Chapter 8 First Items (1/2)
”Alright, listen 'ere, old-timer. Ye're obviously a great smith, even if yer skills don't say so. What do ya say about workin' as one?”
It is possible to change your occupation to Blacksmith. Do you accept?
After the first onslaught of system messages telling Eisen about his successful quest as well as his rewards, Denmir immediately caused another one to appear in front of him before Eisen was even able to comprehend what he read a few seconds beforehand.
He began scratching his beard and closed his eyes in order to think. Did he want to become a blacksmith right off the bat? Sure, it's something he would probably be doing a lot of in the future, but wouldn't choosing this as his occupation limit him significantly? After all, he wasn't just planning to smith around all day, he also wanted to learn tailoring or leatherworking, and when he heard about it through a conversation with the other Originals, he also decided to learn about Alchemy.
And to Eisen, it felt like he wouldn't be able to fully explore those other areas in this game if he was to choose his occupation to be a Blacksmith right now.
Thus, his choice was clear. ”Sorry, Denmir. I will not become a Blacksmith, at least not yet. I first want to find out if there are other things I'm supposed to do before I make such an important choice.” He explained, causing Denmir to sigh out loudly as he shook his head.
”I get it, old man. There're many things for ya to explore. If ye ever decide ye want to be a Blacksmith, after all, ya know where to find me. Now, what do ya want to do?” The Dwarf asked and looked up at the man in front of him, who twisted his head to look around the smithy. ”Hmm, if you don't mind, I would love to try myself at working on some weapons to level the skill up.”
Immediately, Denmir nodded and pointed to the other side of the smithy to a smaller, unoccupied forge. ”Of course! Go ahead! I'll come take a look every once in a while at what ye're makin', and you're free to ask the apprentices for help as well. The door to the warehouse will be directly next to ya. The stuff ye can use is in the front, the materials in the back are for higher ranks. Right now ye can only really work with normal, base Iron. If ye make something ya wanna keep, pay for the materials, other than that it's the best idea to melt it in again. That actually also gives ya experience for the skill.”
Denmir led Eisen through the smithy to the forge he was talking about and brought him some materials to start off with as well as tools to use. ”Now, have fun workin', old-timer.” The dwarf laughed and Eisen smirked happily.
After being left alone, he decided to invest the fifteen points from leveling up first, splitting them amongst Strength, Endurance and Agility. He decided to first strengthen his physical stats over his 'spiritual' ones like Intelligence or Wisdom, since to him it was most important to get his body to the strength he was used to from real life so that he could work properly.
Then, his status looked like this.
[Eisen]
[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation - None][Level - 4]
[HP - 180][MP - 140]
[STR - 15][END - 15][AGI - 15][INT - 10][WIS - 11]
[Titles]
-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]
[Skills]
-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Appraisal][Rank - 0][Level - 99]
-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 0][Level - 1]
-[Tool Connection][Rank - 0][Level - 3]
Eisen happily looked through his stats and skills, nodding with a bright smile on his face as he walked over to the bellow behind the forge, slowly starting to pump air into the coals using it. Once the forge was heated up enough to work with, he went around and threw one of the smaller ingots that Denmir prepared into it. Since what he was planning to make was a simple knife, he really only needed one of them, and not even an especially big one. It was better to practice with small items at first before moving onto larger ones. And these would melt down again more easily, so he could restart quicker.
Eisen waited for a few more minutes until the ingot started shining a bright orange and then grabbed a pair of tongs to pick it up. He carried it over to the nearest anvil and placed it down, always steadily holding the ingot.
He grabbed the hammer lying next to him and began slowly and steadily hammering onto the iron. He could immediately notice a difference to before. His hand movements were far more steady and accurate as when he was working on the greatsword using the sledgehammer, even without using Tool Connection.
The metal dented under Eisen's impact as he drew it out in length by reducing its thickness.
Every time his hammer connected with the hot metal it got a little bit thinner.
After the soon-to-be knife was in appropriate dimensions, Eisen started to thin out the side where the edge would later be to minimize the amount of ground he would need to do.
Once the edge was formed, Eisen turned the knife around and formed a handle by upsetting a small part of the metal. The process of upsetting is to simply widen a piece of metal by shortening another. Thus, by hitting his hammer against edge-part, Eisen was able to form a square handle.
Since the basic knife shape was now done, Eisen began to lightly hammer against the flat sides of the knife to get rid of uneven parts that were caused by his lack of experience with the system.
Sighing out loud, Eisen brought the knife over to the water-tank standing near him and dipped the hot knife into it. Immediately he heard loud hissing as the metal was cooled down instantly.
He took the knife out of the water and brought it back to lay it down on the anvil. After confirming that the metal could now be handled by hand, Eisen grabbed some files to work on finishing it.
He would have liked to add more steps into it, like tempering the metal afterward, but for right now he would take the filing as a last step and melt the knife back down.
Starting with a rough grit, Eisen evened up the rest of uneven spots that were still left and got onto roughly filing the proper edge onto the knife. Then, with slightly finer gritted files each time, he repeated the same progress until the flat side was completely uniform and the edge sharp enough to cut something. As the last step, for now, he polished the metal at last, finishing the blade.
[You created a Simple Knife]
[Simple Knife]
[Quality - Average][Rank - 0]
[Description] A simple iron knife created by a smith who knew how to handle his hammer, but due to the minimal grade of the Blacksmithing skill and the steps that have been skipped, the quality lacks to what it should have been.