Chapter 592 (1/2)

The first thing Randidly did after talking with everyone and setting things up was take a nap. It had been… quite a while since he had slept. His Vitality made it completely voluntary. And even afterward, as he opened his eyes, he didn’t feel truly rested.

But he did feel clear. A lot of the build-up of frustrations and tension drained out of him, leaving him ready for the day. Not so ready that he wanted to accompany Tatiana to meet with a lawyer and an accountant to handle the gritty details of starting his own company, but enough that he agreed to meet with some of the more inexperienced steelworkers that had been swayed to his side and provide a demonstration.

“What I’m about to do should not be copied. No doubt some of you have received Fire Resistance already… but this is more than that.”

Barefoot, surrounded by twelve wide-eyed men and women, Randidly walked forward and began to work metal. He didn’t hold back at all and began by directly using Incendiary Eruption to spew superheated gas and liquid up towards his metals. He Refined and Extracted the ore as he worked with the heat source, trying to get a feel for it. It wasn’t difficult to control the flow of Mana into the Skill, but it was much harder to keep the heat even. That wasn’t so difficult during this portion, as long as the heat passed a certain level, but it would become more important later.

Slowly, the ore was reduced to its pure version, beginning to melt in the crucible. Randidly moved quickly to the table, all the while maintaining the Incendiary Eruption. Wincing, he drew some Mana from his rings. This was more demanding than he had thought it would be.

Very quickly, he cut up a bone and ground it to dust. Then he pricked his finger and let three drops of blood fall onto the mixture. With Gravity Affinity he began to stir everything together. It still wasn’t strong enough to be very useful in battle, but it could handle basic household tasks at this point.

Randidly mixed the molten metal with the monster and blood mixture. His method of mixing had reached something near perfection, and he quickly got to work. The only issue was that Gravity Affinity also required metal, which left him somewhat drained rather quickly. Still, he pushed through the operation as the eyes of his soon to be employees watched.

Working with metal was a heady experience, and Randidly quickly lost himself in the experience of it. The searing heat and the strange viscosity of the molten metal were endlessly fascinating to him. Again and again, Randidly stared intently at the molten metal for several seconds before raising the heat coming up from the eruption. He needed a little more for the metal to settle with the bone and harden how he wanted it.

With his Perception deeply sunk into the metal, Randidly sensed the moment he had reached the point that he wasn’t skilled enough to make the metal anymore well done. He began to cool it, gratefully allowing Golden Roots of Yggdrasil to draw Mana into himself as he waited.

Then Randidly began to pound the metal, shaping it into something more interesting than an ingot. In his mind, it was supposed to become a small dagger, but the metal he had made was harder than he had anticipated. The hammers he had prepared barely dented the warm metal, even with Randidly’s own prodigious Strength.

Narrowing his eyes, Randidly tried something else. He used As the Sun Stills.

His hammer became the core of a dying sun, hanging above the metal. Then it snapped, and the density swelled violently upwards. It was difficult to swing the hammer, but with his muscles bulging, the hammer slowly fell and hit the metal.

Bom.

There was a strange reverberation through the room, and Randidly felt the floor shiver from the force. A crack had formed in the side of the anvil that he was working on top of. The people around him weren’t moving. Randidly raised the hammer once more, once more tricked by how strangely light the hammer felt immediately afterward. This was a nice method with growing used to the shift so Randidly could handle it during a battle.

As the Sun Stills.

Boom.