Day 68
Our trip back to camp was somber but in better spirits than when we originally left. Austin had worked through some of his issues and I had increased in level twice.
I brought up an abbreviated version of my status sheet to review the changes.
Name: Christopher Zalenski
Race: (F) Human
Class: (F) Champion of Niflheim(Rare) – Level 39
Profession: (F) Runic Blacksmith(Uncommon) – Level 29
Affinity: Ice
Faction: Zalenski Family (Temporary) (Faction Head)
Strength - 303
Agility - 152
Perception - 62
Fortitude - 258
Endurance - 142
Vitality - 78
Intelligence - 40
Wisdom - 103
Acumen - 38
Free Points: 0
Laws: Least Law of Ice
It was hard to compare to the first day I was dropped here. My strength passed 300 and my fortitude wasn't far behind. Agility and endurance were both over 100 and wisdom joined them in with my last level.
Every free point I had in both my class and profession I spent on wisdom. It was what I needed most during the waves. [Momentum of the Avalanche(R)] only worked on my physical stats and those were high enough.
Already during the waves, there was nothing that was physically stronger than me except for the boss. It would be a waste to raise those, especially with all the boosts that I have that target my body.
Wisdom was the thing that I needed most right now and a large mana pool would benefit me more than a few extra points of strength. With all of the free points going into it, it was finally in the triple digits.
Now that it reached that high I considered what I would spend my free points on now. 100 seemed like a good enough milestone to stop and consider other options. That didn't mean I would stop putting points in it, just that I would stop and consider what I needed rather then automatically putting them in Wisdom.
My intelligence and acumen could use some love and so could my perception. Vitality could help me recover faster after battles as well. [Meditation(C)] worked well to increase my recovery but improving my base vitality would work too. The healers had caught up in level but my stats still made healing me harder. Abigail could do it best since she had the highest stats out of all the healers.
It would be something I would have to think about.
Another thing I noted from my status sheet was that my class and profession were getting farther apart. I liked to keep them closer in line and work on them both equally, but our two-day hunting extravaganza ruined that.
Gaining two class levels wasn't a lot of difference but when the levels were getting harder to raise, it added up and made closing the gap harder. Most of the easy experience I got from runes was mostly gone and it took longer to increase my blacksmithing level.
My class was easier to level but getting harder all the same. Killing things was both easier and faster than making things in the forge and it was what I was more experienced at.
Spending two days hunting with Austin gave me a lot of improvements but I was looking forward to advancing in a different area. Usually, I took a balanced approach to how I spent my time. Some hunting, some forging, some training skills, and some on my Law. These past few days though, I spent almost every moment after the wave out in the wilderness and I yearned for some time in the forge.
After recovering from the blaze lions yesterday, we spent the rest of the day out fighting and all of today as well. The only thing that broke up the two day hunting spree was the funeral.
But now I was back. We walked into camp right after dinner and with the few hours of sunlight left I went to the forge.
Vinny was getting farther ahead the more time I spent outside the forge. He already had his forging proficiency in the apprentice tier. The boost it gave was still minimal, but it was more than what my novice tier proficiency did. It also got added to everything he produced.
He had been getting more skills related to forging with his free points and profession skill slots which made him even better. He was above level 35 in his profession and had 2 profession skills on me and quite a few bought ones as well. His speed and mastery were far better than mine and I aimed to fix that. A day in the forge wouldn't magically make me catch up but it couldn't hurt.
I matched him in some areas but not all. One of the areas I caught up to him in recently was being able to forge common-tier weapons and armor. My skill in the forge was finally enough to produce Common-tier equipment.
The skills relating to that achievement received their due upgrade as well.
You have upgraded a skill:
Create Weapon(Crude) -> Create Weapon(Common)
Create Armor(Crude) -> Create Armor(Common)
I had accomplished that before the wave came. I had finally gotten around to reading some of the books that Vinny had purchased from the store and it gave me the knowledge needed to improve.
