Chapter 13  : Blacksmith (2)

Shiro made her way back to Helion as she queued up once more.

"Tell me what you need and keep it short."

Once again, Helion greeted with the same greeting without looking back.

Shiro shook her head as she walked around like last time and showed him the note.

[I’ve got everything I need.] She wrote down.

"Eh? It’s you." Helion said surprised at how quick she came back and immediately stopped everything he was doing.

Shiro started to place the D rank variants of each material onto the table.

[Would these be ok? They’re a rank higher.] Shiro wrote down as Helion started to examine the materials.

"Yeah they would actually. I can probably mix some of this with metals to make the E rank weapon and use the remainder to make the D rank weapon. These should help carry your friend for a while before he or she needs to change weapons. Ah also, I need an E rank mana stone for the E rank weapon." Helion said as Shiro nodded.

[I’ll be counting on you then. How much do I need to deposit first? Market price please.] Shiro wrote down.

"For an E rank custom weapon would be 5,000 USD. For the D rank it would be 50,000 USD." Helion replied with a weary smile. He wanted to get on her good side by giving her some benefits but it seems like his intentions were seen through.

[Ok, I can give the money straight away. Do you know how much the final price would be for both weapons?] Shiro asked.

"Around 300,000 USD for the D rank weapon and 75,000 USD for the E rank."

"But if it’s too much for you I can give you a little discount." Helion offered.

[No it’s fine. I can afford it.] Shiro shook her head.

Helion could only smile bitterly. The only time he wanted a customer to not have enough USD for his items she actually had enough.

"Alright, shall I build it today?" He asked as Shiro thought about it and nodded.

[Please.]

Helion nodded as he turned to the queue.

"I’ll be doing a big commission today! Come back tomorrow!" He shouted out as the queue dispersed.

Shiro raised an eyebrow seeing this.

[They seem rather obedient.] Shiro wrote down.

"If they’re not, I can just blacklist them." Helion shrugged.

He walked back into his workshop as he started to lay out the materials.

x Rock Serpent’s Crown Scales, 2x Hobgoblin’s Bones, 5x Reinforcement Gems, an assortment of different metals, E ranked mana stone and a D rank mana stone.

[Is it ok if I waited here while you work?] Shiro wrote down.

"OF COURSE!" Helion replied with a little too much enthusiasm.

Shiro only chuckled slightly as she pulled up a chair by the side and sat down. Crossing her legs, she rested her head on her left hand whilst her spare hand searched on the net.

Shiro was currently looking at the Dungeon available around the area so she can plan the level up schedule for both her and Lyrica.

Helion paused slightly as he admired Shiro. Shaking his head, he started to work away as he brought materials out.

The process could be narrowed down to 6 main steps.

: Forging – The step to get the metal into the desired shape.

: Annealing – Cooling the metal over a long period of time making it soft and easy for grinding.

: Grinding – Sharpening the edges of the metal.

: Hardening – Heating up the metal and cooling it quickly to harden the blade.

: Tempering – Heated up to a lower temperature than the temperature during hardening, it is cooled quickly. Repeating this step several times will allow the blade to be strong but not brittle. It will also retain some flexibility.

: Completion – This step adds the handle, guard and pommel. It is the finishing touch needed for the weapon.

But before that, he needed to make the main material for the sword. Since most of the materials are D ranked, he needed to mix it with some E rank metals to lower down the level of the final product.

Grabbing some metals, Helion heated it up in the forge until the metal was almost coloured white.

Pulling the metal out of the forge, Helion’s face and aura became serious.

Sensing the change in aura, Shiro looked up from the tablet and watched carefully.

Grabbing the hammer, Helion’s muscles tensed up as he raised it up above his head.

The hammer burst into orange flames just before Helion stuck it down.

*DING! DING! DING! DING!

Rhythmic hammering rang out. With each strike of the hammer, the metal was slowly flattened down. Sparks flew everywhere as Helion’s concentration hit its peak.

Helion stomped down as it caused some of the materials to be launched up into the air. Reaching out his arm, the materials he needed magnetised over to his hand.

