Blacksmith vs. the System 21-25 (Patreon)

— Chapter 21

When I woke up, my body was still aching somewhat, reminding me that using Health from the System to heal wasn’t exactly perfect, or painless.

“I can’t believe I was that reckless,” I muttered, my body reminding me of the cost of trying to use a skill without understanding it fully. It was arrogant of me to self-experiment without properly assessing the situation. I had assumed a mere one point of mana wouldn’t be a problem.

At least, instead of a painful injury, I had received some upgrades to my skill, as well as a valid way to rapidly improve it. Curious to test, I went to the forge, and intentionally damaged one of the swords before repairing it again.

“Wow, controlled flow is amazing,” I muttered as I repaired the weapon. It allowed me to somehow nudge the enchantment to the side while repairing. It didn’t have too much of an advantage when I was repairing the sharpness enchantment, as I had long learned how to bypass it.

Instead, I had pulled a broken weapon from the pile Eleanor had provided for me to experiment with, one with a simple durability enchantment. I wasn’t able to repair those before, because the enchantment was shaped more like a web, making it difficult for me to work on the metal without breaking the enchantment.

Now, with my ability to nudge the enchantment to the side without destroying it, I was actually able to repair it. It was a slow process, taking almost an hour of my time before I could even reach halfway. Theoretically, mana blow might have been usable, but with each blow requiring at least one point of mana, it was not something I could test.

I quit there, because I had nudged too hard, and the enchantment had destabilized.

However, that was not exactly bad news. A small mana cloud appeared as I destroyed the enchantment. It was less than what had been revealed by destroying the ingot, but with my improved Meditation, it was just enough for me to capture it.

[+1 Mana]

“That’s a nice surprise,” I muttered, my smile growing. The broken weapons that were here for my experiments were not as valuable as the bronze ingots, meaning I didn’t have to choose between improving Repair, Forge, and Meditation. It was good news.

“Now, to the not-so-good one,” I said as I prepared myself to repeat the same reversal trick. I needed to see if my newest perk would help me reduce the pain somewhat. However, this time, I first went to my bedroom.

I didn’t want to be caught by a visitor. I closed my eyes, focusing on the flow of the mana, reversing the rotation of the orb as I pushed the mana out. The pain hit, but it was far less than I had expected.

[Meditation (Common) - 11 -> 13]

[-85 Health]

“Success through self-mutilation. My psychologist would have had a field day with it.”For a moment, I wondered if he was still alive, but that was just a momentary thought. Thinking if the friends from before the Cataclysm were alive or not was a quick road to ruin.

Especially for someone like me, who had the misfortune to experience the disaster while traveling for a conference on the East Coast, and was caught halfway, surviving only because I chose to drive rather than fly … away from everyone I had ever known, lost in a town in the middle of nowhere.

“Focus,” I muttered even as I went downstairs once more, picked some more broken weapons, and started destroying their enchantments for extra mana, only to push said mana out of my body.

Every repeat damaged my body somewhat, but I ignored the potential risks. It was not my usual careful attitude … but what had following my careful attitude for three years given me? A pile of rejections while I eked out a pathetic living, barely able to afford a room that I could keep my books in.

No, some risk was inevitable.

With that in mind, I repeated the same trick. As meditation reached twenty, I was required to exude three points of mana to increase Meditation once, but considering the damage it created had already dropped to single digits, it had become an acceptable tradeoff.

By midday, I had reached the point I had been searching for.

[Meditation (Common) - 24 -> 25]

[Perk Options — Efficient Absorption / Contained Flow / Enhanced Sensing]

“Oh, a difficult choice,” I muttered as I examined the benefits. Contained Flow was clearly the next step of Controlled Flow, and taking it was tempting. But, in the end, I chose Enhanced Sensing.

The moment I did so, my ability to read the mana patterns had increased. I could see some surface-level details on the enchantments … which were naturally incomprehensible, like trying to understand how a computer worked by opening the casing.

Still, it was better than looking from the outside.

I broke another enchantment, and confirmed the same thing was true for the mana cloud. Rather than seeing a featureless fog, I found myself looking at … a fog with slightly more discernible features.

Well, it was still only a Perk to a common skill.

The same was true for the absorption. I could see that, as the ephemeral sphere rotated, the mana patterns turned slightly more discernible. And, that allowed me to reverse the rotation smoothly. Three more attempts, and I had succeeded once more.

“No pain,” I said happily. Finally, I was able to repeat that trick without hurting myself.

Of course, now that I had cleared the next threshold, the improvement of the skill would slow down noticeably. I doubted that I could get it to reach thirty even if I destroyed every weapon and material I had in here, including the forge.

An acceptable loss, as being able to improve a mana skill in a location with no environmental mana had already been pushing it. I just needed to return to the town, and meditate in my room safely to increase it even further.

