After lunch with Snowlily, Thomas returned to his work. He heated the blade up one final time and did some additional work with his hammer to get it into better shape. Once he was satisfied with the work, he set the blade on the nearby anvil and left it to cool in the air. While it cooled, he looked through his inventory for materials he could use in the construction of the handle. During his shopping spree, before he began working, he'd picked up a few interesting materials and now he needed to go through them again to find ones that would be appropriate for the sword.

To start with, the wood for the handle was easily decided on. He pulled out the sides that had been shaved off of the log from the immature tree of life. They were definitely large enough to make the two halves of the handle for the sword. He looked over the four pieces he had and selected one that had a 'better' grain pattern in his opinion. As all four pieces came from the same piece of wood the patterns weren't very different but there were some minor ones. With the wood selected he needed to find just a few more things to use.

When he finished his search he had the wood from the Sapling Tree of Life, Black Tar Boa Skin, Treated Mermaid Skin, glue, and a small piece of Mithril that he'd Transmuted into a flat disc shape. He looked over his various pieces before nodding in approval. By the time he'd selected everything, the sword had cooled sufficiently for him to take it to the grinding wheel and refine. He placed the lowest grit grinding wheel in the contraption and used the peddles to get it rotating. Sparks flew through the air as the grinding wheel quickly removed excess material from the blade and made it's intended shape more pronounced. This would be just the first and roughest session at the grinding wheel.

Thomas carefully checked his work as he removed material from the blade. He made sure that everything was straight and true while simultaneously using some Water magic to douse the blade and keep it cool. Grinding metal introduced heat and if the metal got too hot there was a possibility of it warping. Something he couldn't risk happening. As more material was removed the forge blackened metal soon started to show its true silver appearance. As he worked on it he started to notice that he could faintly see the lines in the metal that denoted the layers. Normally they shouldn't have been visible without the sword having a quick dip in an acid bath. They were faint but visible as very light blue wavey lines on the surface of the metal.

After grinding the sword for a while it finally came into shape. It wasn't done and still needed to be refined with higher grit grinding wheels but most of the excess material had been removed and the shape was cleaned up. Thomas left the grinding wheel and placed the sword on one of the anvils. He retrieved some clay from his inventory and smiled. It wasn't special clay but was just plain old regular clay that might be used to make cups or plates. He used the clay to cover the spine and flats of the sword while leaving the edge exposed.

Before heating the sword up, he conjured up a large metal container that was longer than it was wide. He needed a quenching tank that he could use to quench the blade horizontally. He filled it with quenching oil and then focused on heating up the sword. Though the sword was made of magical steel it still acted as steel should. When it was ready he plucked the glowing orange sword from the forge with his tongs and carefully lowered it edge first into the quenching tank. The oil hissed and burst into flames the moment the sword was dunked into it. Thomas ignored the weak flames of the fire and carefully paid attention to the sword. He was listening for any metallic 'tings' that would indicate that the steel had fractured.

Thankfully, he heard no such sounds. After letting the sword cool in the oil for a few moments, he pulled it out. The residual heat of the sword ignited some of the oil clinging to the blade. He quickly blew out the flames and began to carefully look over the smoking sword. He was looking for any warps that the blade might have picked up during the cooling process. If they existed he only had a few moments to repair them while the blade was still somewhat hot and malleable. The only warp he saw was the 'warp' he intended for the blade to have. Thanks to the differential heating induced by the clay the sword had bent into a proper katana curve.

With everything looking good, he placed the tang of the katana blade into the hardy hole on one of the anvils and let it rest there to cool in the air. While the blade cooled, he moved over to the materials he selected to make the handle and got to work. The first thing he needed to do was break down the piece of wood so he could make the two halves of the handle. He started by slicing the wood in half, then slicing one of the halves in half. Taking the two quarters, he moved over to the grinding wheel and began to sand them down to a more manageable size. He still refused to mess with the World Tree Sapling wood with any of his Transmutation abilities.

