Brandon opened his eyes and was sitting at a dark wooden table with silver fittings and metal corners as well. The corners were designed like vines with leaves that came up from the leg and wrapped around and over the top of the table at the corners. He was in a room similar to the last but with multiple doors and instead of a sparsely fitted forge, there was a full forge with every tool he could imagine on the wall across the table from him. The left wall was missing though and opened into what looked like a roman colosseum.
Across the table from Brandon in a similar chair was a blue apparition made of mana. It had the appearance of a dwarf from fantasy stories, short, bulky muscles, and a long beard. Notably, he had tattoos all over his body. Brandon noticed that like himself, all the dwarf appeared to be wearing was a leather apron and leather gloves. Brandon found most of his tattoos hard to make out due to them being nearly the same blue color as his skin, but the crossed hammers over a star that was throwing sparks from an anvil. Eerily, aside from a braided beard and long hair, the dwarf had no facial features at all. No eyes, no mouth, not even a nose.
“I am quite in awe of you being here. Not many pick the magic smith trial, and even fewer have passed it. None have passed this next test however.” The figure paused a while, seemingly studying him. “I would say by the level of your abilities, you already had mana sight before you started the mining trial. That must have made it quite a bit easier than the intended difficulty. I don’t understand though. With your stats you should have died during the heat resistance trial. You don’t appear to have healing magic, nor is there a feeling of a race with innate heat resistance from you. Curious. Perhaps your high mana stat aided in the creation of the heat resistance skill before the trial was over and helped you.”
The apparition paused again, this time looking at Brandon as if asking him. Brandon didn’t know how he could tell it was asking when it had no face and no expression, it just felt like it was. “Uh, I’m not sure. I can’t remember much besides the pain and the feeling of dying to the heat.”
“Hmmm that is quite alright. You seem a determined young man at least. Quite talented with mana too. I assume you have a magic based class?”
“I do, I’m a magic swordsman.”
“Ooooo, ho ho, that explains a lot. You must not have passed ten in your class yet. Makes me curious how you got here. I will explain what the system will allow. Your class has some innate magic resistance. At ten you will see more details of your class as it customizes to fit you, then at 25 you’ll experience your first class evolution. Of note, your class is one usually taken as an evolution to swordsman, warrior, mage, or mystic. It is not an evolved class as it is your first class so it will have the stats of a starting class. But some of the innate abilities of the classes are not fully suppressed by the system. Try it out with someone. You will take somewhere around ten percent less damage from spells like mana bolt than others with the same stats. Magic smith is also usually taken as a profession evolution. This whole dungeon was created to leap ranks for those qualified.”
The apparition had a strange voice. It sounded rough and gravelly as he would expect from someone who looked like the dwarf did. The gruffness fit it well, but there was a tinny echo of his words as he spoke which created a somewhat distorted effect. “That makes sense. Thank you for the information.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. I may still have killed you.” The entity raised a hand at Brandon’s startled look. “Don’t look at me like that. The system requires a challenge to get ahead like this. Look here.” The dwarf gestured out the open side of the room and all of a sudden an explosion happened in the center of the arena.
Reaching through the ground was a scaled paw with long metallic claws that looked like a katana with the false edge sharpened. The claws dug into the ground and were connected to an arm that appeared to be covered in some kind of ore. As the arm rose out, so did a second and third. He could see that there were more ores as the arm came out further and the other arms came out. A head was next, reptilian and with features resembling that of a komodo dragon. It had a long forked tongue that it sent out to taste the air, but even its face was mostly covered in ores. When the creature was fully out of the ground, he saw it had 8 legs, 4 that it used mostly as arms and 4 that it stood on and walked around the arena. The claws were much longer on its front feet than its back feet, nearly a foot long. The creature itself was only around twelve feet from mouth to tail so these sword-like claws were definitely intended as weapons more than tools.
“I am afraid that your job here is to kill this level 15 juvenile Odarake. It is only a baby and not experienced in combat in any form. You will be fighting mostly against its instincts, but do not underestimate the creature. They are just as intelligent as you or I. Judging by your level I would say you fought the rune bear with others. This fight will be like fighting it on your own. That is not all though. You must kill it with a weapon or weapons you forge here in this room. It cannot enter here and you could run back here if your weapon fails to kill it, but running won’t be easy. Your time limit is the end of one month. I wish you luck. The three rooms you have aside from the forge are a bedroom to sleep with a connected washroom, a library with smithing knowledge from different parts of the universe, and a store room. There is plenty of dried food, various ores, and anything you could need for the smithy itself. I will grant you another boon. None of your weapons or equipment can be used but you have access now to all of the materials in your inventory and this.” The apparition placed a book on the table.
