When we reached the town it was kind of funny to see the surprise on all the dwarves faces.
Victor explained what he saw and what we told them about how to start them up.
Quite a few of them were kind of scared of the rusty protector which by the way Nova has been riding. Its movements became smoother after oil got into the joints and lubricated them.
When he was finally able to disperse the others I had Rust pass a message.
"Techno says he want’s to learn proper Blacksmithing." Rust said passing the message.
"Yeah, I remember him saying that. Come on, I’ll take you to the town's blacksmith but you will have to go out and collect your own fuel." Victor said annoyed.
"I think we have enough for a few days of smithing. I think it was about 500 fuel cans." Bulk said looking into his stock.
For the curious, 1 can is about 1 liter. A worker class uses 5 liter per day, knights use 15 a day. Hiro when not being used as a forge takes 9 a day as well, in forge mode he eats 3 cans per hour.
The smithy, thankfully, had large doors. It was open actually. One wall was completely open but had shutters that dropped for when he closed shop.
"Hey Felk, Bot boy here wants blacksmithing lessons." Victor shouted.
"Heh so these are the bots that think for themselves huh, know anything about smithing boy?" The dwarf named Felk asked.
"Everyone but her knows crude blacksmithing." Rust tell him
"Better than nothen. Got a forge or a strong engine?" He asks.
I move out of Hiro’s way and let him go to the corner and lay down. Soon his armor started to move forward and back revealing the engine. After it was open the engine revved up and began burning hotter and the water tank was taken out leaving an empty iron basin. With the engine ready the gears pulled the anvil I set inside out.
"...Hell...A moving forge...and a forge engine at that!" He said amazed.
"Hey do I need to do this?" Bulk asked me.
"If you don’t want the blacksmithing skill then go revive some clockworks and search for higher classed ones.” I tell him.
He nods a walks out and heads out.
"Just out of curiosity what do you plan on making after you have the skill?" Felk asks me.
"Weapons." Rust said for me.
"Well that obvious but what kind?" Felk said with a bit of irritation in his voice.
"Bro says its secret." Nova tells him
He sighed and then began. First we needed iron so i took out the scrap I picked up before and dumped it in the basin.
From there he taught us how to remove the impurities. Following that we learned to make the ingots.
To make them is simple enough. Take some thick flat iron and weld them together making a small box. Then just lift the basin and pour liquid metal it in. The metal cools quickly after out of the fire and as it solidifies it shrinks a bit and lets go of the box. Their you got an ingot.
We were tasked to make as many as we wanted and to call him once we were done.
Rust, Nova and I took turns making about 10 ingots each so that we would all get the blacksmithing skill together.
When we finally finish we had a huge pile with at least 200 iron ingots. 75 were trash quality 50 were bad and the rest was “ok”.
The other two got tired after a while since it was night time by the time we finished. Felk needed to close shop so I stored all the iron in my inventory and we left.
After we left we noticed a few clockwork walking around. They were probably the ones that Bulk revived.
Even at night the gates were guarded but we could leave when we wanted so I we walked a distance away from town. Nova was already asleep on Hino and Rust was walking behind with the protector under my control.
As we reached the scrap outside I stopped.
”You can go to sleep Rust, I’ll be up all night making those trash quality ingots better." I tell him.
"If it's just that then I’ll take you up on the offer." He says.
He looks around a bit before finding few large gears and made a seat on the flat dirt and sat there before laying his head down on his crossed arm over his leg and went into standby mode. I took Nova and lay her near him before I take out my ingot mold box and have Hino enter forge mode again.
The whole night I spend removing the impurities from the metal. I was doing it the slow method of scooping it up. If I can figure out how to make some good engines it would be a real blessing. I hope to make some better ones including the forge. I want to make it a small industrial forge someday which I can pump air into from below the metal and heat it up the metal much faster.
Fuel isn’t infinite. I know that and it's been something I’ve been thinking about since we got here.
The same question runs in my head all the time. “How are we going to secure fuel outside the scrap yard.”
I push it out of my circuits for now and work.
Bulk appeared when I was starting. He sat down a bit and I told him the process of making the ingots.
After that he fell asleep but I knew he logged off. He has a life in the real world but I don't, from now on I'm living here so I don’t care.
By morning I had made the ingots all ok quality. Nova and Rust woke up a 6 like always but Bulk wasn’t back yet so we had Hino carry him to the city gate and we left him sitting there and went to the blacksmith.
"I heard from the guards that had night watch. You were up smithing?" He asks me.
I shook my head.
"Bro says he was making the iron better for smithing." Nova says for me.
"Oh I see. Must be nice not needing sleep." He commented
"We require a rest period as well. Its so our engines don’t over exert...Techno says to get started.
The dwarf sighs and starts teaching us. He teaches us how to make a sword for a humans.
It takes two ingots to make. First heating both then you lay one over the other and hold with the tong and hammer them together.
As you hammer you push some more impurities out. He goes a bit farther by telling us to fold the metal and hammer together to get an evenly distributed quality through the metal. The reason is that some spots may have more impurities so as you fold it you evenly distribute it so that not one spot has more impurities than another which is where weak points in the weapons are formed.
After folding and hammer it several times he said it was needed to hammer the iron until it became an iron bar. After that he begin to shape the wedge of the sword. It's a pretty long, tedious process.
I was the first who did the whole thing and I used the worst quality iron I had as to test.
The result was ok.
Iron sword.
An iron sword made by an amatur with old methods of blacksmithing. There are a few dents on the body which can through the swing slightly off.
Durability 40/40
Attack 8-13
Your skill Crude Blacksmithing has been converted to Blacksmithing
Blacksmithing (basic 2)
The process of melting and hammering metals into tools or weapons
5% when smithing