'Ancient Fuller Bastard Hauntings...'

After everybody was awake and had eaten breakfast we divided up into teams to accomplish our various goals for today. Go, Merch, Papi, and I would be working in the smithy while Oleander, Stonewall, and Lil took Hermes and our familiars to a local tailor's to process our collective webs and other materials. Skooma, Agnes, and Conansson went with Ivana to handle all of our other shopping needs.

The smithy here was not unlike the smithy in Olton from my tutorial, it was a large and low deck space built off from the side of their two-story storehouse and was equipped with two of everything. Two scrappers, two anvils, to workbenches for detailing, two grindings wheels, and all of it was centered around one waist-height thick masonry stone forge.

Luckily, we had our own anvils from the wagons in our inventories and all we needed to do was set up log stands.

The smith himself was a somewhat older man who openly complained about having nothing to do in this small town so did not mind letting us use his smithy for free as long as everything we brought in left with us. To show my appreciation I bought up half of his excess iron and steel stocks with interest per pound. The man actually offered to introduce me to one of his three daughters after giving my title a second reading.

I thanked him profusely for the offer but rejected it by saying that I was committed to 'm'lady'. Not really bothered by the turn of events, the smith simply left us to our work where we took turns breaking down our current weapons to be smelted down into a new steel and worked once again. Sadly, the furnace here was not very large so only a few melting pots fit.

For the reforging of Midnight Hauntings I had to use Transmutation to start breaking down its components and size until all that remained was a simply steel longsword half the weight and two-thirds the size of the previous fuller.

Then I scrapped it with matching eight pounds of Ancient Steel Scrap to make a whopping sixteen pounds of what was described as 'mostly carbon steel'. Next went in two portions of vanium, one-and-a-half pounds of arcanite, one pound of tungsten, and on pound of cobalt to make an estimated twenty pounds of material. I was starting to feel like what Sir Beryl once told me about only needing a bigger sword was an inevitability.

Working this bar tagged as 'Original Alloy' was much harder than I anticipated even after I had worked up my combo, forcing my to soon convert from heating the sword in the forge to channeling fire element through it while I worked.

[Acquired Fire Elementalism Perk: Thermal Regulation]

[+25XP]

[Thermal Regulation: By learning how to conduct and control and sustain the fire element through metal materials for crafting as well as combat purposes, you have acquired the Thermal Regulation Perk. This perk will ease the burden of sustain fire elemental magic over extending periods of time as well and make it easier to control the actual temperature]

Even while keeping it at a 'soft' temperature with an almost yellow coloring the steel required twenty minutes just to flatten out into a sheet.

Folding the sheet was fairly easy even while working by myself but I had to lower the temperature a little to keep from bonding the folds in the process of folding. Once the sheet was folded down into a fifteen-layer bar I brought the temperature back up with the little mana I had remaining. After replenishing a more mana a few seconds later, I started using light Force Strikes to hammer weld the layers together while hammering the bar back out.

By the time the new sheet of steel had returned to a bright orange-yellow glow for folding, almost half of my mana had returned and I could once again maintain and control the heat of the metal on my own. After bonding the second set of folds into two hundred and twenty-five layers, I once again set to work hammering out the immense mass of my weapon.

The others were all hard at work bonding their first sets of folds for their weapons. Papi was making his own war-pick while Go was crafting his own battleaxe and Merch was working on a pair of swords. Even though their weapons weighed either more or less than my own, they all used the same steel recipe as me with pieces of the Chieftain's sword for carbon content.

Like me, they were also working out the immense mass of their weapons in more than the safer sets of ten folds apiece. Part of the descriptions for the Ancient Steel Scrap was that it had been one of the original alloy recipes of early mortals and was made for highly enduring weapons that were meant to be stretched beyond their limits.

Coupled with the B grade of the scrap itself, the descriptions and flavor text gave me high hopes for the weapons we were making. Especially because I was finally making a third and final set of folds in the steel to make much more than my originally intended one thousand layers.

