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Chapter 454 - Birth of a Sword
🕑 Added 2023-10-29 07:12:22 +0000 UTCWhen Red arrived at the Fairclough manor, there were far more people waiting to greet him at the entrance. A lot of them wore the clothing of Lehmann’s employees, and Marina was at the forefront watching him walk over with a fox-like expression.
“Master Viran, I’m sorry for the delay!”
“You’re ahead of schedule.”
“Ah, regardless, I was hoping to have it done in a week, but it took slightly longer than that,” she pointed towards the manor with her fan. “Shall we go in?”
“Are you the lady of the house now?”
“By no means! Lady Ilse has just given me the honor.”
Red didn’t respond and followed Marina inside. As soon as they passed through the door, though, the small regiment of a dozen attendants started to trail behind them in unison, causing him to pause.
Marina looked at him in confusion. “Is there a problem?”
“What are they doing?” Red asked.
“Following us, of course!”
“I mean, what is their purpose here?”
“Ah, they’re the trained specialists who will help you with the Spiritual Forg-”
“No,” he cut her off.
“… No?”
“I do not need help.”
Marina’s expression seemed confused at this. “But Master Viran, have you ever operated a Spiritual Forge before?”
“No, but I can learn it… This is non-negotiable,” he said as he noticed her about to protest.
Red didn’t want anyone to see him use the Amber Saber Sect forging techniques. The forging manual wasn’t a supreme treasure, but if he allowed people to know he had it in his possession, it would provide them with another clue about his identity. Even if the risk was minor, only by exercising maximum caution would he feel safe.
Thankfully, Marina didn’t dwell on the matter much and nodded. “We’ll do as you say.”
She ordered her servants to say out in the courtyard and led Red to the warehouse. To his surprise, the large wooden doors that served as an entrance to this place had been replaced by reinforced steel doors.
“That’s to protect the rest of the house from explosions,” Marina said. “Artifact forging isn’t conducive to that, but alchemy it’s a different story.”
With that, she opened the doors, revealing the warehouse turned workshop.
The first thing Red noticed were the replaced walls and flooring. A layer of glimmering marble tiles covered almost every surface of the room, the only difference being the wall colors were more gray to contrast with the floor and ceiling. A large golden symbol was also drawn on the back wall of the room, resembling an eye.
Of course, the next thing one noticed were the two large facilities built at the very center of the room. To the left, there was a wide cylindrical furnace that reached almost five meters tall, built by blocks of a dark obsidian-like rock that reflected the bright lights of the room. At the bottom, there was an opening leading to a surface where one could light up a fire and heat their metals, and further up one could also see other smaller openings whose purposes weren’t clear. Connected to the bottom opening was also a channel that allowed the molten metal to travel to a block-shaped mould.
Then, to the right of the room, stood the anvil - or so Red assumed. It was a large metallic object that resembled a round steel tabled more than an anvil, having none of the creases and corners to help hammer a metal into shape. Above it, floating in the air, was a cylindrical metal object that looked like a simple block of pure steel with no discerning features.
There were also other things, such as a grinder and a huge amount of extra equipments set on racks along the room, but the furnace and the anvil were the primary focuses of the workshop.
Red was eager to learn how these items worked, but another question came to his mind.
“How did you tile the floor without breaking the formation?”
All the lines and formation plates were still there, except now painted and set over different surfaces. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible, as one would logically need to reset the formation if they wanted to change the ground under it.
Marina smirked at his question. “We have special techniques to accomplish this. Unfortunately, it’s a trade secret, so I can’t share it with you.”
Red didn’t insist.
“Then what about that symbol?” He pointed to the golden sigil on the back of the room.
“Oh, I just thought this workshop lacked a bit of a personal touch, so I had someone draw your sigil on the wall.”
“My sigil?”
“Yes, the eye on your mask! Is that not your sigil?”
Red was taken by surprise. He had carved that eye in passing, and he almost forgot it existed. Now, it somehow had become the sigil of his ‘house’.
‘Perhaps I should change masks.’
“How does the forge work?” He asked, changing topics.
