After etching out a couple more runestones for practice---all of which received ample praise from Yemi and perhaps more than a couple envious glares from the twins---Jack was ready to move onto smithing.
"All right, old timer. Time for you to teach me a little smithing," he told Oren.
"You know at first, I was going to but, now that I think about it, what's the point really?" Oren responded. "Can't you simply craft and repair any item using your magic?"
Can I really repair just any item? Jack thought. He wasn't sure himself. He certainly couldn't craft just any item, only the items he had listed on the "Recipes" section of the menu. He could certainly learn more recipes by first crafting the item by hand, just like he did with the sling. Learning how to craft more items from Oren would certainly increase the repertoire that recipe list by a decent amount.
"Well, I don't know. I certainly never tried repairing any item before, aside from what I did that other day when we first met," admitted Jack.
"Wait, you're telling me that time from before was the first time you've ever repair something using your own magic?" Oren said in disbelief.
"Yeah, kinda. I'm still trying to figure out the limits of my powers."
"How strange! It's as though you woke up one day and suddenly got these powers."
"Well, you're not exactly wrong about that."
"So how did you come across powers such as these?"
"You wouldn't believe me even if I tell you."
Oren crossed his arms with confidence. "Try me."
Jack raised an eyebrow at him. "Okay. Umm, I was actually from another world who had just died and was reincarnated into this one. The world I was from was really great. They've got cars, the Internet, and Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. They also don't have some of the stuff that this world has, such as demons, mushroom people, and racist elves. Oh, and while I was in the process of being reincarnated, I met some dude with a truck for a head. Fun!"
The ginger dwarf stared at him with a befuddled look on his face, as though he viewed Jack as some sort of crazy person. "You've been hit in the head too hard, my boy? I hardly understand a word you've just said? What exactly is the 'In Ter Net'? And who is this Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson? Is he an actual rock? Like a golem of some sort? Also, what even is a truck?"
Jack sighed and lowered his head. "Of course. Why do I even bother?"
Oren did a brushing-off motion with his hand. "Bah, you know what, forget about it. Keep your secrets, why don't you? If you really don't want to tell me, I won't pry. So long as you put in your work, I'll teach you."
Jack shrugged. "Sounds good to me."
"Great! But first, I need you to do a little something for me."
Oren guided Jack to a section of the shop with a large pile of damaged weapons and tools, one that's even bigger than the pile from last time. Placed next to that pile were stacks of metal ingots. Jack had noticed that while the majority of the weapons and tools were bronze, a few of them were made of steel. The steel ones had this sort of bronze-colored paint on them that seems to be peeling off at various places.
"Help me out with repairing a few of these, will you?" the dwarven blacksmith requested. "You've done such a quick and easy job last time that more repair orders are starting to come in. Some folks have even brought in their precious steel tools that they've been hiding, coloring them with paint to disguise them as bronze in order to evade confiscation. I keep telling them that the cheap paint they're using will not work in the long-run as they strip away too easily. It'll be better if they just buy a color-changing enhancement from us, but noooo, they'll rather not fork over the extra coin to buy such a simple enchantment. Either that or they simply don't trust enchantments in general. Don't get me wrong; us dwarves use magic just as much as much as any other race, but we aren't nearly as over-reliant on it, unlike those darn elves. We're old-fashioned like that."
Jack eyed the pile with a hint of grimace. "You really went out your way to take full advantage of my repairing magic, huh."
"Hey, it's all part of the apprenticeship. You've got to contribute to the shop in one way or another if you're going to stay and learn. Besides, you were the one saying that you have yet to fully understand your powers, right? Isn't this the perfect time to test them out? See what its limits are? During of which you can also help lighten my workload? Two birds, one stone, my boy."
Jack shrugged, concurring with the dwarf's argument. "Well, I suppose you are right in a way. I guess I'll give it a try."
Just like before, Jack dematerialized and absorbed the ingots into his inventory, after which he magically repaired each of the weapons and tools in quick succession. He started with the bronze ones first, which was a breeze. However, as soon as he tried working on one of the steel ones---this one being a simple steel sword---a message popped up at the corner of his vision.
[You do not have a sufficient smithing skill to repair this item. Continue anyway?]
Along with that message came two holographic buttons placed in front of him, labeled as "Yes" and "No".
I don't have a sufficient smithing skill to repair this item? What does that even mean? Jack thought to himself. Maybe it's similar to how, in many video games, the player character has to have a high enough skill level in order to perform a certain action---in this case, have a high enough smithing skill in order to repair a steel sword. But then why did it offer him the option to repair it anyway? What would happen if he does repair the item without having the required skill level? Wanting to find out for himself, he pressed the "Yes" button.
