My mind lingered on our recent excursion as I headed over to Rogar’s place for another night shift. This time, I’d at least managed a nap, so I wouldn’t be so dead by the time morning came around. Something also felt different about my body as I walked. I felt great, which was a good reason to do more Taiji in the future.

The outing had done a lot for both of us—not just for developing our working relationship, but in terms of our combat proficiency as well. While we still had a long way to go, we were now using signals and had started synchronizing. In the Trial, we’d been much more ad-hoc—doing whatever we could when we could.

With that foundation laid, we could continue to drill those until we’d perfected them. We wouldn’t even need enemies for much of that. Just an open space, really.

The other revelation was my Wisdom and Order stats. Especially Order—that had come out of nowhere. With Dominion governing strength, Vigor endurance, Passion charisma, Cunning awareness, and Grace dexterity, the obvious holes were luck and anything to do with magic.

Which was why I suspected Wisdom had something to do with the latter. In games, Wisdom and Intelligence were the stats associated with magic, and while there wasn’t an Intelligence analog, I bet Wisdom played that role. It was easy enough to test—just needed to get the stat high enough to see a noticeable difference in my abilities’ magical potency.

Order, though… I doubted it had anything to do with Luck. I hadn’t gotten especially lucky in that forest, unless you count not dying to the weasels. The thing was, those notifications came when I did my Qi Gong and Taiji meditation, which meant it had something to do with my body, at least.

I lamented forgetting to ask Cosmo about the stat when we’d spoken. There’d just been so much on my mind when we last chatted. I wondered if he’d tell me.

The sun dipped just below the horizon when I arrived at Rogar’s smithy. Traffic had been light, so I made good time, power walking at a pace that would’ve left old Greg breathing heavily.

I took a deep breath in, relishing the cool, crisp air. The days were warm and muggy here, making my clothes stick to my skin, but the nights were just perfect. Perfect for smithing. Covered in all the gear as I was, I’d need the nighttime chill to offset the heavy exertion I was about to undertake.

Feeling pretty good about things, I walked in on Rogar. The second I saw his ugly mug, all those feelings went right out the window.

“You,” he snarled, giving me a look that said he thought horse shit was more sightly.

There were horses in this world, actually. They were just built a bit differently. Stockier, with more meaty legs. Seemed they couldn’t gallop as fast, but they could go for much longer than the horses from my world.

One of the many subtle oddities of this world. Some things felt eerily similar to earth—like the medieval fantasy construction. Some things, like this, the giants, and a dozen other details, felt downright alien. It was weird.

“I swear, if you didn’t show up as well, I’d have tracked you down and killed ya,” Rogar spat.

“And then you’d be down one more worker and would probably face criminal charges, so forgive me if I don’t believe you,” I kept as neutral of an expression as I could muster.

“Keep talking, Grug, and you’ll find out just which one of us is right.”

“It’s Greg, by the way.” What was it with people of this world calling me Grug? Was that supposed to be a common name or something? Aerion had called me that too, back when we first met.

“What?” Rogar snarled, his eyes widening menacingly.

“Nothing! Nothing!” I raised my palms, backing away. “Didn’t mean anything by it. So I’m guessing Philip’s out?”

“Says he’s sick. Health reasons,” Rogar grunted. “Pretty typical for him. This is why you don’t hire old people. Unreliable shits.”

That was… more than a little mean. Besides, Philip was more muscled than most twenty-year-olds I knew. The dude was strong.

“Shouldn’t you check up on him? Do you know where he lives?”

“No, and even if I did, the only reason I’d track him down would be to drag him back by his ear, if that’s what it took.”

“Uh, huh.”

That worried me a bit in a world without easy access to healing or modern medication, but I hoped it was something minor. Besides, without Philip here, my task just became a whole lot easier.

“Looks like I’ll have to pull double duty, then,” I said. “Are you going to supervise?”

“I just worked a full day in the forge. Do I look like I have the time to babysit you? You get a quota tonight. Ten blanks. Ready to go by morning. If you can’t cut it, you get no pay. Clear?”

“Crystal,” I said, squashing my urge to complain. Ten was only a bit less than both Philip and I managed when we worked together. It’d be impossible on my own, and he knew it.

No wonder he didn’t have anyone working for him. The guy was an ass, through and through.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Good,” he said, before walking off without another word.

I only let the stupid grin creep onto my face once he’d turned the corner and was long gone.

“Yes!” I roared, pumping my fist. I swept my gaze across the forge in its entirety. Not just the recycling forges outside.

The real one. The one Rogar used.

My eyes fell to the pile of blanks sitting next to it. Just begging to be turned into real weapons.

Rogar’s quota was insane. Impossible, actually. He knew it. I knew it. Rather than slog knowing I’d fail, I’d do the bare minimum. Four blanks—a low number, even for me, but reasonable.