’Pugilist’s ground stomp and attraction force. Ground Stomp causes the enemy to become air born for a slight moment whilst Attraction Force pulls the enemy towards you. For him to use both skills to help him make a weapon is quite innovative.’ Shiro thought with a slight smile.

When Helion used both skills, his other hand wasn’t idle either as he continued to hammer away.

He took 5x Rock Serpent’s Crown Scales and lined them up along the entire piece of metal. This time, he infused more mana into his hammer before he continued to hammer down with increasing speed and intensity.

Pulling the metal slightly off the metal workspace, Helion slammed the hammer on the middle of the metal as he folded it over.

Repeating the process for a few more times, Helion finished the first piece of alloy that he was going to use for one of the blades.

Helion then wrapped the alloy in a fireproof material to let the alloy cool down slowly.

He then continued to make the second alloy for the second blade that will be included in the weapon.

Repeating what he did with the first alloy, he set it aside to let it cool slowly.

While the first two alloys were cooling down, Helion started to make the 2 blades for the D rank dual ended weapon.

This time, instead of mixing it with metal, Helion was patient as he heated each of the Crown Scales before hammering them together piece by piece. 20 pieces of Rock Serpent’s Crown Scale was needed to make a single blade.

As the heap of scales were pure white due to the heat, Helion started to hammer it into shape.

Grabbing 10 pieces of Scorpion’s Poisoned Stinger, Helion crushed the tip of the stinger and lined them up along the edge.

Shiro’s eyes glimmered slightly when she observed how he hammered away at the materials. On point of contact, he would shift his wrist ever so slightly so that the Stingers would fold upwards and over the Scales. In between the gap, he would sew dense mana fibres melding the two materials together.

Once he finished with the two blades for the D rank weapon, he turned his attention back to the first two alloys he made for the E rank weapon.

He laid the two alloys in front of him as he pressed all five of his fingers on the workbench. Runes spread out from each of his fingers as it formed a circle around the two alloys.

Shiro could tell that Helion was speeding up the cooling process while not damaging the blade itself.

Infusing mana into the blades whilst he was cooling them down, he ensured that they didn’t lose any of their attributes while softening up to be sharpened.

As he finished the cooling process, he set the D rank blades to experience the same cooling.

During this, he took the alloys to the grinding wheel as the wheel itself was reinforced to be able to shave away at the alloy.

Sparks flew everywhere while Shiro watched in interest. It was fascinating watching a craftsman focus on their work.

Their pacing, their concentration and their finesse when making their crafts intrigued her.

When she makes her Nano craft weapons like the dagger, it was akin to pouring molten metal into a mould.

None of this intricate process was involved.

The joy of watching anything grow from almost nothing to something was calming. It was a feeling that didn’t come with the almost instantaneous creation of her Nano craft weapons.

As Helion finished sharpening both alloys, he raised it up above his head as he examined the edge.

Nodding in satisfaction, he took the D rank blades and proceeded to sharpen them as well.

The time needed to sharpen the D rank blades were much longer than the time needed for the E rank alloys. This is due to the fact that the D rank blades retained most of their hardness even after softening them up.

Now that all four blades were sharpened, Helion stuck all of them into the forge as he started to heat them back up.

After waiting for a while, he pulled out the four blades and placed them into a basin of cold water.

*CHSSSSSS

The sound of red hot material touching the cold water hissed out as the cold water boiled almost instantly.

Repeatedly heating up and cooling down the metal, Helion finished the Tempering stage.

Taking the blades to the grinder, he grinded it down one last time to give the blades a cleaner look to them.

The materials he had left were 2x Hobgoblin’s Bones, 5x Reinforcement Gems, an E rank mana stone and a D rank mana stone.

He collected the shavings from the blades which were the result of grinding them down.

Putting the shavings into a bowl, he sat down and started to work on the bones.

Cutting the bones in half down the centre, he scraped out all the bone marrow.

Adding a liquid to the shavings which acted like glue, he filled up the inside of the bone as he embedded 1 Reinforcement Gem and the E rank mana stone.

