Every fiber of Cole's muscles screamed in agony. His head felt thousands of times worse than even his earlier migraine. He collapsed to the floor as everything in his body tensed and went limp at the same time.
Something was scouring his mana channels. It felt like burning, freezing, shocking, being stabbed, and every other kind of pain that the smith could imagine all at once. And even worse was what the sensation was finding. He felt dirty. Every flaw or impurity inside his own body was making itself known and screaming for attention. They were embedded in his flesh, ingrained in his very being, but the pain wanted them out.
He coughed between the tortured screams and wheezing for air. A clump of dark sludge tinged yellow flew out of his mouth onto the floor. It looked like the definition of toxic, sizzling the moment it met the open air. Then the slime started to leak out of his nose. The impurities were being forced out by the pain, taking the past of least resistance through his body, no matter how much it hurt him. Blood was dribbling from his throat in between coughs, and the sludge was beginning to pool below his eyes like tears.
After enough time some sort of breaking point was reached, and his pores became covered in small drops and rivlets of the impurities as his skin began to leak. His body was covered in a thin layer of the vile stuff, and a pool of it had gathered below his face. It was half an hour before the agony stopped. He had never felt so much pain in his life, and even just the memory of it was making him shiver. The impurities still clinging to his body felt so slimy and disgusting that the first five minutes of recovery were spent wondering if peeling his skin off would be worth it.
But once Cole got his wits about him, he reached within his still sore mana channels and called forth a rush of forcefire. He had meant to slowly burn the filth off as his mana regenerated, but instead, a veritable bonfire exploded into being with him as the centerpiece. His capacity was drained in a single moment, but it had still changed drastically. The amount of mana he could hold had increased by what at first glance seemed anywhere between twenty to thirty percent.
The real difference was how quickly it had moved. The speed of the mana running through its channels had at least doubled, perhaps even tripled. It was such an odd change to the new pieces of himself that he was too shocked to stop the blaze. The filth, and his clothes with it, was utterly consumed by the fire. The toxic sludge belched a thick smoke as it burned, although the already shrinking pool of slime on the floor suggested that the pocket forge had some form of self-cleaning.
The smith slowly and gingerly stood up, expecting to be sore from the torturous experience. But only his mana channels felt strained. If anything, his body felt better. A quick glance at the mirror revealed the truth behind the words. If mana arriving had refined his looks, this new change had forged them into something new completely. His abs and jaw looked like they had been chiseled from marble, and the rest of his body seemed just as good.
A closer inspection revealed that his hair was a bit silkier. Besides for his calloused hands, his skin was slightly smoother. His eyes had changed from a dull grey to the color of ready-to-forge steel. He had gained half of an inch in height, and a quick glance down where the sun didn't shine revealed that height change did in fact affect extremities. His rough stubble from a few days without shaving had transformed into the beginning of a luxurious beard, about two or three inches in length.
So. What the fuck just happened. The number of his 'Rank' had been raised from Mortal one to Mortal two. Afterwards, or perhaps because of, his body and mana channels had been completely scoured of all impurities and had them forcefully expelled. His interior mana control and capacity had improved, and his physical body followed suit. It seemed to be a trial-by-fire situation. The scouring of his body and mana had been harmful and incredibly painful, but the moment it finished he was fully healed and better than ever.
And it had all occurred after he finished forging the claymore. This System seemed to place a large emphasis on purpose. He was called a Creator in his Class, his affinities were those most suited for creation, and he had a pocket dimension perfectly suited for creation. Perhaps it had something to do with advancing on the path set out for you? The claymore had been his first real step into magical creation, so his body followed suit by taking the first step in becoming better for that purpose?
His body had generally improved, but he could already feel that the main difference was in strength and mana control, two things that were and would be essential for the creation and wielding of his weapons. He was progressing on his path, and so the path progressed him. Covuluted and vague, but the best guess he could make right now. So long as he could keep smithing and the System helped, he didn't particularly care how it was accomplished. He would veto the pain in the next session if he could though.
With the questioning of the purpose of his existence done for, it was time to get ready for a foray back into the real world. First off, clothes. Yet again conjuration proved that the expensive cost was worth it in the end. He read through the beginning chapters of "Beginner's Enchanting" while he waited for his mana to recover from the burst of forcefire he had summoned. After it was full enough for some basic clothing, he created a non-descript t-shirt. It was gray and slightly threadbare, but it would do. Another reading session precluded the summoning of some slightly higher-quality underwear and pants. Can you guess what he did next? The third-to-last reading break was enough for Cole to conjure some basic socks and leather things that were kinda similar to boots? They would work for now.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
After that, it was the second to last reading session for a belt, and the final for the claymore's sheath. It would hang across his back and let him forgo the exercise of just toting around a sword with his hands. None of the equipment was going to end up enchanted. Until he found out how to source or create storage gems, all the mana for runes had to come straight from the smith. And although his regeneration was high, even his Mortal two mana pool wouldn't last long powering multiple enchantments at once.