Honestly, a part of me was telling me to quit and go back to town, maybe even migrate to one of the cities with a better environment, preferably with a System Shop. But, one thing prevented me.

I didn’t know if I would be able to actually use the System Shop. Every city had certain rules when it came to using those shops, as not everything was sold without limit. Eleanor had already revealed that the bronze mana ingots had a certain quota every day.

No, even if it slowed down the improvement of my newest skill, the opportunity to push my two production skills higher was too valuable. Not to mention, quitting suddenly would anger my new bosses, which was not exactly smart.

I could always change my mind once I had taught the other blacksmiths how to repair the weapons.

With that, I returned downstairs, forging another dagger to test the benefits of Meditation and my newest perk. “Beautiful,” I muttered.

Having meditation didn’t change the way I forged the weapon based on the skill, which was not surprising. It was clear that the autopilot of the System was working with far better detection than what it allowed me to access.

Technically, it meant that Mana Forge drew no benefit from increasing Meditation. It looked like the only reason that I received that skill was to gather mana, and trust Mana Forge and Mana Repair to use it.

Not exactly a rare event. The origin and the objective of the System were a mystery, but the working principles were not. It clearly expected every user to follow its guidance to rapidly improve. It had certain benefits to it, as I had experienced with my external combat skills.

Of course, there was the skill upgrade aspect, a great reward for overcoming those limitations, which made the subject a little murkier.

“Either way, it doesn’t make my new perk any less valuable,” I said to myself as I continued forging. Meditation might not benefit Forging directly, but my newest perk allowed me to observe the process even better.

Especially when I stopped occasionally to use Inspect, which gave me a completely new set of information. With multiple methods of observation in place, I was able to watch the process of the skill more carefully, learning more and more.

And, observation was the cornerstone of science. It was the seventeenth century when humanity discovered the existence of bacteria, and it wasn’t because we suddenly became more intelligent. No, we simply invented the microscope, revealing the existence of a whole new world.

From there, many mysteries had been solved one by one. That had been true for X-ray, radar, and heat sensors … every time our observation methods increased, the developments followed.

No, I didn’t care if increasing meditation didn’t suddenly enhance my Forging abilities. It made me learn and discover faster, which was all I needed. All I needed was to work with full focus and discover more and more secrets.

However, when the door opened, I immediately interrupted my work, even smashing the dagger hard enough to ruin my work. I guessed it was not Eleanor, as she didn’t bother keeping the sound down. Meanwhile, servants opened the door carefully, trying not to disturb me.

Unfortunately, inadvertently, they still ruined it. I immediately threw the dagger into the fire, letting it melt completely. Instead I pulled another sword, acting like I had been repairing them.

I didn’t want others to realize just how much of my time I spent experimenting on unrelated subjects. I expected another servant to walk forward … instead, it was a mana cloud.

A nasty surprise.

*****

— Chapter 22

I was glad that I chose to fake repairing a sword, as it meant that I could cede control to the skill while I observed the approaching mana cloud … one with a roughly humanoid shape. Considering they had to open the door to enter, it was less likely to be a spell.

What was more likely was that they were someone under an invisibility spell. Someone that was most likely holding a weapon, considering the mana cloud on the right was a foot longer than the one on the left. From a purely technical perspective, I didn’t know if the intruder was an enemy.

After all, there might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for someone sneaking into my forge while I was busy, holding what was most likely a dagger.

I spent a second glancing toward him, and was barely able to catch some kind of outline. The mana fog didn’t cover it despite overlapping, because despite the way my mind interpreted it, it wasn’t exactly a visual object.

Once I caught that outline, the figure of a bearded man became visible, like it was one of those pictures with a visual illusion. Some kind of camouflage spell that I would have never caught without Essence helping me.

And, even with Essence, I would have missed it if the camp hadn’t been in a mana-dead location. The fog of mana that clung to him was weak enough to mix with the background, had the background not been clean.

I barely held back a gulp as I started going through my options. There were only two. I could raise an alarm and hope that the reinforcements would arrive faster than he could kill me, or wait for five seconds, and deliver the first blow.

The first option, I might have chosen if it wasn’t for one fact: Hammer of Might was a style that was designed for overwhelming offense. Good at fighting against monsters, but not as good at fighting against another man who might be stronger than me.

No, I had no choice but to go with the second option. That was where my advantage lay. He was walking directly toward me, with no attempt to stick close to the walls or otherwise avoid me. Clearly, he had no fear of being detected. Not a bad assumption, considering only a chain of flukes allowed me to detect him in the first place.

He was walking slowly, whether it was the limitation of the spell he used or his arrogance, I didn’t know, but either way, it meant I would have the chance to deliver one free blow. One that was too valuable to pass.