“Yes, well… I would explain it to you, but I don’t want to miss any details, so I’ll give you this.”
She handed him a small book, which Red opened without hesitation.
Functionally, a Spiritual Forge was a Spiritual Artifact as well, with the two vital parts being the anvil and the furnace. To control it, one needed to establish a connection which was achieved by an enchanted disk that could manipulate these devices, like a cultivator could control any other Spiritual Artifact. The quality of a product produced by this forge was, in turn, very closely tied to the blacksmith’s skills in controlling the forge.
The functions of these devices were straightforward. The furnace was for heating but also for melting metals and creating alloys with multiple chambers along its height that allowed different materials to melt separately before being fused together. This melted alloy could then flow directly into the mould, which could change shapes according to the blacksmith’s will. Its most important function was, though, the fact it could infuse large amounts of Spiritual Energy into the melted metals, which was vital for forging an artifact.
The anvil was simpler. Although it looked like a flat surface now, the user could change its shape like a sliding puzzle, forming the needed surfaces and corners to hammer a piece of metal into shape. As for the cylindrical piece of metal floating above it, that was a hammer that could strike down with tremendous amounts of force without the blacksmith needing to exert themselves. This anvil could also drain the heat of a metal very quickly, an important part of the quenching process.
Red could then understand that with a Spiritual Forge, the forging process was now reliant on technique and finer-control of the devices rather than on physical strength.
“Here,” Marina handed him the controlling disk. “You just need to insert your Spiritual Energy to activate the forge.”
He did as much, and the entire place came alive. Glowing runes appeared on the surface of both the anvil and the furnace, and Red felt a sense of control over the devices come to him. He tested them, lighting a flame inside the furnace which he could control the temperature of, and also changing the anvil’s shape. It all worked seamlessly, but Red knew he would need to be extremely precise in how he handled the Spiritual Forge, if he wanted his artifacts to measure up to his standards.
“I understand,” Red looked back at Marina. “I can control it.”
Marina nodded, not showing any uncertainty. “As you say. There’s no point in me doubting your skills after coming this far, is there?”
Before Red could say anything, Lady Ilse walked downstairs from her own workshop.
She smiled once she saw Red. “Sorry for not greeting you. I was also busy checking my laboratory. Would you like to come see it?”
Red shook his head. “Maybe later.”
“Ah, eager to start already, aren’t you?” She laughed before looking at Marina. “And where is your army of helpers?”
“… He didn’t want it.” Marina said with a wave of her fan.
“I told you he wouldn’t. With that said, since Master Viran is eager to get working, shouldn’t you give him space?”
“… Fine.” Marina looked over at Red in resignation. “How long do you think this should take?”
“Hard to determine,” Red said. “It’s my first time doing it.”
“Well, don’t be worried about rushing it. Just let me know when you are free so we can discuss when we will start taking clients.” Marina then looked over at Lady Ilse and looked like she was about to say something before sighing. “Nevermind. Good luck, you two!”
She left the workshop, closing the door behind her.
Lady Ilse looked at Red with a smile. “Was the pill helpful?”
He nodded. “Very helpful.”
“Good. It took me a long time to make it, so I can’t promise when I’ll have another, but I’ll keep it in my schedule.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“So you don’t want another pill?”
“… I do, but next time I’ll pay for it.”
Red didn’t want to be indebted to the woman.
Lady Ilse laughed. “I have no need for money. I merely built this laboratory to advance my skills in alchemy, not to make a profit… However, if you do not feel comfortable accepting a gift, then you could also provide me with a service in exchange.”
This suggestion raised Red’s guard.
“What service?”
“I need containers and formations to safe-keep some of my medicines, which often require special environments to last for long. You could help me with that.”
Red hesitated. “That doesn’t seem like a fair exchange for you.”
“It might not be from outside but… Some of the thing I have to keep are sensitive, so it’s inconvenient to ask for outside help and even more difficult to find proper storage in the market. Your discretion as a business partner would be very helpful.”
“I’ll think about it.”
