Author Artemis
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Chapter 08 - The End of the Beginning
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 18:16:22 +0000 UTCBasic Fire Enchantment: Heated Blade memorized.
James twitched. What was that? He looked at the top sheet of paper and saw that it indeed was the basic fire enchantment for weapons. He flipped the paper over-
Basic Fire Enchantment: Fire Resistance memorized.
James closed his eyes. When he thought of the fire enchantments, there they were, perfectly reproduced in his mind’s eye. He wasn’t quite sure, but he had a feeling for how the mana would flow through the patterns and symbols of the enchantment template to produce effects, on the one hand by heating the enchantment substrate, and on the other, negating excess heat.
He reopened his eyes and rapidly looked at each of the other enchantment templates. Whereas yesterday he’d just looked at the patterns without understanding, now he knew what they were and he had a sense for how they worked, how an end user’s magic would flow through them.
Basic Water Enchantment: Frostbite memorized
Basic Water Enchantment: Water Resistance memorized
Basic Air Enchantment: Rapid Blow memorized
Basic Air Enchantment: Wind Resistance memorized
Basic Earth Enchantment: Heavy Blow memorized
Basic Earth Enchantment: Earth Resistance memorized
Basic Light Enchantment: Glow memorized
Basic Light Enchantment: Reflect memorized
Basic Dark Enchantment: Blind memorized
Basic Dark Enchantment: Shadow Concealment memorized
[Enchanter] Class Skills [Template Memorization], [Basic Elemental Enchanting], and [Enchantment Design] acquired.
[Template Memorization] has reached level 2.
Within seconds, James had memorized the entire packet of enchantment designs. He brought the papers back down to the kitchen, where his parents burned them.
For the rest of the day, James’ mother tried to teach James the basics of Brawling. How to maintain situational awareness, how to swing an object, when to tackle and how to do so, how to avoid being grappled, and so on, but James was slow to understand. Very slow. At best, he was able to swing a hammer decently, but only with an overhand strike, like a Smith would.
He also deftly slipped out of his mother’s attempts to grapple him, likely due to his Dexterity bonuses, but his mother was no Grappler, and Brawlers didn’t grapple to begin with, other than getting on top of someone and pummeling them.
When his father returned from the fields, he looked to James’ mother, but she just shook her head sadly. James’ father grimaced, and turned to James. “Yeah, if someone picks a fight with you, just yield.”
The next day, James walked to the village forge as he always had. He was rather nervous after his talk with his parents the day before, but nothing happened. He made it to the forge without incident.
“There y’are!” Jared called as James approached the forge. “Ye had me worried ye didn’t pick Smith for a minute! I was expectin’ ye yesterday.”
“Er, sorry about that, Jared.” James said meekly.
“No no, nothing to apologize fer. There’s no sense in rushing yer Classes. Much better te take yer time with it.” Jared nodded at his own wisdom. “Now, ye did choose Smith, yeah?”
“Yeah.” James replied.
“And did ye take Hammer Warrior as yer second Class?”
“Er, no.” James replied.
“Ah, yer mother musta talked ye out of it. I figured she might.”
James just nodded, feeling nervous.
“Whelp, that’s that. No changing now, just gotta live with our choices. Now let’s see if we can’t get you some o’ the basic skills.”
Jared walked over to several crates along the wall of his workshop. James followed.
“Now this here crate’s got me iron ore. It comes in different colors, like this grey one, this yellow one, this rusty red one, and even this purple one. Mostly yer gonna see the grey lookin’ ore ‘round these parts, but if a merchant brings some by the village ye might see the other kinds. Here, pick ‘em up and get a feel for ‘em.”
[Smith] Class Skill [Ore Identification] acquired.
James twitched.
“Eh, already?” James’ eyes widened. “Ye get a skill already?”
“Uh, yeah. [Ore Identification].” James replied.
“Ooohh…” Jared responded. “Bit fast to be pickin’ that up. Ye must have a good head on yer shoulders!”
James was fast to pick up the [Ore Identification] skill thanks to the Intelligence boost from his Enchanter class, but he wisely kept that to himself.
Jared excitedly showed James the rest of his ore collection. It was mainly various types of iron, but he also pulled out a locked chest from behind his crates and showed James his collection of rare ores. He had small samples of silver and gold ore, and even a pebble of orichalcum ore.
“I wish I had a sample of mythril ore te show ye, but even jus’ the ore’s a pretty penny. A bit of ore the size of my knuckle’d be worth me entire forge. If ye ever get the chance to even look at some, like a merchant’s got a bit or ye visit a bigger smithy, take it. It’ll be good for yer skill.”
By the end of the tour, [Ore Identification] had reached level 2, and James had also acquired [Fuel Identification] after Jared showed him the wood piles behind the forge. It turned out that different woods were better or worse for forging, and there were also varying qualities of charcoal as well.
“Alright, now let’s smelt somm’a this ore.”
