thomasdarkrose
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Vol. 6 - Captivity - Chapter 14
🕑 Added 2019-10-28 00:31:54 +0000 UTCAfter breakfast the next day, Thomas got to work right away on the completion of all the grenades to use the last of the shrapnel cubes. While he worked, Clad was assigned to grind the mana crystals. Thomas didn't trust him with grinding the Firestone's into powder. Since he'd used less than half of the small cubes the day before, he went ahead and made another thirty shells, pins, and leather bags for the grenades using his Transmutation. It took hardly any time at all as he pumped them out like a factory machine. With his increased mana and the continuously growing rank of his Transmutation ability, the work was quick and easy. Within half an hour he had everything shaped properly. Another thirty minutes later he had a large pile of Firestone Powder.
The only tedious part was carving out the enchantments onto the tops of the pins. He decided to do each enchantment one by one as he assembled the grenades so that he wouldn't accidentally enchant more pins than necessary. When he finished the first grenade he noticed that he gained a single extra point of Magitech Engineering experience compared to previously. A quick look at his Savant ability explained the difference. He honestly hadn't paid too much attention to the experience he'd gained from the grenades yesterday. This showed that Savant had a definite effect on the experience he gained on his skills.
In the end, he managed to create another twenty-seven grenades for the pirates bringing the total to nearly fifty. With so many grenades he doubted that Yorik would have any complaints. With the boring work out of the way, he moved on to something more interesting. His first pirate weapon request. The first one would be a metal mana enhanced polearm based on a glaive. He lit the forge and tossed an iron ingot into it. The pirates still hadn't provided him with any better materials and he wasn't going to ask directly for them. He was already powering them up, no need to power them up too much.
Once the ingot was nice and hot he pulled it out of the forge and went to work. The first step was creating the metal mana embryo within the ingot. The process was the same as always and by the time he was finished, he was happy to notice that he still had plenty of mana to work with. The increase in his Magic attribute clearly had a very positive effect on his work stamina. With the embryo created the next step was easy. He just needed to hammer out the blade of the glaive.
His hammer rang as he beat the metal into shape. Thanks to his Power he was able to work swiftly and the ingot soon turned from a mashed-up hunk into a flattened piece of metal in the rough shape of a glaive blade. In just three heats the rough shape of a 40-centimeter long glaive blade complete with a socket for the handle to be installed in. The design he went with was a long thick blade that could potentially count as a machete blade in some circles. At the moment it looked like a wide single-edged sword with no tang or handle to hold it by. He observed it closely with his 'All Seeing Eyes' and found no issues with the construction of the weapon.
With the hammering done he took it to the grinding wheel and began to true up its edges then grind it into a proper shape. Sparks flew as he powered the grinding wheel with his feet. With his Power, the grinding wheel practically turned into a power sander with a low grit quickly grinding off excess material and bringing out the shine of the iron. He progressed through the various grits until he was nearly done with it. He stopped there. The final grinding would have to be done after the blade was quenched and hardened.
With the grinding done, for now, he brought the blade over to the forge and stuck it into the coals. He glanced over at Clad and gestured to the blower. Without complaining, Clad powered the blower to heat up the glaive's blade. While that was happening, Thomas found a nice piece of wood and began working on it to turn it into the pole that would have the blade attached to it. Polearms were excellent weapons that had reach and versatility. Many heroes in novels and stories would use a spear as their primary weapon for a reason. In his opinion, there weren't really any bad weapons. Just weapons that weren't used in proper situations. That was just a personal opinion though.
With Transmutation creating the handle for the glaive was a piece of cake and took very little effort, just a bit of mana. By the time he was done the glaive's blade was nice and hot. He plucked it out of the forge and quenched it in the trough he'd used for his greatsword. It was more than large enough to accommodate the much smaller blade of the glaive. He pulled the glaive blade out of the oil and it immediately burst into flames. A strong gust fo wind magic was enough to snuff the flames out. He made sure to check it for warping and was happy there was none. He placed the glave blade on the anvil to let it continue to cool down. As it had no tang he couldn't stand it up as he preferred so laying it down was the only choice.
With the blade cooling and the handle completed the only things left were the final grind, attaching the blade to the pole, and enchanting it. Since it would take a few minutes for the blade to cool, Thomas got to work on the next item on the list that he had previously decided to tackle. A portable stone with adjustable temperature. Now that was a new and different challenge! He'd made variable enchantments before, such as his Gravity Hammer, so it's not impossible. He decided to go with a dual burner design based on what he could remember about gas-powered camp stoves. One large burner and one small burner. If he was making it for a real customer he'd even go so far as to design portable mana crystal amalgamation canisters that could be precharged to provide mana to the stove. In this case, they could do it manually for themselves.
This work wouldn't require him to use the forge so he ignored it. His Transmutation was perfect for this kind of work and he put it to good use. He started by reshaping an ingot into a flat sheet of metal a few centimeters thick. Once the sheet was sixty centimeters by thirty centimeters he started forming divets into it. The first one was a few millimeters deep and twenty centimeters wide. This would be the base for the larger burner. The second divet was formed to be twelve centimeters wide. This would be the base of the smaller burner.