[A guide to non metallic materials and alloys]
“You can make alloys with monster parts as well as ores. Even Some magic plants can be used. Everything has different properties. Part of what you can do as a magic smith it also inscribe runes spells and abilities into your swords, but those books are already in the library. I must leave before the system becomes too insistent. Hopefully if we meet again it is the real me, not this apparition. Good luck!” The apparition stood and waved as it faded out of existence.
“Well, no time like the present.” Brandon stood and stretched, grabbing his left arm with his right behind his head as he reached to the sky with his left hand. Ding! Brandon sighed and looked down at what he knew would be a quest window.
[The Trial of the Magic Smith has been begun]
[Wow! You did really well this time being in the first hundred to obtain a profession. It is a fortunate thing you did as you now must use your profession to get past the trial ahead. Create a weapon capable of killing a Juvenile Odarake. You have 1 month to kill the Odarake.
Juvenile Odarake Killed: 0/1
Time: 4:1:23:59:52
Reward: Portable Forge
Failure: The barrier between the forge and the arena falls]
Looking at the time limit for the trial, Brandon thought he had better catch up with his party and let them know. He had left his phone in his inventory and forgotten about it for days now. Pulling it out, he saw there were over 40 messages in the party chat and 3 from Kara. He checked the party chat first.
Everyone seemed to be doing well in their trials. Luckily none of them were out yet. Thysse was struggling creating a healing potion. Mia was stuck in her third trial and asking for advice on mana injection. She was taking the jeweler crafting route and needed to be able to fill gems with mana instead of channeling mana through it like her class helped her do. Jade was also going down an alchemist path but with a focus on poisons instead of botany like Thysse. They had been swapping notes though as they had similar tasks, including the current healing potion creation. Dylan got a choice Brandon had not expected to be a crafting position, it wasn’t one usually in the stories but then again neither was the runner or gardener class. Dylan was a monster cobbler. A profession that involved creating shoes out of monster parts. He had even asked for everyone’s shoe size.
Brandon took off his gloves and composed a message to the chat, feeling bad he had left it for so long. “Hey guys, sorry I was a bit busy, almost dying. Have any of your trials tried to kill you yet? Mia, my advice to you will depend on if you have mana sense or mana sight yet. If you could let me know, I’ll be able to help you progress. I’ll keep my phone out. The trial stole my clothes so I haven’t had pockets to put it in unfortunately. Dylan, My shoe size is a US 11 and a half mens. Alright, chat soon. I have a [Juvenile Odarake] to kill and only a month to make a weapon capable of killing it.”
Brandon put his glove back on and his phone down on the table. For the next hour at the least. He got up and moved to the forge, inspecting all the tools. There were half a dozen tongs and hammers each. Different sizes to grab and hammer with. Brandon tested the weight of a few hammers and considered what he could use each for. One that had a head barely the size of his thumb must have been for detail work. The largest was the size of his two fists together. He assumed it was for flattening the metal down.
After inspecting his tools he began to think about what he could do with the material he had to start. He was sure that he could not make a weapon strong enough to kill the beast out of his magic iron but he was equally as sure that he would be unable to create something good enough with better materials yet. He needed to improve his skills enough to work with better materials and start experimenting. One week. I need to spend one week trying to make the best weapon I can out of just magic iron before I move on to better materials.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Thinking of better materials, Brandon moved back to the table and grabbed the book left there. It would just distract him if he left it out, but he didn’t want to lose it in the library, so he put it in his inventory. He hesitated after putting it in his inventory. How was he able to access his spatial storage without his pouch currently equipped? He wasn’t sure but he appreciated that he could. He would think about that when he didn’t have a giant rock covered reptile out to get him.
He continued on from there to the first door on the left when facing what he considered to be the back wall, the one opposite of the opening. The doors were the same dark wood as the table with similar silver fittings. He grabbed the silver lever handle and twisted it, opening the door. Inside, instead of the crates of the previous room there were shelves with drawers that had labels and pictures of what was inside.
