Jeb knocked on the door to his grandfather’s workshop.
He knew that his grandfather only slept for an hour every few months, but that still wasn’t a guarantee that he’d be in his workshop. After all, the entire farm needed to be managed, and Jeb knew that his grandfather advised everyone on it.
As people grew older and more set in their paths, they tended to need less guidance. Still, having someone to ask for help was always nice. As the door opened, Jeb wondered who his grandfather asked for help.
His thoughts were blown away in the rush of heat as his grandfather welcomed him into his forge.
“You’re up at a strange hour,” his grandfather commented. He wasn’t wrong. It was far too early to be up for breakfast, but still at least an hour later than if Jeb had gotten up per his new routine.
“I went to go finish learning my Song at the hive,” Jeb explained, “and I did! But now I’m out of Mana, so I wondered if you could start teaching me Ore Analysis?”
“Absolutely, though I do have a suggestion.” Jeb cocked his head.
“I started looking through the list of Identification Skills after your visit, and I wonder if Metal Identification might not be a better fit?”
“What’s the difference?” Jeb asked. Both sounded fairly similar.
“It’s really in their scope. Ore Analysis is what I have. It lets you see what metals are in stone and generally how to best extract them. It’s also nice as a Farmer, because I can see what the metal levels are in the soil, which Synergizes with my other Skills to let me know if there’s too much or too little of the metal.”
“I don’t know how useful that would be for me,” Jeb admitted.
“Which is why I was thinking of Metal Identification,” his grandfather went on. “That Skill is more focused on determining the individual metals that make up an alloy, but when trained, can also be used to detect metal levels in other materials. The information it gives tends to be focused entirely on identification, though, rather than any sort of use.”
That stumped Jeb for a moment. “Do you mind if I think aloud?” he asked his grandfather.
“Not at all!” His grandfather smiled, “I’m glad that you’re giving this the attention it deserves.”
Jeb thought about why he was getting the Skill. “I’m getting this Skill to complete the Identify Quest of getting a new Subskill. Both of these will meet that objective.”
His grandfather nodded.
“In particular, these Identification Subskills are going to help me with Smithing.”
Another nod.
“So then the question is really what I want Smithing for.” Jeb had to think about that. “The major use for Smithing that I can think of is making enchanted goods. If that’s the case, I probably won’t need to start from ores, because making items from ingots or even just reforging existing items will be a much more effective use of time.”
“Can I add something?” his grandfather asked. “One reason I work from ore is that it’s far cheaper to get ore than ingots in my specific situation. Generally, though, since most of ore is just stone, it’s a waste of money to transport it far, so most mines have smelters in them.”
“So then it becomes a question of whether I’d rather be in an urban or rural environment?” Jeb asked.
“Not quite,” his grandfather corrected, “the question is about what you value. I chose Ore Analysis when I got this Skill initially because I refused to be reliant on anyone else.”
That was something Jeb hadn’t considered at all. “Taking Metal Identification would make me reliant on others producing the metal,” Jeb thought aloud. “Before I keep thinking, how many members of the family have Smithing or some similar Skill?”
“More than enough,” his grandfather said without thinking. “You getting this Skill or not won’t affect our family’s ability to produce metal.”
“So it seems like Metal Identification is just all around a better Skill for me to learn,” Jeb concluded.
“That was the conclusion I’d come to as well,” his grandfather agreed, “but I thought that it was important for you to come to the decision on your own.”
Jeb looked around before realizing that there was nothing in the room which would show the passage of time.
“Do we have time to start before breakfast?”
“A difficult question to answer,” his grandfather replied cryptically, “do you not think that deciding what exact Skill you’re working towards is starting?”
His grandfather couldn’t keep a smile off his face as he said that, and Jeb rolled his eyes. “Do we have time to start learning Metal Identification now that I have decided that it’s the Skill that I want to work for?”
“Oh, no, not at all.” his grandfather said, opening the door to the outside. “It’s time to eat.”
After breakfast, Jeb and his grandfather returned to his workshop.
His grandfather consulted an Identification Subskill book before rummaging in his workshop. After a minute of searching, he came back with two bars of what looked like iron.
“What’s the difference between these two bars?” his grandfather asked, handing them to Jeb.
Jeb held one in either hand. They felt like they were the same weight and temperature. Both were too hard for him to bend by hand, but that didn’t say very much.
“I’m not sure,” Jeb finally admitted.
“Is there nothing else that you can think of to distinguish two materials than just sight and feel?” his grandfather asked, sounding disappointed.
Jeb remembered learning that different metals were easier and harder to bend, so he asked for a hammer. “Is there somewhere in particular I should hit these?” he asked, not wanting to break anything in the shop.
“Come over here,” his grandfather said, leading him to an anvil.
Jeb tried hitting both bars. They sounded slightly different when struck, though not in any way that seemed meaningful.
After a few strikes, one looked more deformed than the other. “This one is softer,” Jeb said.
“Any other differences?” his grandfather asked.
Jeb had a vague recollection that certain compounds could react with some metals but not others, but that didn’t seem to be what his grandfather was asking. As he thought about how else he could distinguish them, Jeb grew more and more uncomfortable due to the heat from the raging fire.