Even as my mind churned those options, my body was moving under the control of my skill, maintaining the illusion that everything was going well. The only exception was my heartbeat, getting faster and faster as I realized that I had to kill.

Again.

One of the worst things about the post-Cataclysm world was that murder had turned far more acceptable. I had to kill twice, both against muggers thinking to make a quick buck over my corpse … before the discovery of the repair spell ruined my business and I was one of the richer people of the town. Both times, I hated the feeling.

But, I didn’t hate it enough to let someone assassinate me.

My hammer repeatedly landed on the surface of the sword as he closed in the distance. He was one step away from me when I flicked my wrist and threw the sword toward him. It was a very effective distraction, as the sword was hot enough to glow red.

Even with the System, it was nearly impossible to avoid a point-blank attack, particularly if the target didn’t expect it. He still made a valiant effort to lean to the side sharply, his movement ruining the spell protecting him.

I didn’t even wait until I used my work hammer to attack him. Unbalanced, he wasn’t able to dodge, and the attack landed on his head.

And, killed him before he could even make a sound, unlike his head, which shattered loudly. I shivered even as he collapsed to the floor.

Health cured a lot of things, but a destroyed head was not one of them. I started shivering even as I looked at the door, waiting for the guards to arrive, but they did not. I breathed hard, trying to process the fact that I had just killed someone else.

I hated the feeling.

A minute passed, and the trembling of my hands subsided. Still, there were no guards. For a moment, my mind went in a conspiratorial direction, wondering if the guards had been a part of the issue. Then, a simpler possibility occurred.

They probably ignored the sound. The forge already had good noise isolation, and the constant sound of crashing was easy to ignore.

I was about to shout when I finally paid attention to the bearded man’s outfit. It had the sigil of a griffin, like the ones the guards had been wearing before Thomas took all of them away. Worse, it was more complicated than what the guards had, and similar to what Eleanor had been wearing. Not exactly the same, but both included enough silver.

That couldn’t be good news, I realized even as I changed my clothes before walking to the door. One that I couldn’t handle alone.

 When I opened the door, I found the assigned guards squatted in a corner, playing dice.

As much as I wanted to curse them for their lack of vigilance, I did not. If someone wanted to enter the forge while invisible, they would, and their lack of vigilance only made them more confident. “Yes, sir,” the guard said, looking panicked.

“There’s a small issue with the forge. Please go and get Eleanor. Tell her that it’s very urgent.”

“Are you sure?” the guard said. I nodded. “Your funeral,” he said, then looked at me. “It’s not about … this, right?” he asked, looking at the dice game they were playing. His partner looked equally scared.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” I said with a wink. They looked relaxed.

I returned, the ordinary discussion calming me down somewhat. I didn’t touch the crime scene but tried to come up with a story to tell. The general events had no problem. Ultimately, I didn’t need to explain why I killed someone who had snuck up on me invisibly.

But, I couldn’t tell her that I had noticed the mana.

“The steam,” I muttered. It was a good excuse, one that could explain the timing. Quenching a sword created a thick cloud, and claiming that it was a lucky shot came from panic was enough. It just changed the facts slightly, turning into an accident rather than an intentional choice. I actually let some of the steam appear, in case she would be careful enough to check that.

I doubted it, as Eleanor wasn’t that attentive, but it was better safe than sorry. After it saved my life, I was even less reluctant to reveal my ability to use mana.

I waited in the corridor, ready to block anyone but Eleanor. Luckily, at this point, she trusted me enough to arrive herself. She looked harried and exhausted. “I don’t know how you heard it already, but yes, there won’t be any new ingots for a while. You have to stop experimenting for a while.”

At any other time, that statement would have earned a bigger reaction. “It’s not that, and we’ll talk about it later. Follow me,” I said as I walked to the main forge. She saw the body and tensed. The sharp aura was back.

“Explain,” she ordered.

“It was an accident,” I started.

“An accident?” she asked. “How? And, why was the steward here talking with you when he was supposed to be gone already?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He was invisible when he entered.”

Her eyes widened, showing that she understood the implication. “Traitor,” she growled. It was a scary word, even when her gaze was firmly on the corpse as she said that. It was scarier when she started looking at me. “Invisible, or camouflaged.”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. I just noticed some kind of weird movement in the steam when I quenched the sword and slammed down my hammer. The aim was … an accident.”

She looked at me for a moment, before she walked to the corpse, and started to examine the body. “A nice blow,” she said, which was not exactly what I was expecting for killing a member of their house, but I was glad to take it. A tasteless compliment was much better than being turned into a scapegoat.

Her compliment showed that she had accepted my version of the story. I was glad that I didn’t touch the body, which made my version much more credible.

“Don’t tell anyone what has happened!” she warned as she crouched down, and started to go through his belongings.

“Of course,” I replied. At this point, it was clear that the success of the dungeon operation was linked to some kind of internal political battle, the kind that made assassination and bribery the first tools to be used.

