Blacksmith vs. the System 11-15 (Patreon)

— Chapter 11

When the evening finally arrived, I had no plans other than eating before collapsing onto my bed. My day had been incredibly productive, but also exhausting. I just needed to sleep, wake up early, and come up with a new proposal that would convince Eleanor to provide me with more ingots to improve my Forge skill further.

I could probably excuse the disappearance of a few bronze ingots by failures and experiments, but I couldn’t use all of them easily.

But, those plans died when the workshop door opened and Eleanor walked in. “Lady Maria asks you to join us for dinner,” she said, her voice kind, but I didn’t miss the subtle threat in her tone like it was my fault. I had a sense of what was about to follow, so I decided to distract her.

“Does she want to listen to my report directly? Good, I have news,” I said, quick to distract her with a lengthy explanation of my improvements until her gaze became glassy. “In summary, I managed to reduce the repair time for a further three minutes toward the end.”

“Impressive, very impressive,” she said as she looked at me. “I didn’t know Blacksmiths could do that.”

“We don’t, because everyone is happy using their skills without changing anything,” I replied, unable to suppress a genuine flicker of anger. ”I understand why the quick improvement of the skills was more tempting. I use them to great effect as well. But embracing them to the point of abandoning everything we had learned while establishing civilization is absurd.”

 I didn’t expect her expression to tighten. “Don’t tell me you’re one of them. I should have known,” she said, her attitude once again radiating the same sharpness she had revealed when she had faced Thomas. It was not good news.

I raised my hand in surrender. “I feel like there’s a misunderstanding,” I said calmly. “Who are … them?”

My surprise must have looked genuine because she calmed down. “You know, the Purists,” she said.

“I have no idea who they are,” I replied. “From the context, I’m guessing it’s some kind of political movement or a cult. But, I have been living in a godforsaken small town since the Cataclysm, and apparently, we’re not important enough for them.”

She looked at me carefully, trying to see if I was lying. Soon, the sense of sharpness disappeared, suggesting that she believed me. “They are not a political movement,” she replied. “They are a bunch of terrorists and murderers that believe that the System is some kind of curse that drains us completely. They are trying to kill everyone with the System, believing that by killing enough people, the System will disappear, and we can go back to civilization.”

“What a bunch of morons,” I spat out. “Even if they were right, what do they think will happen when the whole infrastructure disappears once again. Just more deaths. Unfortunately, Einstein was right when he declared that human stupidity is limitless.”

“Good. I would have hated to kill you,” Eleanor replied. I gave her a shaky smile. Being threatened by summary execution was not a fun time. I understood where she was coming from, but that didn’t mean I enjoyed it.

“Now that we resolved that minor misunderstanding,” I started, proud that I kept my voice from trembling. “You mentioned dinner.”

“Yes, follow me,” she said.

“So, I have a question about the supplies,” I said. “I believe I can improve the repair time even more, but I need to experiment some more.”

“What do you need?” she asked.

“I still need books about material science if possible. More information is always helpful,” I said. If it wasn’t for the tricky subject matter, I would have questioned her about why asking for old books didn’t trigger her suspicions, but praising the civilization did … but then, a viable answer popped up. Considering those Purists assumed mass murder was a good way to bring back civilization, I was sure that they didn’t bother working on the other part.

Another unreasonable cult, this time idolizing the past rather than a religion or a cult leader.

“I’ll try to prioritize it,” she answered. “What else?”

“I need to use the ingots during those experiments, and some of them will be wasted. I need your permission to use them. Also, having more materials and different types of weapons will be helpful as well. Maybe even some with different types of enchantments. Dungeon products will be useful as well.”

“Dungeon products are easy. We already have an excess of them. Ingots are a bit more problematic. We have some in excess, thanks in big part to your new repair method, and you can use one on ingot for every ten weapons you repair,” she offered. “But, that means you’ll receive your salary and bonuses based on the original contract.”

“That works,” I said. While I wouldn’t say no to more money, I was more enthusiastic about experimentation. “And, one last thing,” I asked.

“That list is getting a bit long,” she said.

“All of them are mutually beneficial,” I said. “The better I get, the faster I can repair.”

“Fair point,” she said reluctantly.

I was lucky that she wasn’t exactly a good negotiator. “I need a private forge,” I said. “Not now, but once the other workers join me. I can’t try new techniques in the middle of the others. It’ll distract them from their work,” I explained.

“I’ll try, but no promises. Even a small forge is not cheap,” she replied. “But, once the others arrive, you can still have two hours alone every day. The rest, I’ll try to get as soon as possible, but don’t expect much for at least ten days.”

“The next caravan?” I asked.

She nodded, and that was all we were able to talk about before we arrived at the dining room. It was once again unnecessarily opulent, with a long table at the center, but Maria was alone in the room. “Finally,” she said, raising a glass. Her tone was slightly slurry. Not exactly drunk, but definitely cheerful.

“Lady Maria,” Eleanor said coldly, though I had a feeling that I was the target.

“Come on, girl. You know I hate that stuff when we’re in private,” she said. Eleanor’s gaze sharpened. I flinched. I didn’t realize that I had already been promoted to the good friends category. Apparently, my attempt to keep her entertained worked better than I had expected.

“Yes, Maria,” Eleanor said with a sigh, and sat down. I sat down as well.

“Enjoy, Devon,” Maria said with a generous gesture.

