The smithy was located in a building a block away from the main Dilbert building.

It was a wide house with a large backyard that had the top of art smithing machines, hydraulic presses, and a giant blast furnace. Not to mention all the other tools and other things that I couldn’t even name if my life depended on it.

The place looked like a treasure trove for a person who knew how to use these things. And from the wide smile on Sasaki’s face, I knew he liked it here.

“What do you think?” I spoke.

He didn’t even turn to face me and replied as he gazed at the massive furnace.

“Very good stuff, some of these pieces I only saw in galleries and as prototypes in magazines,” he said.

“That’s the power of money, I hope you like it in here,” I said.

“I do, but, I can’t use the whole facility alone… I’ll need some help,” he said.

He turned to me only to find me widely grinning, “Oh, don’t worry about help, I have some people who can assist you, you can work them to the bone, and they’ll be thankful for it, I’ll send you a group of workers, kick anyone you don’t like,” I said.

“Right then, that would be for the best,” he said.

“Anyway, I’ll need to show you some things regarding Mana Smithing,” I said.

“I wouldn’t say no to a chance to learn more,” he said.

I then got closer to him and gave him a Mana Crystal.

“This will soon become one of the most sought materials in the world. And will probably replace currency as we know it. Mana crystals come in different colors, for now, this clear transparent one is the basic one, it has some mana in it that can be fused with weapons to make them sturdier, can be mixed with herbs to make potions, and can also be used to regenerate lost mana,” I gave the old man a piece.

“These will be always found in mines, they are the lowest quality, but they are abundant. The higher tier will only come from killing monsters that created Mana Cores, monsters that live long enough will be able to slowly accumulate mana in their bodies and create cores, the older, or the more powerful a monster is, the purer the mana core within them become. And those can be used to make even more potent and more powerful weapons and armors,” I explained in detail.

Sasaki never interrupted me and listened attentively to all I had to say.

Once my explanation was over, “Do you have any questions?” I said.

“I would be lying if I said I don’t, especially with how much you know about this, but everyone has their secrets,” he said.

“I’m not trying to keep any secrets, if you ask me something I know of I’ll answer you,” I replied calmly.

“Well, I’ll not ask about the future, for now, I feel it’ll make me even more confused, but what I’ll ask about is, how does one fuse this mana crystal into a weapon? Do I have to re-melt the whole thing and re-make it?” he asked.

“That would be the optimal and best way to make a mana weapon, however, the simple fact of breaking the crystal against the weapon will cause the steel to absorb some of it, it wastes a lot of the crystal’s potential but it will allow the weapon the ability to easily cut through the mana protection of monsters,” I said.

“Mana protection?” Sasaki asked.

“The monsters, you must have realized, are pretty sturdy, and they’ll get sturdier by the day, enough that bullets and grenades wouldn’t harm them, then later, sturdy enough that a nuclear explosion would probably make them stronger than even harm them, the mana from the system fully negates any none-mana made item and will make the monsters invulnerable. That is why weapons made using Mana Infusion are a great tool to help defend against the monsters and slay them,” I said.

“This is an interesting topic, how many of these crystals do you have and do you know the exact ratio I need to add to the furnace to have a good weapon?” he asked.

I shook my head, “Sadly I know not of the ratio, but I do have enough for you to figure out a baseline,” I said as I pulled my Inventory and poured the activated mana crystals, I got form the dungeon. I gave Sasaki Thirty of them and kept ten for myself.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“I know this isn’t exactly enough to do full trial and error to figure out the ratios, but it’s something you can use, for now, we could use some swords or any types of weapons that you can mass produce. Spears are the best since they’re easy to use for the common people, and they don’t need a lot of metals nor will they require a skilled person to make, even a daft urban person can make a spear if taught well,” I said.

“Well said, spears are easy to make for starting. I’ll see what I can do with these, for now, I should be able to figure out good mana to metal ratio, but since I don’t know what makes a good weapon, I’ll be bothering you to come and take a look every now and then,” he said.

“Oh, yes of course, now I’ll see if I can get you the help you need, I still have a lot of things to do,” I said.

I soon said goodbye to Sasaki and left him to his work. I needed to make sure that the rest of the people I brought were following the guard's orders and requests. And then I needed to have a sit with Michal. I’ll be needing to explain many things to him.