From the looks of it, she also had some secrets to keep, but Red wasn’t sure if finding out about them would be to his advantage or not. However, the prospect of another one of those pills was too attractive for him to ignore.
“That’s all I could ask.” Lady Ilse gave him a wily smile. “If there’s no issue, may I observe you at work? I’m eager to see if your skills in blacksmithing measure up to your skills in arcane scripture.”
Her question caught Red off-guard, as he realized an issue he had failed to consider before.
“Is there an issue?” She asked, noticing his silence. “I think I have proven I am more than capable of keeping quiet while you work.”
“… I have a favor to ask.”
Although Red’s voice kept its neutral tone, Lady Ilse was taken aback by his wording.
“What is it?”
“I’d like to be left alone in this workshop until I have finished my artifact.”
The same issues with why Red didn’t want Marina’s attendants in his workshop also applied to Lady Ilse. He couldn’t fully trust her, and even if it was unlikely she would recognize his forging techniques, it was a risk he didn’t want to take.
On a rare display, Lady Ilse showed his a displeased expression at his request.
“Why?”
“Information I’d like to keep secret,” he said.
“I don’t know the first thing about blacksmithing. How would I know your damn secrets?”
“I’d like to be safe.”
There was no point in lying to the woman, so he tried to be as straightforward as he could with the matter.
Lady Ilse, however, just glared at him. “It’s my workshop too. It’s what we agreed on, and I have my own research to tend to.”
“I know, which is why I’m asking for a favor,” Red wasn’t so clueless as to not realize he was imposing pretty heavily on her. “I will make sure to repay it in the future.”
“… And how long do you need the workshop for?”
“A week at least. Possibly two.”
These were just his estimates, but as he told Marina, this was his first time forging an artifact so he couldn’t provide them with a precise timing.
Lady Ilse massaged her temples at his reply and fell silent. An awkward atmosphere hung in the room until she looked up at him again, her expression calmer but still displeased.
“Will this be a problem going forward?”
Red shook his head. “Just this time.”
He wouldn’t need to use the Amber Saber Sect techniques and recipes on Marina’s commissions.
She sighed. “Very well, but you owe me a favor, which I intend to collect very soon! Are we in agreement?”
Red nodded.
“Good. Then I’ll leave you to it.”
She walked out of the workshop with heavy steps, closing the door behind her in a none too polite manner. Red, however, was just relieved his plan didn’t find a sudden snag so close to completion.
“Is this what passes for a Spiritual Forge these days?” Aurelia’s disdainful voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Shameful! Nothing compared to what we had back in the sect! The furnace alone was the size of an entire building and the anvil was tougher than…”
Red ignored her rant and started to set aside the materials. The main ingredients for his Spiritual Artifact were the black iron ore, one of the best Spiritual Energy conducive metals, and cloud-sky iron, a wind-aspected variant of iron found in the Skycrown Mountains. Everything else was just supplementary.
After stabilizing his condition and revising the entire plan in his mind, Red tested the Spiritual Forge. Although he felt in complete control of the devices, he knew that forging a spiritual artifact required an inhuman amount of precision, and he didn’t have any room for error. He experimented and got more familiar with the forge and anvil for almost five hours before he decided he was ready to begin.
The first part was to create the alloy. This was a delicate process and possibly the hardest part of the forging process, as it required being precise in the amount of infused Spiritual Energy, the temperature, and in the timing of fusing the materials.
Red picked up his black iron ore and put it inside the furnace. Then, he unsheathed his short sword, took off the hilt, and was about to throw it in before pausing. He looked down at the weapon for a moment, suddenly remembering the day he had forged it with the help of his master, Goulth.
‘How far have I come…’
Yet, it was nothing more than a momentary pause, as Red never allowed sentimentally to give him hesitation. He threw the weapon in and activated the furnace. The flames burned hotter than anything he had ever seen before, but even then, the sturdy metal would take a long while to melt.
In the meantime, Red put the other materials in the other chambers of the furnace, lighting fires in them and monitoring their condition. He was afraid of overextending his attention and missing some crucial details in the transformation, but this was a necessary process for creating the alloy.