If I multitasked and stuck recycling metal in with the forging metal, I could probably manage that while also forging and Initializing actual weapons.

The plan was to Initialize them, note down their power, and stick them right back into the forge.

Tonight, I planned to experiment not just with forging, but improvisation as well. One of the first things I’d discovered about [Initializer] was that it allowed me to modify weapons and armor prior to Initialization, which I suspected resulted in different effects.

I’d never gotten a chance to test that, though. Until now. And with the extra headroom from uninitializing my jeans and my recent level up, I was all kinds of excited.

Rogar’s forge still had plenty of coals, so I worked the bellows until the fire lit, stuck a blank inside, and continued working the bellows until it glowed white.

Then I took the hammer and went to town, using what meager skills I had. Every so often during the forging process, I tried to Initialize it—I wanted to see when the System would consider it a weapon.

Turned out, it didn’t take much. Pounding out a tang to hold it was enough to qualify it as a paddle. One round in the forge and the ‘weapon’ was destroyed, allowing me to continue shaping it.

Forging ended up requiring far more effort than I’d thought. When making the blanks, we pounded the iron into a simple, rectangular shape. Even using Rogar’s finished works as examples, I was totally unable to replicate the result, despite hours of trying.

I eventually gave up and focused more on recycling—lest I fail to make my quota.

By morning, I ended up with five blanks. One more than I thought I’d make. Of course, Rogar took the opportunity to inform me how I wouldn’t be getting paid.

I knew that already, of course, but I still put up a show of arguing that I’d done good work—it’d make him suspicious if I didn’t.

This song and dance repeated three more times, with me showing up only to hear that Philip was a no show. By the fourth night, I was genuinely starting to get worried for the guy. I wanted to check up on him, but I didn’t know where he lived, and neither did Rogar, apparently. Without any leads, I was dead in the water.

I’d also managed to make something that was starting to resemble a sword. It might not have had a cross guard, and the blade’s profile was janky, but it was definitely a sword. Knives, I’d had more luck with.

I’d experimented with various shapes, sizes, handle materials—from blocks of wood, to vines from a roadside bush, to cloth.

And I’d Initialized it all, destroying it soon after. And in all that time, I’d learned some things. Many somethings, actually.

Rough Iron Blade [Common]

This looks like it was made by a Teletubby on drugs. Is it a weapon? Ostensibly.

Stats: None

Abilities:

— Blunt: Foundation - 0: 10% of damage dealt gets converted to Blunt Force damage.

I sighed. Another dud of an ability. In the dozens of weapons I’d Initialized, there had been a couple that really stood out. [Warding] added a small barrier around my hand, protecting it and making it harder to be disarmed. [Blending] made the weapon slightly translucent, which I thought was pretty cool. Being a [Common] ability, it’d never turn the weapon fully invisible, but it’d be an amazing power if I found a higher rank variant.

The rest, though, all had random abilities that would be quite useful in very specific contexts, but mostly useless otherwise. There really did seem to be no pattern or methodology to what item got what ability.

Whether this was something I’d be able to direct as I leveled up, whether it was based on the materials used, or something else, I couldn’t say.

Still, it was a useful learning. Very useful. Knowing in advance that I couldn’t control the ability meant that I could take measures—mainly, I just needed to try out as many different combinations as I possibly could. I’d eventually have a large enough recipe book that I could forge up what I needed when I needed it.

Weapons only bestowed abilities, but I’d been wrong about armor.

I’d pounded out some of the blanks into a roughly rectangular shape before punching a couple of holes through and fastening some leather straps. That was enough for the System to deem the object a shield, which it considered ‘armor’.

One such shield had given me stats. Another had granted an ability. One had given me both stats and an ability.

So it seemed like while clothing always gave me stats, weapons always gave me an ability, and armor was a mix.

Another discovery had come with my improvisation. As I’d suspected, cosmetic changes did absolutely nothing. Same abilities, same description, same condition. The only thing that changed was the ‘Makeshift’ moniker that showed up next to the name.

Functional changes, though, were another story. Like changing the pommel of a sword to a heavier one gave the sword a Misweighted trait, which changed the ability to something crappier and also lowered its condition.

Adding a cross guard—which I borrowed from Rogar’s stash—similarly changed the name of the sword and gave it a different ability, usually with more Condition.

Changes in the quality also manifested in increased Condition and different—usually better—abilities.

Which told me there was a whole world of opportunity with improvisation. Unfortunately, the abilities that came with modified weapons were just as random as the vanilla versions.

I was in the process of forging my best sword yet, when a voice from behind made me jump.

“And what in the name of the Celestials do you think you’re doing?”

The voice was cold—devoid of any trace of emotion. And that made it so much more terrifying.

I turned, slowly. And saw Rogar staring at me with a death glare that nearly made me drop my newly crafted sword. I hadn’t heard him over the clanging of the hammer. Which, in hindsight, was probably what had brought him here.

“Shit.”