Befriending her was a dangerous thing. But, as I poured myself a glass of wine — a luxury that I had been craving for a long, long time — I found it difficult to take long-term risks into consideration. “Delicious, but very complex,” I muttered. “Almost like a cocktail rather than wine. I’m guessing it’s not an old wine?”

“No, it’s from our newest winery. Alchemists can brew some fascinating wines,” Maria explained.

“True,” I admitted. While I still preferred a properly aged wine, the new one was certainly incredible as well. I took another sip.

“So, how was the first proper day of work?” she asked. “Also, D3,” Maria said, taking another sip.

“It was more productive than I had first expected,” I said, giving a detailed breakdown of the day, except my forging experiments and my unexpected perk, and explained my success. Playing a chess game at the same time was rather difficult. Maria was half-drunk, which made it slightly easier, but not enough to prevent me from losing miserably.

Losing repeatedly was far more annoying when it wasn’t there as a tool to distract me from the lack of solid ground under my feet. So, when her moves slowed down as she listened to my report, I was glad.

“You already reduced the repair time to twelve minutes. That’s good,” she said, her smile wide. “Can you reduce it further? That will allow us to get away with hiring even less Blacksmiths, right?” she said.

“We better hire the original amount we planned. We don’t know how far it’ll be reduced. And, having some extra capability won’t be too bad,” Eleanor replied.

“I’m confident that it could be reduced to eight minutes as long as I continue to work on it,” I said, careful not to over promise. Another trick, this time from publishing papers. It was always better to split any scientific discovery into multiple pieces and publish separately. That way, I could collect more rewards.

“That deserves a reward. I’ll bring you to another leveling tour the moment I have time,” Maria promised readily. It was an excellent offer.

 “Only if I’m not preventing anything important. Otherwise, I can just join the dungeon parties to level up slowly,” I offered. It was easy to make sacrifices when I knew it wouldn’t be accepted. The message they had left in the workshop this morning already raised the possibility of an assassination. And, even without that, dungeons weren’t exactly the safest location for a blacksmith.

“Nonsense. Since Maria wants to help you, you should allow her,” Eleanor replied.

It further confirmed my assumption. They wouldn’t risk me. Even if they didn’t care about anything else I could potentially do for them, my life was critical until I could teach the other Blacksmiths how to repeat my methods.

I didn’t care too much about whether they would continue to treat me the same way once that part was done. I still had a week, which should be enough to get another perk from Forge and improve my Repair skill significantly.

From there, I could use that offer to make a deal with Rosie, ideally targeting the same dungeon.

And, most importantly, another leveling trip would bring me to level twenty-five, the first threshold, which would actually increase my class bonuses.

“A fruitful discussion,” Maria said. “It’s time for another game. C3.”

I managed to hold back my sigh as I responded, trying to prepare myself for a few more spectacular defeats…

*****

— Chapter 12

I finished repairing another sword, and reached to my left, and pressed a button, triggering the primitive feeder I had constructed. Since the repaid time had been dropped to just below three minutes, walking to the damaged pile to pick a new weapon was actually slowing me down, especially when the first fifteen seconds were waiting for the sword to warm up.

The feeder not only brought the sword closer but also placed it at the edge of the forge so it started to warm up properly while I finished polishing up the sword in hand.

That, alongside other improvements, allowed me to drop the Repair time to three minutes. “Assuming, of course, this stupid device stops malfunctioning,” I muttered even as I turned to the side. There had been some trouble with the feeder despite its simple mechanical structure.

It was harder to make things without the convenient schematics from the System.

However, when I looked at the machine, I noticed something different. It didn’t feed, because there weren’t any. The swords had been repaired. All of them.

“Well, that was faster than I had expected,” I muttered. It had been barely five days since arrival, and not only was I able to meet the daily consumption but had also finished the backlog. Of course, that was only because the dungeon operations had been slowed down to a crawl once Thomas took away their best fighters. Once the new recruits arrived, I wouldn’t be able to meet the demand alone. Still, it was a fascinating achievement.

If I played it well, I could get some more concessions from Eleanor, who was mostly responsible for running the camp despite the fact that Maria was supposed to be the leader. A dynamic that I started to get familiar with since I had been invited to their dinners regularly.

Technically, I could bypass Eleanor and ask Maria directly. She was much more careless when it came to financial matters — one disadvantage of a privileged upbringing — which meant she would be even more generous. However, I ignored that temptation. Doing so would sour Eleanor’s feelings. Maria might have warmed up to me, but I doubted that it was to the point of ignoring her best friend’s negative suggestions.

No, I wouldn’t take that risk for a potentially miniscule reward.

Especially since my hard work came with some incredible rewards of its own that made any payment from them just a bonus.

[Blacksmith - Level 22]

[Health 660/660]

[Vitality 44 / Strength 44 / Dexterity 22]

[Skills (3/8)

Repair (Common) - 36 [Inspect]

Forge (Common) - 23 [Intuitive Forging]

Hammer of Might (Uncommon) - 7]

My Repair skill had improved by another ten points as I had worked on the swords, which played a role in my increased performance. Too bad it was already slowing down. During the last work day, I merely gained a point for Repair. The benefits to my new process was slowing down, which meant that I would probably need weeks, maybe even months to reach fifty points.

Then, I chuckled. “It didn’t take long for me to get greedy, did it?” Just a week ago, I was expecting it to take a month to just improve from twenty-four to twenty-five, and now, I was looking for a similar timeframe to reach the next threshold and feeling as though it was going to take too long.