He sanded the wood down until the two halves made a whole cylinder. Though the cylinder was still far too large to made a proper handle. The rest of the sanding would be done once he fitted the halves to the tang of the sword. His next step was to carefully cut the Black Tar Boa Skin into long thin strips. The ends of each strip were fused together turning the sheet of skin into one long string-like piece. This would be used for the Ito, or braid, that wrapped around the handle. Once it was long enough he set it to the side and got to work on the mermaid skin. There was no proper ray skin available in the stores he'd looked through but the mermaid skin had a nice texture to it that should provide a proper grip like ray skin did.

He wasn't quite sure just how much he would need so he focused on trimming the edges and turning the rounded edges into straight square edges that should be more than enough to cover his intended handle. He would trim it down more once he had the handle properly sized. The last piece he turned his attention to was the disc he'd made out of Mithril. That piece would be transformed into the Tsuba, or guard, of the sword. He planned for it to have large hollow sections and to use the material from those sections to create the spaces and Habaki for the sword. He held the disc in his hands for a bit as he tried to picture what he wanted it to look like.

After thinking about it for a bit, Thomas came to a decision and began transmuting the piece of Mithril. Globs of mercury looking Mithril dripped down from the center mass of the flat disc. As they hung from thin strings of Mithril, he easily snapped the pieces off and set them to the side for later use. When he was done he had a Tsuba with a simple design. The interior had a solid section for the blade to rest against. Attached to the solid center were two curved shapes that looked like crescent moons facing opposite directions surrounded by a solid ring to hold the whole thing together.

After looking over his work for any flaws and making a few adjustments here and there, he deemed the Tsuba suitable for his sword and set it to the side. All of the scraps from the Tsuba were gathered together and transmuted into one single lump before being split again. Only this time the pieces were properly sized. Two had the exact same size while the third was larger. These three pieces quickly became a pair of spacers and the Habaki for the sword. The Habaki was the collar that went at the very top of the handle, below it would be the first spacer, followed by the Tsuba, and then the second spacer. After that was the handle.

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With most of the pieces for the handle ready, he turned his attention to the blade sitting in the hardy hole of the anvil. It had cooled enough for him to work with it once again. At the moment the beauty of the blade was marred by oil and soot giving it a mottled dark appearance. All of that would go away once he brought it to the grinding wheel and ground it down some more to its final shape and gave it a razor's edge. He used a cloth to wipe off the oil and most of the soot, not wanting it to gum up the grinding wheels as it was removed. Once it was somewhat clean he returned to the wheel and got to work grinding the blade down further.

Once again sparks flew through the air as the weapon was efficiently refined. The soot vanished and sparkling steel took its place. Thomas carefully inspected and cooled the sword as he ground it down. He moved to higher and higher grits taking off less and less material as the shape became better. Eventually, he stopped, the grinding wheel couldn't be used any further, he would need to use sharpening stones to put in the final edge for the sword. But before then he needed to assemble and refine the handle.

To begin the process of finishing the handle, Thomas conjured up a chisel with his Metal magic while retrieving the smallest hammer he had inside of his inventory, the ball-peen hammer. He used the chisel's sharp edge to trace the outline of the sword blade's tang onto each half of the wooden cylinder he'd made. With careful taps of the hammer gently carved a groove into each half of the wood. He could have just used his physical strength but he felt more comfortable with the hammering method. He'd done it that way for years and switching to a new method he wasn't used to just didn't sit right with him.

As he carved the trenches into the handle halves, he repeatedly checked his work to make sure neither half was carved too deeply. They needed to mirror each other and fit one half of the tang's height each. When the carving was done, he held the two halves together around the tang and carried the whole assembly over to the grinding wheel. It was at that moment that he wished he had some tape to hold everything together easier. Instead, he used his Metal magic to conjure up thing strings to wrap around the handle and hold it together temporarily. The bonus of doing it this way is that he could easily move the strings of metal out of the way of areas he needed to sand.

The shape of the handle would be important. It had to have the proper slopes and valley's so he could grip it properly when fighting with it. To make sure he got things right he used his access to the internet to review some examples of famous katanas that were stored in places like museums. Most of the handles had a similar look to them with a few minor variations based on the blacksmith's style. With a better understanding of what he should go for, Thomas got to work. The grinding wheel spun rapidly and soon sawdust began to fill the air and fall on the ground.

