One too many times, Wasp patrols had nearly discovered her forging attempts.
Her breath came quietly. In the distance, the Corrupted Molten Wasps’ droning receded to a dull drone.
“Time to push forward,” she whispered to herself.
Trying to reforge something complicated—like the Spear of Dhoznil—would demand a mastery she didn’t have yet and that she wasn't sure she could accomplish in a reasonable timeframe.
She went through a few crooked weapons before settling on a crate where she found a lump of iron ore.
She took a piece in her hand and cocked an eyebrow. It was heavier than she expected—and something about the Mana swirling in it caught her attention since she still had Mana Sense on.
She waited for the buzzing of Wasps to be completely gone before walking toward the forge with the lump of iron ore in her hand.
"I guess smelting is next," Monica spoke to herself, thinking of the four black pillars. She had already learned two out of the four Skills, currently missing Smelting and Temperature Control.
She placed the ore in the forge and summoned both flames again.
She placed the ore in the forge and summoned both flames again, but this time something in her Skill whispered a different approach. Instead of immediately fusing them, she first laid the Golden Flame, charged with her Vitality, over the ore. Nothing happened - no reaction, no change in the metal's structure.
Then, she did the same with the Obsidian Flame.
This time, she got some feedback.
Through Mana Sense, she watched as black fire began to lick at the ore's impurities, slowly consuming them like a predator stripping meat from bone. Encouraged, Monica tried increasing the potency by channeling more Vitality into the flame. The reaction accelerated - but too much. The flame started consuming not just impurities but the actual ore itself. She quickly dialed back the power, finding a careful balance.
She watched through the forge's opening, fascinated, as the Obsidian Flame methodically stripped away all impurities from the iron, leaving behind a latticework of pure metal with deep crevices where contamination had been burned away. But something wasn't right. As she squinted and shifted her focus through Mana Sense, she noticed the iron itself beginning to lose cohesion. The Mana that bound the iron's structure together was being undone along with the impurities.
Out on a hunch, she activated the Golden Flame, which immediately started bringing it back together, knitting the pure iron back into a solid whole.
Interestingly enough, by cycling the Obsidian Flame and the Golden Flame in this process for about five minutes, she got a circular sphere of iron about the size of her fist.
When the ore had stopped reacting to her flames, she had them disappear and retrieved the sphere from the forge.
Monica turned the sphere in her hands, studying its perfect smoothness. Through Mana Sense, she could see that the iron's Mana was now much denser than before.
*Ding*
You have learned
Utility Skill - Smelting
*Ding*
Utility Skill - Smelting Lv. 1
*Ding*
Phoenix Forge (Epic) Level 2 → 3
+30 VIT
She felt a slight tremor in her legs - the constant drain on her Vitality was taking its toll.
Ok, so I have Smelting, now I'm just missing Temperature Control.
She placed the iron sphere back in the forge, this time melding the Golden and Obsidian Flame together. She started with just a trickle of Vitality, which slowly started making the lump of iron hotter and hotter, but nowhere near it needed to be to be forged into anything.
She slowly started ramping up her Vitality consumption, feeling more and more energy leave her body as the fiery red flame cracked louder and louder.
Through Mana Sense, Monica watched the iron's internal structure begin to shift and the Mana of the iron itself became looser.
The sphere's color shifted from a dull grey to a deep cherry red, starting from its core and spreading outward. The iron's surface began to take on a subtle glow, barely visible at first. Monica carefully fed more Vitality into the flames, watching as the color intensified from cherry to a bright crimson, then to orange. The Mana patterns within the metal became more and more fluid.
Heat waves distorted the air around the forge as she pushed even more Vitality into the process. The sphere's glow brightened to a brilliant yellow-white and she curiously saw the Mana inside of it now thoroughly spread across the entire globe of heated iron.
"Oh," she said to herself, immediately retrieving the sphere with the tongs and placing it on the anvil.
Something came over her as she hammered the first blow onto it.
She saw the natural patterns of the Mana shift more to one side than the other. Therefore, Monica used Mana Sense to keep hammering and hammering until she saw the Mana roughly equally distributed along its now flat, dagger-like surface.
She quenched the dagger and then placed it back into the forge, heating it once again and, surprisingly, seeing the Mana now getting perfectly distributed along its mass. But she could feel that the temperature of the flame was influencing the process and when she felt the Mana stopping halfway through the process, she tried nudging the flame by spending more Vitality.
“This has got to be where Temperature Control comes in,” she muttered under her breath.
Thanks to the properties of the Obsidian Flame and the Golden Flame, Monica could clearly smelt ores in a way no one else in the entire world could have. But when it came to forging the resulting metal into anything, she had to follow the same rules that applied to everybody else.
Her Vitality remained the fuel, but she didn’t unleash it in one rush. Instead, she trickled it forward in a slow, steady flow. The combined Golden-Obsidian Flame crackled around the metal, bathing it in an orange glow.
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Little by little, the metal’s glow settled into a uniform color.
"Damn it!" Monica saw through Mana Sense that the last increase in temperature had shifted the Mana too much toward what would be the handle of the dagger. Now, as she tried adjusting her flame again, she saw that the Mana had settle and wasn't moving anymore.
*Ding*
Utility Skill – Fire Transmutation Lv. 2 → Lv. 3
*Ding*
Healing Skill – Golden Flame Lv. 60 → Lv. 61
*Ding*
Offensive Skill - Obsidian Flame Lv. 53 → Lv. 54
*Ding*
You have learned
Utility Skill - Temperature Control
*Ding*
Utility Skill - Temperature Control Lv. 1
*Ding*
Phoenix Forge (Epic) Level 3 → 4
+30 VIT
She exhaled heavily as she took the dagger out again and quenched it in water. Now that Mana had settled, it was very unevenly distributed despite her having gotten so close to getting an almost perfect attempt on the first try.