Both skills provided small boosts, like forging proficiency, but everything added up. Vinny could do some better things with his [Mana Infusion(C)] skill but nothing we had made reached the Uncommon tier.
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The closest we came was on a shield we made for Jonathan and that only ended up being High Common tier. We crafted it a few days ago and it had lasted through the waves flawlessly.
To get the most out of his Earth affinity we used a special metal that was called [Enriched Iron] that had lingering earth energy from when it was buried under the earth. Vinny saturated the metal for multiple days with [Mana Infusion(C)] and we both worked together to forge the best shield we could. Vinny didn't have an Earth affinity so he had to use neutral mana during the infusion to not contaminate the metal.
At the levels we were working with, Vinny's fire affinity contaminating the metal wasn't a huge deal, but we were going for the best we could.
With testing, we found that an object would only benefit from one person's forging proficiency skill and associated [Create] skill. It would only take the highest of the people who worked on it and with Vinny having the better skill, it took his forging proficiency boost.
Both of us had the [Create Weapon] skill at the common tier so it didn't matter whose it took for that. The shield was considered a weapon instead of armor for the purpose of the skill.
After forging the shield for multiple hours to the best of our ability, it came out as Mid-Common tier. After the forging was done, I took the shield to my workbench to begin the rune carving.
With extreme care and precision, I carved a Least Rune of Durability onto the shield without messing it up. It took a few more hours of nerve-racking work, but I did it and it was the best rune I could produce. Vinny's hovering behind me didn't help.
[Enriched Iron Shield of Durability(Least) - Common]
After I finished, it came out the best thing we had ever made. My [Identify] didn't give the whole picture and Vinny had to tell me what he got from his skill.
[Blacksmith's Eyes] gave more information and revealed this
[Enriched Iron Shield (Mid-Common) | Least Rune of Durability(High) | High-Common]
The shield itself was already Mid Common before the rune and after carving one of the best runes I had to date, it turned into High Common.
It was a hair's breadth away from Peak Common. We were close to the strongest rating in the common tier.
It was something I was proud of and a marker that I could create High-quality runes. It also helped keep Jonathan safe during the waves and reduce the chance of injury.
The sunlight coming in through the forge's window gradually declined and the project I was pounding out reached completion. I had other projects I wanted to work on tomorrow but it was getting late and I didn't know if I would be able to get to any today.
The few hours I had after we returned were gone, but it was enough to spend some time hammering out a few things. There wasn't enough time for anything too special but with the amount of battle we did, we were always in need of new weapons and repairs on old weapons.
Swords were the most common that needed repairs but axes were numerous too. Chaperones weren't needed to keep the hunting parties safe anymore and we were able to get more free time for ourselves resulting in more repairs needed.
I wasn't able to gain a level before sleep came and claimed me for the day which was unfortunate. I was only one level away from another skill. We had another lecture tomorrow that people pooled points to buy and my time in the forge would be hampered depending on the information.
There were also some experiments slated for the coming day that I would need to oversee. Connor finally got a poison that he was proud of and tests would be done to see if it was enough to use for body refining.
My presence wasn't strictly necessary, but I wanted to be there in case anything went wrong. We would have all 4 healers there ready to provide their skills but it still worried me.
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The following morning came quickly and it felt like I had gotten no sleep at all. After this was over, I had a lot of it I needed to catch up on.
After grabbing a morning snack, I snuck off into the forge before my attention was needed elsewhere. I wanted to get some hammering done that wasn't the killing kind. The information lecture was planned for later in the day after lunch so I had a few hours to work with. It was barely light out from the sun's edge creeping over the horizon. I wanted to wring all the time I could out of what I had.
Vinny said the main thing that I had to do to break into the apprentice tier of forging was to find a style that I liked. It didn't matter what it was but I needed a forging style that I could use to improve myself.
His books had examples that I could use or copy, but I wanted something different. Vinny had a guide that detailed a style that he learned to improve his ability and it turned into a skill that he had acquired on his next level.
His fire affinity gave him more control over the flames in the forge and better temperature control of the metal. It was one of the main reasons why he increased in proficiency so quickly.
