Vol. 6 - Captivity - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

It had been over a week since Thomas had been captured by the pirates. During that week he'd logged off once to do some basic stuff and read his books. There wasn't much else for him to do. The only nice perk was that he had been forced to grind his 'All Seeing Eyes' ability pretty much non-stop the whole time. The room they'd locked him in was barely lit so to read properly he had to use his 'All Seeing Eyes'. Since the only thing he could do to pass the time was read, he spent about fourteen hours a day doing nothing but using his 'All Seeing Eyes'. As a result, it had blown past the rank one hundred mark and hit rank one-hundred and fifteen!

When his 'All Seeing Eyes' had hit rank one-hundred it had undergone a change. Whenever his eyes were active he could see the mana flow of anything within his sight. At first, it was a little confusing to suddenly see blue vein-like patterns within the bodies of his guards. Once he got used to it he could focus and see mana flowing inside of anything that had mana. He found it interesting, but not exactly exciting or useful, at the moment. It might come in handy when he was working but, for the time being, it was actually a little annoying.

He did wonder what his new vision would let him accomplish when crafting though. He was looking forward to that, just a bit. Other than the change to his vision, nothing else had really changed. Due to being captured his skills had stagnated for over a week and left him feeling restless. At this point, he couldn't wait to begin his 'slavery' to the pirates just so that he could do something to fight the boredom!

During the week there had been two instances where his reading had been interrupted by the sounds of combat. The ship he was on was a pirate ship after all. The combats were both significantly shorter and easier than the one he had participated in. Even so, during the combat his guards had been increased from two to four. Apparently, Yorik was taking zero chances and not giving Thomas even a small window to attempt escaping. This was all fine with Thomas, he had no intentions of escape for now. He'd already decided to turn the pirates into his minions. In his mind he wasn't a captive, he was just going to do some work and abuse the hospitality of his 'captors'.

Aside from the two combat situations and the new ability of his 'All Seeing Eyes', the cruise had been pretty quiet and extremely boring. He was pretty tempted to just log out for a full day or two and wait until they arrived at their destination. He didn't though. He'd spent his spare time putting it to good use reading his books and cramming as much knowledge into his head as he could. Thanks to all of the books he was pretty certain that he was capable of making Uncommon rarity items with basic materials. If he purified them he was certain he'd be able to reach the next rarity above that!

As Thomas was reading yet another book on enchanting, the noise of people hustling around the ship became louder. One of the crew came to his 'jail' and informed Thomas and his guards that they were arriving at their base. Thomas closed his book with a loud snap as he exclaimed, "Finally!"

The pirates looked at Thomas oddly then shook their heads. One of his guards asked the pirate that came to report, "How long until we can disembark?"

"Shouldn't be more than an hour. The captain is unloading all of the loot first. Once it's done we'll all get off and can go celebrate and relax!"

The pirates looked excited. They really wanted to blow off some steam, get drunk, and get laid. Most people didn't realize just how boring being a pirate could be. One to two weeks on the sea with little to do would wear anyone out over time. If they were unlucky the ships they raided would have very little in valuables. If they were lucky they would strike it rich and have tons of gold to throw around for a while.

The time estimate wasn't very far off and a little over an hour later Thomas was escorted out of his cell under heavy guard. They put him on a small boat with six pirates, including Captain Yorik, and paddled through the water. Thomas tried to observe where they were and where they were going but the area was covered in a thick blanket of fog. He could barely see a few feet in front of himself, let alone out into the water. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he got his first sight of land.

In front of the boat a cave appeared. It wasn't large enough for the ship to sail inside of but had plenty of room for the small rowboat they were in and several more side by side to it. Thomas looked around curiously as they moved deeper into the cave and the fog became significantly thinner. The cave went on for a while before coming to a shore. On that shore there were several cave entrances leading in different directions. The place looked like a labyrinth to Thomas. As he was looking around, Yorik spoke to him, "Cain, your little pet has already been moved to a safe location. We'll take good care of her as long as you take good care of us. Just stick to our deal and after we've got enough grenades and good equipment we'll let you two go. You have my word."

Thomas didn't trust Yorik at all and had his own plans to escape. Still, he nodded to let Yorik know that he understood and left it at that. Once the small boat was pulled onto the shore everyone disembarked and Thomas was escorted down the left-most path into the cave system. The cave twisted and turned for a bit until it came into a massive open area with sunlight shining down into it from a large hole in the ceiling. Thomas looked up into the sunlight and smiled while closing his eyes. He hadn't been out in proper sunlight for so long that it just felt amazing.

Once Thomas opened his eyes, Yorik gestured around the area, "This is where you will work. We've got some basic stuff set up already. We had a blacksmith before but he was a local and ended up dead. You're his replacement. If you need anything just let us know. There are some supplies you can check through then make a list of what you need to make the grenades."

Thomas looked around the cave and nodded as he listened to Yorik. There were two forges, a small one and a medium one. They'd be enough for what the pirates wanted him to make. Off to the side of the forges were several crates and barrels that should contain the materials he had to work with at the moment. Thomas turned to look at Yorik, "Even if you have some right now, I'll need a lot of Firestone in order to make explosives. It's the main component so the more of it you get the more explosives I can make. Other than that I need a good supply or iron, mana crystals, and Alchemist's Oil."