I wasn’t necessarily happy that I was a part of it, but the moment I killed him, I had become too involved. Now, even if I managed to convince Eleanor to terminate my contract — which was not a given — I couldn’t get away. Not after killing one of their members.

For better or worse, I was a part of the conflict.

*****

— Chapter 23

Finding myself mixed in a conflict I had no idea about was not a pleasant feeling, but it was far from the worst case. I certainly didn’t expect to end up as a primary assassination target as the sole blacksmith.

However, the flip side of the problem was equally interesting. Since their conflict was bigger than I had expected, it meant that they would be willing to accept some demands that might otherwise be assumed to be excessive. The more problems I solved, the more I could ask for.

Assuming, of course, I didn’t reveal my upgraded skills. That particular secret was still too volatile to reveal.

Since I had decided to show off, I decided to focus on the biggest problem while she continued to examine his pockets. “Would I be wrong assuming that he’s somehow behind our most recent supply problem?” I asked.

“Supply problem?” she asked, surprised.

“The bronze ingots. You mentioned it when you arrived before I showed you the body,” I said.

“Ah, right,” she said, then paused. “Yes, that’s correct. He was here to refuse our latest request. Apparently, there had been some problems with the System Shop.”

“What kind of problems?”

“We have purchased the swords and the bronze from the same System Store. It’s in the middle of nowhere, and it’s currently defended by four families. Our Griffin family is one of the five families that have shares in that System Store, which meant we could purchase some of the limited stocks every week. But, the traitor here informed us that there was a dispute about the shares, so the next delivery will be delayed.”

“Supposedly,” I said.

“Right,” she said. “Since he proved to be a traitor, that might have been a lie,” she said, looking relaxed. “Maybe there’s no problem. I just need to fly and check. It’ll barely take a few days.”

“Maybe,” I said, then passed. “Or, there’s actually a problem, and he’s deliberately underselling the importance of it to prevent you from seeking an alternative solution until it’s too late.”

I wasn’t entirely honest in saying that. If the problem was as serious, he wouldn’t have tried to assassinate me. From their perspective, I was just a blacksmith that could work a little faster. I would have been useless without bronze.

Not a nice thing to do, but it wasn’t the first time I fibbed some of the details to get a bigger grant.

Still, thanks to a lack of remote communication, it would take a few days to check the situation, and meanwhile, I could use that as an opportunity to push for some new experiments. It wouldn’t be with that particular bronze alloy, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

“You’re right,” she said, looking tense. “We have enough stock to keep us going for a few weeks, but if we are delayed, we will have to stop just as the dungeon starts operating. I need to fly there myself.”

“Maybe that’s not a good idea,” I said, happy to delay things a bit more. “You’re the strongest person in the camp. What if something happens in your absence.” She looked thoughtful. “And, wouldn’t it be better if you kept the fact that you’re suspicious of him a secret? I don’t know exactly what you are dealing with, but I’m sure it’ll be helpful.”

“What do you mean?” she said. “He died in our camp while trying to assassinate someone.”

“Did he?” I asked. “Or, did he leave the camp and disappear?”

“What do you mean?” she repeated.

“You mentioned that he had already left. Did you watch him leave, or did you just assume?”

“I watched him leave on a griffin an hour ago,” she replied, then paused. “I see. Since he had already left, and he returned under invisibility, we don’t have to explain anything. We have dozens of guards who would swear that he had left safely. Wilderness can be dangerous, even for someone at level sixty-seven.”

I couldn’t help but tremble when she mentioned that number. “That high?”

“Yes. He bragged about it a lot during our meeting. You were really lucky.”

I gulped. I was lucky indeed. If I didn’t follow Maria to that leveling trip, I would have been dead. A good reason to get even stronger. “It makes sense. I’m sure Rosie will be happy to confirm the situation at that shop for a price. She’s good at finding out stuff like that,” I said.

There was no harm in sending some work for a nominal ally, especially since I needed her goodwill. I had a lot of questions to ask her during our next meeting.

“A good point,” she said. “Still, it doesn’t solve the main problem. If there’s a problem with the supply, we’ll be in trouble.”

“What if we can find an alternative to bronze swords,” I asked.

“No. We tried everything. That’s the cheapest alternative we can purchase that doesn’t just melt completely. Anything weaker, and the weapons get destroyed completely. And, anything that’s too strong to resist the effect completely is not enough to make it economically feasible. We calculated them ourselves.”

“That’s probably true, but that’s not what I was talking about,” I replied. “What if we forge something ourselves?” I said. “I’m sure there’s a mine nearby, and even if there’s not, there’s too many ways to buy ordinary metal. And, we have a dungeon next to us, providing us with a lot of excess material. As long as we use them to forge weapons, we don’t have to deal with a long and dangerous supply chain.”

