In Sam’s smithy
Sam continued to further his art for days on end, eventually gaining enough mastery in the field of ethereal forging to run the entire smithy from a sitting position. This was the true meaning of his craft, more than anything else. Smithing was made dramatically easier the more one could do in the same amount of time, and being able to conduct a grand orchestra of innovation without even moving was a great boon. It was different to enchanting or other skills in that it had nothing to do with elemental mastery or magic. It was a physical art, one that only needed an application of force.
Sufficiently girded in his profession, Sam finally started to work on Dao smithing, once he reached the third stage of Apprentice rank in his main smithing skill. Then he began in earnest.
His only experience with Dao smithing was when he created his armor. That had been driven more by instinct than anything else. All he had really done was work his Dao into the metal. Now, he had far more mastery in smithing, and far more experience using his Dao. Naturally, they would blend to work more effectively.
His first experiment with his Dao was an attempt at imbuing a sword with the ideal of vengeance, making it so that it would always hit its target, no matter the strengths of its wielder in that area. Even a blind toddler could fight like a competent swordsman with such a blade. Or at least, that was the idea. In reality, the product was far less impressive.
All he managed to create was a length of iron that locked onto his target and prevented him from wielding it effectively. It was a crude experiment, but one that netted him a few points in his secondary Profession. It lay discarded now, after Sam had snapped it in half during one of his tests. The two halves still sparked with power, but it was useless.
He tried to ponder what went wrong with his design. The first time he had used his abilities with Dao smithing had been instinctual, but still far less complex than what he had just tried. Perhaps he needed to make something less complex first. A Dao Seed was far more potent and intricate than the Fragment that he had possessed at the time. He would need to adjust his power output to match.
Comparing his infant smithing prowess with his far more mature Dao was like expecting a baby to be able to understand why they did anything of the things that they did. Sure, a baby knew that it was hungry, or thirsty, but it had no idea why it felt that way.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Sam continued to work at his Dao smithing, but he started to hit a wall around the middle of Novice rank, where he started having trouble distilling his Dao down to a smaller form. Rather than achieving his goal, he started to rupture the weapons that he placed his Dao energy in, turning them into broken shards of steel. Interestingly enough, those shards then followed the path of his will, embedding themselves into the plate of soft iron that he had created as a target. After that though, they simply went inert.
The metal was rapidly starting to pile up in the corner of the room, useless for anything save for as a reminder of his mistakes. However, he left it there, more out of a desire to see how far he could go than anything else.
Eventually, he pared down his Dao expression to something far more fitting for his actual smithing mastery, separating the Dao Seed into the two Fragments that had combined to create it.
It took him a few hours to manage it, but he eventually produced his second ever functioning piece of Dao infused equipment. It was a shield imbued with the power of Resolve, and whenever it was struck, it projected a flat plane of force out in front of it, rendering it almost immune to anything below F Rank in power. Of course, as Sam had hardly put a significant amount of energy into it, it wouldn’t stop anything at his level.
More importantly, it sent him up another level in his secondary profession, an achievement that left him smiling. Soon he would be able to forge wonders.
Days passed like hours, and his masteries slowly ticked up and up. Smithing progressed to Apprentice Stage 6, and Dao Smithing to the peak of its rank, a mere insight away from reaching Apprentice Rank itself. He graduated from steel to Dark Iron after about a week, a far denser and more powerful metal. Only his E Rank potency allowed him to work such a thing without a far higher degree of mastery in his Profession. There was a reason that most of those who were professionals in the realm of Smithing had far lower levels than him, and far higher degrees of mastery. Warriors were hardly known for their expertise in the artisanal field, and when they were, it was generally to a lower degree of mastery than might be expected.
Eventually, Sam grew to a point of confidence that he attempted using Dark Iron to create a Dao infused masterpiece. His idea was that of a sword that would grow more and more potent the more its wielder despised its target. It was based off of his earliest Dao Skill, and off the ideal of Righteous Anger. Hopefully the idea’s simplicity would allow him to bring it into reality.