Red had to keep his mind focused the entire time, studying changes in temperature and the consistence of the materials, all of which had their own specific conditions he needed to hit. It was a juggling act, which stretched his mental capabilities beyond even what he was used to. Then, when the materials hit their ideal conditions, came the time for Spiritual Energy infusion.
While monitoring the alloys could be done with his senses, the infusion could only be monitored by his sensibility to Spiritual Energy. He pulled in the surrounding energy like a tide, the runes of the forge glowing brighter, and then, under the instructions he had read and reread a thousand times, infused the half-melted materials. Of course, it wasn’t just a matter of turning on a faucet, but a process that needed to be done at specific times under the specific conditions of each metal.
It was difficult, harder than everything else Red had done before in arcane scripture, much more so because he wasn’t that sensitive to Spiritual Energy. He considered asking Aurelia for help, but he decided against it.
‘There’s no point if it’s not me.’
The alloy creation lasted five days of uninterrupted work.
The fusion was completed, and the molten metal poured into the rectangular mould. It was suffused with Spiritual Energy that spread throughout the entire room, but even at this point, Red wasn’t sure he had succeeded.
Failure was not as simple to determine in blacksmithing as it was in arcane scripture. The alloy he made could just be of lesser quality, or unsuited for his crafting needs, and there would be no immediate indication of it. So next, came a round of careful tests.
After the metal had cooled down, Red was left with a large block of alloy. It resembled wootz steel, except it had a vibrant azure color due to the wind energy infused into it. He tested its durability, hardness, even the sparks it produced against the grind wheel.
Only after verifying all these properties did he come to a conclusion.
‘I’ve done it.’
The alloy passed all the tests, so it could be used for his Spiritual Artifact. Of course, it wasn’t perfect in quality, but for his first attempt, Red was more than satisfied.
Now came the shaping.
Red had the rough rectangular block of metal, so he now needed to hammer it into the shape of a claymore. This part allowed for more room for error, but since he wanted excellence, he knew it would take him a long while until he was satisfied.
He reheated the metal until it was malleable before bringing it over to the anvil, changing its shape before ordering the hammer to strike down.
…
Over the next week, the sound of a hammering echoed through the manor. Even Red, with his superior senses, had felt his ears become numb to the ringing sound.
Yet, he didn’t stop.
He shaped, reshaped, ground the tough block of metal until it resembled the exact shape of a claymore - over a meter of a narrow, large straight blade that tapered off into a triangular point, with a groove that ran along its whole length. After he made sure there were no dents, he quenched the blade after a week of keeping it at a malleable temperature. Then, Red started the sharpening process, aided by the magical grinder which allowed him to achieve optimal sharpness without having to guess and slash at things.
When all that was done, came the final part - rune etching. This was what would give the Spiritual Energy inside the weapon purpose and allow it to become a full-fledged Spiritual Artifact. This was also the part he was the least concerned with.
It was his first time rune etching, yes, but the skills between formation and talisman drawing were transferable to a large degree to rune etching as well. So Red picked up the spiritual materials - acids, dusts, and special pigments - and started to carve the runes he had prepared into the blade.
This only took him a few hours. A line of runes was etched into the groove on both sides of the blade, resembling more a long line of separate arcane words than the interconnected symbol of a formation or talisman.
Red was confident there was no mistake, but for one of the rare times in his life, he felt somewhat anxious as he held the hiltless claymore with both hands. He took a deep breath.
‘If I have confidence in my skills, I should have confidence in the results, too.’
Red let his Spiritual Energy flood into the sword. Something resonated within the blade, and a spiritual connection formed between wielder and wielded, as he felt the latent power within the weapon.
He threw the claymore up in the air, and instead of falling down, it remained floating as azure energy covered its length. The air in the room was disturbed by a gust, and a bunch of tools were thrown off their shelves as the workshop fell into chaos for a split second, as if the wind itself was responding to the birth of this sword.
Then, all fell silent again, as the glow of the claymore faded and it fell into Red’s hands again.
He let out a sigh and sat down on the ground.
“It’s done.”