Then the game finally awarded me something for my current efforts.

[Strength raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

[Willpower raised by 1]

[Intelligence raised by 1]

In fact, when I checked the description for the welded bar that I was forced to let cool after bonding the final set of folds, I was shocked and amazed by what I read. Three sets of fifteen folds had compounded to an astounding three thousand, three hundred and seventy-five layers! I was dying to see what the damage output for the actual sword would be.

Once I had again rested while just playing with the thick rectangular bar that was almost three feet long, I put the modernized ancient alloy back into the forge while channeling roughly one mana every few seconds to help it heat faster. In just a minute or so it was brightly glowing orange, hot enough to start working the steel. Sadly, since I was alone for this one I had to start by shaping the blade first.

With help it was easier to divide the mass of the steel for swifter working and more balanced weight distribution. Working alone, I had to work the entire steel down from the point to the tang. Normally this was the common practice which would help increase the weight of the hilt and guard for increased control of the weapon but I preferred a meatier blade.

Because I was once again using magic to control the temperature of the steel, forming the blade was one smooth process of ceaseless steps that easily drained all of my strength and mana.

First I had to bring the blade portion to an extended square by working against the grain stretching the blade out from the guard are. Next I worked that squared mass back down into the guard area as an octagon before I finally started shaping the blade from the point down once more. This process was a little tricky to get used to alone but after the point formed it became easier.

[Strength raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

After working all of the excess mass I could into the blade portions of the sword squeezed out from the center I took a short break after receiving stat notification. I even let the sword cool naturally to help soften it a bit for working the guard and tang in one fell swoop. Luckily, all of my stats regenerated quickly so I only had to rest until the steel was cooled.

Then it went right back into the forge well filled with burning charcoal logs where it stayed for only a minute before I set to work hammering out the thick bars to curve into a rounded hand guard.

Of course, hammering out the tang was trickier than I liked even through I had plenty of gripping surfaces for the tongs on the blade. The problem was the angles of four different blade surfaces while I only had one hand to hold a short pair of tongs by. In this fashion, even with my over-leveled Strength stat or maybe because of it the blade would threaten to slip and hassle me every few strikes.

However, after fifteen minutes of irksome care and effort, the octagonal tang was formed with a fat portion of square dead weight for a pommel. Ten minutes of magic and chisel hammering later, the six flats of the sword bore two fullers apiece.

Since I was maintaining the blade with magic I could also quench it the same way, however I lowered the overall temperature of the steel a little first. Then I quenched the side blades and the first fullers of the next faces after lowering their temperature down to the bottom of the steel's high softening point. Then I quenched the point, inner side fullers, spine, and tang of the weapons in the upper half of the softening point to make a much harder steel.

[Successfully Crafted: Ancient Fuller Bastard Hauntings for Three Thousand Layers of Hellfire]

[+3000XP]

[Leveled Up]

[All stats raised by 1]

[+3000 Blacksmithing XP]

[Blacksmithing Leveled x4]

[+80PX]

[+3000 Enchanting XP]

[Enchanting Leveled x15]

[240XP]

[Strength raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

[Willpower raised by 1]

[Intelligence raised by 1]

"Fuck yeah!" I shout happily, staring at the ember orange sword in my hands. My sword had skyrocketed from an attack rating in the thirties to seventy-two. On top of this, the blade would now heat up upon skin or even leather contact and cause thirty points of burn damage that ignored 'some' armors.

Even Geist now triggered a solid seven phantom blades that struck for seventy-percent of my true damage apiece as well as ten points of burning damage. By association, Spirit Slashes cast with this sword would also carry equal burn damage as the sword.

This was a wonderful bonus to my psychic attack skill that only did half of my true damage, bringing it much closer to the full damage of a basic attack.