Upon pressing the button, the steel sword was engulfed in a light blue aura before undergoing a transformation. However, instead of being fully repaired like one of the bronze tools, it became warped and deformed.
"What the truck?!" Jack dropped the deformed sword in surprise. Out of curiosity, he then bent down to pick it up again in order to take a closer look. Not only had the act of "repairing" the sword with his magic not work, it had somehow made the sword worse than before. The blade of the sword became contorted and rusted; the wood and leather of the hilt had gathered a bit of rot. The entire sword was so absurdly altered that it was hardly recognizable as the weapon it was before. It looked more like a museum art piece than a useable weapon at this point.
Oren saw what had happened and reacted with similar surprise. "My goodness, you've ruined the sword. Now it's in worse shape than before! This is definitely going to take some fixing. Did your magic did this? What happened?"
"One of the inconvenient quirks of my special magic, I suppose. It said that I don't have a sufficient smithing skill to repair this."
"What? Who said it?"
"No one. It was a holographic message on my vision...you know what, never mind. The point is I do not meet the skill requirement to perform the action. But how exactly do I level up my smithing skill? Oww!"
Right as he asked that question, something hit the back of his head. Why did it feel so familiar? he thought. Jack turned around to see the object that hit him in the head was a leather boot.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Oh, for truck's sake! Not this again! he thought.
"Huh? Who threw that? Where did that boot come from?" Oren looked around to see the origin of the flying boot but saw nothing noteworthy. There was no person standing there and no windows to speak of where the boot could possibly flew from. It's as though the boot came about through teleportation. "How strange. There's no one there. Ahh, maybe the girls are at it again. I keep telling them to stop using the invisibility rune for pranks."
"Relax, it's not from them. I think I have a pretty good idea where this came from." Jack picked up the boot and was unsurprised to find a scroll of paper inside, with a message written on it.
You level up your smithing skill by smithing. Even a baka knows that, it read, with the signature pencil sketch of Truck-kun's stupid-looking face drawn at the bottom.
Geez, for once, can this guy simply give out tips without being a patronizing asshole? Jack thought.
"What's this? A message inside the boot? What does it say?" Oren inquired, trying to take a peek.
"Nothing to be concerned about," Jack said, hiding the boot and paper away. "Anyway, it seems that my repairing magic is tied to my skill in smithing. So far, it seems to only be limited to repairing bronze tools. In order for me to be able to repair steel tools, I'm gonna need more training in smithing by hand. Particularly with steel weapons and tools. Or at least that's how I think it's supposed to work."
"Really, is that how it works now? Huh, your magic sure is strange."
"Yep, it's certainly one of a kind."
"Well, in that case, roll up your sleeves, apprentice. It's time to do some real smithing."
----------------------------------------
Oren began by teaching Jack how to make a simple steel sword, guiding him through the process step-by-step. They started off by heating a chunk of iron in a forge and hammering it at the anvil into a long thin shape, roughly that of a sword's blade. The hammering process was certainly a labor-intensive one. Combining the sweltering heat of the forge with the act of repeatedly swinging a large heavy hammer had pushed Jack to utter exhaustion. He was constantly out of breath and sweating like a waterfall. Meanwhile, Oren was doing pretty much the exact same thing but was nowhere near as exhausted as Jack was. In terms of stamina, the dwarf was practically a beast!
"Come on, apprentice! Hammer that metal with all your might!" Oren shouted encouragingly.
They worked as a coordinated pair, taking turns hammering the red-hot metal while the other one held the metal in place with a pair of tongs. It wasn't just simple mindless hammering either, as the dwarf had pointed out. The hammering needs to be applied with the right force at the right angle in order to get the metal into the correct shape, whatever that means. After a couple sessions of hammering, Jack's arms felt like wet noodles---barely able to get a good steady grip, much less hammering at the right angle.
As the two of them were forging the sword, Yemi and the twins were watching from the sidelines, yelling encouragement and throwing jabs with equal frequency.
"Come on, Jack! You can do it!" Yemi cheered.
"Yeah! Yeah! Put your back into it, you scrawny human!" the twins chanted. The smug smiles on their faces says it all; they enjoy watching Jack suffer, drenched in the sweaty misery of his own arduous labor. Darn those gremlins!
Once the hammering was done, Oren took Jack to grind the long thin piece of metal with a grindstone. Compared to the hammering, the grinding of the metal was a much more delicate process. Jack had to make sure to grind off just enough to sharpen and polish the blade without accidentally shaving off too much of the metal.
"It is not as easy as it looks, you see," Oren said as he grinded a portion of the blade as a demonstration for Jack. "When you've done smithing for as long as I have, you get to have an eye for such things."
