"Now, let's see if picking Inspect was worth it," I said to myself even as I grabbed another damaged weapon. I dragged my finger over the blade as I closed my eyes, a subtle mental command was enough to activate the feeling.

The internal structure of the sword appeared in my mind once again. I wanted to focus on the physical structure first, as the Inspect increased the amount of detail I could catch significantly. I was able to catch many microfractures and other stress points. The details of it were fascinating.

But, not as fascinating as the details I was able to pick up about the Sharpness enchantment. With Analyze, all I could see was a bunch of straight glowing lines that stretched from the hilt to the tip. That much had allowed me to reactivate the enchantment by repairing the metal of the sword so far, but its magical aspect had been incomprehensible.

Not anymore. Well, not the incomprehensible part. I could merely see some kind of movement in those previously opaque lines of mana, without any corresponding knowledge of what was going on. But, that didn't ruin my mood. I was confident that I could leverage it.

Though, preferably later as far as the magic was concerned. As much as I wanted to start poking around with the enchantments, I knew that it was not a good idea. I had neither the tools nor the necessary safety measures. I didn't even know what would happen if the enchantments got damaged, whether they just faded away or exploded.

"Baby steps," I muttered even as I shifted my focus to the aspect I could understand. The physical components. Not just the first one, but every blade I had repaired. "Some changes are necessary," I muttered as I realized that my earlier process had weakened the edge unnecessarily. Not exactly critical when fighting against beasts that destroy the sword after a few successful hits, but a major problem against anything else.

Still, an easy fix for the future.

I noted that I should return to my repair task, ideally to impress my new bosses with my success, but the temptation of another plan started to stir. A plan that had long been ignored because of its immense cost. A cost that was no longer relevant thanks to the overstocked workshop.

Improving my Forge skill.

The Forge was an often neglected skill. A choice that was made not just by me, but the other Blacksmiths as well, for one simple reason. Unlike Repair, Forge was expensive to improve, requiring a lot of attempts. And, even when it succeeded, people preferred to buy pre-made enchanted weapons from the System Shop, at a relatively cheap price.

The cheap weapons had made Forged ones obsolete, especially since it took hours, sometimes days to forge a weapon according to the directions of the Forge. As a result, improving the skill required months of dedicated effort and money. Some Blacksmiths took the risk during the first year, usually sponsored by richer patrons, hoping to find some kind of synergy between the two skills.

They failed.

I could have tried the same, but those days, I was more focused on collecting the data for my research proposal, which had been a similar waste. Not to mention, I didn't want to spend months improving a potentially useless skill. If repairing a weapon according to the System instructions was a chore, forging a weapon was slow, tedious and torturous.

"Let's see if wasting material could help," I murmured even as I pulled a few ingots and threw them into the forge, softening them. Repair improved despite cutting corners. Maybe Forge would as well. The only problem was that I wasn't sure if I could turn the results back to ingots, because they were not pure but alloys.

Due to their process of forging, alloys could be tricky to refine back.

It was a fact that was true for even the ordinary steel that the world relied on before the Cataclysm. There were hundreds of types of steel based on carbon content, cooling process, and other minute additions, and they couldn't simply be turned back.

It was even more relevant for the new alloys, which included many other types of materials, some exclusively from dungeon drops, which was the reason why Forging caused the loss of material. It wasn't some kind of disappearance.

Of course, just like Repair, Forge's skill came with some instinctual understanding of the recipes and methods for new alloys, including the mixing temperatures, process and timing, and cooling methods.

For the moment, with my Forging below level ten, all the information I had was ordinary, requiring no exotic dungeon drops and other complicated stuff. Back in town, I had calculated what it would have taken to actually bring me to my first perk.

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Technically, I could have done it for less than twenty silver as far as the material cost went. It was acceptable … but when I included the rent for the forge, and the loss of income from dedicated time, that amount had spiked to four gold even on the most optimistic scale. Using cheap materials meant that I needed to spend weeks on a single point. A waste for a skill that could potentially turn out to be useless.

But, that was back then. I had a forge dedicated to me that I could never afford otherwise, working with alloys I couldn't purchase.

There was still a chance that it could be a total waste, but the temptation was too strong … particularly since I could mislead Eleanor. Not by fudging the numbers, of course. No need for that when I could simply claim that those experiments were how I managed to cut the repair time to four minutes.