“We already thought of that. The dungeon has no material that can be used to make any alloys, let alone one that could resist the corrosion of those damned monsters,” she countered.

“No, that’s not correct,” I said. She looked confused. “There’s no material with a recipe that’s already included in the skill,” I corrected. “We can experiment and see if there’s an alternative,” I said.

“Would that work?”

“Maybe,” I replied.

“What do you mean, maybe?” she said.

“It’s an experiment. I can’t guarantee you results, certainly not in such a short time,” I said. Admittedly, I was more interested in the opportunity to experiment endlessly in the next five days than the possibility of success. “But, either way, it’s not a big investment. Some ordinary metal, and a lot of material that you get from the dungeon. And, it’s not like I’m too busy,” I said.

“Makes sense,” she said.

I paused for a moment as inspiration hit. The opportunity was actually greater than I had first realized. “Actually, there’s something else we can do,” I said, hoping that she would buy the idea.

“What?”

“Well, it’s clear that your opponent wants to prevent Maria from succeeding in her mission. It’s inevitable that they’ll have some spies, and they might do something more excessive if we make any progress. And, we still need a better story for the death of our traitor.”

“He died in the wilderness. It’s good enough.”

“As an official one. But, the one that sent him here knows better … unless, of course, there’s a better explanation.”

“Spill.”

“We frame it like I have died, and during the process, the forge somehow exploded, burning the building. You can say that there was a second unidentified corpse. Meanwhile, we bring the forge to a basement that people can’t access, where I work alone, hidden from anyone but you,” I said. “That way, you won’t have to dedicate a team trying to save me from assassins.”

“And, you would be alright living in a basement without getting to go outside?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I locked myself in a dark room trying to solve a problem,” I said. “And, there’s a lot of people that walk around wearing helmets. I can always disguise myself as another newly hired guard. A beard and some hair dye should solve everything.”

She looked at me with a frown. “You come up with that plan quickly,” she said.

I couldn’t help but smirk, my mood was admittedly too good for someone who had been just assassinated. But, the idea of a private lab where I can actually experiment to my heart’s content was a good tradeoff. Still, I wasn’t above using guilt to push the limits of science. “There’s something about being assassinated by invisible people that really inspires me,” I snarked.

“Good point,” she admitted guiltily. After all, the defense of the camp was her responsibility. If I was found dead with no assassin around, it would be a big black mark against her. Not to mention, without my teaching, there was no guarantee the other blacksmiths could discover the repair trick in a reasonable timeline.

In both ways, I had saved her ass.

She pulled a ring from the dead man’s finger and threw it to me. “Put this on, and don’t make any sudden movements,” she said. A little morbid, but I still put that on. A weird, fuzzy sensation covered me even as my skin started to show what was behind me.

An interesting effect.

I walked a little, careful not to make any sudden move. “Good, now follow me,” she said. I did so, staying behind her to not run into anything or anyone. We stayed near the walls, and soon, we were at the center building, which functioned both as a headquarters and a residence for the two.

Interesting choice, but considering it was the most defended building, it made sense.

I pulled the ring from my finger and put it in my pocket. It was a beautiful survival tool for emergencies. Eleanor said nothing, too distracted by the next steps to care about an item with limited effectiveness under most circumstances.

For me, it might be the difference between life and death.

“You’re familiar enough with the building,” she said, clearly unhappy about the fact. “Go to the basement and pick a room that we can fit a forge into. I’ll return in an hour.”

As I walked toward the basement, I couldn’t help but think that she was right. I was too chipper for a man who had just survived an assassination attempt.

But, the payoff made it worth it.

*****

— Chapter 24

“And, that’s the last piece,” she said as she placed the forge. Thanks to its nature, it had been easy to carry, though how she excused its extraction from the forge building, I didn’t know … or care. All I needed was to connect the fire to the building chimney, and that would be enough.

“I’ll start working immediately,” I said, looking at the pile of dungeon materials. A lot of crystals, and some herbs, but the most attention-grabbing thing was the pieces of a large shell. “Is this from the dungeon creature?” I said.

“Yes. That’s the most common enemy. Some kind of distorted bug with a few weak points, that releases some kind of acid spell when dying. It destroys the weapons.”

“And, I’m guessing using hammers is not an option.”

“No,” she replied. “If the shell is broken, the System Store doesn’t take the purchase,” she said.

“Do you mind if I quickly check something,” I said. She nodded, and I touched the object. Thanks to the meditation, I could feel that the shells contained quite a bit of mana in them.

“Good,” I said, smiling as I examined it.

“What do you mean, good?” she asked.

“It's good material. High tensile strength, probably stress resistant as well,” I said. “Promising for experimentation.”