Boiling a hilt of wrapped imp leather around the tang of my sword, I Quick Craft a large scabbard to wear across my back with the now immense three-foot blade and fourteen-inch hilt. Then I simply made my way around the smithy checking on the others who were still on the early stages of shaping their folded steel primaries. It was probably a little too late in their current crafts to start using mana to control the temperatures but I still made them switch tactics just for the stat training.

When they were finally done they actually succeeded in enchanting their weapons with a flame attribute, but the damage values were much lower even with DOT that brought them to only thirty fire damage. However, they now had some enchanting and alchemy skills a few of them previously lacked as well as the know-how to assist me. I was tired of smithing alone and I still had to make all of their secondary weapons.

Starting with Go's pair of axes, I not only make the others take turns holding their equipment that I cycle through one at a time as they run out of mana. Because they did not have the same stats or buffs to help them recover like me, I ended up having to cycle through their weapons on my own.

[Strength raised by 1]

[Endurance raised by 1]

[Willpower raised by 1]

[Intelligence raised by 1]

To save myself some trouble, though, I only worked in small shifts roughly twice the duration of a natural heating. By the time I was done the others were all ready for the final phase of the secondary weapons. Even though everybody now used dual secondary weapons, which really sucked right now.

Their damage values all came out within the upper sixties or even low eighties in the cases of Go's and Papi's two-handed weaponry. Next, though, it was time to make the weapons for everybody who was not present to smith for themselves, such as Ivana and Oleander. Despite the heavy folding process, both of their weapons were a simply single-edges pair of swords and a pair of long round bodied estocs.

Surprisingly, the estocs had a damage almost equal to my own Bastard Hauntings despite being being battering or thrusting weapons. Skooma's swords, as well, ended up coming out with seventy-five damage because I had to make completely new swords out of just ancient steel and alloy materials.

Apparently the modern iron I used as a medium to carry Geist's spirit was counted as an impurity of sorts.

Regardless of their complaints I once again made the others take turns apprenticing for me before it was finally time to work on our group's heaviest weapon. Stonewall's namesake. A giant wall shield.

Because the process of making his giant solid steel shield would take an incredible amount of time and the previous one was already considered one of my masterpieces, Stonewall's new shield would once again be a masterpiece made to the full extent of my abilities.

Loading multiple scrappers with an entire pound of vanium, I add in proportionate amounts of ancient scrap, arcanite, cobalt, and tungsten to make four fifty-pound loads of mulched alloy material. Then each of these loads were dumped into large high-carbon steel buckets which next went into the furnace. Rather than bellows, though, I started using magic now.

Smelting the steel in the furnace took ten minutes and two thirds of my mana before I had to spend the rest of that transmuting clay molds from clay provided by the local blacksmith. These molds were for broad and tall square steel plates several inches thick and several feet across. Now I had to once again rest and recharge my mana.

While I did this I made the others prepare a large load of more alloy that was then divided between a few pots to be blasted in the furnace. Even though they would have preferred to use the bellows, I made them fuel the furnace with mana. Between the group of them, though, this only took a few minutes and roughly a third of their individual MP.

Once this batch of steel was poured out into cylindrical three-pound molds I simply stack them up on a table off to the side for later. When my mana was finally recovered once again after another ten minutes of just relaxing, I spent almost all of it transmuting the anvils we brought to the smithy into one short but otherwise giant steel table.

The others had to set up the table while I rested once again, using magic to burn or cut into the tops of the logs. In this fashion, one of the three logs we were using could prop the top middle side of the table while also containing it with the back half of the log's top that had not but cut or burned away. Similarly, the other two logs were used as legs to prop and contain the lower two corners.

I even got a bunch of experience for the 'Impromptu Smithing Table'.

By now the others were all done with their jobs and had long since gathered around to watch the completion of their weapons as well as the preparations for Stonewall's shield. This meant all of the new web and hide materials were now ready for crafting. However, it would be a while yet before I bothered with even thinking about those tasks.

*