Once he was ready, Cole bade the pocket forge and the last dregs of the impurity pool goodbye. He also tried to remove both the artic iron hammer and a basic mana metals book from the pocket dimension, but a shimmering barrier sprung up to stop them from leaving, and he didn't want to risk damaging the forge or its resources by trying to brute force it. His stomach was full of conjured water and bread, he was rested from his reading breaks, and the advancement to Mortal Two had reset his need for sleep.
All in all, he was ready to face the outside world. So once he stepped outside to find it was just an empty early afternoon, he was a bit disappointed.
Cole hadn't looked around much before entering the pocket forge after he woke up, so he got his first look at the surroundings now. It seemed normal for about half a city block or so in any given direction, but after that, the scenery completely changed. Three sides of the small pocket of civilization were dense forests with oak trees the size of redwoods and scattered boulders as big as houses. The last side, to the east, was a thinner crop of trees that slowly transitioned to grassland off in the distance.
The section of the city that had been ripped out was only shops, as he was obviously set up in the commercial district. But seeing as it was sometime close to midnight when he left the shop, it was unlikely that anyone else had been transported here. None of the stores were open 24/7 or even stayed open particularly late. There was a good chance he was on his own.
A growl sounded from the west, which was the densest segment of the forest.
Not good enough of a chance. Well, he was itching to try out the claymore anyway. He turned to face the noise and removed the blade from its sheath in one smooth motion. He didn't activate the rune yet, as he wanted to see how well the weapon would hold up without it. A small globe of forcefire was the only magic he used, and even that was dropped after a moment when it turned out the beast was alone. No need to pull out all the stops.
The thing was essentially every stereotypical mutant wolf shoved into one body. It was salivating and drooling, but its eyes also darted around with a gleam of savage intelligence. Its flesh was rotting off the bone, but the muscles underneath were straining and bulging. All in all, it was a paradoxical amalgamation of tropes and biological impossibilities. Only magic kept it alive. Oh, it was also the size of a golf cart.
Cole took the first move.
Too many people assume claymores and their ilk are slow. A long history of fantasy stories, games, and movies portrayed them as the weapons of hulking brutes. Strong but slow, a classic combo that made for an engaging boss fight or a cinematic villain. But in reality, it was just about momentum. A shortsword, riding sword, or even a rapier was 'quick' because of how fast you could perform individual strikes. Even if the weapons took immense skill to master, they could still be boiled down to fighting through a series of individual exchanges.
Claymores, broadswords, and longswords were a dance. They were all about using momentum and pressing advantages into a series of crushing blows that melded together into a formidable front of attack. It was easy to dodge a rock thrown at you, less so to avoid an avalanche. Each strike built on the last and set up the next. It was a graceful and beautiful style that was a highlight of medieval combat, and learning it had been one of the high points of Cole's life.
So when he stepped forward, he did so with absolute knowledge of the weapon on his shoulder. Its history, its forging at his own hands, and most importantly the proper way to wield it. He opened with a telegraphed overhead swing. The wolf leveraged its mutated strength to easily dart back and avoid the blow. But when it dashed back at him to counter, it found that he had twisted the path of the blade off to the left before looping it back around into a horizontal slash. The weapon caught the beast across the snout and cut a deep line into its hide.
The blade repeated the loop on his right side before all the momentum was spent on a full-strength forward thrust. Stunned as it was, the wolf only barely managed to avoid the headshot and instead took a deep wound to the shoulder. It was enough to entirely disable its front-left limb and send it limping back warily. Cole followed the thrust with his own body, letting the force of it pull him along before he once again leveraged the blade to a wide slash. The wolf was trying to avoid using its injured limb and was unable to dash away as quickly, letting him score a shallow cut on its flank.
It dashed forward savagely, trying to get inside his guard and maul him to death. He looped the claymore to his right side again and began to telegraph a swing that would be too slow to stop it. The wolf fell for the bait enthusiastically and bolted forward right into the trap. The pommel of the massive swod came down with all of the wrath of gravity, a ten-pound claymore, and a whole fight's worth of momentum. A sharp crack rang out and the wolf's charge was turned into a fall as its snout hit the street and its body was dragged behind.
With the beast wounded, stunned, and prone on the floor, it was time to finish the fight. He raised the claymore to his shoulder in an echo of the fight's beginning, reset his stance, and delivered the same exact overhead swing he had begun the battle with. The differences were that the wolf couldn't dodge and that the sword was now fully drawing on the power of the reinforcement rune for the final blow. The sword itself only cleaved several inches deep into the beast's hide at the neck, showing just of tough the thing was. However, even if it could have recovered from that, the rune-strengthened steel hit bone with the force of a sledgehammer. Its spine was broken, and the monster was dead.
A good first fight. Now to figure out just how to find mana metals to work with. And figure out how to use forcefire in combat. And make himself functioning armor. Maybe find Mary? And of course, kill more monsters.
"Mr. Vance! Please tell me that's you!"
Well, that was one item off the list.