That was patently not true. I was excited because I could use those shells to practice my skills. I didn’t feel guilty or felt like I was really cheating them. I could always pay them back by reducing the repair time even further. To their knowledge, it was still around eight minutes.

“Don’t expect to have a lot of them,” she said. “They are the greatest income source of the dungeon. The System store purchases them without a limit.”

“For how much?” I asked.

“Twenty silver coins for now,” she said. My eyes widened. That was good money. “Hopefully, it won’t drop too much once the number of shells increases.”

“The shops do that?” I asked.

“Sometimes,” she replied. “They can be difficult to predict. Sometimes, the price drop is permanent, and sometimes it just fluctuates.”

“Do you mind if I try something?” I said, curious how the mana would react. I broke a corner, only for a small plume of mana to burst out. However, the pieces still maintained their mana content, That was good news.

“Excellent,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to break them for my experiments,” I said. “So, you don’t have to bring me the intact ones. Just bring me the damaged ones. The more, the better.”

“Do you really need that many samples?” she asked.

“Edison had run more than ten thousand tests before inventing the lightbulb,” I replied. It was a gross misrepresentation of the real process, but fibbing the history of technology wasn’t the worst thing I had done today.

“Alright, the broken shells should still be near the dungeon. I’ll make sure to arrange their delivery. Same with the metals.”

“Excellent,” I said, not bothering to hide my happiness. Once she disappeared at the end of the stairs, I was alone in the basement. My smile was even bigger as I destroyed a small corner of the shell. Its mana content was far denser … but I noticed something interesting.

The mana from the monsters was a little cloudy. I only noticed that while meditating. Absorbing took almost four times longer, the meditation skill separating some kind of chaff from it. I had no doubt that it would be very inconvenient for a mage, who’d spend a lot of mana fighting.

For me, it was a benefit, as that cloudy effect made the mana stick together longer. When I destroyed a bronze ingot, I was barely able to absorb a tenth. With the shell, I was able to absorb more than half before it dispersed.

[+1 Mana]

Excellent efficiency. “Maybe I’ll be able to improve the process even further,” I muttered. However, as tempting as it was to start playing around, I decided to delay it until the broken pieces had arrived. I needed to look like I was working.

A tidy workspace was a good first step … a good step that had paid off in an unexpected way. A familiar surge from Mana Forge skill gave me a recipe for a new alloy, which used two of the crystals, the shell, and one of the herbs to be mixed in for some reason.

It also required a lot of mana for every ingot, which meant it couldn’t be done in the dead zone efficiently.

“What an interesting coincidence,” I muttered. Along with the recipe, came a lot of information. Information that included some kind of anti-corrosion property. It would have helped the profitability of the dungeon immensely.

Too bad I had no plans of revealing my mana forging to them as it touched my secrets.

“But, that doesn’t mean I can’t try to replicate a weaker version of the effect,” I replied. After all, they didn’t need a perfect solution, just a workable one. If I could come up with an alloy that didn’t require mana, the other blacksmiths could replicate it easily.

It shouldn’t be impossible. The System didn’t include any such recipe, but it didn’t matter. It was just like repairing the edge. The System didn’t include any direction that couldn’t be defined as perfect.

But, even an imperfect copy wouldn’t be easy. I would probably need to start with creating a few ingots to understand the nature of the alloy, not just its final properties, but also the in-between steps.

 Then, I need to turn that into a dagger and test it on the dungeon beasts, as well as the other weapons to understand exactly how the corrosion effect impacts the metal, and see if that could be achieved without mana.

Which would be followed by hundreds of attempts as I tried to come up with a stable alloy that didn’t shatter immediately and resisted corrosion.

Still, I was hopeful, mostly because I didn’t need anything that was close to usable in any other context. It can be brittle enough to shatter after a dozen blows, which would have been unacceptable for any other condition.

But, not here. As long as they could kill four to five beasts without shattering the weapon, it would be profitable.

“Excellent,” I muttered even as I continued to tidy the workshop. The best thing, even if their bronze supply was not cut, it would make sense for them to continue funding my experiments. The money I would consume would be nothing compared to their potential benefit.

 Even better, once I found a method, I could release multiple versions of the same metal, slightly improving its performance every time.

That trick had been good enough for the academic papers. It would be good enough for this as well.

“If all goes well, I should be able to make enough money to get a position in the research institute.”

Bribery was not something I wanted to resort to, but it was better than the alternative. However, I didn’t want to hurry up. My previous failure had taught me a good lesson about the importance of emergency funds.

As much as it rankled me to delay my return to the scientific community, I had learned my lesson. “And, it doesn’t mean I have to delay my research. I can always pay Rosie to collect some data for me, and focus on exploring the System in the process.”

I smiled happily as I got the fire going while I systematically destroyed half of the shell, carefully absorbing the mana that was let out.

