"Fuck! God damnit, stupid son of a bitch!" I couldn't hold it in anymore, this was the most frustrating thing I had ever done.

I thought about reading through the book again but it wouldn't do any good, I had already been through it multiple times by now, and reading it again wouldn't help.

I had been trying to get the profession for two days and it seemed like it was an exercise in futility. The only thing motivating me by this point was trying to beat Vinny. Vinny, or Vincent, was having the same amount of success as me, which was none at all.

Deep breaths Chris, don't let the stupid metal beat you. I tried to calm down and not get so worked up, but it was difficult. I didn't think that it would take this long and it was starting to get on my nerves.

Being so close to evolving my class didn't help matters. I reached level 9 on day 18 and it's been three days since then. We had the wave on the 19th and Austin and I had been hunting more enthusiastically trying to cross the threshold.

Nothing we did worked and it felt like we were still some distance away. Level 10 was a step up from reaching all the others and the amount of experience to reach it was enormous. One thing that I did have going for me was that I was able to get a new skill after hunting yesterday and it was super cool.

Huh, cool. Pun totally intended. I promised myself a magic skill the next time I could afford one and I stuck to it. I thought about getting Mana Bolt or Ice Bolt, but after seeing the effectiveness of Ice Wall, that's what I went with. It was a great skill and had a multitude of uses in battle. I hadn't gotten to use it that much since I had gotten it because I focused more on getting a profession. What good that did me.

I was still too angry to think straight so I decided to take a walk to clear my head and get out of the heat that the room was bathed in. Since we had to do blacksmithing work to get the class, we set up a makeshift hut for Vinny and me to work in.

It wasn't the best set up but it got the job done. The ventilation wasn't very good and it felt suffocating to be in the room for the amount of time I had been in it. The hut had a chimney and it did a decent job of exhausting all of the smoke from the fire, but we were still inhaling some of it.

I was drenched in sweat and had dirt and grime covering my face and arms. As I exited the tent the sharp drop in temperature gave me goosebumps, it felt like it was getting colder as the days passed on.

I ran into Austin not far from the forge and it looked like he was walking toward it.

"Everything ok, I heard shouting and someone slamming things." He said.

"Yeah everything is fine, just frustrated is all. I didn't think that it would take this long." I said back dejectedly.

"Stop beating yourself up, it took Scott a day and a half and it took Sam just over two. You aren't taking any longer than they did." He replied.

I knew it was wrong to think I was better than them but I didn't think that it would take me this long to get the profession. I knew what I was doing and thought that I was doing everything right, the profession just refused to come.

It had taken a while to get used to actually doing the work inside the forge and attempting to make something from a lump of metal and that's how the first day went. I had all this knowledge but it was all theoretical, none of it was practical.

I knew why certain tasks were done and what it did to the metal, but I'd never done it before. Certainly never using the ancient way of doing it. We had machines nowadays that did most of the process for us.

We had hydraulic presses that were used instead of the inconsistent hammering of a human, we had specifically designed molds to get just the right shape, not freehanding it and hoping for the best.

A day of forging was not enough to be called proficient and it showed in the things that I had made. I thought I would start off by making a knife, nice and easy, right? Wrong. It took so much longer than I thought it would, every hammer strike did something that I didn't want and had to spend a while fixing.

Instead of drawing out the metal to get the right length, it flattened out into a sheet. When I turned it on its side to decrease the width it would roll over into a tube. I swear it was like the metal had a mind of its own and it did the opposite of whatever I wanted it to do.

After my beginning failures, I took the time to read through the book with my confidence thoroughly broken. I now knew that I didn't have as much knowledge about what I was doing as I thought I did.

I assumed that it was common sense and it would only take me a few tries to get the hang of it. That couldn't be further from the truth. Every hammer strike had to be precise not only in location but strength and angle as well. Even the surface the part was resting on had an effect.

It was a steep learning curve that I was just starting to see the bottom of. My most recent project, another knife, turned out so bad that I threw it across the room. I scrapped my first attempt less than ten minutes into the work and would forever deny I ever attempted it, but this attempt was different.

I had spent a lot of time drawing the metal out and then hammering its shape. I felt confident this would be the one to get me the profession.

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The mana circulation technique was difficult at first but I got the hang of it eventually and maintained it for the duration of the crafting process. The book detailed that you had to cycle your mana through the part in a specific way and in doing so, it would help you while crafting.

In the beginning, it was a huge detriment while forging because I had to split my focus on too many things. I had to keep the fire at the right temperature, watch the metal to make sure it never got too hot or too cold, and adjust the angle and strength of every strike, all the while maintaining a convoluted mana technique.

At first, it was like rubbing your belly while patting your head. The actions conflicted with each other and soon everything came falling down like jenga blocks. If I focused too much on the mana technique, I would overheat the metal. If I focused more on the metal, I would forget the mana technique.

It was a juggling act which I was currently failing. My latest attempt was the best one yet and I thought that I would have succeeded too, but the world wished to curse me. The knife looked fine while I was working on it, but as soon as I finished and saw it in a better light, I noticed how bad it was.