There were six metals in the store room, two of which were alloys. Keralik, a green metal that reminded Brandon of oak trees and the older forests of the south east where he was from, was the first metal he saw. There was also something called True Cobalt. Unlike the Cobalt of earth, these bars were a true cobalt blue, like the powder. If they had similar properties, this cobalt in small amounts could be used to harden steel. It is a tricky material to work with though, because a steel using cobalt is also more brittle than one using carbon. It would be better to make a katana edge than make a longsword out of. That was all assuming it had similar properties though, they could be completely different. Magic Iron was the third material. He was already somewhat familiar with working with that so he didn’t spend time on it. The last of the non-alloys was Anatarium. A silvery metal that had a slight pink tinge to it. He was curious how it would work.
The two alloys were interesting as well. Mana Steel he had expected. Galvatarim was a bronzish alloy. He only knew it was an alloy because it was labeled as such. He had no clue what it could be or its properties. There was also a variety of woods, dried food, toiletries, charcoal, and more.
He took a set of ingot molds and a couple of magic iron ingots. They were of a similar quality to his ingots he had created. Better than the majority but a little worse than the two he had spent most of his time on. They also did not have his mana infused inside them and would be somewhat harder to work with considering that.
Taking the ingots he gathered to the forge, Brandon first infused his mana into each of the two and set them aside, removing his own ingots from his inventory. Brandon was a swordsman, so in order to kill the monstrosity that was outside, he would need a sword. There were many different sword designs in the world and they were made with practicality in mind. Brandon appreciated these swords and he could make a traditional european arming sword or longsword. He could even make a katana or scimitar.
He decided it really depended what kind of swordsmanship he wanted to pursue and which sword he should use to match that. The problem was that as much as the class somewhat helped him learn to use a sword it didn’t teach him techniques and he wasn’t sure what would be most effective. Brandon took some time making a list of swords and crossing them off one at a time as he eliminated them from his list.
The first sword Brandon decided against was the rapier, He also eliminated the smallsword and the estoc for the same reasons. Thrusting swords were simply not as compatible with his arc slash. This led him to consider classic swords known for their deadly slashing abilities. The shamshir, scimitar and the falchion were his next considerations. He quickly decided they were too niche and complex of weapons for his needs. He also felt he would like thrusting skills in the future so he didn’t want to eliminate the options for them.
After further consideration he added the falchion back to his list of acceptable weapons, there were also some falchion designs that he could see himself considering. The falchion from the Castillion horde from the 1450’s stuck out to him in particular as a design he could use.
Brandon knew he would make a longsword, it was the weapon he was most familiar with in general and fantasy had made him want one. He also knew he would make arming swords, they were too effective as telekinesis weapons to make a change just now.
Brandon also decided against making katanas and sabers. The American cavalry saber had a magnificent handle for a one handed sword. It could be excellent to at least consider its design, maybe making the handle longer to allow him to grab with two hands when necessary but he was not sure.
After thinking for a while, Brandon decided to start with the longsword. He took out a full magic iron ingot and a stick of the not a redwood their base was under. He could still not identify it, but maybe Thysse would get a skill to be able to soon.
Brandon started with deciding on a handle length, he took the knife he had made and infused the blade with mana, cutting the stick into a 10” section and shaving it down to be roughly round. He’d use the files to smoothen it later. He put the knife at the top of the cylinder he had carved and hit the back with his hammer, splitting it in two.
Brandon set aside the two halves of the handle and took the ingot to the forge. He took the largest hammer and some tongs with him. He put the ingot into the hot coals and stoked them with the bellows beside the furnace. Once the metal glowed yellow and orange, he removed it from the heat and set it on the anvil. He pounded out the ingot until it was a steel bar about 4 feet long. It was sweaty work, requiring the reheating of the ingot a few times.
During the process he heard the group chat go off and once he had the bar drawn out he wanted to take a break anyway. Brandon put down his tools and took off his gloves, grabbing his phone.
“That monster looks nasty. I hope my final trial isn’t like that.” Thysse had sent.
“I have mana sense not mana sight, does that help?” Mia had asked.
“Yeah it is pretty nasty. Not sure what to do about it yet. If I finish making myself a weapon, will anyone else want one?” Brandon sent back.
“Mia, I unlocked mana sight via meditation. I focused on the mana waves till I could see them, not just feel them vaguely. I could tell their relative strength and properties somewhat as well. I could even feel the dungeon’s mana piercing my body. Try to meditate and focus on them till the feeling is indistinguishable from really seeing them.”
