The smell and sound of metals permeated in the air. A rather strange vibe that was unfamiliar for the likes of a man like Jason. He looked around in an awkward manner. Feeling out of place, he didn’t know what to do. There was no receptionist or someone that could greet him. Even the people walking around him paid no attention to his presence as if he was invisible in the eyes of these people.

As expected of a place filled with only men.

With that stoic face plastered across Jason’s face, he walked inside before a brown skin man noticed the odd man who was out of place.

“Mr.Park?” said the brown skin man.

Jason glanced at him and walked over.

“Gondor Smithy?” he asked.

“Come with me, our designated workplace is at the back,” the brown man led Jason to a rather small area filled with equipment enough for smithing.

“Sorry about this, usually our place is a lot bigger than this,” said the brown man, “With that crack near Kawartha park, we’ve got no choice but to moved here.”

This particular smithy wasn’t from around here as the supposed location was close to the park. Jason himself has a reason for choosing this particular smithy. He found out from the website of this smithy, that they promoted on how to make an axe from scratch.

“It’s fine,” Jason said as he didn’t mind as long he could learn the smithing skill.

“So are you the only one here?” he asked.

“The rest are on leave since most of our projects required the proper equipment back in our smithy,” said the brown man.

“I see,” said Jason as he looked around the place. The equipment was similar to the things he saw on wetube. At least the smithy wasn’t cutting corners.

“I’m Mateo by the way, nice to meet you,” Mateo reached for a handshake.

“Jason,” said Jason as he shook Mateo’s hand.

“So should we start?”

Over the course of a few hours, Jason learned everything about blacksmithing from the beginning to the end. Through hands-on practice, he was getting the hang of it. From heating up the metal to how to hold the metal as well as hitting the metal and to finished it off, he learned how to shape the metal to his own desires.

The end result wasn’t bad as he took out the finished product from the quenching bucket. A complete head of an axe. The edge was still a bit blunt but it was enough to make Jason felt satisfied.

“You’re pretty good,” said Mateo. He then taught Jason how to sharpen the blade of the axe. After a while, Jason attached the head of the axe to a wooden handle and voila, there it was his first blacksmithing product.

“Scan,” he said.

Axe

Category : Axe

Grade : Inferior

Normal iron axe made out of the effort of a noob blacksmith.

Attack : +19(-3)

His smile froze before it turned into an expressionless face. Seeing the detail of his handmade axe being regarded as inferior grade made his mood sour. The description itself told him he was a newbie and that was something he couldn’t disprove. He clicked his tongue and turned back to Mateo.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“How is it? It’s feel good to make your own axe right,” said Mateo.

“I want to make another one,” said Jason.

Mateo froze as he didn’t expect such words coming out from Jason’s mouth. Usually, after finishing the axe, the customer would be satisfied and readied to go home but it seemed Mateo was wrong as this customer was a different breed.

“Okay. I’ll get you the materials,” said Mateo.

Jason went through another round of blacksmithing. This time, he gritted his teeth pummeling down the hammer at the red burning metal. He hit with precision while restraining his strength. The first time he did with his full strength, he broke the hammer into two.

Mateo was surprised by Jason’s strength but seeing him concentrating back into hitting the heated metal, he let the incident slide. It was just a hammer.

Jason spent more time tempering the metal as his whole body was drenched in sweat. He already went half-naked with only an apron covering the front side of his body. Two hours and he was still tempering the same metal. Mateo himself was rather impressed as well as confused by the action of this customer.

But for Jason, he had his own reasons. The reason itself showed up right in front of his eyes.

Skill: Basic Smithing acquired

He smiled as his efforts were rewarded. He continued his smithing and finished it up with another dunk in the quenching bucket. After sharpening up his axe, another blue window emerged.

Basic Smithing level up to level 2

That grin showed he was satisfied as again he scanned the new axe hoping for the best.

Axe

Category : Axe

Grade : Inferior

Normal iron axe made out of the effort of a less noob blacksmith.

