thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 7 - Power - Chapter 14
🕑 Added 2020-02-08 17:14:57 +0000 UTCWith all his plans set, Thomas moved to the forge and set the coal within it on fire. The standard bellows were replaced with his blower once again. Once the coals were nice and ready, Thomas placed a purified mithril ingot inside of them and began to heat it up. While the Mithril heated up, he considered the design for a pair of gauntlets inside of his mind. The question he was stuck on at the moment was, what element should he beat into the Mithril? After thinking about how he wanted to design it he came to a conclusion. The right and left gauntlets would look similar but would be quite different. The gauntlets and vambraces would also be a single construction with a hidden trick or two.
While he planned out the basics and some details, the Mithril reached an appropriate temperature for him to begin his work. He retrieved his new pair of hallow bit tongs and his sledgehammer from his inventory. He retrieved the ingot from the flames and set it on the anvil. He took a deep breath and began to focus. His mana easily flowed through his new tools and took on a light purple color that was reflected brightly by the shining Mithril of the tools. His eyes began to glow blue as he focused on the element he wanted to imbue into the Mithril, Magnetic Magic.
The hammer fell and slammed into the hot ingot. The soft metal moved easily under the power of the hammer. Some of the mana flowing into the ingot stagnated and was held in place. The ingot was rotated slightly before another blow fell on it. Sparks flew as blow after blow hammered on the ingot morphing it into a useless shape. But shaping it wasn't the point of the process. Inside of the ingot particles of light purple mana were stuck in place. Each blow added more and more to the ingot. As they built up they began to arrange themselves into a three-dimensional grid-like pattern. Further blows added to the pattern while increasing its density by pushing the particles closer together.
As he worked, Thomas noted that much less of his mana was evaporating into the air from his tools. It still wasn't perfect but he estimated that he was wasting around eighty to ninety percent less mana as he worked. This meant he didn't have to pour out as much of his mana and much less of his mana pool was drained. He would be able to do much more work this way. Before too much longer the ingot gave out a bright flash of purple light after a final blow from his hammer.
Looking at the mana inside of the ingot, Thomas was surprised. Though he had no way to measure it accurately, it appeared that there was at least twice as much mana inside of the ingot as his previous works. He didn't have any other ingots to compare with so he shifted the focus of his eyes to identify the ingot. Unfortunately, it didn't tell him much that he didn't already know. All that was added was a line about the Mithril being imbued with Magnetic Magic mana. Not exactly helpful.
Still, he'd done what he intended to do and hadn't wasted copious amounts of mana. Ad far as he was concerned, it was all good. He set down the hammer and used the tongs to deposit the ingot back into the forge to reheat it. He wanted to hammer it back into an ingot-like shape before cheating it with his Transmutation. Why? Because he liked working with hot metal and felt less enjoyment when he used his Transmutation all the time. Sure, Transmutation made everything easier but it took away the glorious feeling of putting a hammer to the metal and shaping it with his own strength. Still, he didn't want to waste too much time so he was only going to reform the ingot then transmute the crap out of the metal.
Once the Mithril was once again hot enough to work with properly he plucked it out of the forge with his tongs and pulled out his cross-peen hammer. It was smaller and lighter than the sledgehammer and would allow him more finesse and less brute force. Well, with his Power he could probably use brute force to hammer the ingot with a hammer made of paper. Not that he would ever want to. The hammer in his hand let out beautiful peals of sound as he carefully hammered the ingot back into a more rectangular shape. Honestly, he was surprised at how malleable the Mithril was when it was hot. It made the metal a pleasure to work with.
His hammering swiftly transformed the beaten and bashed lump of Mithril into a near-perfect rectangle. He let out a soft sigh at the pleasure he derived from working with his hammer. If he wasn't in such a hurry to get himself up to King class in all four of his attributes along with snagging himself and U.L.T.R.A. he would spend the time to do the work by hand to enjoy himself more. Once he had the U.L.T.R.A. he would head to Lexiana's destination and relax for a bit. Once there he would take the time to make himself something interesting by hand out of whatever materials he came across.
With his hammer work done, he set the tools to the side and summoned a light breeze to help cool off the ingot and rob it of its remaining heat. He didn't use something like ice or a cold heavy breeze as he didn't want to introduce any metal fatigue to the Mithril. Frankly, he didn't know if it was even possible for that to happen to Mithril but he didn't want to find out the hard way that it could. After a few minutes, the ingot was cool enough to be handled with his bare hands. He picked it up and started using his Transmutation to break it up into pieces of various sizes. His gauntlet would need a minimum of fourteen pieces. Three for each finger and two for his thumb. He also needed four more pieces to cover from his knuckles to the beginning of his forearm. Finally, the largest piece would be used to cover his forearm.
With all the pieces separated and ready to be shaped, he stopped and started to dig through his inventory. He needed something to attach the pieces to, a glove. During his shopping spree, he'd bought new leather to use with his constructions and his new clothing. Unfortunately, he didn't get as lucky with his leather shopping as he had with his wood shopping. He'd only been able to find easily available stuff that only went up to the Rare rarity. Still, Rare materials were pretty good so he'd bought more than enough to do what he wanted. He found what he was looking for and set it out on the worktable in the room.