A neon blue light started to spread from the mana stone as roots seemed to travel long the liquid shavings.

Slotting the other half of the bone back on top, Helion covered the entire bone in the liquid shavings.

Getting the E ranked alloy blades, Helion attached them to either side of the bone handle and waited for it to set.

As the liquid shavings solidified, they formed a sort of natural grip as it made it harder for the weapon to slip out of a person’s hand by accident.

Setting the E ranked blade aside, Helion started working on the D ranked handle.

The requirement for this was much higher as he crushed 2 of the Reinforcement Stones and mixed it with the liquid shavings. This, in turn, coloured it a greyish red.

Replacing the bone marrow with the new liquid shavings, Helion embedded the D ranked mana stone in the middle while the final 2 reinforcement stones laid on either side of the mana stone.

Similar to what happened with the previous weapon, neon lights started to spread from the mana stone but the amount of ’roots’ it formed was many times more than the E rank mana stone.

Doing the final touches of slotting the bone together as well as coating it in the remaining liquid shavings, Helion attached the D ranked blades to the handle.

Shiro could see the ’roots’ spread out from the handle and along the flat side of both blades.

Waiting for a while, Helion only let go of the handle when the ’roots’ carved themselves onto the blade.

"Alright done. The products were better than expected. The E rank will cost 80,000 USD and the D rank will cost 320,000 USD." Helion said handing both weapons to Shiro.

[Unnamed Custom Weapon LVL 15 (Green+)]

Creator: Helion

Requirements: LVL 15

+15 Sharpness

+10 AGI

+10 DEX

+10 Poison

+15 Durability

+5 STR

[Unnamed Custom Weapon LVL 30 (Green+)]

Creator: Helion

Requirements: LVL 30, 220 STR

+40 Sharpness

+20 AGI

+15 DEX

+20 Poison

+15 Piercing

+20 STR

[Thank you. So how do I pay?] Shiro wrote down.

Helion took out a crystal as Shiro recognised it to a similar crystal to the one back in the auction house.

Placing a hand on the crystal, Shiro transferred 400,000 USD and the 55,000 USD total deposit. Thus leaving her with a measly 19,000 USD.

"If you need any other weapon being commissioned, just come to me. I can guarantee I finish it in one day." Helion replied smiling but Shiro could see him sweat profusely from how hard he worked.

[I’ll take you up on that offer. Take care of yourself.] Shiro smiled as she walked away with the new weapons.

Helion paused seeing Shiro’s smile. Ignoring the fact that she looked 13 to 15, her beauty was in a league of her own. Just a smile was like a cool breeze on a hot day.

Walking back to her room, Shiro took out both weapons and laid them on the table.

Looking over at the level 15 unnamed weapon. Shiro decided to name it [Dual Ended Poison Blade].

As for the D rank weapon, she wanted to run a little experiment.

With her experiences of the Nanomancer class, she would be able to make small trinkets that don’t exceed her current limit. But the next item she was going to make might be pushing it a little.

Lightning and metallic particles swirled around her open palms as Shiro closed her eyes.

She started to extract mana and twined them in her open palm. The mana converted into Nano bots as Shiro took out an E ranked mana stone and stuck it into the swarm of Nano bots.

The metal started to wrap around the stone itself as Shiro envisioned a blueprint she remembered from her past life.

Making a few corrections so that it fit a level 30 rather than a level 200+, Shiro could feel her Mana drain at an absurd speed.

Sweat dripped from her forehead as she furrowed her brows.

’Energy Compartment... Conversion Compartment... Distribution Vents... Mana Diffusion Compartment...’ Shiro thought as an orb was being created on her palm.

"Fuuuu....." Shiro breathed out heavily as she reopened her eyes.

Glancing over at her MP, she couldn’t help but smile bitterly at how much MP she needed for the Nanomancer class.

[MP: 200/6300]

She had to keep at lease 200MP as a fail-safe for her Disguise skill.

However, when she looked at the tiny orb that needed 6100 MP, Shiro couldn’t help but smile.

[Nano Growth Infuser Prototype Mk 1 – LVL 20 (Blue+)]