Metal-working seems to be a good way of increasing my level in Fire-Shaping, I muse as I receive a notification of it ranking up. It’s nice to have something positive among all the frustration.
I need to improve my process of creating metal weapons and tools since the first method I’ve tried – the basic one – is rather slow. And requires skills I don’t yet have in order to do it well.
I’ve sped up the process significantly, but all I’ve been doing is the same thing I would have needed to do if I hadn’t had magic available, only with less labour and less time needed. After cutting off the section of glowing metal, I used my wooden mallet to pound it into a rough hammer shape. Fortunately, though it’s become a little blackened, the heavy wood of the mallet is far less immediately flammable than the vine-stranglers were.
Fire-Shaping jumped a couple of levels when, deciding that waiting for it to cool naturally took too long, I worked out how to withdraw heat from the metal. That took a bit of exploration to discover, but in the end was relatively simple. The heat in the metal was caused by the fire magic suffusing it; withdrawing the fire magic caused it to cool rapidly.
Testing proved that it didn’t become more fragile as a result, fortunately. Fixing a handle onto the piece of metal simply required pulling out a bone and forming it around the middle of the rough chunk of metal. I did reinforce the handle significantly, not wanting it to be the weakest point of the tool. In the end, I created a metal hammer in a fraction of the time it took me to create a flint axe. Magic is wonderful.
Using the hammer, I’ve been able to beat another chunk of the glowing metal into a rough spearhead shape. But there I’ve encountered problems. Namely, that I’m far from an expert blacksmith.
A proper blacksmith would know how much force to apply to form the shape he wants. I don’t. I can make the rough shape, like I did with the hammer, but it’s going to take a lot more practice before I’ll be able to create something like a spear blade which doesn’t have unforgivable weaknesses mid-blade because the metal is too thin, or is too chunky on one side.
It’s just as well I don’t want to try making swords given how much difficulty I’m having with something as simple as a spear blade. I had wanted to create some arrowheads for myself as well, but I think I need to find a better process since they have to be even more carefully balanced than a spear head.
I have one advantage over the traditional blacksmith, though – my Fire-Shaping. I’ve just made a breakthrough on being able to adjust the heat in the blade directly, without needing the intermediary of the fire. And that, I think, is what’s caused the rank up.
Seeing as the spearhead I’m working on is a failure anyway, I put my hammer to the side and look at my messages.
Congratulations!
You have advanced a Class Skill past Novice. Fire-Shaping is now Journeyman 1. You have developed your understanding of the magic which underlies all fires. You have come to realise that heat and fire are irrevocably linked, but that one does not necessarily require the other with enough mana to make up the difference. You have also realised that cold is merely the absence of heat. You have therefore gained a greater awareness of the temperature in objects and beings in your surroundings, and a greater ability to manipulate it with fire magic.
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Dismissing the screen, I stare sightlessly in front of me. In some ways, that rank up was mostly descriptive – explaining what I’ve already discovered rather than giving me anything new. The greater awareness of the temperature in objects and beings in my surroundings could be invaluable, though, if it means what I think it might. Could I have developed a sense more like a snake’s heat vision, or something? If I ever encounter something which can hide from my Inspect, they might not have been able to hide their heat signature.
Well, even if it doesn’t mean that exactly, the fact that it explicitly states that I can exchange mana for heat without having to necessarily have a fire involved will definitely make my crafting here easier. Already, being able to keep the heat in the metal while pounding it with my hammer has been useful and something a traditional blacksmith wouldn’t have.
In fact, it might even mean that I can try a different crafting method, one which would have been nigh on impossible for me previously with the tools and materials I have to hand, but now….
Honoured Markus? What is wrong? Happy asks inquiringly from where he is standing patiently, observing my every move. I managed to convince him to at least leave off the ‘Pathwalker Tamer’ bit every other sentence, but just like Catch, he doesn’t seem willing to call me by my bare name. Fortunately, the more I’ve been willing to answer his questions, the more questions he’s felt confident asking.