After replying to both, Brandon put his phone back down and went back to work. He took the top of the bar and pounded it out to make a roughly diamond shaped tip. He continued this pattern down the blade, slowly working out a full diamond cross section. Once it was roughly 38” he flattened the rest of the metal to make a tang. It ended up too long by about 6 inches, so he knew he’d have to cut some of the excess off after doing some more detailed work on the blade.
Brandon shaped the blade and then took it to the grindstone. It was a pedal powered grindstone and he ground the blade down until it was a hollow grind with the edge about the thickness of a dime. Once he had done that, he cut off the end of the tang leaving just at 9 inches. He took the extra material to start shaping a pommel and stopped mid work. He went to find some molds in the storage.
Brandon looked through them for a while. He found a few molds he was interested in. He found one for a hand guard and one for wires he would save for later. He also found glue and sand paper to help with the handle. For now, he took out a mold for quillons he could slide up the tang before attaching the wood of the handle. He also took out a mold for the pommel. He heated up the metal and once it liquified, refined it again and then poured it into the two molds.
While he let those cool, he tended to the blade again and began to heat treat it. He followed the same process with the knife to harden and temper the blade, but he stopped before he began to do mana tempering. He would save that till the handle was also attached. Once he did that, he brought the blade back to the grindstone and began to sharpen it. He sharpened it until it had formed a rough edge, and then he took a look at his molds.
They were not finished so he took the blade back and began his steps for handle construction. He lined up the wooden slats with the metal and they slightly overlapped. He would need to sand them down. He marked with his mana imbued knife on the metal and on the wood where he needed to put the holes so he could put pins through to hold the handle together.
Brandon went back to the store room and looked around some more. While he was in there, he grabbed leather, a metal punch, thread, and a hand drill for the wood. He also looked and found a leather punch as well.
Brandon put his newly acquired tools on the table next to the open wall and then grabbed the sword with the tongs again. He heated the tang back up but tried to avoid heating the rest of the sword. Damnnit. I’ll have to do better next time, I should have done this before quenching and tempering so I didn’t risk the temper. Brandon thought to himself as he worked.
He took the metal punch and lined it up with his top mark then hammered it down until it punched through. He did the same to the other two places he had marked, then he took the blade back to the grindstone and ground the holes till they were smooth with the rest of the tang.
Brandon set down the blade and worked the handle, making the holes with the hand drill. It was definitely more annoying than power tools and was slipping because he didn’t have clamps. As soon as Brandon thought of clamps, he smacked himself in the head and went back into the storage. There were a wide variety of vice grips and clamps in the storage, he grabbed two he thought would be good. Both would mount on the table.
Brandon went back out again and attached the clamps to the bench and put the halves of the handle in them. He drilled through much smoother this time. Once he went to put them on the handle he realized he did not have any pegs.
Brandon took out his nails and decided to try and round them off and use them instead of trying to make new pegs from scratch. He spent a while rounding them off and cutting them to be shorter till they roughly fit and he would be able to pound them in. He made 4 pegs in case one got messed up making the sword.
By this time, Brandon was a sweaty mess, but he went back to his molds and removed the parts for his handle. He slid the quillons onto the handle and gently knocked them into place with the hammer. Then he put glue on the wooden slats and put them on the tang. Once he had the slats on, he put glue on the pegs he had made and hammered them into the holes he had made for them. Then he spent a long time sanding down the handle with varying grits until he had a smooth oval shaped handle. Once he had it nice and smooth, he hammered on the pommel and was finally done with the basic construction.
The quillons were not quite even and the handle had become a bit smaller than he intended, ending up only around 7” to make room for the pommel and quillons. He was satisfied with it though. The only steps left were sharpening and mana tempering.
Brandon went through the process just like before, and sharpening was about the same as with the knife, it just took almost 8 times as long. Once he had done that, he was ready to do the mana tempering.
Brandon slowly lowered the sword into the barrel of glowing fluid and he could feel the pull of the mana into the blade. Guiding it this time was much harder. Instead of the turbulent flow of aircraft wings, it was like the flow of a river. The blade was much larger and so were the mana channels, the amount of focus he needed to form and maintain them was astronomical when compared to the knife. He fought with the temper for almost twenty minutes and was sweating and exhausted when it was done.
Brandon pulled the blade out of the water and sat against the barrel. He let out a sigh of relief and started laughing at the absurdity of the feeling of his mana currents settling down again. He looked at the still dripping blade and used his inventory to identify it. It was a bit lopsided but it was the first weapon he had made with his smithing.