair amount of grip. Which was good because that's exactly what he intended to use it for.
He selected one of the smaller pieces of the flexible hide to measure and cut thin strips from it. The hide was so tough that he had to use his metal magic to create a pair of hardened tool steel shears and use a fair amount of his Power attribute to cut it. With the strips cut and ready it was time for him to begin the final assembly. This would let him know if he could use his Magitech technique on a non-mechanical item.
He looked at the various pieces of the sword and crossed his arms over his chest. The thing was, he wasn't entirely sure what he was going to infuse the sword with yet. Fire just seemed boring. He kept thinking as he looked at the sword. Just how should he enhance it?
Comments
Nick B
isn't it supposed to be 5 chapters ahead why are 49 and 50 not available even though 45 is available on RRL?
Shayswordspear
Heals target he strikes