He worked quickly, at first, to remove most of the excess material and get it closer to a proper shape. Once the rough sanding phase was over he slowed down and paid careful attention to the work he was doing. For his handle, he had the thickest swell near the top and closer to the blade. From there it thinned down towards the butt before swelling once again. This design would let his right hand hold the thicker swell while his left nestled in the thinner section and gave him better control over his attacks. From there it was just a matter of sanding the wood down until it felt proper in his hands.

There was only one thing left to do with the handle still on the sword. He needed to drill a hole for the pin that would hold the whole thing together. He conjured up a Mithril hand-drill and placed the sword on the anvil so the section he planned to drill through was over the hardy hole. He set the drill in place and started to manually crank it around. The hard, sharp bit easily chewed through the wood. The Manaborne Truesteel of the tang was a little tougher but thanks to it still being somewhat soft, he drilled through it with ease.

Once the drill popped through the other half of the wooden handle, Thomas froze and then shuddered. He'd almost fucked up, big time. The blade of the sword still hadn't been tempered! Drilling through it could have caused a catastrophic failure that shattered the tang and ruined the entire thing. He removed the wood from the tang and carefully examined the hole he'd just drilled, even going so far as to use his 'All Seeing Eyes' to get the closest look possible. He had to make sure there were no cracks. Even just a small crack could lead to the blade shattering at the tang and the whole thing becoming a pile of scrap metal.

Seeing no visible issues, he let out a deep breath. He couldn't risk anything else happening so he immediately went over to the forge and used its heat to temper the blade. He blamed this oversight on the pirates that kidnapped him. He hadn't made a sword since he made theirs and he'd deliberately skipped the tempering process on their weapons. Doing so had almost made him forget that it had to be done. He slowly and carefully warmed up the steel blade so that it could 'relax'. Tempering a blade made it less brittle without losing much, if any, of its strength. A brittle blade was a terrible one. He couldn't help smiling when he thought of the faces the pirates might make when their blades broke in mid-combat.

Once the blade was properly tempered, he wiped the soot from the forge off of it and began to assemble the handle for it. He started by gluing the two wooden halves of the handle together. He made sure none of the glue touched the cavity that the tang of the sword would be resting in. After the two halves became a single whole, he moved onto wrapping it with the Mermaid skin. Since the piece of skin was too large, as intended, he carefully measured it before trimming it to size. The Mermaid skin was glued onto the wood so that it wrapped around the wood as a single solid piece. If it wasn't for the disparity where the scales were cut it would have been impossible to find the seam.

The next step would be time-consuming and annoying but was essential to the look and feel of a proper katana, the wrap. Normally the wrap was made from a long strip of cloth but Thomas felt that cloth would be too weak to handle the stresses that his sword would be subjected to, hence his choice of Black Tar Boa Skin. He draped the center of the strip of boa skin over the top of the handle and began the process of making the wrap. The crisscrossing twisting pattern forced him to constantly rotate the handle around. Small adjustments had to constantly be made to ensure that the wrap was tight and wouldn't move easily. All-in-all, it was a pain in the ass. Still, he finished it before too long.

After tying an appropriate knot at the base of the handle, he retrieved an ingot of purified Mithril and extracted two small pieces off of it. The first piece was Transmuted into the pommel for the sword, though he added a small D ring to it so he could attach something later. After the pommel was attached, the sword handle was finally completed. He'd deliberately left out the step of adding an ornament to the handle beneath the wrap.

With almost everything ready, he collected the blade and began to assemble the sword for the first time. He slid on the Habaki first, followed by a spacer that needed a bit of adjusting to fit perfectly. After that came the Tsuba, the second spacer, and then the handle. He made adjustments along the way to make sure that everything would fit together properly without anything being loose. The final step required him to Transmute a piece of mithril into a pin. He gently pushed the pin into the hole he had drilled through the handle and tang to complete the first assembly. He held the katana in his hand and smiled at the familiar feeling of the sword. There was still plenty of work to be done but it wouldn't take him much longer to put the final touches on the weapon.