An innocent white lie. I had told much worse lies during grant applications.

Science might be an honorable pursuit, but the same wasn't true for grant applications.

I grabbed multiple ingots of a bronze alloy variant — one that was stronger than steel — and threw them into the forge, letting them heat up, while going through the designs that the skill provided, trying to pick the simplest one.

I settled on a small dagger. Normally, it would have been a terrible choice, as there was little chance it would be sold — daggers were not exactly the preferred weapons for slaying giant monsters — but since they would go to waste, speed, and material consumption were more critical.

Once the material was ready, I focused on the skill, trying to find the most ideal method. Unfortunately, even as my hammer landed for the first time, there was no reaction. My skill level was too low to work on the material.

"Frustrating," I muttered. I was hoping that there would be some kind of suggestion. There wasn't. I did my best to follow my past experiences to forge a dagger. Using long tongs, I rotated it meticulously as I beat it repeatedly, flattening it. Then, I folded the metal into two, heated it, and repeated the process.

Only for the metal to crack. A failure. A spectacular one.

"I wish it triggered the repair," I said. Unfortunately, for that, a weapon first needed to be completed based on System specifications. Another clumsy detail of the System.

I tried four more methods, wasting four more ingots. Ironically, since my mistakes were so catastrophic, the weapons didn't exactly turn useless. I could still use them to Repair —

"Oh, I'm a moron," I cursed myself, realizing that I had missed something very obvious. Yes, the Forge skill didn't tell me how to work with this particular alloy. But, Repair did.

With a big smile, I grabbed another sword, but this time, I followed the System's suggestions religiously. An hour later, I was not even halfway done with repairing the sword — not having Warm Blow was slowing my work considerably — but that didn't ruin my smile.

I had already learned a lot about how to use the alloy without fracturing the metal, and the detailed information provided by Inspect already showed its worth, though only because I had spent some time trying to understand every metallurgy resource I could find.

I made another attempt to forge a dagger. This time, I managed to fold the metal six times before I ruined it. This time, it was useless even for repair work, but I didn't care. I heated up another ingot and made another dagger. This time, I only folded the metal four times before I started shaping it.

In every objective standard, it was a terrible dagger. It was structurally weak, brittle, lacked the necessary tempering to properly hold an edge, and had multiple stress points that were begging to be snapped. Stabbing someone was more merciful than giving them this dagger as a weapon.

Yet, none of those details could ruin my mood. A notification popped.

[Forge (Common) - 8 - 11]

[Perk Options — Masterwork / Intuitive Forging]

I froze as I read the perk offers. Masterwork was one of the options I expected, but to my knowledge, the other perk was supposed to be Frugal Forge, which worked in a similar manner to Efficient Repair. Masterwork, on the other hand, provided better designs, but they cost more to complete.

"Why can't the System give explanations for perks," I muttered, frustrated even as I found myself in a dilemma. Should I pick Masterwork, or take the risk. But, even as I bit my lips in worry, I knew what I would do.

I had very little use for Masterwork. Even ignoring the name, just the fact that I was getting a previously unknown Perk was a good opportunity. It was very likely that I was not the first one to discover such an opportunity, but people didn't go around sharing secrets.

I made my choice.

[Forge (Common) - 11 [Intuitive Forging]]

Curious of its impact, I started working on another ingot, forging another dagger. Once again, there was no detailed connection from the System, but as I worked, I noticed a change. Occasionally, I was getting a slight suggestion, allowing me to catch some big mistakes.

This time, I managed to fold the dagger properly ten times, and the rest of the process was smoother as well. Once the dagger was completed, I received my reward.

[Forge (Common) - 11 - 12]

"Excellent," I muttered as I melted the daggers to destroy the evidence, and returned to my repair work. Improving my Forge skill had been nice, and discovering a new trick to use Repair to improve Forge was even better.

However, I couldn't ignore the role played by the extremely valuable tools in the forge, the kind that I wouldn't come close to purchasing even with my newfound wealth.

I needed to keep my employer happy. Luckily, all I needed was to repair enough weapons to keep them satisfied. And, since I had yet to reveal my latest achievement of dropping it to four minutes, that was relatively easy to accomplish. Just another improvement to a rate of twelve minutes was enough.

I received another notification as I worked, which put an even bigger smile on my face.

[Repair (Common) - 25 - 26]

Sometimes, hard work was its own reward.