Once that was done, Jack heated the metal in a furnace---making it glow a reddish-orange---before dipping it into a vat of oil to quench it, thus hardening the metal. After that, he polished the blade a bit more using both the grindstone and a filer---adding a bit of extra-fine detail.
Now that the blade portion of the sword was complete, it's time to make the additional pieces of the sword---specifically the guard, the grip, and the pommel. In order to make the guard and pommel---both of which are made of bronze---he first have to create replica models of it out of wax. After those were made, he fixed each of them in a special container before pouring plaster into them. Then, once the plaster had solidified, he heated the containers in a fire to melt the wax inside, leaving the plaster molds behind. Then, after melting some bronze, he poured the molten metal into those molds and waited for them to cool. Afterwards, he broke apart the plaster, leaving behind the guard and pommel in their bronze form. After some more grinding and polishing, the bronze guard and pommel were ready for assembly.
As for the grip, Jack sawed off a small piece of wood, sanded it down to its proper shape, and wrapped it with strips of leather. Once every component was finished, he assembled it together, creating his first steel sword.
Jack held the sword and gazed at it with a deep sense of reverence. He couldn't believe what he was holding in his hand was real. This was a real medieval sword that he crafted with his own two hands. Up until now, the closest thing he had to crafting medieval weaponry was through a video game menu. Crafting it with his own two hands seems to make it more...significant somehow. It's as though he's becoming more and more of a badass; one who can build anything, in a cave, with a box of scraps! He could practically feel a strong sense of pride welling up in his chest.
As a way to express how pumped he was, Jack thrusted his newly-made sword up in the air while shouting the phrase, "By the power of Grayskull, I have...the POWER!!!"
Oren, Yemi, and the twins stared at him with a dumbfounded expression as he held the sword in an exaggerated pose.
Jack looked back at them, noticing their confusion. "What? Does that reference not work for you? In that case..." He swung the sword a couple of times in a dramatic fashion as he shouted his next phrase, "Thunder, thunder, ThunderCats, HOOOOO!"
The family blinked a couple of times, even more perplexed than before.
"You are a strange man, Jack," Oren commented.
"You just lack the appreciation for the classics," Jack retorted with sass.
Just then, as he was waving his new sword around like a childish idiot, Jack heard a small ringing noise, followed by a yellow exclamation icon popping up from the corner of his vision. He opened his menu to see that in the "Recipes" section, under the "Smithing" category, there was a new crafting recipe...for a steel sword.
[Steel Sword]
..........Ingredients
....................* 5 Steel
....................* 2 Bronze
....................* 1 Wood
....................* 1 Leather
..........Crafting Time
....................* 10.0 seconds
"Haha, yes!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Hey guys, check this out."
Jack activated the quick-crafting option, allowing him to materialize a brand new steel sword in his other hand---one that was remarkably similar to his original sword.
"Woah, that was amazing," Yemi said.
"Yeah! So cool!" the twins added.
"Haha, I know, right? Here, have a look." Jack turned to Oren and handed him the magically-crafted sword. "It seems that whatever I crafted the first time, the recipe of it gets automatically added to the things I can craft with my magic. As long as I have the know-how and the materials, I can craft basically anything. Isn't it convenient? Sorry, old man. Looks like I might put you out of business after all. No hard feelings."
Oren scanned the magically crafted sword with a discerning eye, then let out a chuckle. "Hmph, far from it. This sword you made with your magic is of poor quality, similar the the one you've just made by hand. If the quality of the items you can craft with your magic is tied to your real-life crafting skills, then you still got a lot to learn, my boy. Your only strength as of this moment is quantity, not quality."
Jack took the sword back and compared the two in front of him, one was hand-crafted and one was crafted by magic. Oren was right; these two were of a similar poor quality, obviously made by that of a novice like Jack.
"Well, it's a start, at least," Jack shrugged. "If there's an army of people who needs a bunch of cheaply made weapons in quick notice, they'll know who to call. Besides, my smithing skill can always be improved."
"Ha! Maybe in a thousand more years, given the rate you're progressing. Still, you have made your first sword." Oren placed a firm hand on Jack shoulder. "You should be proud."
"That I am." Then, all of a sudden, Jack's stomach growled. He was so preoccupied with crafting that he didn't even eat lunch. "And also, hungry."
"That can be fixed. Why don't you stay for dinner, as a celebration for your first sword?" Oren offered.
"We're having roasted boar tonight," Yemi said with a kind smile.
"Alright! Mama's roasted boar is the best in the world! Your mouth will water!" the twins cheered as they leapt in the air with joy.
"Really? Ahh, gee, thanks!" said Jack.