The sensation of getting better in three days in a way that should have required years of work was truly addictive. My improved skills had not only given me better instincts when using my tool, but also more information.

However, I wished that information was freely available rather than triggering when required.

“Now, what to do?” My Forge skill was yet to clear the threshold, but unlike Repair, it had been intentional. I had been hoping to do some research and see if I could find something about the conditions to trigger the unusual perk.

I didn’t ask Eleanor or Maria about it. Even if they knew such a thing was possible, I doubted that they would know the conditions to trigger it for Blacksmiths. They were not really interested in the process, just the results.

And, if they didn’t know, seeking such information might have made me even more of a target.

Maybe I was paranoid about not revealing it. It was entirely likely that Eleanor would confirm that it was a well-known fact among warriors of their calibers.

But there were too many ways it could go wrong, and I had already achieved too much, which had already marked me. I didn’t want to push my luck too much.

That left two options: I would either waste time trying to read the same dozen journals on material science, hoping to learn more … or I would take the risk to push Forge into the next threshold.

Pushing myself to the next stage would have been simple. Just by forging three more daggers, I would reach there. But, I was starting to have a different plan. One that depended on whether Maria would trust me enough to let me borrow an item from her.

Or even enough to reveal whether she had one in the first place.

The enchantments like sharpness, piercing, and resistance were relatively common. The System Shops held them in abundance. But, there was also much rarer equipment that increased Health and Mana capacity, which were invaluable for anyone fighting in the field.

There were also rumors of items that directly increased Stats … but that's all they were: rumors. Their existence certainly made sense, but ironically, that made it even harder to guess whether they were real or not. Even if they existed, they would certainly be too valuable even to borrow, and I couldn’t ask for them.

Luckily, for my plan, I didn’t need to ask for that. Just an item to increase Mana would be more than enough to test my theory. If it worked, excellent. If not, I wouldn’t lose anything.

I just needed to wait for the next dinner to probe for the opportunity.

But I wasn’t planning to waste time waiting for said opportunity. I grabbed a sword with Sharp enchantment. It wasn’t made of the mysterious bronze alloy, but a more ordinary type of iron, the kind that many people had.

I had purchased it from one of the guards, paying forty silvers for it. It would have been a steal if it wasn’t for its significantly damaged state. It wasn’t just the blade that was damaged, but also the enchantment, making it far less efficient. Forty silver was a significant overpay.

However, considering that I couldn’t risk ruining the bronze swords without annoying Eleanor, it was a good trade. For the last two days, I had been using my Inspect perk on it repeatedly, trying to get a better sense of how Enchantments worked.

I had been working on it for two days, poking and prodding the enchantment to understand how it worked, but to no benefit. To be fair, claiming that I had been playing around the enchantment was a better way to define it. I had no ability to manipulate the enchantment itself, so I had been deliberately breaking and repairing the metal, trying to get a better sense of how the enchantment worked.

I had spent quite a bit of time on it, and all I achieved was to weaken the enchantment even further. I felt like a caveman repeatedly banging a computer case hoping to learn how it was made.

But, I had to start somewhere. And, the caveman banging on a computer might have better luck if he could get a real-time view of all the internals. Every little bit counted.

I was lost in my thoughts when the door opened. I looked up, expecting Eleanor, bringing another batch of swords to repair. Instead, it was Maria. “Hello, boss,” I greeted her cheerfully.

“Did I finally catch you wasting time on the clock?” she asked, far too happy to do so.

I chuckled. My cheer was not just about the opportunity to ask for a chance to borrow her items. It was genuinely amusing to see her longing for a chance to tease me. Not due to any malice, but because for once, she wanted to be on the other side of the experience. Mostly, it was Eleanor trying to convince her to be more responsible and hardworking.

“Unfortunately, not the case, boss. I ran out of swords to repair,” I replied, more than happy to crush that particular hope, earning a cute pout back.

“Good, then I don’t need to plan anything before we go for another leveling trip. Let’s go.”

“Right now? We don’t have much time before it’s evening,” I commented. “Factoring in the flight time, we will have less than an hour. Do you think it’s worth it?”

 Maria shrugged. “Maybe, but I have just finished dealing with that annoying woman, and I don’t have anything else to do. Since you don’t have any work as well, why not use it. Or are you afraid of losing again, professor?”

“Never,” I said, playing into her hobby of demolishing me in chess. “However, I have some experiments to run before the recruits arrive…” I started, knowing that she would ignore that. “Actually, since you’re here, I have a quick thing to ask.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“May I borrow one of your items, one that grants Mana? I have a feeling that, by using it, I might actually figure a trick to bypass it.”

“No,” she said, her smile gone.

“Sorry if it was too much to ask,” I quickly said, not wanting to annoy her too much.

She shook her head rapidly. “No, that’s not it,” she said. “I said no because it wouldn’t work. Any items that grant additional Stats or Mana only work up to a percentage of the existing state,” she said.

“Meaning, it won’t work if you don’t have the original stat. I see,” I said, unable to hide my frustration. I had been very hopeful about that fact.

“Sorry about it,” she said.

“Not your fault,” I answered. It wasn’t like she was the one that decided how the System worked. Still, it was frustrating to see the plans I had worked for during the last few days had been ruined because of one detail. One that was quite common in her circles if the ease she revealed that was any indicator, along with the confirmation of the existence of Stat boosting items.

“I can try to help, I don’t have anything to do,” she offered, no doubt taking pity on my mood.