[Mana 14/160]

For anyone else, that was not a notable amount of mana. For me, it represented my first opportunity to forge a mana alloy. Not even a full ingot, but barely a piece as big as my thumb.

It was a copper alloy, which was a happy occasion. Copper was one of the easiest metals to process, which was why it had been the first metal humans had used en masse.

Of course, it was also soft and brittle enough to incentivize the first primitive attempts at metallurgy, forcing the ancient people to actually experiment until they discovered bronze, which fueled our first real civilization, an ancient bronze civilization that sprawled across the Mediterranean sea, with the first global web of trade between Egypt, Hittite, Greece, as well as other European and Asian civilizations, all to ensure a steady supply of tin and copper.

Unfortunately, once international trade collapsed, so did those civilizations… The Bronze Age collapse was one of my favorite periods to study as I tried to map the impact of a similar collapse on our civilization.

Three years after the Cataclysm, I was ready to acknowledge the irony…

“Less pondering, more working,” I spoke to myself even as I started working on forging a copper mana alloy, following the suggestions from the skill as I melted the copper. The process had been relatively simple. The recipe included two different crystals, both finely ground, one herb, and a coarsely ground shell of the dungeon monster.

Mix the first crystal to molten copper, then burn the herb right underneath and let the crystal absorb the energy it radiated. Let it cool down to a red-hot state before starting to temper the metal and fold a few times, then start to add the coarsely ground monster shells while folding the metal, using the mana to keep the process stable and grow the crystals, keeping the metal merely red hot at the process.

The second crystal was to be mixed with the water, and used to quench the metal once the forging was complete.

A simple process that failed spectacularly, which was not a surprise. Not only did using the recipes from the system not always guarantee success — the level of the user, in particular, impacted the results quite a bit due to benefit from the stats, and skill level played an even bigger role — but also I wasn’t following the recipe completely.

The full recipe required me to make one standard-sized ingot, and I didn’t have the mana to do it. Adapting it to a smaller piece was not a trivial process, as it changed many important details, from the speed the metal cooled to the folding patterns.

But, that failure meant nothing as I started taking notes, incomprehensible to anyone but me.

I was already in love with my new working space.

*****

— Chapter 25

“You look tired,” was Eleanor’s first words when she visited me the next morning, pushing a huge cart that was taller than her with ease. It weighed at least three tons, but stats were useful for more than just fighting.

“I want to make sure I don’t disappoint you,” I said, which was once again not exactly the truth. However, keeping the supervisor unaware of the intricacies of the experiment budget was never a bad idea.

I was simply lost in the excitement of experimentation. The man from the solitary shell only allowed me to make two more attempts, and only with smaller pieces. Both had been abject failures, but they provided enough data for me to gather some clues.

I had enough of the first blue crystal and the herb to start experimenting. It wasn’t enough to even get close to success. For now, anything that managed to stabilize was roughly as strong as a sandcastle, but I wasn’t after the end result.

No, I needed to understand the process of crystallization and the shape of macrostructures. That was only the first step before I could start the real experimentation. Too bad I lacked the necessary background, and relied on a knowledge base that was cobbled together.

“Good. I hope they will be useful,” she said as she pulled the cover of the cart, and showed that it had not only contained all types of metals but also piles and piles of broken shells. “Would that be enough?”

“Not even close, but it will be good enough to start,” I said, not willing to turn down my only mana source. She looked surprised. “I can try to ration them, but using them excessively would allow me to process them faster. Since they are garbage, what’s the harm.”

She frowned. “Bringing them here might be suspicious,” she admitted.

“You’re the commander. I’m sure you can find a good reason,” I said, already touching them to test their mana content. A slight frown appeared on my face as I noticed some of them had much less mana than the others. The smaller they were, or the dirtier they looked, the more mana they had lost.

I realized why the System shop only bought the undamaged ones. The moment they shattered, they started to leak mana.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

“No, it’s just that the older ones look like they have decayed somewhat. The fresh ones would work better,” I replied.

“Should I not bother with the old ones?”

“No, the more, the better,” I said. “Maybe there’s some benefit to using decayed ones.” It might even be the truth. Using organic materials for alloy making was not exactly a topic that science had covered. Even if someone explored it, it was probably nothing more than a niche field.

How I wished I still had the internet.

Once she was done with the delivery, I expected her to leave, but I noticed that she was still waiting with a smirk on her face. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I have another delivery,” she said as she threw me a backpack. I opened it, only for my eyes to widen. It was filled with papers. Mostly magazines, with several journals mixed in. I pulled out the first journal, flicking it with excitement that I had never shown before the Cataclysm.

Most scientific articles were boring, derivative articles that merely introduced a fraction of new knowledge while they pandered pointlessly, only minutely different from a hundred other articles I could find with a quick query.