Nothing was parallel, the knife had a curve to it that wasn't intended, and saying it was of uniform thickness would be a stretch. It had taken hours and I failed again. I had a newfound respect for Scott and Sam because this was getting the better of me.

Looking over to Austin I said, "I need to hit something."

I wanted to vent my frustration and what better way than by beating something up?

"We can spar if you want, it's a little late but I'm up for it," Austin said back while rolling his shoulders as if to test his body.

"As... thrilling as it is to fight you, I'd rather beat my head against a wall," I said back.

Fighting Austin would just add to my frustrations, not vent them. He was faster than me since he invested more in agility and had a longer weapon. Fighting him was not the experience I had in mind.

It was like fighting a bee who was quicker than you and stung you throughout the whole process. All it would take to end the fight was to catch it, but it always managed to slip away. If Austin wasn't my friend I think I would start to hate him.

"I'm gonna go find something to kill, I'll be back before sundown," I said before walking away.

I wished to be alone and Austin must have sensed that and let me go. I was glad that he didn't pester me about it unlike what my sister would have done.

Finding a target wasn't that difficult and all my frustrations seemed to vanish. All the pent-up anger left my body and was projected on the poor forest denizens. It most likely wasn't a healthy way to deal with anger but I didn't think there was a healthy way anymore.

As my head cleared and I stopped focusing on everything that I did wrong, I tried to think about how to go about it a different way. If I was focusing on too many things at once, I would try to simplify what I was doing. Instead of trying to maintain the mana circulation technique while I was forging like it was two separate processes, I would combine them.

The technique circulated mana through the part during the crafting phase to do various things to aid while crafting. For the Carpenters, it let them sense the knots in the wood along with a better feel for the grain so they could carve better, while also improving the wood during the process.

For the Leatherworkers, it let them see the blemishes in the hide and get a better sense of where to cut and size things while slightly improving the hide. For Blacksmiths, it helped them see the irregularities in the metal while also helping them sense the stresses added while forging. It also helped improve the metal during the process but I was starting to think that was what every profession did.

You had to cycle mana throughout the part while also interpreting what it felt like. All with the added difficulty of compensating for the mana loss that dissipated off of the metal during the process.

I could send mana out of my body and into the part from a distance but that added a layer of difficulty to the whole process. It was a lot easier to maintain if you were touching the thing you were trying to inject mana into.

Both of my hands were either busy wielding the hammer or holding the tongs, so I thought that learning how to maintain the technique at a distance was necessary and was part of the learning process.

But what if I combined those actions? I could send my mana into the part along with the hammer strikes while bringing it back into my body through the tongs. Nothing specifically said that I had to cycle it through only the part. It would be harder to bring it through the tongs, but all together easier than keeping the processes separate.

I had no need to continue my carnage in the forest so I ran back to the forge to try my new idea. I even forgot to rinse the blood off of me before I made it back to camp.

I quickly entered the forge and picked out a new piece of metal to use for the project, throwing it into the fire to heat it up. I ignored Vinny's odd stares and focused on the crafting process. It took me some time to get used to sending my mana along the hammer and injecting it into the part, the timing was everything, and if I was a little off it wouldn't work.

I had been hammering away for two days now so I quickly got used to the new process. Pulling it back through the tongs was another thing I had to get used to, but it wasn't much harder.

As soon as I got the hang of it, I scrapped the process and started anew. I wanted everything to be perfect and I couldn't start on the metal I used to practice on. This was going to be the one, I could feel it. I put the new piece of metal into the fire and started making yet another knife.

Pulling the bright orange metal out of the fire, I put it onto the anvil we had to buy and got to work. Mana flowed along my arm into my hammer before swinging it down onto the metal, injecting it with mana.

I cycled it throughout the structure and pulled it back along the tongs. Sent mana up through my arm into the hammer, down into the metal, back through the tongs. It was working. The only thing that I could hear were the clangs of metal. It was late into the night and I was most likely ruining people's sleep, but I didn't care.

This was it. If this didn't work I was going to scream. Everything felt perfect, the technique was working fine with my new process, my hammering was in rhythm, and the metal was perfect.

*Clang*

*Clang*

*Clang*

Flip

*Clang*

*Clang*

*Clang*

I put the finishing touches onto the knife and I was ready to complete the process. We didn't have any oil to use so we had to settle for water. I put the blade back into the forge until it was glowing hot, then submerged it in the water.

It took some time to cool down and the last thing I had to do was grind it down to a sharp edge. We had bought the grindstone previously and it was only a few steps away. After grinding it down, it was ready for a handle.

Scott had been nice enough to make us some handles already and they were ready to use. I had practiced this part before and went through the process with experienced hands. The pommel came next and I hammered it into place.

I had to do some spot work on the grindstone before capping it off with a polish and I was done. It looked like a knife, was shaped like a knife, and was as sharp as a knife, but it was no masterwork. I had a silly smile on my face anyway.

This was the best one I had made and the system must have agreed.

Congratulations, you have acquired the Blacksmith Profession!