I was about to refuse … but then, I changed my mind. It might not work … but then, it might.

“That would be excellent, boss,” I said with a big smile.

*****

— Chapter 13

“So, what’s the plan,” she said, looking excited.

“We’re going to start with something simple,” I said even as I started thinking about what to try. I had already designed several experiments, but every single one of those relied on mana under my direct control as I played around with the broken enchantment. I had no idea how to replicate it directly.

A challenge.

“Like what.”

“First, let me warn you. Experimenting is a slow process. It might take hours and days before I make even the slightest progress,” I said. That warning could change her mind, but it was better than the alternative.

The last thing I needed was for her to blame me for misleading her.

“Don’t worry. Unlike what Eleanor claims, I’m not a child with poor attention span,” she replied. “Now, what do I need to do?”

The answer was simple. I pointed at the forge. “Can you imbue the flames with some excess mana,” I said.

She frowned. “I don’t know. I never tried. I usually try to cast more effectively, not less.”

“It’ll be a good experiment for you too, then,” I said.

“Sure, but why do you need it?” she asked.

“I’m wondering if I can forge a mana-infused ingot,” I said.

“Do you think you can do it?” she asked, even more excited than I had expected her to be.

“Maybe,” I suggested, careful not to feed her excitement even more.

“Good, because they are quite rare in the System Store,” she replied. “If you can figure out a way to do it, it would bring us considerable income.”

I frowned, though it was not about her already staking a claim on the results of a possible success. That, I was used to. In academic research, the results were usually split between the university and the organization providing the grant, leaving nothing but a couple papers for the researcher.

Also, the world was too dangerous for me to have sole possession of anything truly valuable.

No, I was frustrated, because she had lazily confirmed another thing that I had only theorized about. I had thought that I knew how much living in a small town had been holding me back. Learning the enormity of my mistake was not fun.

I ignored my spiraling frustration as I pulled an ordinary iron ingot, one of the many Eleanor had provided for my experiments.

While such ingots had been used a lot during the first days of Cataclysm — often to hastily forge piles of weapons that shattered helplessly against the monsters — lately, they were only used to make arrows, javelins, and other disposable items.

And, even then, they were used against weaker targets. Anything dangerous required a better alloy that had been forged with dungeon products. They couldn’t even be used to repair the weapons from the System.

Those ingots could be purchased from the System store directly — which was the cheaper method — but Forge offered a more expensive alternative, using some of the dungeon products to turn ordinary metal into alloys that could hold the enchantments; and, as a result, could be used to repair enchanted weapons.

However, it was not even popular before the repair spell started to become commonplace. After that, it had fallen completely out of favor.

During the last few days, I had used that method several times to forge a few different alloys, which only worked when I followed the System instructions to the letter, and any diversion easily ruined it.

Still, it hadn’t been a waste. I used Inspect every step of the way and reached some conclusions about how it worked. Essentially, those dungeon products dispersed across the alloy, which effectively functioned as foreign particle inoculation by allowing the metal to crystallize around it. Once the metal cooled around those particles, they dispersed, providing the metal some kind of extra energy that reminded me of Health.

Not exactly the same, but similar enough.

I wasn’t planning to replicate it using Mana. That much had been a mere curiosity. But, somehow trapping mana into ingots was the best way I could come up to leverage Maria’s sudden offer to help. It was a long shot, but maybe Intuitive Forge would help bridge the gap.

While Maria continued to experiment with her magic, focusing steadily on the small flame dancing on her palm, I pulled several papers and filled them with formulas.

Unfortunately, to my shame, they were less about representation — I still didn’t know enough about metallurgy to accurately model a completely new process — and more about convincing Maria that I knew what I was doing.

Hopefully, it would be enough to convince her that I was actually working for something rather than poking around blindly.

While I was scribbling the notes, Maria finally spoke, barely ten minutes after she started. “I have done it. One elemental spell, with extra useless mana. It’s easier than I had expected.”

“Only because you’re talented,” I said. I had no idea about the difficulty of it, but when it was doubted, going with a compliment felt like the safe choice. “Now, you need to make that flame larger and apply it directly on the metal, infusing it with mana.”

“That sounds … easy,” she said. “That can’t be all, right?”

I chuckled. “Not even close. Do you want me to explain what we are doing?”

“Sure. I don’t have anything else to do. And, I can have a break from demolishing you in chess.”

A little bruised pride was certainly worth the assistance of a high-level fire mage. I didn’t even know how much I would have to pay if I needed to hire someone to do the same.

“Fair. Now, onto the lesson. Melting the metal could only be defined as a preparatory step. Only when the metal is properly melted, which is iron in our case, can the alloy-making process begin properly.”

“But, don’t we only have iron there? I thought alloys were a mixture of multiple metals.”

“Not necessarily. The common definition is a metal mixing with another substance. For example, steel is made from a mixture of carbon and iron, and the carbon comes directly from the coal.”

“Is this what we’re doing?” she asked.

“No. The first round is essentially a control group for our experiment. I want to see how iron and mana interact without any external factors. I’ll observe the process through my perk. That way, I will know how it works in its natural conditions. That way, I can measure the success of our upcoming attempts.”

“Can you detect mana?”

“Only when it’s interacting with a metal directly, like enchantments. But, it’s just the outer structure. Their inner aspects are inscrutable to me.” Well, that was not completely true after I received Inspect, but I didn’t mention that.

