Completing the armour only took three days, and I was incredibly pleased with it. I still needed to dye it, but I think I will let Emma do it. That would give her an excellent experience boost, and I didn’t have the dyeing skill like she did.

I then started to make my weapons: a single-handed sword, a knife, a dagger, and a hatchet. This ranked up my basic weapon-making skill, giving me another three options to pick for an ability. The choice here was also incredibly simple. I chose 'material synergy'. It was an ability that instantly got my attention and after a quick glance at the other abilities, I picked that one.

While my material modification ability helped quite a lot when combining different materials, it wasn't quite meant for that. This new ability, however, should help me immensely with my future projects. I continued by making myself three throwing spears. After that, I made a new tower shield.

I was now starting to run out of the second-ranked metal that I ordered, but I basically had everything I needed. From the leftovers, I made myself a few more throwing daggers and arrowheads. With that done, a week had passed since I began, but now I was a lot stronger and felt prepared to fight whatever might threaten us next.

The next morning, I dropped off my armour at Emma’s place and then went back to the smithy to start grinding the blade. The day started to go by, but even before I was finished, my apprentices returned.

They were a sorry bunch as they walked down the road towards our home. They barely even looked up as they walked past me as I had a big smile on my face. They looked properly tired, but it seemed they had received excellent training. I didn't mind as they went straight to bed, but they would be cursing themselves later as they would need to wash everything they touched.

I let them make this mistake as they would never make it again, but for me, it was time to get back to grinding. I still wished that I could listen to a book while I was doing this, but those hopes would remain unfulfilled.

The blade itself was incredibly tough, and I constantly needed to use energy, otherwise, the grinding stone that I was using would not even leave a scratch. I was quite close to being done and I couldn’t wait to test it out, but luckily the next day went by a lot faster as I could hear my apprentices cursing near the river as they were washing everything that they had made dirty.

The next day, the grinding was finally over and it was time to put a truly sharp edge on the blade. For this, I started to use my core energy, but even then, it took an entire day to sharpen both sides. After lightly oiling the surface, I was done. I didn’t exactly think oiling was necessary as I was quite certain this blade couldn't rust, but I was used to doing this, so I didn’t mind. The blade itself was quite thin and it had a good enough give that it wouldn’t shatter. It also had a continuous taper to the tip, making it quite narrow towards the top.

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When I tested the edge, my finger immediately started to bleed, even when I was using my abilities to boost my defences. I hadn’t expected it to be so sharp. It was a good thing that I didn’t need to make a scabbard as I was just going to keep it in my tattoo storage.

Now, for the first time, I flooded my energy into the greatsword and I could feel how the weapon core activated and a instant later a small shockwave was produced by the greatsword. For a moment, I didn’t know what was going on, but then I sort of felt the greatsword and then there was a snap, like a bond between us was formed.

Now the greatsword felt right in my hand. I continued to provide it with energy, seeing how the greatsword almost came to life. I almost needed to empty my entire energy pool before the greatsword couldn’t accept anymore and I even gave it some of my core energy.

I felt it ready to be used whenever I wanted, but the greatsword was also using that energy. I couldn’t figure out what it was using it for, so I found a good and relaxing space and meditated with the greatsword on my lap.

After a few hours, I had my answers. The greatsword was using the energy to keep itself in perfect condition and slowly to improve its own properties. I had theorised this before, but I was glad that it was actually working and it seemed to be at a much faster speed than I expected, but it would still take decades for it to truly make a difference.

One interesting thing about this greatsword was that I didn’t need to use any abilities to enhance its strengths, just giving it energy was already enough, but when I used my abilities for the first time, I felt that I didn’t need to fight with the weapon to use the amount of energy I wanted.

This was something new and only when I truly pushed my core energy into an ability, I felt the slightest of resistances. It was hard not to grin like a madman. This weapon was quite literally perfect for me. It was also quite easily able to cut through metal, but with second rank metals, it had a harder time which made sense. But if I put enough energy into my abilities, even that was possible.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the shatter enhancement to test if this blade could withstand it. But from my understanding, it should be able to as the metal's molecular structure was incredibly tight and resistant to change.

When the testing was done, I finally just looked at the greatsword. The metal itself looked like steel but had a red hue to it. The handle also looked dark red, matching the rest of the sword. The blade also had a pattern on it like flowing water, making it quite mesmerising to look at. I continued to familiarise myself with the greatsword and practised some moves until it was time for me to go to sleep.

The next day, I went and picked up my armour, now coloured in my clan's heraldry. I spent some time with Emma so we could catch up. It seems that she has found herself a man. I teased her by asking when the wedding is and it was quite funny to see her go fully red. It was a good time catching up, but it was finally time to get back to what I was trying to do before all this dragon stuff happened. First, I joined Francis in starting to work on my digging skill.

It took a while, but there was a lot of work to do which helped me rank up the basic digging skill. I got a choice of three abilities, 'defensive digging', 'soil composition', and 'enduring tool'. While defensive digging might be useful, it would only be in rare situations. I could already see soil composition. 'Enduring tool', however, would be useful basically always, so I picked that one.

During one of the visits to the city for a meeting, I was notified that a letter was waiting for me. Usually, when someone needs me, they find a way to notify me immediately, so I wondered what was going on. The letter seemed ordinary enough and was addressed to me.

Opening it up, I was surprised to find that it was from Luana. It seems that the Academy she was from required them to delve into a rank two dungeon, but they didn’t have the members required, so she wanted me to join them. They said that it was quite urgent. While it sounded interesting and quite useful, they also mentioned that it could last around two months and currently, I didn’t have the time as the harvest was approaching.

I wrote a letter back saying that I appreciated the offer, but I was currently too busy to get away. I also confirmed to her that I was rank two and said that I would be free in about two months, so if they still wanted me by that time, they should write to me again. With that done, it was time to go back to the meetings and then back home for sleep and to check up on my apprentices.