The most important thing, however, was that she had gotten three Levels in Phoenix Forge in a very short time span.
She checked her updated Status.
Name: Monica Monroe
Race: Earther
Title: Avatar of the Twin Phoenix (Unique)
1st Class: Phoenix Healer (Rare) - Lv. 60
2nd Class: Phoenix Forge (Epic) Level 1 → 4
Talent Class: None
Attributes:
Vitality - 578
Endurance - 300
Strength - 305
Dexterity - 356
Wisdom - 300
Spirit - 300
Intelligence - 300
Charisma - 300
Free Attributes: 156
Skills:
Golden Flame (Healing Skill) - Lv. 61
Obsidian Flame (Offensive Skill) - Lv. 54
Phoenix Feathers (Constitution Skill) - Lv. 35
Mana Sense (Perception Skill) - Lv. 74
Phoenix Step (Movement Skill) - Lv. 40
Obsidian Impact (Offensive Skill) - Lv. 47
Meditation (Utility Skill) - Lv. 33
Phoenix Cloud (Movement Skill) - Lv. 9
Fire Transmutation (Utility Skill) - Lv. 3
Forging (Utility Skill) - Lv. 1
Hammering (Utility Skill) - Lv. 1
Smelting (Utility Skill) - Lv. 1
Temperature Control (Utility Skill) - Lv. 1
Equipment:
Steel Talons (Uncommon)
Twin Phoenix Bracers (Divine) - Twin Phoenix Set (1/6)
Nightshade Battle Wear (Rare)
Racial Abilities (Earther):
Tutorial
Quest System
Inventory
Map
Myriad Tongues
With all the Vitality that Phoenix Forge had granted Monica, she didn't need to worry about putting her Attributes into it for a while: in fact, she would be able to burn up to six Phoenix Feathers while using Fury of the Phoenix without any trouble. And with all the Vitality she had already allocated, maybe even more. the -50% penalty to her combat Skills until reaching Level 25 remained a serious concern.
A distant buzz made her freeze. Through Mana Sense, she detected three Corrupted Molten Wasps passing nearby. She pressed herself against the forge's stone wall, barely breathing until they moved on.
"I need to get better at this fast," she muttered, retrieving another piece of iron ore. "Can't hide forever."
She placed the ore in the forge and ignited her flames again.
* * *
"This is not working," Monica muttered, looking at her Class and new Skills.
2nd Class: Phoenix Forge (Epic) Level 4 → 12
Utility Skill – Fire Transmutation Lv. 3 → Lv. 13
Utility Skill – Forging Lv. 1 → Lv. 9
Utility Skill – Hammering Lv. 1 → Lv. 7
Utility Skill – Smelting Lv. 1 → Lv. 15
Utility Skill – Temperature Control Lv. 1 → Lv. 6
Her half-naked body, covered only by the ragged scraps of her Nightshade Battle Wear, glistened with sweat. A fresh wave of exhaustion nagged at her mind. Much of it stemmed from the new Phoenix Forge Class's drain on her Vitality whenever she used Fire Transmutation.
Monica had been at it for almost forty-eight hours straight. She had barely even rested in order to maximize her leveling up. However, despite having tried as hard as she could to at least bring the basic Skills to level 25, she had not even gotten halfway there.
The only good news was that she had been leveling up a few other Skills as well.
Healing Skill – Golden Flame Lv. 61 → Lv. 67
Offensive Skill – Obsidian Flame Lv. 54 → Lv. 63
Perception Skill – Mana Sense Lv. 74 → Lv. 79
Utility Skill – Meditation Lv. 33 → Lv. 39
She had started using Meditation while forging, which had honestly helped a lot improve the process. The proof of that was the small mound of daggers she had made from the Mana rich iron ore.
But, as Monica cracked her neck, she realized that this wasn't going anywhere.
"I would need months to even get close to significant improvements. And I have no idea whether this is doing anything for the Golden and Obsidian Flame."
She had started using Meditation while forging, which had honestly helped a lot to improve the process. The proof of that was the small mound of daggers she had made from the Mana-rich iron ore.
But, as Monica cracked her neck, she realized that this wasn't going anywhere.
"I would need months to even get close to significant improvements. And I have no idea whether this is doing anything for the Golden and Obsidian Flame."
“Damn it!” she hissed, slamming the last crude blade she’d just finished onto the worktable.
She kicked aside a warped shield, half-sending it spinning across the floor. Another furious kick launched a twisted metal rod straight into a stack of disused tongs and hammered lumps of ore. The clangor echoed off the cavern walls, and she immediately winced—if a wasp patrol was near, they’d surely hear.
“Ugh!” Monica gritted her teeth, cursing herself for losing composure.
She lashed out with one more kick at the junk pile—and a small wooden chest rattled loose, skidding across the stones. Its lid popped open, spilling a few random dwarven trinkets onto the floor.
Among them was something that caught her attention.
A monocle, almost identical to the one she’d borrowed from Gromorlig back on the first floor. The lens caught her eye immediately, a faint runic script was etched around its rim. It looked battered, but the tiny inscriptions still gleamed with trapped Mana.
Monica's held her breath as she shakily donned the monocle.
*Ding*
You’ve equipped Well-Crafted Dwarven Lens
Without any further ado, she opened her Skill List.
Skill List
Golden Flame - Lv. 67
SKILL EFFICIENCY: 3%
Obsidian Flame - Lv. 63
SKILL EFFICIENCY: 4%
Monica's heart jumped in her chest.