It’s actually been good for me too – I’ve been able to work through some issues just by explaining them to him, and then spotting the answer partway through my explanation. He’s also been able to offer a couple of surprisingly insightful comments. I’m becoming more and more convinced that he has an instinctual understanding of metal that rivals what I remember from school and what I’ve received through absorbed knowledge. It’s not that he’s somehow become a blacksmith or scientist on this world, but he’s been able to recognise when the metal is soft and pure enough to mould. And that’s without any experience or actual magic.
I’ll have to talk to Tarra and find out whether River showed any inclination towards herbalism when younger – and if that’s the reason she decided to invite the Unevolved to become her assistant.
As for why I’ve decided to call him ‘Happy’, it’s a slightly convoluted thought process which essentially links the ‘foot’ in his name to a dancing penguin movie I saw a few years back. And I’d rather not call him ‘hurts’ or ‘foot’, as is my usual habit when picking nicknames. I checked with him whether the nickname was acceptable, but he seemed rather pleased to be given it. Maybe he didn’t like his name or something.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I belatedly answer Happy’s question. “My Fire-Shaping Skill has just ranked up which should help us do something a little more experimental.”
More experimental? he asks, sounding slightly startled. I haven’t hidden the fact from him that this is my first time actually doing this sort of thing.
“Yes. Up until this point, I’ve been using a method that, technically, anyone could do with the right material. But now, I want to try something which is only possible with magic. Here, at least. Where I come from, there are processes which do it all the time, but we don’t have the resources or experience they do.”
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Can I help in any way? he asks. I consider it, then shake my head.
“Just watch what I'm doing.” An idea occurs, a question which might be interesting to have answered. “See if you can spot any differences between what I’m doing now and what I did earlier.”
Pulling some more clay from my Inventory, I make a large cup shape, then push the still-glowing hunk of metal from the ground into it with the help of my hammer. Moving the earth beneath the cup and the section of furnace I previously removed like a conveyer belt again, the cup is shut inside.
There is no charcoal this time and nerves send butterflies fluttering in my stomach as I think through what I’m about to try. The furnace is still quite hot: even if I haven’t been stoking the fire within, the heat has thoroughly sunk into its clay walls.
Closing my eyes, I focus with my magic vision, observing the earth and fire magic intertwining in the clay walls, the fire magic filling the space within the furnace. Looking deeper inside, at the metal within the cup, I see the fire magic interacting with…something. But I cannot see what it is interacting with. Like being able to hear half of a phone conversation.
Logically, I can guess what it is: just like there is fire magic in fire, and earth magic in earth, there must be metal magic or something in metal. I’d love to learn how to be a Metal-Shaper too, but there is time enough for learning that later. I don’t want to spend three days focussing on the nature of metal. Or more. Not right now, anyway.
I realise that I indeed have a greater awareness of the heat, of how much the fire magic is affecting its surroundings. And that there is heat even in places where fire magic is not so evident, like in the soil and air around the furnace, or the hut walls which are in the sun. I’ll definitely need to explore that later too. But for now, I focus on the metal inside the cup.
I can connect easily to the fire magic within it: it was heated by a fire that I controlled, and I have been trying to keep its temperature high even after removing it from the furnace.
This time, I want to try something different, though. I don’t merely want to maintain a temperature; I want to increase it. And increase it massively.
To that end, I drop as deeply into Meditation as I dare. Not quite into Medium Meditation, but the very limits between it and Light Meditation. I become less aware of my surroundings, though not completely unconscious of them. Instead, my whole focus is on the glowing chunk of fire and metal magic hidden from my physical eyes by the furnace.
Into that, I start trickling mana, focussing on wanting it to go directly to heat. I don’t want flame; I don’t want ash. I want heat. I feel my mana obey me happily: it is part of me; it wants what I want.
A trickle becomes a stream, but there I stop it from growing further. It would like to – mana seems to want to be used, in as much as it can ‘want’ anything. It eagerly flows out of me, but if I let it all go at once, it will be a flood rather than a stream. I suspect that, just like if I poured a flood of water on the metal before me, I wouldn’t get the result I wanted.
Instead, I feed the metal with my fire-aligned mana, focussing on more and more heat.