With that, I quickly shaped the molten metal into fifty coins, split into ten equal groups of differing sizes, five coins in each group. Maria looked like she was about to ask something, but I gestured for her to be silent.

Stretching my Inspect into multiple groups was not difficult, but I couldn’t split my attention. Instead, I quickly scribbled a long line of data. Only when the mana dispersed completely from all coins, I stopped.

“What was that?” she asked.

I smiled. “It’s simple. Each column represents one coin. The numbers are between zero and one. Zero represents no mana, and one is the moment you stopped infusing mana.”

“But, why are there five samples for each size? Is there anything different in any of them?”

“Basic scientific principles. Having multiple samples will give me a better idea of the underlying process, and make sure my conclusions are scientifically accurate.”

“Sounds like a lot of extra work,” she said. “Does it really make a difference?”

“Yes. It’s often that the underlying data has some unique problems that affect the process. For example, one of the metal coins could have an air bubble or some other impurity. Drawing the wrong conclusion could ruin everything. Duplicates help reduce the risk.”

“Sounds like a chore,” she said.

“It often is. That’s why I miss having my own students. That way, I could throw data collection to them, and deal with the fun parts.”

“Nothing about math is fun,” she replied heatedly.

I chuckled. “I feel like I’m about to agree. I still need to calculate the correlation and the confidence intervals. It’s going to be a chore.”

“I thought you liked math.”

“Not this,” I answered even as I jotted down the formula for how to calculate correlation. “I need to calculate this for every group by hand. Even the most basic analysis requires thousands of calculations. Without a spreadsheet program or a math engine, it’s going to take all night.”

“No, it won’t,” she said with a smug smirk.

“What do you mean?” I asked, and she smirked as she wrote the numbers underneath each column.

“Here are the results.”

“What is — ahh, Intelligence,” I said.

“Exactly,” she said, her smile wide. “I told you, I’m amazing at math.”

While I didn’t treat anything that could be copied by a spreadsheet proper math, I wasn’t moronic enough to actually say that. Especially since she had just done the work of a computer with ease. “Yes, you are,” I said with a big smile.

“Good, now that you’re finished with the boring stuff…”

“Not exactly. We still have another experimental round,” I said, feeling far more enthusiastic. “But, first, do you want me to explain what exactly I’m trying to find?”

“Sure,” she said.

“I already told you that melting the metal and mixing the components is more like step zero. The real process starts when the metal starts to cool down. Just like how ice doesn’t melt immediately, all of our molten metal doesn’t exactly freeze at once. It starts with tiny seeds spread in its structure, called nucleation,” I started explaining.

She nodded, listening carefully.

“The second step is the crystal growth. Once the nuclei are formed, they start attracting the surrounding atoms, creating patterns in the metal. There are many factors for the shape of those patterns, from cooling methods to shape.”

“Is that what we are trying to do,” she asked. “Trying to trap mana in crystal patterns?”

“Somewhat. The process doesn’t stop even after the metal cools down. The metal continues to change even after cooling down, slowly settling down into a more stable state, usually affected by the chemical structure. It’s called solid-state transformation. Ideally, we need to make sure that the mana doesn’t escape even after that process is complete. But, you’re right. The initial objective is to trigger some kind of crystal structure that keeps the mana in.”

“Sounds complicated,” she said.

“Frankly, it is,” I answered. “If it wasn’t for my Perks and the help of Skills, I wouldn’t even dare to attempt it. Normally, discovering a new usable alloy requires the combined efforts of hundreds of people, state-of-the-art equipment, and years of effort. We’re using skills to bypass a lot of those steps.”

“Interesting. You’re really good at explaining. No wonder you’re a professor.”

”I wasn’t really good at the beginning, but that’s what a decade of experience gives you,” I replied.

She froze. “A … a decade. How old are you?” she gasped. “I thought you weren’t much older than me.”

I smiled. Of course, it was impressive that I started teaching that early. “I’m thirty-two, but I started teaching when I was seventeen, during the second year of my doctorate,” I said proudly. In a world filled with people obsessed with stats, it was rare that I found a chance to brag about my greatest achievement.

“T-that’s good,” she said, blushing slightly, but looked relaxed. Why her reaction had changed like that, I had no idea. But then, I shrugged. She looked happy enough, which was all that mattered.

I had experiments to run!

*****

— Chapter 14

“… Nothing yet?” Maria asked even as I went through my notes.

I sighed. I could see that she was getting bored. While she had been interested in my lesson at first, as we reached the four-hour mark, she was getting bored. I couldn’t exactly blame her, not when her job was switched between acting as a forge and and a spreadsheet calculator.

Therefore, I needed to entertain her. Playing chess to help her pass the time would have been a nice option, as she was still entertained by demolishing me, but I couldn’t exactly split my attention between my experiment and playing chess.

It was already stretching my abilities to the limit.

I paused for a moment to compose an answer, one that I would give to a donor asking for another grant despite the failure of a previous experiment. And, the best way to do that was to sculpt even the most basic of results into something fascinating. “We have already made incredible progress,” I said.

“We did?” she asked, surprised. I didn’t blame her.

“Of course we did,” I said as I quickly scribbled some notes, which was essentially the summary of what we did, put in fancier terms. .”Look, we already have a good sense of how base metals behave. Copper holds mana longer, but has a lower capacity. Meanwhile, iron almost acts like a semiconductor when mana is concerned. Pewter helps to stabilize mana flow, while aluminum reflects. Those are critical pieces of information that we hadn’t previously possessed.”

