“This is actually… fun!”

“Isn’t it?”

Rusty nodded as he settled before the workbench and grabbed a nearby polishing cloth. With careful motions, he began to rub the surface of the blade, removing any rough spots and smoothing out imperfections. As he worked, he couldn't help but be immersed in the process of crafting, something that he felt he could spend days on. There was something about creating things with his own two hands that was quite fulfilling.

The bronze began to gleam under his touch, reflecting the light of the forge in a mesmerizing display. Rusty found himself lost in the rhythm of polishing with his mind focused solely on the task at hand. Once he was satisfied with the blade's appearance, Rusty set it aside and turned his attention to the task of sharpening.

“Good, now you can either use a whetstone or the grinding wheel. While the whetstone will offer you more control and precision, it will take a lot more time, that’s why I’d propose a combination of both, start off with the wheel but finish with the whetstone.”

“Alright!”

To make things easier he had a sort of assistant, who was the old hero. At first, the orb’s tone was harsher and the old hero was slightly annoyed by the fact that he was reduced to a blacksmith. Eventually, his tone became softer and more encouraging. Rusty’s enthusiasm and determination were quite contagious, even the old hero couldn’t help to start enjoying this new process. His new student was quite responsive and he did everything instantly without asking any questions.

Rusty followed the Hero's advice, using the grinding wheel to help sharpen the blade, and switched to the whetstone when the time was right for finer sharpening. It took time and patience, but eventually, he achieved the desired result - a sharp, keen edge that gleamed in the light.

“Great, It’s almost finished, now you just need to assemble the hilt, this is just a bronze knife so it won't be anything fancy, but it'll get the job done. You can fashion a simple handle using some leather or wood, whichever you prefer.”

Rusty nodded while looking at the now sharpened blade of the hunter’s knife. Thanks to the mold this tool had been mostly created as a singular piece. It didn’t require much fancy work and could be finished by wrapping the hilt up with something like leather. However, considering that this was his first creation, it was better to fashion a proper handle.

After selecting a piece of wood from a nearby rack and began to carve it into shape, using the drawings in the blacksmithing guide as a reference. Even though his hands were made of metal, he found them to be rather dextrous. It seemed that he was given some type of boost to his crafting skills once inside the soul forge. With the help of some drawings from the blacksmithing guides for reference and the help of the hero, the process was eventually finished.

The wooden handle was carved into a comfortable shape that fit well in Rusty's metallic grip. He then secured it to the blade using some twine, wrapping it tightly to ensure it stayed in place. Once he was satisfied with the handle's placement, he was left with admiring his handiwork.

“Not bad but…”

“Is something wrong?”

While Rusty felt a sense of pride for his first creation, the orb of light started to scrutinize it. After floating down, the hero started examining it from all directions before finally speaking out.

“I’ll rate this around a C… C+ at most...”

“Oh, a C+? Wait… that’s not that great…”

At first, Rusty was overjoyed by the rating as he was only an F-rank monster, so anything above that ranking was quite good. However, soon he realized this wasn’t that good and just slightly above average with the letters B and A being still above it.

“Don’t feel bad Rusty, this isn’t bad for a first attempt, you could probably sell this knife in a store to adventurers. But don’t get too complacent, thanks to the Soul Forge you don’t need to worry about getting the smelting process wrong. Usually, other blacksmiths have to worry about impurities and inconsistencies in their metal but here the ingots will always be pure.”

“Ah, I see…”

Rusty nodded in understanding. It was true that he was still lacking in many aspects of blacksmithing but with time, he knew that he could improve upon them. With the advantages that this Soul Forge space provided, he could also focus purely on the creation aspects and leave some things to the magical machines.

Identification:

Twilight Bronze Hunting Knife

Rating:

Intermediate

Rank:

Common

Once he examined this new weapon with the help of his identification skill, he was given some interesting stats. Thanks to going through the library he knew about the grades and ranks that weapons had. There were no ranking grades but instead a rating was given that ranged from lowest to highest. That he was able to get an intermediate rating on the first try was quite reassuring.

When it came to the ranks of the weapon, the lowest was called Crude. These weapons were of extremely poor quality. The books implied that they were usually hastily crafted with minimal effort and poor materials. They offered minimal effectiveness in combat and broke easily. When thinking about his initial corroded bronze blade, it was clear that it was in this rank.

Next was the common rank that his knife was in. This rank was filled with basic weaponry and they offered the basic performance without much of an advantage over anything. They were more robust than crude weaponry and could be used to defeat slightly stronger enemies.

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After this rank were the uncommon items that offered some minor enhancements and bonuses to the wielder. The scripts say that an uncommon blade could enhance the basic stats or produce some other effects. Post uncommon were rare items that weren’t discussed in the basic books he had access to. It seemed that unless he got to a certain point he wouldn’t be able to read through the basic descriptions. After rare was epic, then legendary, and right at the end was mythical.

“But don’t worry, with practice, you’ll get better. And who knows, maybe one day you’ll be crafting legendary weapons or even mythical ones!”

“Legendary and mythical weapons… that sounds amazing!”

If Rusty had eyes then they would be sparkling with excitement at this prospect. The idea of crafting powerful weapons was quite exhilarating. However, he wasn’t sure if it was better to craft them or use them on powerful opponents and get stronger. Now that he had tasted crafting, his previous longing for power was wavering slightly.

“Alright, how about you go test your new knife out? This will be a good chance to use that training area.”

“Oh, right there was still a room that I didn’t visit?”

Rusty had already gone through the armory and library but one last area remained, the training area. The hero urged him to take his newly made tool and see how it performed in combat. There was no reason to refuse and he was also interested in the only chamber that he had not visited. Thus, with the knife in hand, he made his way to the training area which was not something that he expected.

