Jeb woke with the sunrise the next morning, reveling in the feeling of being well rested again. As he moved down the stairs to breakfast, he noted that his body was moving far more easily than it had the day before. He hadn’t noticed how sore and tired he had been, but the absence of those was just one more piece of what was shaping up to be a great day.
At breakfast, something in his mood clearly showed, because his sister commented. “What’s got you so calm and happy?” she asked.
“I’m not sure!” Jeb replied happily. “I just have a feeling that today is going to be a great day.”
After breakfast, Jeb made his way back into the forge. His grandfather had clearly kept working through the night, because the pile of tools that needed to be repaired was far smaller. There was a new pile of broken wooden staves, which Jeb asked about.
“Oh, I was going to wait for your Aunt Sue to come back through the farm to replace those beams,” his grandfather responded. “If you’d like to replace them, though, I think we still have a lathe somewhere in storage.”
“Can I decide after sharpening the tools for the slaughter?” Jeb asked. He didn’t want to give up halfway through a task.
“Absolutely,” his grandfather nodded. “You’ve been doing a good job sharpening those, by the way.”
Jeb beamed at the compliment and sat back down at the grinder. He noted that his grandfather had moved all of the sharpened tools somewhere else. More than that, though, he had straightened up the remaining pile of tools. Jeb wasn’t certain if there was an implied order to sharpening that he was supposed to follow.
After looking at the piles for a few moments, he shrugged. If there was a pattern, he couldn’t see it. Even if there was an order he was supposed to follow, it wouldn’t do any good to waste the time it would take to figure it out. Maybe I should ask Grandfather, Jeb thought momentarily, before dismissing that thought. If his grandfather had wanted him to do the tools in a certain order, he almost certainly would have said something.
Jeb picked up the knife closest to him and tested its edge. It seemed completely sharp, at least as far as he could see and feel, so he gave it a quick honing and set it aside. As he worked through that pile, Jeb noticed the same was true for all of them.
“I wonder,” Jeb muttered as he grabbed a random tool from each of the remaining piles. As he had expected, each pile further from the grinder required more sharpening than the ones closer. That made things far easier for him, and Jeb slipped into the repetitive work of honing the sharp tools, only to quickly run out of tools that only needed to be honed.
He picked up a knife from the next pile only to stop with it in his hands. It might be more convenient to have all of the tools equally sharp, he thought, looking to the opposite pile. Nodding, Jeb picked up the first knife from that pile. Thought it was not dull, it certainly was not particularly sharp.
He nodded again, searching for the right grit to put onto the grinder. When he found it, he started grinding the knife back down. In a few strokes, it was as sharp as the tools in the pile next to it, so he set it there. Jeb worked through the rest of the pile in the same way.
When he had finished, he checked the edge on one of the knives he hadn’t just sharpened. As he expected, it needed the next finer grit for sharpening. Before he switched the grinder out, he called out to his grandfather, “thank you for organizing these!”
The clanging of metal paused for a moment. “You’re welcome.”
As his grandfather returned to his work on the metal, Jeb looked at the pile of tools that his grandfather had been repairing. He was working through them far more quickly than Jeb was working through his own pile. Watching his grandfather work, Jeb understood why.
It seemed as though the instant that his grandfather put a piece of metal in the fire, it immediately began to glow a perfect uniform color. His grandfather worked as though he expected that, sometimes barely pausing between putting a piece in and pulling it out. When he pulled the metal out, he immediately struck it with his hammer. Somehow, the entire piece would reshape, as though his grandfather had somehow hit a resonant note on the piece that caused it to shape into its ideal. If a single strike wasn’t enough, his grandfather would shrug, wave the piece through the flames again to make it glow and strike it again. In the five or so pieces Jeb watched his grandfather repair, none took more than two strokes.
His grandfather turned after the fifth piece. “Can I help you with something?” he asked.
“I was just wondering how you were working so quickly,” Jeb said.
“Skills improve a lot as you grow in Level and Tier,” his grandfather said. “Truthfully, this is me working with most of the Skill restricted.”
“Why wouldn’t you use your entire Skill?” Jeb asked. He wasn’t entirely sure what it meant to restrict a Skill, but he made a note to look it up later.
His grandfather looked pensive for a moment, muttering “I suppose that question was to be expected.” He raised his finger as though to answer a few times. Each time, he shook his head and put his finger back down. Finally, he nodded and held his hand up.
“In this particular case, because there’s not a massive rush on fixing these tools. I really enjoy the work of reforging tools, and I haven’t always been able to take the time I’d like in fixing each piece.” Seeing that Jeb was about to ask what that meant, his grandfather continued, “it’s also a good way to make sure that you’re developing your Skills, rather than having your Skills develop themselves. There are more stories than I care to relate of people relying entirely on their Skills through the Tiers, only to find that they were less effective than they should be. Ultimately, while Skills can improve your knowledge and ability, they are dependent on how much you could do without them. A Blacksmith who can forge a blade with his Skill completely suppressed will be far more effective than one who has relied on Smithing since getting the Skill. Of course, there’s also the secondary benefit that you can tailor a Skill far more if you only need it to cover a part of what you do.”
“What do you mean?” Jeb asked.
“Do you remember the conversation we had about Parent and Child Skills?” his grandfather asked.
“That Parent Skills have the benefit of being broader, while Child Skills have the benefit of being more specialized?” Jeb responded.
“More or less,” his grandfather confirmed. “That’s sort of the introductory version of Skills. Even within a Skill, you can focus it towards what will be useful to you. In the Blacksmith example from above, if a Smith knows that he can forge every part of a sword without his Skills but struggles to sharpen it, he might focus his Skill on more efficiently sharpening the blade. Or, if he can do everything perfectly, then he can work to push the Skill to do things that cannot be done without a Skill, like making the blade resistant to dulling or rust.”
“Can’t you do either of those by choosing a better alloy?” Jeb asked.
His grandfather shrugged, “not if you’re relying on the alloy you’ve chosen for its hardness and ability to take an edge. There are tradeoffs to every choice you make in Forging. A good Blacksmith can either bring up the weaknesses or lean into the strengths of each of these choices. There’s not a right answer between those two options, by the way.”
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Seeing Jeb’s expression of thought, his grandfather continued, “they also aren’t inherently different techniques. A Blacksmith who focuses their Skill on making swords sharper will be leaning into their strengths when working with an alloy that naturally sharpens well. If they work with an alloy that is naturally less able to keep an edge, though,” his grandfather let the sentence trail off.
“I think I understand,” Jeb said. He spent a moment trying to remember how the conversation had gotten there. “So how are you trying to develop your Smithing Skill?”
His grandfather laughed. “I’m glad that you’re getting better at refocusing. I’m not totally sure where I want to develop my Skills honestly. I haven’t decided what Tenth Tier Class I plan to try for. I’d like to decide on that so I can tailor my Skills to the Class I’m striving for, rather than the reverse.”
“That makes sense,” Jeb said. He was about to ask what Classes his grandfather was considering when he saw his grandfather pick up another bent tool and start fixing it. Taking the hint, he went back to sharpening the tools.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 8288/100
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Total Statistic Load: 380 Physical Load: 139 Strength: 33 Dexterity: 26 Endurance: 35 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 241 Intelligence: 47 Willpower: 54 Magic Affinity: 57 Mana Depth: 39 Charisma: 44
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Mana: 1580
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Glyph Attunement: 28 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 Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient 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 Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Enchanting Glassblowing
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)