Jared showed James how to use the smelter. First, they smashed the ore into smaller pieces, then fed it into the smelter. They got a fire going underneath, and Jared showed James how the desired metal would separate from the slag.
[Smith] Class Skill [Smelting] acquired.
“Ye can also repeat the process and refine the metal for higher purity, but ye don’t need t’do that fer nails ‘n shoes ‘n such. Maybe fer a nicer tool, like yer dad’s hoe, but he’s particular ‘bout his tools. Mos’ folks ‘r fine with regular iron.”
After that, Jared showed James how to make iron nails. The sun was starting to descend, it already being late afternoon. The heat of the forge and sound of hammer smashing into iron led to James acquiring two more skills.
[Smith] Class Skill [Heat Resistance] acquired.
[Smith] Class Skill [Sound Resistance] acquired.
“Alrigh’, now you try.”
James gripped the hammer and tongs and made several iron nails. Jared inspected his work.
“Hmm, not quite up to snuff, but a damn good showin’ fer yer firs’ day. We’ll hit it again t’morrow.”
James thanked Jared and headed home. The shadows were long as the sun approached the horizon, and the fading light reminded James of his vulnerability. He found himself a bit more jumpy as he walked along the road home.
When he reached his home, he found his parents waiting for him anxiously.
“How did it go? Any trouble?” his father asked. His mother couldn’t restrain herself and started patting him down, looking for bruises or signs of a fight.
“Er, it went fine.” James replied as his mother lifted his arms and circled around him. “I only wound up talking to Jared, and he didn’t ask much about my second class. I told him I didn’t pick Hammer Warrior and he lost interest.”
“Oh thank the gods.” his mother heaved a sigh of relief.
The next day James walked back to the smithy, a little less nervous than the day before.
Again, nothing happened.
Over the next two weeks James learned [Technique: Hammer Strike] and forged nails, horseshoes, and other miscellaneous metal items, including his own smithing hammer.
[Smith] Class Skill [Forging] acquired.
During this period, James’ mother attempted to teach him self-defense techniques.
“Even though you won’t be able to learn any combat skills, you can still learn the techniques. It’s just more difficult without a Class’ support.” She said.
But other than Hammer Strike, James didn’t learn any other [Techniques] that could be used in combat.
[Smith] Class Skill [Sharpening] acquired.
At the start of the third week, on the day when Jared spent all day teaching James to maintain tools, they finished a little early.
“Yer pickin’ this up fast, James. Ye got a real knack for Smithin’. Just don’t let it get to yer head. Yer still just learnin’.” Jared said.
“Yes Jared, I know.” James replied.
Jared eyed the quenching barrels. They were a little low on water.
“Alright, we’re done here for today. Before ye head home, go down by the river, to that spot I showed ye, and fetch some fresh water for the quenching barrels. See if ye can’t tell where them undines haven’t messed up the water too bad.”
James nodded. “Okay.” He grabbed two buckets and left the forge. There was still a couple of hours of daylight left, so he was confident that he would make it back home before dark.
He walked down the path like he’d been down dozens of times before, through the fields to the river. The water streamed past a bit of the riverbank at a decent clip, not rushing but not pooling up and growing stagnant either. But as he looked, up and down the river, there were parts that seemed… blue-er, to him. He walked up the bank a dozen or so paces, to one of the extra blue places. The water was rushing by faster than perhaps it naturally would. He dipped his fingers in the water and felt just the lightest tug on his mana, like when he held the mana-measuring rod with the Enchanter weeks ago.
Startled, he didn’t hold his mana back, and some flowed into the river. The water burbled and swirled even faster and he thought he heard a faint giggle among the sound of the water rushing by. He jerked his hand back and stood up. The water in that spot seemed even more blue for a moment, before returning to how it had looked before he stuck his hand in. He walked back to the spot Jared had showed him and realized that it really was the least extra blue part of the river.
[Smith] Class Skill [Water Identification] acquired.
[Enchanter] Class Skill [Water Identification] acquired.
Synergy Skill [Material Identification] acquired.
James was stunned. He’d never heard of a ‘synergy skill’ before, and he hadn’t expected the Enchanter class to have a skill for identifying water. For that matter, he hadn’t expected the Smith class to have such a skill, either. He looked down at the water again, picking out all the blue streaks and blobs that must be undines, or at least their mana. He felt a sense of mystery, but then remembered he was supposed to be fetching water. He dipped the buckets in the river at the spot with the least undine mana and filled them up.
Struck with a sudden idea, he set the buckets down and knelt next to them. He scooped up some of the water in his hands and tried to pour his mana into the water. It was a fair bit more difficult than it had been with the mana-measuring rod, or the undine, but after a few minutes of focus and trying, the water started shining, like it had with the Aqua Magia the Enchanter had had.
[Enchanter] Class Skill [Aqua Magia] acquired.
“Wow.” James murmured. “It’s like magic.”
“Magic, you say?”
Startled, James turned to look but felt an explosion of pain in the side of his head, and his world went dark.