In front of him was a large sheet of thin black leather that had a slight shimmer to it. It looked similar to a thin sheet of soft leather from a regular cow. However, once you looked closer it was possible to see a very faint pattern on the outer layer of the leather that looked similar to very small and very fine scales. This particular piece of leather came from a creature known as a Black Tar Boa, a rather large snake that could grow to over thirty meters long and was always covered in a thick viscous black substance that gave it its name. From what the shop keeper had told him, Black Tar Boa's were especially dangerous because of their tar-like coating. Unlike the hunting method for a normal boa, these only had to brush up against their prey and it would become stuck to them. After that came the usual boa modus operandi, death by constriction then swallowed whole.
The scales of the snake were ultra-fine and directly integrated into their skin. They didn't need to molt like most snakes and shed their skin, instead, the tar-like substance kept them from having to do so. Thomas was no expert on snakes and just took it at face value. AoG was a game so not everything was exactly like it should be biologically speaking. That left the skin of the snake as a nearly perfectly smooth and flawless exterior that made for excellent leather. He intended to use this leather to make himself a pair of gloves.
He flipped the leather over and placed his left hand down on it. His first gauntlet would be for his left hand. A scoring tool was summoned using his Metal Magic and used to trace out the exact shape of his hand and a little bit of his wrist. He did this twice for both halves of the glove. Once that was done a leather cutting knife was summoned and used to slice out the traced patterns leaving him with two halves of one glove. He repeated this process for his right hand as well. Making both gloves at the same time was easier than once at a time.
Instead of sewing the two halves together, he placed his left-hand palm on the bottom half of the glove piece while draping the upper half on top of his hand. it made an odd-looking sandwich. His hand began to glow as he used Transmutation to move the edges of the pieces toward each other and bind together without any signs of a seam. This created a perfect custom fit glove that felt like a second skin to him. Once the fusion was complete, he lifted his hand and flexed his fingers slowly, his Transmutation still active so he could make adjustments to the glove and make sure that it not only fit well but functioned well. Once it was perfected, he repeated the process with his other hand. This left him with two perfect Black Tar Boa skin gloves.
He peeled off the right-hand glove but left the left-hand one on while returning to the anvil covered in small spheres of purified mithril infused with Magnetic Magic. He collected one of the smaller pieces and held it close to his left-hand index finger. His mana flared and his Transmutation slowly shifted the shape of the Mithril. In all honesty, shaping Mithril was downright easy. The highly mana conductive nature of the metal made it a piece of cake to work with and let him control it with a significant amount of ease. If he had to roughly compare it... if shaping Origin Steel cost him a hundred points of mana then shaping Mithril cost him fifty.
The Mithril flowed like mercury once more and coated the tip, sides, and top of distal phalanx or the very first bone of his index finger. Each section of bone for each finger would be covered in a separate piece of Mithril and riveted together at the joints to allow his fingers to retain their flexibility. He had to be careful and precise with his work or his fingers would not be able to move as freely and could bind up. It would be easier to use multiple solid plates to create a gauntlet that was more mitten-like in looks, however, he needed each individual finger free so he could continue to use his more complex weapons deftly. Weapons such as his Spell Cannon.
As the Mithril reformed over the tip of his finger it took on a ridged shape on the top that would add rigidity to the piece and make it less likely to bend or fold when it received a blow. The section closest to his joint formed a somewhat circular shape with a small hole going through the center. This would be where the next piece would be riveted to it to form a flexible joint so his finger could continue to bend properly. The top section of the armor piece only covered and didn't move past the joint. The next piece would have an overhang that covered the joint when his finger was bent and form a solid defense when his fingers were straight.
He evenly distributed the entire piece of Mithril into the armor making it several millimeters thick, thicker than normal gauntlet armor yet still weighing significantly less. Once the piece was fully formed he moved onto the next one. It formed in a similar way with the same ridged design. This would let the top of the ridges on the first piece fit inside the bottom section of the ridges on the second piece and further reinforce the strength of the join when his fingers were straight. The front portion was slightly longer and hung over the first pice as it was meant to while the rear stopped at the joint just as the first piece had. The second piece was slightly bigger than the first but maintained a similar thickness. As a last step rounded sections formed on both the front and rear sections of the piece. The front ones overlapped the first piece and the small holes aligned so they could be riveted together.
Two thin rods of Mithril were formed and inserted into the created holes. Thoms flexed his fingertip while holding the second piece down to test the positioning and make sure it was optimal. He had to make some slight adjustments to get it just right but when he was done his fingertip easily flexed back and forth. The first joint was perfectly aligned to his hand. The metal rods holding the two pieces together were reshaped. The interior section that would rest against the glove was reshaped into a perfectly flat disc while the exterior was a slightly rounded bump. This added an extra layer to the design of the gauntlets.
This process was repeated for the following pieces as they were formed, shaped, checked, and then riveted together for all of his fingers and his thumb. The only thing slightly different was the connection points for the last pieces that would connect to the solid plate that would cover the metacarpal bones of his hand, the top of his fist. For that piece, he selected one of the slightly larger spheres of Mithril and slowly shaped it over the top of his hand. He shaped it flat for the section covering his hand though it did have ridges for rigidity like the finger pieces. The section covering his knuckles was domed and protruded out to cover the proximal phalanx bones and fit the armor there.
Now when his hand was flat the ridgelines and armor would connect and overlap each other to form a solid metal wall. All the lines of the finger sections flowed and connected with the lines of the hand section creating a homogenous design. When every piece was adjusted and riveted together the glove section of the gauntlet was completed, at least for his left hand. He still needed to create the bracer section of the gauntlets, permanently connect the armor to the gloves, create and install his desired toy, and then enchant the thing so it would do what he wanted. Just the thought of the surprise he had in store for his future enemies brought a smile to his face.
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