Yorik scratched his head, "What do you need the mana crystals and oil for?"

Thomas turned and as he was walking away he said over his shoulder, "Enchanting. The fuses for the grenades are enchantments. If you want them to work I'll need at least that stuff."

Thomas stopped at the supply area and started opening crates to go through what was inside of them. As far as he was concerned all of this now belonged to him. He would use it to make stuff for the pirates, gain experience, and skim some of the good stuff off the top for himself. He had no moral qualms about stealing from pirates!

The crates contained mostly iron with a few unidentified ingots in a couple of crates. Several of the barrels contained oil for quenching, the rest contained pungent liquids used for curing animal hide into leather. One of the crates contained scale-covered leather similar to the lizardman leather that he had purchased a while back. All in all, there were enough supplies for him to do some work. However, there was nothing in the supplies for tailoring, enchanting, or alchemy.

After looking the supplies over, Thomas went to check out the forges, anvils, and tools available to him. The blacksmith that had been working with the pirates had set up everything properly and Thomas saw plenty of hammers, tongs, and other tools for him to work with. There was even a massive supply of coal not too far from the forges to make keeping them supplied easier. Once he looked everything over he returned to the pirates that were currently guarding him, Yorik was long gone, "Alright. Here's what I need. Firestone, mana crystals, Alchemists Oil, engraving tools, and leatherworking knives. I will need lots of Firestone, mana crystals, and Alchemists Oil. So make sure to get a large supply of those three things. I'm good on iron and coal for the time being."

One of the pirate guards wrote down Thomas's instructions and left to report to Yorik. Once he left there were still four guards keeping an eye on Thomas so he looked at them, "So what should I do for now?"

The guards looked at each other, then one of them spoke, "Whatever you want."

Thomas grinned and went directly to the medium-sized forge. He loaded it with coal and ignited it with a quick Fire spell. Once the coal was going he removed the bellows and installed his blower. He had no intention of making things from purified materials for the pirates, but he wasn't against using the stuff he'd already made to make his life easier. He grabbed a plain iron ingot and set it into the coals. After channeling some mana into the blower the flames started to roar and heat up the ingot. While the ingot was heating up he retrieved a pair of tongs and a decent sized cross peen hammer to use for now.

Once the ingot was at the right temperature to be hammered, Thomas plucked it out of the coals with a pair of tongs and carried it over to the anvil. He took a deep breath and activated his 'All Seeing Eyes'. Looking at the glowing orange ingot he could see no traces of mana inside of it. It was just regular iron so that was to be expected. This would be the first time he would use the techniques of this world. Of course, he didn't intend to use just the techniques he'd read about. He had his own style and his own way of doing things. He would just incorporate the new stuff with that and make his own style.

Thomas activated his mana and channeled it through the tongs and into the ingot while converting it to the fire element. The tongs were just plain iron and not excellent for mana conduction, but they worked. The mana traveled through the tongs and into the ingot where he started to slowly disperse into the air. At the same time, he channeled mana into the hammer in his hand while converting it to the fire element as well. It was about as good at conducting mana as the tongs. He lifted the hammer and slammed it down on the ingot. He watched closely as the mana from the hammer violently collided with the mana inside of the ingot causing it to stagnate.

Only a portion of the mana stagnated while the rest continued to disperse. If he could make it all stop with a single blow then it would immediately form the so-called 'embryo' that magic weapons were expected to have. He didn't stop and immediately began to hammer the ingot repeatedly while rotating it to hit it at different angles. Every blow of his hammer stagnated more mana and kept it inside of the ingot. He worked fast and hard. If he stopped he ingot would cool and have to be reheated. If that happened he would have to reheat it which would destroy the stored mana and mean he had to start over again.

Every blow of his hammer onto the ingot was quick and precise. Before a minute had passed he'd hit the ingot dozens of times and turned it from a rectangular shape into a jumbled mass that looked like nothing but beaten iron. The guards watching Thomas thought he was an idiot. They may not be blacksmiths themselves but they'd seen the blacksmith from before working and he'd always hammered the ingots directly into weapon shapes. To them, it looked like Thomas was just fucking around. A couple even suspected that he might have been lying about his qualifications as a blacksmith. All of them intended to report this to Yorik.

Thomas was too focused on his work to pay any attention to the pirate guards watching him. As he worked the ingot more and more of the flame element he was channeling into the ingot was becoming trapped. From the literature he read, he knew he needed to get it to a certain point before it would be fully formed. The sign of that would be a bright flash of light corresponding to the mana he poured into the metal. In less than two minutes he had burned through more than half of his total mana. This was mostly due to the poor quality of the tools he was using. If he used something like mythril then the work could be done with half the price or less.

As the ingot was beginning to get cold, Thomas started to worry that he wouldn't be finished before it was too cold to work with anymore. As he slammed the mana filled hammer into the ingot once again there was a particularly crisp 'ting' as the mangled ingot flashed with a red light. Thomas froze and stared at the lump of iron in front of him. The previously stagnant fire mana within the ingot had begun to move but not dissipate. His lips curled into a bright smile as he watched the mana moving within the still cooling ingot. Finally, he dropped the tools and threw his hands into the air while shouting, "I did it!"