Attack : +19(-2)

Sadly for him, it was more or less the same. He froze and just stood there like a statue.

“Damn it,” he said as he threw the axe on the floor.

Mateo who was watching didn’t understand the behaviour of this strange customer of his. He regretted his choice of having to work today of all day. At first, he was quite happy seeing how there was only one customer for the day but that one customer was a really strange one.

Right now, that customer was more or less making himself at home and from the look of it, he wasn’t going to leave anytime sooner. Jason chugged down a glass of cool water as he was perspiring through the whole smithing process. He rummaged through the bag he brought along and took out a piece of scarlet mineral.

Mateo’s eyes were drawn to the sight of that scarlet ore. He had to ask out of curiosity.

“What kind of metal ore is that?”

Jason glanced at Mateo and didn’t say a word. He sat in front of the forge and threw in the Scarlet Rex’s scale into the fire. He stared at the sight of the huge scale which was perfectly fine even when surrounded by the hot burning coals. He stood there for a whole thirty minutes until there was a tint of redness on the scale.

“I think the forge isn’t hot enough,” said Mateo. Yet Jason didn’t care about that opinion since he has a plan in mind.

Taking out the scale he placed it on top of the anvil. Raising up the hammer in the air, he slammed it down while restraining his strength. The sound of hammer clanking against the strong scale of the Scarlet Rex resounded in the air. Mateo had enough of this ridiculous scene and went to the pantry for another drink.

Fifteen minutes later, the thing he had waited appeared.

Basic Smithing level up to level 3

The increase in level came faster than before. Rather than taking four hours, fifteen minutes were enough. That grin on his face wouldn’t disappear anytime sooner as the rate of him hammering turned faster. If Mateo was here to observe Jason, he would have freaked out since Jason was laughing at an interval in a rather strange way.

Outside of the building, the sun started to set. Dusk was on the horizon while inside a building filled with sweat and metallic smell has a man who was hammering down a scarlet scale. The man was drenched in sweat from top to bottom as his whole attention was towards the scarlet scale.

Mateo the only smith working for today was dumbfounded by his only customer for the day. Too much thing had happened and right about now he had grown accustomed to Jason’s acts.

“Uhm, sir. We’ve got to close for the night,” said Mateo. For some reason, he referred to Jason in a rather polite way. Although he grew accustomed to this man he still felt nervous about being around with this man.

Jason glanced at Mateo as sweat dropped from his eyelid. The strong gaze from Jason took Mateo by surprise, he retreated a few steps hoping that a hammer won’t suddenly be breaking his skull.

“Ah, sure,” said Jason.

Mateo sighed out of relief as his wild assumption about this customer was rather unneeded. Jason packed his stuff and wore back his shirt. Walking out of here without a shirt wouldn’t be the best idea.

“Thanks,” said Jason as he shook hands with Mateo. He left while Mateo stared at the back of Jason. Mateo shook his head as the day was too weird even for him.

Jason got inside the minivan and threw the two axes on the backseat. In the meantime, he stared at the blue window that appeared right before he stopped.

Basic Smithing level up to level 9

His ridiculous grinding brought an incredible leap for his smithing skill. Then he cast his eyes at the last axe he had made. Unlike the inferior grade axes on the back, this one was different.

Axe

Category : Axe

Grade : Normal

Normal iron axe made out of the effort of a beginner blacksmith.

Attack : +19(+1)

It wasn’t a fancy axe but at least it wasn’t inferior in quality and no penalty in the status of the weapon. Moreover, he was satisfied seeing that at least the system didn’t mock him as noob like before. Being called a beginner blacksmith was more uplifting than being called a noob.

Yet there were more surprises for this auspicious day. He also earned another skill. Along the path of his constant grinding, he earned the Basic Blunt Weapon Mastery and managed to level it up until reaching level three. At the end of the day, he was satisfied.

“Today is a good day,” he said as the engine of the minivan started rumbling.