Researching Arcane Blacksmithing

It only took Jien a few long nights to read the book on arcane formations front to back normally but the more he read the more he knew it would take him at least twice as long to absorb the provided text into his mindscape. The book itself wasn't much longer in terms of number of pages, than the alchemy guide. The issue pertained to the complex diagrams spread throughout the text of the book. Much like the alchemy book held a number of basic recipes for potions, elixirs and salves, the book on formations had entire sections with the diagrams and instructions for various 'beginner' formations.

These formations despite being marked as beginner level could be both simple and complex in design. What made a formation beginner level was the complexity of the concepts involved, not just the complexity of the formation itself. In more complex formations one might need to understand the proper environment or other more complex factors. Of course, much like with the materials used as nodes, one could ignore these factors, however the results would be deteriorated.

Though Jien knew that he would be spending a lot of his time absorbing the knowledge from the formations guide he had decided to split his time a bit for the beginning and at least read through the last of the three books gifted to him. This book was burgundy in color and was covered in a rough, red, scaled leather. The text on it's cover was written boldly an in gold, stating the title 'Basics of Arcane Smithing By Hallbjorn Strøm'. The book was heftier than the other two combined, not only being thicker but also being wider and longer.

To Jien this book was probably to be the least useful of the three. He didn't fancy himself a blacksmith, even if he could use magic rather than muscle to perform the smithing it didn't really pique his interest. That being said he believed that Runa wouldn't lie to him in saying that he should at least spend some time studying it. Not to mention that even if he did not use the knowledge, inscribing it into his mindscape could prove handy in the future. Not to mention that perhaps the knowledge in this book could assist him in how to move forward with his thoughts on how to improve the fencing style he was attempting to master.

With that thought Jien started to read through the smithing guide, starting with the forward. Jien immediately realized that the author of this particular guide was not much of a lecturer by nature like the other two authors had been. The forward of the book was simple in the statement that blacksmithing was far more an art than a science and that while the book would describe some of the basics of different paths of smithing, it would not be able to assist the reader in doing more than understanding the knowledge of the path.

Jien found the forward to be interesting but accurate in its description. Alchemy and arcane formations could be considered an art but there was a lot more science to it than art. In alchemy you used certain ingredients to react with others, there would be a lot of trial and error and then at the end you would have a recipe that would require precise measurements rather than for instance cooking where you could throw in a dash of this and a pinch of that until satisfied. Meanwhile arcane formations were an even more exact science. The result could be beautiful in design like a painting, but one misplaced rune or node could cause a catastrophe.

Smithing was a practice where, while you would often need to follow guidelines when working with specific materials, the result would be left more up to your imagination. This was why so many weapons and pieces of armor would be so unique like his gifted rapier or the knife that Mark had given him. Not only would there be a difference in form but one could make a weapon or armor even more unique by placing an enchantment on it in the form of runes or inlaying a formation.

The beginning of the book began with a description of the various types of tools one may need for a variety of different forms of blacksmithing. There were traditional tools such as an anvil and furnace, up to tools that Jien found odd such as device that seemed to blend parts of alchemy and arcane formations, creating a vat in which one could place many types of materials by simply switching out a few plates with specific runes inscribed on them. Not only were there sketches of the different tools including a few basic variations, the book even described some of the basic uses for each.

After the sections regarding tools came a section that spoke of many different materials. This sections was part of the cause of the book having extra heft. Most of the materials written into this basic guide were easy to procure, with only a few being a bit rarer in nature. However, next to each description of a material a thin plate of the material itself was attached to the page. This would allow for one to see what a properly refined version of the material would look like to better allow one to know how well they had completed their refinement.

Not only did these material descriptions come with the thin plate, they describes some of the best uses for the materials according to the author. They also described some of the various environments that one may be able to find deposits of the various ores. It appeared that the author, though being brief in their writing style, wished to be thorough in the knowledge provided.

Next came the largest portion of the book, a section describing a number of different methods to smith weapons and armor. It described everything from hand smithing a weapon using an anvil and hammer to mass producing final products using the vat described earlier to melt down material and then fill molds with it before cooling. It even went forward to describe how one could use formations to smith, though prepping the material for flexibility was a necessity for this method.

The same section, after describing the method of smithing the body of the product then went on to describe some of the methods of enchanting one. The author felt that if you were going to smith an item, to keep it true to the readers vision they should be the one to enchant it. To do so the author provided not only instructions on how to enchant items using methods from blessing the weapon with the help of a priest or archon, to inscribing runes and how best to allow mana flow through the runes to the end product. Lastly it gave a basic description of how to infuse formations into a product, though the description wasn't too deep due to formations being a large field of their own.

The last section of the book was one of the smallest. It included a few basic blueprints for different basic weapons and a few pieces of armor. The blueprints themselves were basic in form but detailed in measurements and even listed suggested materials to use for each piece.

Jien took in all of this over several days in between sessions of inscribing the formations guide into his mindscape. Once he was done with the formations book he would spend some time to take in this book and then see if he couldn't find his path forward toward his goal for the fencing art.