In my years in Erebus, I had gone through almost every area of production and hadn’t reached the top of any. Partly because I never chose just one. Partly because I never felt like it. A faction leader needs to understand a little of every gear in the machine, enough not to be fooled by those who understand a lot. That was what the index said about me, at least, and I believed it, because it fit: I was always better at finding out who was the best than at being the best.
That was enough to know the value of a formula like that one.
[Ultralight Reinforced Bracer]
[Rarity: Rare+]
[Made by Ymir when he was on his way to the peak of his career. Although he made it only to pass the time, the legendary blacksmith discovered a way to make it more durable and lighter than an ordinary bracer]
[Vitality +1]
[Tenacity +1]
[Dexterity +1]
[Passive, Reinforcement: reduces damage taken by 10%]
To a beginner, it looked like an item just a little above average. To the leader of a mid-sized faction, it was gold. Light, it didn’t get in the way of movement. It required no class and no level. Anyone could use it, from the shield to the healer.
The attributes already left behind everything in the same range. The passive was another story. Ten percent less damage from everything was tempting even for a big faction.
The best part: the materials cost almost nothing. Apart from the main one, the tempered bones, the rest was so common that the Association offered it for free for warming up and for the test.
Free raw materials, a legendary recipe, a product everyone wants. Something this good always has a hidden price.
“All right.” I picked up the metal. “First attempt.”
To learn a formula, I had to follow the instructions on the paper to the letter. Only once I could do half the process without the system’s help would the rest go into my head and the paper be consumed.
Many things influence a forging, but few are capable of ruining it outright. The first is the fire: anyone who calls himself a blacksmith has to command the flames. The second is the hammer. Strike too hard or too soft, too fast or too slow, and the material cracks. The third, the hardest, is time. Heating, forging, quenching, tempering. Everything depends on a sense of time that no paper teaches. Only the years.
I didn’t have the years. But my body, apparently, did.
On the first attempt, my hand held the hammer before I decided how to hold it. On the second, it stopped striking half a second before I noticed the metal had changed color. It was the same feeling as in the forest, the body going on ahead, only the other way around. There, it had come cold. Here, it came warm, like a grandfather’s hand over yours, guiding.
So not everything I forgot is bad. Good to know.
After a few rounds of heating, striking and repeating, the notification appeared.
[Learning criterion met]
[Do you wish to learn the contents of the formula “Ultralight Reinforced Bracer”?]
I accepted without thinking. The paper dissolved in the air, and the formula went into my head and fit into a place that seemed to have been saved for it.
At that very moment, the man from the front desk came back.
“An hour’s passed. Let’s begin. Ready?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Ready.”
He led me to a room separate from the main smithy. In one corner, a lit forge, ready. In the other, a woman sitting in a chair, legs crossed.
“That’s your forge.”
“Is she going to be the judge?”
HMPH
The man snorted and sat down beside her.
“We’re going to be the judges.”
Oh. It dropped with a clang. Nobody has forearms like those and a star-shaped burn like that just to mind a counter.
“Good afternoon.” The woman waved. She had nothing of the stereotype of the rough, dirty blacksmith. Blond hair, brown eyes, pale skin without a single mark. She looked like she had stepped out of a shop window.
“Don’t let this old lady’s face fool you.”
BAM
The punch hit the man in the pit of the stomach with such precision that he nearly brought his lunch back up.
“I, Amelia, intermediate blacksmith, will conduct your test together with basic blacksmith Kapriel,” she went on, without paying the slightest attention to her colleague trying to catch his breath beside her.
An intermediate blacksmith? At an entrance test? An intermediate blacksmith could hold a high position in any mid-sized faction. It was like showing up for your driving test at the DMV and finding a Formula 1 driver holding the clipboard.
“Pardon the intrusion, Miss Amelia. But why are you judging an admission test?”
“Hm. I was passing by and decided to take part.” A glint of interest crossed her eyes and vanished. “But don’t think it’s luck. It’s the opposite. My evaluation is going to be much sharper than this piece of junk’s beside me.”
Kapriel didn’t react to “piece of junk.” Maybe for fear of another punch. From the way she had hit him, Amelia must have had the strength of at least a tier 3. If she wanted to, she could knock me out in a second, and nobody there would do anything but sweep up.
“May I begin?”
“Be my guest.”
I went to the forge and took the materials out of my bag. Among them, one I hadn’t used yet: the black magnetite.
“Oh.” Her interest grew visibly. “Are you sure you’re going to use that? It’s not as easy as it looks.”
It was an unwritten rule among blacksmiths not to interrupt another’s work. But I hadn’t started yet, so she had asked.
“I’m sure, miss.”
“Very well. Go on. I won’t interrupt again.”
I began melting the materials. Real blacksmiths melt everything at once, controlling the fire to burn hotter in one corner of the furnace and cooler in the other. I didn’t have that touch yet. I melted one material at a time, each in its own time.
Kapriel watched with his arms crossed and the face of someone who had seen a thousand newcomers and failed nine hundred. But when I poured the first metal into the mold without spilling a drop, his eyebrow rose a millimeter. When he glanced sideways at Amelia, it was with pity. Pity for me, I think. His face said: poor guy, he caught the monster’s attention.
With the metal in the molds, I took one piece at a time and began to hammer.
Then I stopped thinking.
I can’t explain it any other way. The hammer rose and fell, and the rhythm changed on its own, three quick strikes, one slow, two medium, as the metal asked. I heard the metal ask. The one who heard it was someone more patient than the other one, the cold one. Someone who had enjoyed this, in a time I didn’t remember.
When I came back to myself, the piece was already in the furnace, and the flames were obeying the ring. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amelia staring at my hand. At the ring, to be exact. Her face asked the question she wasn’t going to ask out loud: what is an item like that doing on a newcomer’s finger?
I counted sixty seconds and a little more. I pulled out the plate, red with heat, took the magnetite in my other hand and pressed it against the metal.
Few people know it, but forging is as much control of lume as it is arm work. When the stone touched the plate, it melted like wax and fused with the metal. It left a dark trail, which soon sank inside.
I went back to hammering, hard and precise, in a wide rhythm. One strike, one breath. One strike, one breath. After a few minutes, I plunged the piece into the icy water.
The hiss rose with the steam. When I pulled out the bracer, the notifications began to fall one after another.
[Congratulations! You are the first newcomer to forge an item]
[Reward: Blacksmith’s Insignia, 1 level]
[Congratulations! You are the first newcomer to forge a Rare+ item]
[Reward: Silver Chest, Silver Materials Chest]
[Due to the effect of the magnetite, the forged item has acquired the passive Resistance]
[Do you wish to mark the item?]
I accepted. A small symbol appeared engraved in the metal, near the edge. A zero.
[Ultralight Reinforced Bracer]
[Rarity: Rare+]
[Made by Zero]
[Vitality +1]
[Tenacity +1]
[Dexterity +1]
[Passive, Reinforcement: reduces damage taken by 10%]
[Passive, Resistance: durability increased by 50%]
I kept looking at the zero. It was just a circle. But my hand had drawn it the same way it had written the name at the guild, without consulting me, with a stroke it knew from long before.
Behind me, Amelia’s chair didn’t creak. Kapriel, who snorted at anything, held back even his snort.