Upon entering the training area, Rusty found himself in an empty spacious room. He expected to find some training dummies but there was nothing here besides something that looked like a circular arena. There were torches lining up the walls and on the ceiling which illuminated everything.

“Alright, let’s see what you can do, Rusty.”

“What I can do? But there is nothing here… Do you want me to swing at empty air?”

“Haha, not quite. Remember, this is the Soul Forge, it doesn’t follow the rules of the physical world. In this training area, you can summon opponents that you have previously defeated to practice your skills. Think of it as a safe environment where you can test out your weapons and abilities without risking injury to yourself.”

“No injury to myself?”

“Indeed, well you’ll still feel pain… though I’m not sure that metallic body can feel any… but any damage you sustain here will be repaired.”

“But… How do I summon opponents?”

“If my memories serve me right, then first you have to approach the middle of this training area.”

“Hm…”

Rusty did as he was told to and approached the middle of this large room. The moment he was there something strange started happening a small hole opened up and something started sliding up. He jumped back in surprise but the hero quickly explained to him what had just happened.

“This is the training area console, the monsters and opponents that you have defeated will be stored in it.”

At first, it looked like just a strange long cylinder but once it was up something unfolded. It took the form of an interactive screen that looked somewhat similar to the system windows he already knew. There were arrows on the left and right side which allowed him to scroll through the enemies he defeated. The ants and other insects were all there, even the few adventurers that he had slain were there just like the hero proclaimed.

“Interesting… No wonder you were able to get so strong in such a short amount of time, Hero… Quite the cheater aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to hear it from someone like you…”

The orb representing the demon king decided to show up and examine the newfound room. He was quite shocked at the existence of such an area that allowed people to constantly better themselves. It was clear that his enemy the hero had used it to heighten his skills or at least get used to fighting demonic creatures and countering their techniques.

“This place isn’t as cheat-like as you might think, you can’t level up your skills here, that is only possible outside of the soul forge in the real world.”

Rusty listened to the explanation and was saddened by this revelation. He knew that both passive and active skills could level up but needed to be used in battles. Having a space where he could face countless opponents without any fear of being killed.

“It would still allow you to find weak points of old enemies. You could even test new skills or tactics against multiple foes or try out new weapons…”

What the demon lord was saying made sense. Rusty could hardly wait and began clicking at the arrows that allowed him to circle through the various enemies he faced. There was even an option to search by main types or to even write in the name for it to go quicker. However, his only weapon was a hunting knife and it was much smaller than the sword he was used to. For the time being, he decided to use the weakest opponent that was on the list.

“An ant?”

“Our Rusty is still a cautious one Hero, would you like him to face of against one of the adventurers with a knife?”

Commented the demon lord as light particles started to gather in the training area. Soon they started coming together to form a body that resembled a level one Minuscule Myrm Ant Drone. Just like anything else the levels could be customized but Rusty still wanted to be cautious.

Rusty observed as the ant took shape before him, its form was hardly imposing. It was an opponent that he had faced many times and defeated on many occasions. However, he was trying to test out his newly created hunting knife that he was still unfamiliar with.

After taking shape the ant stood there for a few seconds before springing to life. It quickly identified Rusty as its opponent and charged forward similarly to its real-life counterpart. The charge was rather slow and easy to read. Rusty’s body was at the tenth level and his stats were close to monsters at the F+ grade, there was nothing to fear.

He did not bother to dodge and allowed it to pounce at his left side. The monster’s mandibles snapped at his armored form but were unable to leave more than a few dents. After tightly gripping his newly fashioned hunting knife, he quickly plunged it into the monster’s head. It penetrated it quite effectively and in a matter of moments the monster was defeated. Its body turned back into light particles and quickly vanished while he was left to ponder his test.

“...”

“Is something wrong?”

“This doesn’t feel right…”

Rusty replied to the hero who inquired about the silence.

“What doesn’t feel right? The weapon seems to work fine to me.”

“Think he meant the awkwardness of wielding it, isn’t that right, Rusty?”

The demon lord chimed in as from his perspective, Rusty awkwardly wielded the knife. In his past life, the demon king was quite fond of these short-bladed weapons but without the proper skills, they wouldn’t be as effective.

“Yes, I meant that!”

“To my knowledge, Rusty only has the Basic Swordsmanship and Archery weapon skills. To wield a knife, he needs Basic Dagger Proficiency, which he lacks and considering that he is a monster… he probably won’t be able to learn it by himself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The hero orb along with Rusty were confused at the words of the demon king but he quickly elaborated on them.

“Well, have you considered what our Rusty really is?”

“What he is? You mean a living armor monsters?”

“Yes, that part too but to be more precise, he is a monster that has been created in a dungeon. He is not a naturally born monster like an Orc or a Goblin but an inanimate object given sentience by the Dungeon Heart.”

“That’s true… I haven’t heard of living armors ever learning new skills…”

“Because they can’t, they are similar to golems that are constrained by their creators. Luckily, he has my Skill Absorption skill. So he will be able to learn new skills from others.”

Rusty always had wondered why he wasn’t learning that many skills and this explained it. He was limited to his evolution and what skills were given to him through leveling. Even if he picked up a polearm, he wouldn’t be able to learn the basic skill to wield it properly. Knives and daggers went under the same skill, so for the time being, he would only be able to wield swords, bows, and perhaps shields.

“Don’t feel down my dear Rusty. Having too many skills isn’t necessarily good, it takes time to level them up and each weapon has its downsides.”

What the demon lord was right and Rusty knew it. If he created every type of weapon and then decided to learn all their skills, his status window would quickly become bloated. It was better to learn higher-tier skills for one or two weapons than to have all the basic ones for all of them. For the time being, handling the bow and sword was enough, and making the former would be his next task.