“Really?” she said. “The numbers weren’t that different, none of them were able to hold mana longer than half a minute. Most of them were completely inert even before cooling down.”

“You’re looking at it the wrong way. We already know that various metals react differently. The reason, we don’t know yet, but we can start working on identifying it once the books on metallurgy arrive. It has to be something about their physical structure. The interaction between macro structures and atomic crystallization is promising ...” I said, and from there, I spun a rather lengthy explanation about how mana might interact with the material.

Some of that lecture was grounded on my observations about enchantments and weapons, but most of it was wild theories that sounded impressive but had no basis.

“I see,” Maria said, once again too proud to admit she lacked the context for half of my explanation. It was mean, but when facing the opportunity to experiment even more, I couldn’t refuse the chance. “Let’s continue. What’s the next step? Are we going to continue testing metals?”

Ideally, I would have continued to test the metals, at least for a month, maybe more. Even without the possibility of a lucky discovery at a certain point of mana density or cooling pattern, having a wider range of materials to test would have been incredibly beneficial.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling that if I said that out loud, her interest would evaporate immediately. I couldn’t forget the fact that while it was a very important experiment for me, it was nothing more than a way to pass the time for her. If we still had TV, she wouldn’t have even been here.

“Of course not. Now, we’re going to see how the alloys given to me by the dungeon products would work when holding mana,” I said, curious about the implications. “We’ll start with some of the common material and work our way up.”

“Are we going to do it for different sizes of coins?” she asked.

I wanted to, but once again, time constraints forced me to take some shortcuts I didn’t like. And, I much rather have a wide range of materials first before the dungeon products. “No, the earlier experimentation already gave us a good baseline for how the size affects the process. While there’s a chance for some unexpected interactions depending on the size, it’s better we work on a standard size first.”

With that, I started another set of experiments, creating hundreds of coins, each mixed with various dungeon parts based on the recipes provided by the Forge skill.

All failed, spectacularly, and obviously even without running any kind of statistical analysis. They functioned worse than ordinary metals. I thought about telling Maria that, but, at the last second, a glance at the pile of swords changed my mind.

I decided to use it as a sample. I grabbed a fresh ingot, and started smashing it with the express purpose of ruining it, every blow changing its structure.

With Inspect, I kept a careful note of every single change, trying to understand what had been going on with the process as I destroyed it slowly, section by section, stretching my Inspect to the limit as I tried to memorize the structures that let out of the mana, and comparing it with the results of the other experiments as far as I could remember.

Not exactly an easy job, even with all the guidance from the skill. I was once again fumbling in an area that I knew very little about, my three years of practice as a Blacksmith were not as useful as the few fragmented journals I was able to get.

I would pay a lot for a complete introductory book on metallurgy. Unfortunately, considering all the books I had came from ruins of the libraries, I wasn’t exactly teeming with options.

I had destroyed five more valuable ingots before I had managed to develop a decent idea of what was going on, not helped by the very complicated structure of the alloy. The ingots weren't uniform, filled with many different internal patterns, including orbs, hexagons, and diamond-like structures.

But, as I destroyed them repeatedly, I realized that the mana was exclusively held in the hexagon structures. Why, I had no idea. Maybe it was something about the shape, or maybe it was about the inoculation material it required to trap mana.

“We have a direction to experiment,” I declared.

“Really, that’s good,” she said excitedly. “Do I need to put in more mana into the flame?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Actually, you can even take a dinner break while I experiment on the structure.”

“No, it’s too exciting, I want to stay,” she said. “Maybe we can finish it tonight.”

It was certainly optimistic, but rather than trying to explain that to her, I started working once again, adding all types of dungeon products that Eleanor had provided me to help my experimentation. Crystallized monster blood, grounded armor plates, and all types of other stuff.

Some had formed the hexagonal structure I had been searching for, but not when mana was introduced. It just destabilized, refusing to form. “Can you explain to me how it feels to use mana?”

“In what way?” she asked.

“I don’t know, just general impressions. How does it feel? Is it a soft sensation, does it fight against your control. How does it feel to use mana through a skill, and how does it feel to use it directly?”

“And, you think that would help?” she said.

“Maybe. At least, it wouldn’t hurt,” I said.

She paused for a moment. “Alright. It’s a different feeling, particularly before and after using it. In the beginning, it’s like a soft current, or a calm ocean, still and waiting. But, once I touch it, it turns into a raging inferno, begging to be let out. But, a blast without control lets out nothing but an ineffectual flare.”

With a wave of her hand, she released a weak flash of fire. A second move sent a concentrated blast that melted the stone she had targeted. “Both attempts used the same amount of mana, but the first one was directionless, helpless. The second one was a concentrated blast, working on a pattern,” she said.

“Can you draw the pattern?” I asked.

“Maybe an outline,” she said, suddenly blushing. “I … I’m not the best at drawing. Too bad you can’t get magic skills as external skills,” she said.

“Why is that?” I asked. “Other than wasting a skill, of course.”

“It doesn’t work. Unless you have corresponding stat points, you can’t absorb the skill,” she explained. “Are you sure you want me to draw? It won’t look good.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said, ignoring the implications of what she had revealed. It was another thing I hadn’t known. Instead, I examined the pattern she had drawn carefully. It was a complicated, confusing pattern, but I could see a vague pattern of hexagons at the center. “Does the mana flow from inside to outside?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, treating it as a casual question. It was not. A sudden inspiration hit me. Not the inspiration from Intuitive Forging — it felt distinct enough to be recognized — but a more ordinary kind, the same thing that I always felt when a mathematical model clicked in place.