The whole process only took a few moments and very little effort on his part so he moved right on to the next step. Enchanting. He ground up some of the pirate's mana crystals and added some alchemist's oil to make the enchanting medium. He used the fire rune from the enchanting book as a base and started to carve it into the metal at the bottom of the divets. The flames would come from here. The image he chose was extremely simple. The more runes that were powered the higher the heat they would produce. Specifically, he was thinking of 'simmer', 'low', 'medium', and 'high' for the runes. When the runes were completed and connected by a line, he continued the line out of the divet and to the side of it. When someone wanted to use the burner they would just need to touch the line and channel mana into it to activate the runes and produce flames.
Now, here comes the interesting part. Can a single item have two enchantments? He'd never tried to put two enchantments onto a single item before and wasn't sure if he could. Even the books he read didn't mention if it was possible or not, as if it was just some common sense thing that everyone knew. He figured it was worth a try and if it didn't work he would just split the sheet of metal into two and make two separate stoves. No skin off his back either way. He went back to work and started to carve the next set of runes in the second, smaller, divet in the sheet metal.
He ran into no issues when carving the runes for the enchantment. He half expected it to be impossible but it wasn't. The enchantment was carved just like the first one with the four runes to control the temperature. He even used the same mental image and intent. Once all four runes were carved and connected, he drew the same line leading out to the flat surface of the sheet metal. There were still no issues cropping up and that made him smile broadly. If this worked it would open up so many more possibilities for his future endeavors! The only thing left to do was to test it.
He placed his index finger on the line for the larger burner and started to channel mana into it. The burner worked as he expected, the little bit of mana he channeled ignited it and a small flame came out of it. However, the other burner also did the exact same thing. The two enchantments worked as a single enchantment and emitted flames of the same size at the same time. When he channeled more mana both flames grew and when he decreased his mana they shrank. He sighed in disappointment. He was sure he could use this information in some creative ways in the future but for the time being, it meant his experiment was a failure. With no other choice, he used his Transmutation to split the sheet metal into two halves making two stoves out of it. On the bright side, the two enchantments worked independently once they were in two pieces.
He was a little disappointed but it didn't last long as he continued to go about his work. He used more iron to make another two sheets of iron and fold the edges up. They would provide a stable base with the burners on top. He set the burners on the bases and fused them together so that there was no seam using the mixing option for his Transmutation. The burners were now small hallow boxes that would produce flames from their centers but he wasn't finished just yet. As a finishing touch, he formed some iron into bent spikes that he fused in a circle around the burners to act as a grate and support for pots and pans.
System Notice: You have created a never before seen item. Please name it.
"Portable Stove."
System Notice: You have created a Magical grade Portable Stove. Quality: Above Average. You have gained 422 Magitech Engineering Experience.
System Notice: You have created a Magical grade Portable Stove (Small). Quality: Above Average. You have gained 105 Magitech Engineering Experience.
Thomas looked over the notice and nodded to himself. He only gained the benefits of his Inventor title for the first stove, the second one only gave him normal experience for its creation. Normally he would have thought the amount of regular experience for the stove was rather low but it really was super simple to make. He set them to the side and turned to look at the glaive blade sitting on the anvil by the forge. It was time to finish that item as well.
He set the portable stoves off to the side and made his way over to the anvil to pick up the nice and cool glaive blade. The grinding wheel spit sparks out as he powered it with his feet and started grinding the final touches onto the blade. He focused mostly on the cutting edge to get it as sharp as he could. With the metal mana infused iron, as long as mana was provided it would have a cutting edge that would be pretty hard to dull. Clad had been a silent observer the entire time, watching Thomas go about his work and not interfering. He was trying to learn what he could from Thomas. Yorik wanted him to be the one to take over when Thomas eventually left them.
Thomas was aware of Clad observing him and ignored it. He was doing things that no trainer inside of AoG could teach people for any amount of gold. He constantly did things that used his Transmutation and without that specific innate ability, it couldn't be copied. The sparks finally stopped as he finished grinding the edge of the blade with the finest grit grinding wheel available in the workshop. With that done he carried it over to the worktable and set up some more enchanting medium to enchant the glaive blade.
He decided to go with a simple enchantment that would help with the intended purpose of the weapon. After looking up the rune for metal, he began the carving process. The intent of the enchantment was to focus the mana to the edge of the blade to strengthen it and provide an even sharper cutting edge. He wanted the enchantment to work with what the metal mana would already to and to enhance it further. He hoped it would bring out the full potential of the metal mana and allow the weapon to cut through weaker metals with ease.
The enchantment process went the same as always and when it was done he moved onto the final step, attaching the handle. Weapons like the glaive were usually riveted or nailed onto the pole, he wanted to do something even more secure. After fitting the wooden pole into the socket at the base of the glaive blade, he used metal magic to drill through the socket and the wood. He chose to do it this way so that all the holes would be matched in size. A piece of iron was transmuted into a simple metal pin and hammered through the hole. Once it was in place the pin was fused not only to the socket of the glaive blade but to the wood of the handle as well. It would make rebuilding it if the pole broke a pain in the ass and that just made Thomas smile.
System Notice: You have created an Uncommon rarity Glaive. Quality: Excellent. You have gained 673 Magitech Engineering experience. You have gained 336 experience.
Comments
Zed
Stone 》stove
Miles
Thanks - minor typo " metal mana would already to and to enhance it " I suspect the first "to" should be "do". Yes - a nice polearm :) Dolph :)