My new temperature awareness informs me that I’m having an effect. It doesn’t give me any indications of Celsius or Fahrenheit, or any sort of objective measurement, but it informs me that the metal in the furnace before me is now hotter than anything I’ve encountered, save the inferno which I controlled to cut a swathe through the vine-stranglers.
But I want it hotter still.
The cup inside the furnace changes slowly with the increased heat, the earth magic starting to become agitated. I break briefly from my focus on the metal inside it to calm the earth magic, reinforcing it further. Something tells me that agitating earth magic like that is not a good idea unless I want to hurt someone.
Once it’s more under control, I return my focus to the metal, picking up where I left off. It has reduced slightly in temperature since I broke away, but I quickly make up that ground again and continue feeding it with heat-focussed fire magic.
Slowly, I see the metal change. Its shape softens, fills the cup fully instead of holding itself apart. It starts to affect the clay cup itself, and I suddenly realise that I can see more than I could before. Working with the fire magic, I became aware of it. Interacting with the fire and earth magic, I start to be able to see its shape and movements. Something tantalises the edge of my awareness, the thought of where earth and fire magic might become one….
The magic wobbles and threatens to go out of control, so I quickly concentrate back on the task at hand. I still can’t see the metal magic itself, but I become confident that if I studied this for a while, I might be able to start gleaning useful understanding from it which would enable me to do so.
But my mana is starting to run dry. Even my increased regeneration isn’t enough to keep up with what I am spending, and I’m getting to my last hundred units. The metal has softened and liquified; that is enough. More than enough, really.
Breaking away my focus once more, I quickly form three casts out of clay, cursing myself for not doing it before starting this experiment.
Once more cracking the furnace side and using a conveyor belt to pull the crucible out of its interior, I find I have to back away, Happy moving with me as the sheer heat radiating off the molten metal beats at our faces.
“Pass me that bone,” I order Happy, not taking my eyes off the metal in front of me. The metal now open to the far-cooler air, I’m having to work hard to keep it from reducing in temperature all too quickly. I need it to stay molten.
A bone meets my hand, fortunately the one I wanted. It’s already full of my magic, so all I need to do is keep it from charring under the influence of the blisteringly hot metal and crucible while I reform it to be a grip around the clay cup. I redirect the heat from the bone and from the cup itself back into the molten metal to aid my efforts to keep it liquid.
“Keep out the way,” I warn Happy. He’s staring at the crucible, fascinated. I don’t blame him – I’m rather interested in the glowing liquid myself – but I don’t want to accidentally bump into him, or have him jar me in any way.
Lifting the crucible by the very end of the bone handle, I shift it very carefully towards the clay casts I’ve just formed. So far clay has worked well to withstand the massive temperatures we’re dealing with here; I hope that will continue to be the case.
Controlling the crucible takes almost as much concentration as keeping the temperatures within it as high as they need to be. I shuffle slowly, each twitch of my fingers threatening to send molten metal everywhere.
Finally getting the cup to the right place, I tip it gently, filling the first cast. The syrupy glowing liquid quickly fills the holes and levels out – just what I was hoping would be the case. No worries about accidental hammer strikes making the metal too thin when it’s a pre-made mould.
I’m about to start filling the second cast when I realise that there’s a problem with the first. Physically, I see that the surface is starting to bubble, bits of metal spitting out of the cast entirely. With my magical sight, I realise that the situation is worse than I thought. The earth magic surrounding the metal is more agitated than the clay cup had been inside the furnace. I try to connect to it, but my attempts are too little, too late.
“Watch out!” I cry, dropping the crucible and diving to the ground as the mould abruptly explodes.
Nothing lands on me, but I hear two cries of pain ring through the air. Looking up, I see two samurans passing by have been struck by molten metal. Running towards them, I spare a glance for Happy.
He’s fine, fortunately. Indeed, even as I reach the first of the hurt samurans and start apologising even as I push healing magic into them, I see that he’s moved to stare at the molten metal spread across the ground from where I dropped the crucible, his head cocked to one side in interest.