The blazing white earthfire, like an awakened fire dragon, roared and churned within the hearth.
The temperature throughout the cavern had reached a point unbearable for any ordinary human.
Yet Victor felt unprecedentedly comfortable.
Bare-chested, beads of sweat covered his bronze skin, only to vaporize instantly under the intense heat.
He could clearly feel that the spread of greyscale on his legs had ground to a complete halt.
At the boundary where it met healthy skin, the dull, petrified flesh even showed a faint, subtle sign of softening.
*Looks like heat therapy works!* This discovery bolstered his spirits, freeing him from any lingering worries.
He poured his entire mind into what was about to begin: his first truly scientific forge.
He walked over to the stone pedestal and picked up an ingot of Valyrian steel with a grave expression.
Rather than throwing the ingot directly into the fire like an ancient craftsman, he drew a broken Valyrian steel sword and carefully scraped a tiny amount of metal powder from the ingot’s edge.
He sprinkled the powder into the fire, then narrowed his eyes, closely watching the shift in the flame’s color.
“The bright orange-yellow flare indicates the presence of sodium…
and that faint blue-green tint is due to copper…
But none of these are key.” His eyes acted like a precision color detector, catching the fleeting, minute spectral lines within the flame’s spectrum in an instant.
*Just as I thought.
Valyrian steel is essentially an iron-based steel, alloyed with a small amount of Dragonglass powder—obsidian—and other unknown magical components.
At high temperatures, Dragonglass powder acts as both a catalyst and a crystallization nucleus, allowing carbon to permeate the iron’s micro-structure far more uniformly.* To others, this was miraculous magic; to him, it was merely an advanced material blend and chemical reaction.
His analysis complete, Victor hesitated no longer.
He cast three full ingots of Valyrian steel into the blazing white earthfire.
Under the terrifying heat, the ingots rapidly shifted from dull grey to glowing red, then softened like a chunk of red toffee.
Victor pumped his massive double-acting bellows, precisely controlling the stroke distance and frequency of the lever.
“Increase airflow—now is the oxidation phase to burn off excess impurities…
Alright, reduce airflow to create a reducing atmosphere, preventing over-decarbonization…” He muttered under his breath, utterly absorbed in his process.
Finally, the ingots softened completely into a shimmering mass of molten metal that almost seemed alive.
Using heavy iron tongs, Victor pulled it from the hearth and set it onto the anvil block.
He didn’t begin hammering right away.
Instead, he turned to Comet.
“Comet, remember what we practiced earlier?
Use that frequency—sing to it!” Comet tilted its head, then opened its jaws, emitting a low, resonant hum.
The frequency was exceptionally high, far beyond the threshold of human hearing, yet invisible ripples could be seen expanding through the air like waves, enveloping the glowing liquid steel.
This was the truth Victor had decoded from Master Gaemon’s notes regarding the so-called magic spells!
The syllables, cadence, and rhythm of those ancient incantations were designed for one ultimate purpose: guiding the speaker to emit sound waves of specific frequencies that influenced the micro-structure of the metal during cooling and hammering, forming a more stable and perfect crystalline lattice.
This was nothing short of the ancient magical equivalent of ultrasonic-assisted metal crystallization technology!
Where ancient smiths required countless years of practice and extraordinary talent to barely achieve it, Victor only needed his ultrasonic generator, Comet, to produce a precise frequency.
Enveloped by the invisible sound waves, Victor raised his forging hammer.
*Clang!
Clang!
Clang!* Heavy, rhythmic strikes echoed through the cavern.
Every strike carried power and grace.
He didn’t hammer mindlessly just to shape the metal like an ordinary blacksmith.
Every blow landed precisely on the stress points of the billet, expelling internal air pockets and impurities, forging, folding, and re-forging the distinct metal layers…
He repeated this process hundreds of times.
He wasn’t relying on intuition, but on calculation.
Through the billet’s deformation and the pitch of the impact, he could gauge subtle changes in its internal crystalline structure.
Gradually, the form of a one-handed sword emerged under his hammer.
The blade bore a fluid, perfectly aerodynamic curve—thin at the edge yet thick along the spine, ensuring minimal air resistance during a swing alongside maximum structural support.
The final step: quenching!
Victor plunged the red-hot blade into a pre-prepared stone trough.
It was filled with a dark, viscous liquid—quenching oil he had blended in precise proportions from animal fats and plant oils extracted from remains and flora found in the ruins.
*Sizzle—* A plume of grey smoke rose, accompanied by a pungent, acrid smell.
When Victor drew the longsword from the oil, its appearance had transformed completely.
No longer fiery red, the blade now bore a deep, dark grey hue that seemed to swallow all light.
Across that dark surface, exquisite patterns resembling a sea of clouds and rolling waves gradually emerged, appearing to flow and breathe under the flickering firelight.
The ripples were deeper and far more dynamic than any Valyrian steel he had ever seen before!
Grasping the high-tech Valyrian steel longsword he had forged with his own hands, Victor felt an indescribable rush of pride and ambition.
He walked over to a bronze plate a finger thick, previously set aside for testing, took a deep breath, and gave a casual sweep of the blade.
There was no sound.
There was no resistance.
The sword glided through the bronze plate silently, as though cutting through tofu.
A second later, the upper half of the bronze plate slid smoothly along the mirror-like slice and hit the ground with a loud clatter.
Victor looked at the unblemished edge in his hand and nodded in satisfaction.
Using the remaining bronze, he fashioned a simple scabbard and decided to name the weapon Truth.
He was no longer a defenseless doctor.
From this day forth, he possessed fangs to protect himself and his companion in this world.
He turned to look at Comet, who had quietly stayed by his side, singing and cheering him on, and smiled.
“Alright, mine is done.
Now it’s your turn, my finest heavy machinery.”