But, with that option gone, every article represented the crystallization of human ingenuity, with ideas I could never come up with on my own.

I flipped the first article, reading the abstract out loud. “A two-dimensional mathematical model for a process of solidification of a binary alloy in the presence of an electric field as a free boundary problem.”

“So, useless?” Eleanor asked. I turned to look at her, and she flinched and took a step back. I took a deep breath, realizing that I might have got … a tad angry. “Not useless?”

“Of course not,” I said.

“But, there’s no electricity anymore. It doesn’t work with mana, even in the dead zones.”

What she had said was true. During the first year of the Cataclysm, there had been a lot of attempts to restart technology. Three main targets were steam, gunpowder, and electricity.

Among the three, electricity had been the one that had been abandoned first, for a very simple reason: Mana didn’t get along well with electricity. Once they mixed in, the results were unpredictable. Sometimes, it fizzled and melted, sometimes it exploded. I didn’t know if anyone properly completed those experiments in mana dead zones, but considering monsters let out mana when they died, I didn’t know how much it would have mattered.

The gunpowder and steam had been abandoned for simpler, logistical reasons.

Ironically, the reason gunpowder had been ignored was the reverse of the process it had led to its adaptation. During the fifteenth century, gunpowder weapons were less powerful and less accurate than the bow and arrow, yet it had been adapted because training an archer took years, it required immense strength, and making arrows was much slower than making small metal balls.

The exact opposite was true for our circumstances. With the System, a decent archer required mere days to turn into a marksman that could comfortably compete in the Olympics, the physical strength came from leveling up, and ammunition could be simply purchased from System shops, and reused for a long time.

That had been true the first few days, and it was even truer now. At this point, where people could heal from a lot of wounds, gunpowder weapons simply lacked the necessary stopping power.

The steam engine, on the other hand, could have been technically useful, but a simpler fact stopped it. While steam and fire weren’t as volatile as electricity when interacting with mana, it was still enough to make the idea of a steam engine made of ordinary metal useless.

The alloys that the blacksmiths could forge could be useful, but that meant a radical increase in cost. A steam engine had to be large to be useful, which meant at least five tons of metal. A ridiculous amount, considering a sword required less than four pounds, and the ingots the System sold were usually between one and two pounds.

A steam engine took enough metal to arm a whole town. Hardly an acceptable tradeoff, particularly since anyone with high strength could match the power of a steam engine.

It was for a reason our old technology had been abandoned, which I was more than alright with. It was how technology worked.

What truly rankled me was abandoning the process of science with it.

I took a deep breath, suppressing my desire to deliver a long explanation. “It doesn’t matter if electricity doesn’t work. We can’t use the process described in the articles in any case. They are not exactly manufacturing plans. I need them to give me ideas to try.”

“And, it’ll work?”

“It worked to drop the repair time to eight minutes,” I said, ignoring the temptation to inform her that I had already reduced it even more. No, that part could wait. I needed it in case my other experiments failed. “But, as I said, I can’t promise results, not until I can find a proper direction.”

She looked unconvinced, but after a while, she shrugged. “You’re, the expert, professor,” she said before turning and walking away.

I could see that she was trying to annoy me by tackling that last part, but I didn’t care. I was more interested in going through all the books. Not all of them were about material sciences, but related topics. Mechanics, control systems, thermodynamics… None of them were particularly useful for a blacksmith, but I was still happy about their presence.

More information was not something I would turn my nose to. Just because they weren’t immediately needed didn’t make them useless.

My first real disappointment was about the condition of the material. Not all books were intact. Some of them were half-burned, while the others were missing pages, moldy, or dirty enough to make reading a chore.

It was clear that whoever had them treated them as garbage. “What a disappointing loss,” I muttered even as I carefully went through every book and journal, categorizing the information they contained.

Once that was done, I started reading the first article, a summary of the performance of two different industrial casting processes of aluminum with regard to their final tensile strength.

The actual conclusion part of the article was useless. First, I didn’t work with aluminum, and even if I did, I was hardly at a point of caring which of the two methods would be more useful, when both processes were optimized to create several tons of metal for every batch, for plants that probably created a thousand tons each day.

The sense of scale between our old and new world was worlds apart.

I read it carefully, because the article went quite a bit in detail about the merits of various types of water cooling, and, in the process, went into a lot of detail on how hydrogen bubbles could damage the integrity of the metal, and how a certain combination of iron salts could be used as a solution. The process was roughly similar to the impact of the second crystal.

By comparing the information provided in the article with what was provided by the System, my mind was churning a lot of new ideas.

Before even finishing the article, I had six experimental setups I wanted to try, and that was merely the first article.

“We’re going to have a lot of fun,” I said as I looked at the rest of the books. Mathematical sociology might be my one true love … but sometimes, there was no harm in straying.

Not when I could feel another revolutionary development ahead of me.