Then it clicked.
“Will they have different properties when heated?” he asked.
“Great question!” his grandfather replied. “Before you heat it up, though, try this,” he said, pointing to a lodestone in the room.
Jeb noticed that the lodestone was attracted to the softer bar but not the harder one. “One of these is magnetic,” he said.
“Before we start heating bars, we should talk safety,” his grandfather said. After a lengthy discussion on how to safely work with hot metal, which centered a lot around “hot metal looks like cold metal until it gets incredibly hot,” it was time for another meal.
Leaving the workshop, Jeb was shocked at how cold the summer air felt. Then again, with all the sweat on his body, he realized he shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, even a hot summer day is much cooler than a forge.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Jeb heated the two bars after lunch. The harder bar started to heat and melt faster than the softer.
“So there’s also a difference in their melting points,” Jeb concluded. “How similar are the metals?”
“One is pure iron,” his grandfather said, picking up the red-hot bar in direct violation of the safety talk he’d just given. He seemed to realize what he’d done, because he gave a sheepish grin and put it back down. “Sorry, I fell into habit. It takes much more than hot iron to hurt me at my Level, but that isn’t true for you and I should model better behavior.”
“That’s ok, grandfather,” Jeb said, “I still wasn’t planning to touch the hot iron.” Jeb didn’t really need the advice of “Don’t touch red hot metal” to know better. Maybe when he was younger, but he was fully sixteen years old now.
“Moving on, the other bar is iron mixed with ash to make a form of steel.”
Jeb cocked his head. “Grandfather, before we keep going, will Metal Identification really help me tell these two bars apart? Both are iron, right?”
His grandfather nodded. “They are both iron, Jeb, but one is fully iron and the other is not. Metal Identification would tell you that. I think the Skill Guide said it can be trained to help you distinguish different kinds of steel by more than just the percent of iron in them, but I don’t know that for certain.”
Jeb had an idea. “Is there a more general Skill for just identifying elements? Like an Elemental Identification Skill? That seems like it could be even more useful for me than being able to distinguish metals.”
His grandfather froze for a second. “Good instincts, Jeb,” he replied. “Let me look.”
Jeb watched the two bars cool down as he waited for his grandfather to finish. They slowly dimmed from a yellow to a cherry red to their normal silvery color.
“So there is an Elemental Analysis Skill,” his grandfather said finally, “but the Skill Guide highly cautions against learning it.”
“Why?” asked Jeb.
“For starters, it makes a lot of other Identification Skills much harder to learn, since they have overlapping domains.” Seeing Jeb’s confusion, he went on, “For instance, Soil Savvy has on some level knowledge of the nutrients inside of the soil. Detecting and Identifying those nutrients is part of the common way to gain Soil Savvy. If you had Elemental Analysis, however, that knowledge would already be in your mind, and so you would need to work harder to specifically apply that knowledge to soil.”
“But I already have Soil Savvy,” Jeb said, before catching himself, “but that was just an example, right. The same will come up in other Identification Skills I want to learn in the future.”
“Right. That’s also not the only issue. Unlike other Identification Skills, which give you some amount of absolute knowledge, Elemental Analysis relies on your own fundamental understanding of what an element is.”
“I don’t understand,” Jeb replied.
His grandfather consulted the book again. Nodding, he began to explain, “you just got Brewing and Distilling. So, imagine you have a bottle of fortified wine. You could see that as being made of wine and brandy. Or, you could see it as being made of alcohol and flavors and water. Some would even see it as being made of whatever water and alcohol themselves are made of. You have to train your Elemental Analysis to tell you the information you want.”
“I think I see the issue,” Jeb replied. “Depending on the circumstances, any of those three ways of seeing fortified wine might be what I want, and I would have to train my Skill to only tell me one of them.”
“Well, no,” his grandfather replied, “it seems as though you can train it to tell you all of those, it just takes far more effort.”
“So that doesn’t really seem like a downside,” Jeb said.
“Well, it does mean that instead of having three Skills which could tell you each part, you instead have to make the single Skill work to cover all of them, so it won’t be as good as a Child Skill that could only do one.”
“Is it possible to get those three Child Skills?” Jeb asked.
“Not if you want to be able to Identify anything,” his grandfather replied.
“Then I think that’s the Skill I want to work for,” Jeb said more confidently than he felt.
“I don’t disagree,” his grandfather replied, “honestly, broader Skills are probably best for you right now, since you have no idea what your future will bring. I’ll need to read up on how to teach this Skill, though, so come back tomorrow.”
“What should I do in the meantime?” Jeb asked.
“Didn’t you say that you finally learned your Song? Why don’t you go see the Bard?” His grandfather was already engrossed in the book.
Jeb left and used a quick application of Least Conjure Water to clean the sweat off. The sun was still high in the sky, so he was sure that he would have time to get to the Inn and back.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 3744/100
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Total Statistic Load: 252 Physical Load: 124 Strength: 28 Dexterity: 21 Endurance: 30 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 128 Intelligence: 25 Willpower: 20 Magic Affinity: 43 Mana Depth: 21 Charisma: 19
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Mana: 570
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Glyph Attunement: 18 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)