“Once I reach that ocean, I give it a mental push, and the energy flows through the pattern, getting wilder and wilder until it suddenly transforms into fire.”

“Is it heat, or fire,” I asked. This time, it was to distract her as I cut my hand deliberately, bleeding some on the fire. Not just blood, but also as much Health as I could imbue, and the wound recovered immediately.

[-15 Health]

“Hard to say. How do you distinguish them —” she started, only to freeze as she sniffed. “Is that blood?”

“I was careless. A little work accident,” I said even as I showed my hand, the wound had already recovered. “Can you imbue the fire with mana as usual? Your explanation inspired me.”

“Fine,” she said, and I repeated the process. I mixed the Health I imbued into my blood as an inoculation agent while I let the hexagon pattern establish, working with a razor-sharp focus. I pulled the small piece of metal from the fire, and put it into water.

The moment I did so, I felt the familiar feedback from the System. One that confirmed my success even before I read the notification. I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying the sense of triumph —

One that immediately turned into shock the moment I read the notification. I gaped at the result.

[Forge (Common) - 23 -> Mana Forge (Rare) - 10]

I didn’t know what was more shocking: The fact that the skills could transform unaided, or the fact that they could jump two stages directly to Rare. Or that there were Production skills of that rank. Too many questions, enough to make me freeze in shock.

A shock that transformed into a different kind of shock when I heard the door open, followed by some kind of sharpness that threatened to drown me. I only calmed down when I realized it was Eleanor. “What’s going on … here,” Eleanor gasped, panicked, frowning as she looked at Maria.

At first, I thought it was because she had a bad day. Then, I followed her gaze, and blushed and turned away. Lost in my mind, I didn’t notice that her robe was rather disheveled. Understandable, as the forge was a hot place, but that didn’t make my blush any less intense. Her cleavage was rather … impressive.

“Maybe you should fix your dress, my lady,” Eleanor said pointedly.

“Sorry, it was just getting hot,” Maria replied. I avoided her gaze, not wanting to make it any more awkward.

“Yes, a fire mage got bothered by the heat. Very reasonable,” Eleanor said. Her tone sounded sarcastic, but I didn’t understand why. “Sorry Devon. There’s an emergency meeting,” she said as she dragged Maria away.

“Be ready for the leveling trip tomorrow —” Maria said.

“No. You have a thing. You can’t go,” Eleanor cut her even as they disappeared, leaving me alone in the forge.

It had been weird, but soon I pushed it aside.

I had a new skill to play with.

*****

— Chapter 15

I couldn’t help but frown as I twirled my hammer thoughtfully. The changes in my Forge skill were fascinating.

[Mana Forge (Rare) - 10 [Intuitive Forging]]

Too bad it had come with some interesting but potentially dangerous implications. How dangerous, I had no idea, mostly because I didn’t know what was common knowledge, what was known but kept as a secret for strategic reasons, and what was genuinely secret among the elites.

I was glad that Eleanor’s awkward yet pointless intervention had been timely enough to give me a chance to come up with an explanation, bending the truth as necessary.

The first fact was the rank of the skill. The existence of rare skills wasn’t unknown, but every time I had heard about them, it was in the context of external skills, and exclusively as combat skills. That was true for basic and common skills, and especially true for uncommon skills.

There was a reason why Eleanor was able to give me that skill almost without thinking, yet failed to get even one Uncommon skill for their Blacksmiths despite their urgent need.

Rare production skills were hard to come by.

And, now, I had a Rare production skill. It would have been dangerous enough if it was an external skill. But, it was a class skill.

It was common knowledge that a common class skill was better than an external uncommon skill despite the latter granting more knowledge, for one simple reason. Class skills granted perks, while external skills did not.

This was why every warrior was obsessed with getting an improved version of their skill, improving their rarity, but still maintaining their Perk advantage.

I was aware that I didn’t know everything — a fact that was getting more and more clear with every passing day. Maybe external skills could grant Perks but require higher proficiency. Not many people focussed on improving their external skills. I was familiar with a few people with production classes who decided to focus on combat, and brought their external combat skills to forties without receiving a perk, but it was hardly conclusive evidence.

But, even if that was true and external skills began getting perks starting from level fifty, it would give my Rare skill two additional Perks, making it far more valuable than another skill.

And, in addition to all of those factors, my new skill allowed me to create mana-based alloys, which could be strategically very relevant even if the System Shop had been selling them for cheap. And, even if it was not, it was still valuable.

“Damn, what a complicated mess,” I growled. I should be feeling pure happiness rather than frustration. What happened with my skill was potentially dangerous for too many reasons. I decided to keep it a secret until I could interrogate Maria more about skills. That way, even if she didn’t reveal strategic secrets, she would reveal what was common knowledge.

“But, that’s enough gloom,” I said as I slapped my cheeks. “Let’s see what this new skill can do.”

I tapped into my skill by melting an ingot of ordinary metal, which offered me multiple recipes instinctively. Methods that only included the required materials but also a direct infusion of mana.

The first thing I realized was just how lucky I had been. My crazy weird method had apparently only worked because there was no environmental mana to interact with it when Maria infused the flames. The same technique would have failed if we were in a less hostile location.