I left the Furnace area and headed back to the main building. Before I walked into the building, I saw something interesting.

Many of the kids from yesterday’s venture were moving about, cleaning the entirety of the building. From removing dust and cleaning the glass and entrance to managing some of the inventory outside the building to even outright doing combat practice in the courtyard.

Though their form was weak, and they looked to be struggling to follow the commands of Mr Dilbert’s military personnel, they were doing their best to keep up.

I was soon noticed by the officer handling them and he gave me a salute.

That must be something ingrained in him from his days in the military. I saluted back and walked away.

“DON’T SLACK OFF PUT YOUR SHOULDERS IN IT! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!” came the officer’s words and everyone in the courtyard did their best to follow.

“Things are turning out better than expected,” I muttered then I walked into the building.

I asked a couple of the guards where I can find Michal, and was pointed to go up. He seemed to be with Mr. Dilbert for now.

Once I got all the way to Mr. Dilbert’s office I heard shouting.

“You can’t be doing this! You’re killing them! this is slavery god damn it!” I heard Michal’s voice.

“It’s not something I can control, and Lucas said that this will be for their benefit, you can’t be sheltering people without expecting them to repay the favor,” he said.

“But you have enough manpower here to overthrow a damn government! Why must they also work their bones? There are elderly and young children for fuck sake!”

“Watch your tone,” I said as I walked into the room.

“It’s you,” Michal said.

“I guess we have a problem?”

“Father Michal here is really not a fan of how things work,” Dilbert said in a sigh.

“I never expected him to be anything otherwise,” I said shrugging.

“What do you mean by that?” Michal said.

“You think that the military here can protect these people? I can assure you, that in a couple of weeks if they don’t grow strong enough to protect themselves, none of them will be alive,” I said.

Michal looked at me, then said, “You speak as if you know a lot about the future, I still couldn’t believe what you told me earlier this morning, and I still don’t believe it now, you know of things that have yet to come and you seemed to be the most relaxed in this situation, and even had…what did you call it, a skill, which was demonic, to say the least, who are you?” he said.

“I’ve been asked that a lot, think of me as someone who had regressed, though I have yet to know the reason why I regressed or how it had come to happen, I still hold all my memories of what is to come,”

“Then why don’t you tell us the major ones?” spoke Dilbert,

“Because if I did, I would fuck everything up, as I did with Michigan, you saw what our preparation had caused,” I said.

“I’m really confused here,” spoke Michal.

“Lucas already knew this apocalyptic event was going to happen, he contacted me and convinced me to make this Safe Zone, we were planning on making the entirety of the Safe Zone fully operational when Michigan is hit, a month from now,” Mr. Dilbert said.

“But Michigan was hit… your planning doesn’t make any sense,” Michal said.

“It’s because Michigan in my, I donno if this is the right way to say it, my past life. It was hit one month from now. We were planning on having all functionalities ready,” I said

“That makes even less sense,” Michal said.

“It actually makes perfect sense,” I said “It’s because when I asked Mr. Dilbert here to ready up the Safe Zone, the military power he procured was great enough that the system deemed the whole city worthy of being considered as a military base,” I said.

“And from what I gathered, all military bases across the United States have been hit, and they’ve been hit hard. We lost more than eighty percent of our fighting power in one day. No more than a few dozen military bases still remain and are functional but that’s not enough to restore order,” Dilbert said.

“Back to our topic then, if you have all this military power, why are you keeping innocent people to work and slave for you,” he said.

“Because if they don’t do it, they’ll die. You included,” I said to Michal.

“I hate it when I’m fed half information, what do you mean by that!”

“Once the first integration is over, and the world is introduced to Mana, the system will start by giving everyone who has the system window tasks and missions. People who have the system window will be able to grow stronger and be able to protect themselves, people without, will be nothing but baggage that no one will want to help, and they’ll be weak and vulnerable, how long can you protect something that fragile?” I said.

Michal stopped talking and thought for a while, but before he could speak I said, “You brought what I told you with you, right?” I said.

“The Bible and the Cross?” he asked.

“Yes, you have them?” I said.

“Yeah, I do, why?” he asked.

“Well, let me help you get your Class then,” I said.