Temperature was a big deal when forging weapons and it was one of the things we were worst at when we started off. As he gained experience, he learned to leverage his affinity more and more during the forging process.
My affinity, on the other hand, was harder to utilize. Vinny's books didn't have anything about cold forging in them and I hadn't bought any myself to help. It wouldn't make sense for Vinny, with a fire affinity, to buy books about cold forging. It would be a waste of his affinity.
We could still share the base information and help each other that way, but it seemed our methods of forging would deviate from one another here. I could use my affinity to control the fire only in a limited sense. I could cool it down if it ever got too hot but I couldn't heat it back up if it was getting too low. My method of forging going forward would deviate from his so we could both utilize our affinities to the fullest.
I had seen missives in the forging profession tab in the store about cold forging, I just hadn't spent any points on it yet. It was time to change that.
I had heard of cold forging before but since I wasn't a blacksmith, or a machinist of some kind, I knew little about it. My materials class covered it briefly and that was the extent of my knowledge.
Cold forging was the act of forging an object without heating it up. There was no fire involved and it relied solely on the force applied to the metal. Most cold forging was done by a hydraulic press used to force metal into the right shape. Any operation done to a piece of metal while it was room temperature (cold) to alter its shape and function was technically cold forging.
From a mixture of knowledge that I remembered and books I bought from the store, I learned that certain metals couldn't be used like this. They were too brittle and any force applied while at room temperature would sooner break it than change its shape. Any metal over 5% carbon, said my magical book, couldn't be used. Seeing that I wasted time learning how to make high-carbon steel was mildly frustrating.
There were benefits involved with the process compared to the usual way. Cold forging doesn't use fire so I wouldn't have to waste attention on keeping the temperature steady. It doesn't lose material during the forging process so I spend less on material. There was less wear and tear on the tools involved since the scorching heat isn't there. And finally, the most important, the metal is stronger in both yield and tensile strength.
Heating the metal and pounding it into shape alters the crystalline structure and grain of the metal. This alteration diminishes the natural strength of the metal that cold forging doesn't do, increasing the strength of the end product.
Now cold forging was a process, it wasn't a style. Like Vinny needed to use a style for hot forging, I needed a style for cold forging.
The style that Vinny picked up wouldn't work for me and I would have to find my own. I wasn't too bummed about it and had a few ideas that I wanted to try out before I caved and bought one.
The system seemed to reward stumbling on the answer yourself rather than being told what to do and I wanted to see if I could do it myself. before resorting to buying one.
I wasn't going to spend a lot of time on it, but enough to see if I could do it. We didn't have the time to spare for me to fumble about in the dark for too long. Vinny could make a lot of our equipment, but two blacksmiths were better than one.
Being close to getting another profession skill was the perfect time to try and find my forging style. The books said that how and what you forged influenced what skills you were offered and when.
Actions and intent had a way to influence what skills would be offered when a new skill slot became available. If I created my style now, I would be offered the skill for it when I leveled. Vinny had to wait multiple levels before he could get the skill pertaining to his style.
Forging styles weren't the same as forging proficiencies. Proficiencies were how good you were at forging. Styles were how you went about doing it. Proficiencies pertained to the end product and style was how you got there.
Similar but different.
Proficiencies could be increased without learning a style but it was harder to do so and near impossible for people without the prerequisite knowledge.
Given enough time, a person started to develop a style subconsciously anyway. How they went about certain process and how they hit the metal into shape was all part of a style.
Getting a skill regarding your style wasn't required but it was stupid not to. A style touched everything that a smith created and not getting a skill with it wasted a lot of the potential.
A style could also be passed down to apprentices and anyone you taught. It was the cornerstone of a smith's legacy and vital to how they did what they did.
It was also something I had been workshopping and tinkering with for a few days with no results.
After Vinny told me a week ago when he got his, I tried to create one but I had no luck.
I was hoping some uninterrupted time in the forge would give me enough time to work one out.