Was that a lucky coincidence? Certainly, but I wasn’t the first scientist or inventor who had gotten lucky. Many products, from penicillin to rubber, had been discovered by accident.

Luckily, the skill had included many methods to actually use the mana present in the environment during forging, meaning I wouldn’t need to beg Maria in the hope of improving. It also meant that, as long as I was in the camp, I couldn’t do any mana forging, which was a bummer.

I wanted to play with my new toy.

”Patience,” I muttered even as I repeated the same treatment for other base metals. I had discovered about a dozen different mana ingots, mostly copper and bronze, each designed for a specific type. The variant that was used for swords was absent, and so was any iron-based recipe.

Clearly, my skill level was not high enough.

A problem that I could hopefully solve without mana. It would be very frustrating if it only improved by forging mana ingots from scratch.

Just to be comprehensive, I started by forging ordinary metal daggers. Naturally, there was no response. I spend my next three hours forging the standard dungeon-based ingots and using them to forge various small weapons.

My patience didn’t go without a reward.

[Mana Forge (Rare) - 10 -> 11]

“Excellent,” I said even as I stopped using them. Ultimately, the aim of that exercise was to understand whether ordinary materials could improve the skill, or whether mana alloys were a necessity. Confirming that it was not, I happily reached for another bronze ingot and turned it into a dagger, though I still repeatedly touched the swords to give me direction.

This time, the forging process lasted much longer, more than an hour. However, I was more than happy ‘wasting’ time, because the resulting dagger was a fascinating work.

[Mana Forge (Rare) - 11 -> 16]

“A remarkable jump,” I said as I paused, processing the new recipes I had received, the number of them available to me ever increasing. “Should I delay or continue?”

For once, I didn’t care about wasting ingots. I had already wasted more than the allocated amount, but Maria’s involvement gave me a good excuse for how much I had used. After all, wasting a few extra ingots was better than wasting Maria’s day. At least, that should be convincing for Eleanor.

I stopped for a simpler reason.I was uncertain whether delaying reaching the next threshold would be a good choice. My previous success with Intuitive Forging suggested that the activities leading to the improvement impacted the perks, and the surprise improvement of the skill further confirmed it.

But, after considering it for some time, I decided against it. There were still perks I would be allowed to pick from at level fifty to consider if I wanted to modify it. Also, I had no idea what kind of perks it would offer in the first place, making it an even more complicated affair.

Then, I froze. If skills could change, and the perks at the thresholds could change, then, what about the classes? Was there a way to change them? Improve it, maybe?

A wild assumption that was supported by nothing, but not an impossibility. And, if it was true, I would learn it tomorrow when Maria escorted me to another leveling trip — unless Eleanor had her way.

“I hate testing theories on myself,” I said, but my frustration was rather meek. If my theory was wrong, it wouldn’t matter. I would continue being a Blacksmith. But, if I was correct … I didn’t even want to imagine.

Six more daggers later, I received the notification I had been looking for.

[Mana Forge (Rare) - 16 -> 25]

[Perk Options — Modify / Masterwork / Mana Manipulation]

“What an annoying reward,” I muttered. I had no idea what Modify meant, and while I knew what Masterwork was, I didn’t need it. Mana Manipulation was the best choice under the circumstances.

I wasn’t particularly worried. If worse came to worst and the perk turned out to be useless, I could always use the Perk Reset stone directly. The price of three gold, which had previously been hovering over me like an executioner’s blade, didn’t even register anymore.

“How quickly things can change.” I couldn't help feeling conflicted about it. All the benefits were also a warning. Things could improve … but also turn into disaster.

“Now, to try the next part,” I muttered and turned my attention to the available sources of mana. The ingots, and the daggers. After a momentary thought, I first turned my attention to the leftover ingots that I had destroyed during my experiments with Maria. They were already mostly useless, meaning I could play with them with ease.

A few smashes later, I had once again breached the mana they contained. However, unlike the previous time, the mana had stuck to my hammer, following it. It was a small, instinctive thing. Next to nothing.

But, next to nothing was far better than nothing.

“Let’s see if I can double-dip on the same trick.” I brought one of the daggers I had just forged, and started destroying a small section of it. When it was just a deformation, the structure could be repaired by ordinary methods. However, once the mana it had contained leaked, the suggestion of the skill had changed, needing new material to replace the section.

A suggestion I ignored. Instead, I started steadily demolishing another dagger, trying to use the mana from it to essentially reforge that tiny section with my mana. It had been a slow, wasteful process. Not only had I destroyed five daggers, but also wasted two more fresh ingots in the process.

Certainly a terrible method to use in a mana-dead location like the camp, but I didn’t care about that.

All I cared about was the notification that had appeared in front of me.

[Repair (Common) - 36 -> Mana Repair (Rare) - 25]

“Success,” I said. The poetic thing would have been to throw myself into the bed with a happy smile. Instead, I scoured the forge, removing every sign of my successful experimentation. No need to ruin everything due to a bout of carelessness. I didn’t worry about oversleeping. Since my leaving trip with Maria had been most likely canceled, I had a rare chance to spend a morning in bed.

Too bad I didn’t have a nice cup of coffee to enjoy once I woke up. Sometimes, the loss of the small comforts hurt the worst.

Dreaming of a steaming cup, I continued to work. In the end, I barely managed to drag myself to bed, but as I slept, I was happier than I ever remembered being since the Cataclysm…

I had missed the sweet taste of success…