8 Smithing

My days of physical training have done my body justice. My height has grown to 6 foot 4 inches, and my muscles resemble Dwayne The Rock Johnson. The only thing I'm missing is a 6 pack since I haven't worked much on core strength. I followed the Saitama training program with push-ups, sit-ups, and running. My brother and I look like clones except for my long blonde hair as he has long black hair. We both have short beards with Said Coloring. My mother and sister both liked to braid everyone's hair, only our beards weren't super long like my father, who had it braided down to his chest.

I have started to train under the village blacksmith a man by the name of Matti, but I just shortened it to Matt. I was lucky enough that Matt happened to be Randvi's father. It didn't take any convincing for him to teach me as he only had daughters. Randvi was his youngest as the older two had been married to nearby villages. The forge he used was built behind his house he had built a stone chimney that stuck out of the top of a roofed patio. The forge had a solid stone table he used as an anvil. He had shown me all of the tools that I didn't expect to be used in my time period. He had a double bellow set up that was connected to a "Y" connection with a metal tip for fire safety. The first thing he had me do was alternate the bellows as I fed the fire, and that is where my smithing began.

Matt began explaining how to work and strengthen metal. He placed iron ore into the opening at the bottom of the furnace. Contiueing my bellowing, he explained, "The heat needs to stay consistent but not over fed or the iron will be too hot to work with." As I fed the fire, he yelled, "Stop! and look at the iron. See how it is now a bright reddish color. This is when I add ground up coal to make a stronger iron. I add a cup of coal for every 5 pounds of iron. Since we are working with roughly a pound of ore, I will add only a 5th of a cup. (Not proper measurements for wrought iron) Some of the ground coal will cook off, but the coal will coat the iron as it cooks strengthening the iron." After a few minutes and the coal burning off, he grabs the metal with one of his tongs and drops it into a barrel filled with a liquid.

I asked, "What is in the barrel?" He answers "That is rendered down fat from a number of animals such as deer and bear. I have been using my whole life. Every once in a while, I go to the butcher to get more fat since some of it burns off when I add metal to it. I clean out the oil when it looks nasty by running it through cloth over another barrel." After the metal is cooled, he cleans it off with a rag and submerged it in water to get the oil off. Then, he places the metal back into the furnace to regain heat. Once a yellowish color, he pulls it out and places it on the table. Explaining, he says, "Now I will begin to hammer it flat and fold it until it's too hard to fold again." As he said, he picked up a large hammer and began to compress the metal and had me use the tongs to hold the metal as he folded it. After multiple folds, the metal started to cool, to which he placed it back into the fire to reheat. We did this for over 3 hours until the metal had lengthened.

Matt then said, "Now that we have are metal, it is time to shape it." He heated the metal again and started hammering the metal to the rough shape of a knife. Once the shape of the blade was complete, he went to a pile of wood, grabbing a smaller middle section. He explained, "When making the handle, if you use the center of a tree, the handle is less likely to break." He then used another tool to trim off the extra wood, making a nice handle. Then, grabbing a bucket with skinny metal rods, he pulled out a rod, saying, "This is sap mixed with charcoal. We will use this to hold the handle on." He placed the metal back into the fire, getting it to a red color. Then he hands me the handle, telling me to hold it steady. Using the hot metal to burn a hole almost through the handle. Placing the heated metal back into the oil again as he grabs the sap and heats it near the fire to make a glue. Pouring some of the glue into the handle he pulls out the knife from the oil cleaning it again and places the tang into the hole. (Tangs on the opposite side of the blade in thee handle to make a strong blade.)

He waited for the sap to harden and using a chisel to take of the remaining sap. Next he questioned, "Now we have a knife right?" To which I nodded, only for a resounding "No, we only have a blade when it's sharp. Grabbing a smaller whetstone he places it on his table and adds water. After sharpening that felt like hours we finally finished a knife. Once the knife was finished he said "This is yours, design the handle as you wish but wrap it in leather to not get a splinter. One day you will be able to make one by yourself but for now this is a gift to an apprentice." I thanked him and left to return home for dinner.

I showed the knife to my parents, causing my dad to smile wide as I told them I was going to finish the handle by myself. Using transfiguration I imagined the end of the handle into the shape of two raven heads facing away from each other. Using transfiguration again I used two leather scraps one dark and one lighter to wrap the handle With a striped design. My familiar sitting on the support beam looked down. Bran said aloud " That's a nice blade." To which Coro interjected,"but I'm still prettier and more useful."

The next day I went back to the Matt's and continued my training. Trying to use magic I transfigured the metal ore into a sword with a longer tang. Matt looked at the sword picking it up and saying "It's a pretty blade but it isn't a strong blade." Using the transfigured sword he slashed at his stone work table shattering the sword. He spoke up saying "That magic might work but the metal is to weak you would need to compress the metal more to make a sword that way. I would rather you learn how to forge properly before using magic to speed it up." Using that metal he showed me another process of welding metals together. He placed the metal I had used into the fire with another couple of pieces. He then added different amounts of coal to each piece of metal. Pulling them out he followed the same process except when he started to fold the metal he place both pieces of metal on top of one another and folded them together. I continued this apprenticeship for a year learning multiple ways how to make different blade. I had learned how to make swords, knives, spears, and axes. He also taught me how to make a few armors like chainmail, plate armor and how to make helmets. He didn't make shields as they weren't forged but he did make the handles which were mounted to the shield in its center.

Everything was going great and the day of my marriage to Randvi was fast approaching as we were to wed in the fall. Today is the middle of the summer, and everything was going great until the fire nation attacked. (Whoops wrong book lol) I was in the wood collecting wood for Matt with my ravens. Coro flew around in the sky as Bran sat on my shoulder as I used magic to fell the trees and piled them up, collecting extra wood for the village. As I was felling trees Coro returned to my shoulder, saying, "We need to head back to the village as a war party is coming from the southeast." Listening to Coro, I levitated the trees walking back to the village. I had become rather strong in my magic, I didn't have a scale to measure my mana, but I could lift 10 trees with ease as I speed walked back. Once I was back in the village, I told Bran to spy on the raiders and Coro to go to the werewolf den to warn them.

[A/n : I know the smithing isn't 100% accurate but you get the picture]