Broderick

Royal Road

SomethingOtherThanRain

Blacksmith vs. the System by Dirk Grey

Chapter 9

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I woke up at dawn. And, a quick bath later, I rushed downstairs — my room was conveniently above the workshop — feeling very enthusiastic about getting back to work. Normally, I would say that my work ethics weren't driven by external factors, and it was true … to an extent.

But, not only was my new employer far more generous than I had expected, giving me a higher salary and assistance for leveling up, but I was also doing something other than just following the instructions of my skill.

A better salary, incredible benefits, and more fulfilling work…

While I was still a researcher at heart, and saw my class as more of an impediment than a career like the rest of the world seemed to, I had to admit that those perks made suffering far more acceptable. I was ready to work —

Only for that enthusiasm to fade immediately as I arrived at the workshop and found a scrap of paper waiting for me. One that had only one line.

'We advise you to find a different job,' the paper read. Next to the paper, there was a fat-looking pouch. I was tempted to touch it, but instead, I waved to one of the camp workers. "Please inform Lady Eleanor that there's an emergency at the forge," I said.

He looked unhappy about my interruption, but it wasn't the first time I worked with people. I delivered the order confidently before going back in, implying that it was only expected for him to follow my requests. With the camp already in flux, he followed.

While waiting for her, I pondered about the message. I didn't want to dismiss it out of hand, as it was clear that I had found myself in a messy situation. Before the Cataclysm, such a thing might have meant character assassination in the media. In this new world order, the character part was not excess.

I wasn't entirely happy about the risk, but the uselessness of previous efforts taught me that I couldn't avoid risk without accepting I would live an ignoble, unremarkable life, seeped in utter boredom.

I wasn't ready to accept that.

Which was why I called Eleanor — one of the two that ruled the camp — and the more relevant party when it came to threats. Camp security was her responsibility, and I preferred to coordinate with her rather than ignoring it. She was the closest thing to a cop, and I rathered not to touch the evidence before she arrived.

As for why I was a target, it was obvious. I had just solved one of their biggest logistical challenges, and clearly, it was not a secret.

She arrived five minutes later. "I hope it's something important. We need you working," she said, frustrated. I could see that the challenge of running the camp below the ideal population was getting to her.

"This was waiting for me when I arrived," I said, pointing at the paper and the small pouch.

She said nothing, but her frown tightened. She pointed at it, a slight glow on her to suggest she was able to use magic as well. "You haven't touched it, right?"

"No, I thought it'd be best to leave it to an expert."

"Good call," she said even as she used the flat side of her sword to put the parchment into a small bag, then checked the pouch. "It would have burned the moment you touched it. Though, I'm impressed you're able to refuse bribery. Fifty gold coins is not a small amount." I gulped at hearing that. "Having second thoughts," she asked.

"No. I'm just afraid of what they'll do next if their first move is to bribe me with more than what I was making yearly," I replied. Unfortunately, that was not an exaggeration. I was certainly startled.

She paused. "Don't walk around without your armor, and stay out of the shadows," she said. I nodded. It was a smart choice. At least, it wasn't as uncomfortable after my leveling. Also, I was surprised by the ease with which I had accepted the risk of a possible assassination. But then, violence had become a far more acceptable method of dispute resolution since the Cataclysm.

Assassinations, duels, muggings, bandits… A lack of a central government was already showing its impact.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"No. I'll post two guards to defend the workshop just in case. They'll also bring your food. Stay inside, and start working."

"Any idea about the daily target?"

"As much as you can manage. The dungeon operations will slow down until the next batch of recruits arrives, but it won't stop completely. Until we can hire more Blacksmiths, you're the only one that can keep us going."

"I'll do my best," I said, making a mental note to take stock once I took a break. Eleanor walked away. "You forgot something," I said, pointing at the pouch still sitting on the anvil.

"No, I didn't. Take it as a bonus for your loyalty." With that, she left.

I checked the pouch, only to find out that she was right. Fifty gold coins, a fortune to me. Being richer was certainly nice, but it only made me more stressed. It meant that their enemies were willing to spend fifty gold just for a chance to weaken the camp and slow down the dungeon.

"No risk it, no biscuit," I said to myself, repeating the motto I had decided the day before. At least, I was benefiting greatly from the risks I was taking. It could have been much worse. Many people had died for much smaller rewards.

Fifty gold represented the possibility for a lot of things: new skills, better equipment… and, most importantly, it was enough money to throw around to get a position in one of the new research institutes, at least as an intern.

But first, I needed to work. I first focused on bringing the forge to an ideal temperature. Only when the heat hit my face hard enough to feel like I was burning, I grabbed a damaged sword, and started working.

[-1 Health]

The occasional consumption of health was much easier to ignore after almost tripling my reserves. The sword heated up quickly, and my hammer danced. "Fascinating," I muttered even as I felt the metal reshape under my blows. Yesterday, I used every scrap of knowledge I had gathered over the last three years to reduce the repair time to fifteen minutes.

This time, my work on the blade was done in four minutes, mostly because I didn't need to reheat the sword again. With my increased level, I was able to complete the task in one attempt.

It was more due to increased Dexterity, rather than Strength. It wasn't that the latter was useless, but for the task of reforging an edge, the added control was far more useful.

An hour later, I was looking at fifteen swords that had been repaired to pristine condition. "Now, what to do?" I found myself asking. I could slow down intentionally, but that would make it problematic if they noticed my intentional reduction.

And, the better I performed, the more I could demand.

With that decision made, I continued working, pushing my attention to the limit. It was quite tiring. One disadvantage of not following the instruction of the skill was that it got mentally exhausting. I couldn't just let my mind wander while the skill handled the hard work.

But, with hard work, came an unexpected reward.

[Repair (Common) - 24 - 25]

[Perk Options — Warm Blow / Efficient Repair / Inspect (Analyze)]

"Huh," I muttered as the notification popped without a warning, informing me that my Repair had been improved ahead of schedule, giving me multiple dilemmas.

The most obvious dilemma was which perk to choose from. Warm Blow was the most obvious choice, which would boost my ability to repair the swords even faster. With it, there was a chance I could further cut the duration of my work in half.

Efficient Repair was also useful, providing me with a chance to make a living even after leaving the camp. I didn't even know that Efficient Repair was offered in Level twenty-five again. If I knew, I might have committed to a different plan — not that I was complaining.

Ultimately, however, I chose Inspect, the advanced version of Analyze, which was supposed to provide even more information. I might have chosen differently a couple days ago, but now that my earlier commitment to Analyze had proven its benefits, I decided to lean on it.

But, even as I made that choice, my mind moved to the next implications. Namely, the speed at which my skill had managed to reach the next stage.

It was enough to throw away my earlier model of skill improvement. Worse, I had no idea about what had caused the change. Maybe my rapid leveling allowed it to get to the next stage. Or, maybe it was just the quantity of the weapons that allowed me to improve them, as I had been repairing them at a far faster pace.

But I was not repairing them with perfect adherence to the suggestions of my Repair skill either, which should have slowed down the process.

"What a fascinating question," I muttered as I smirked, feeling excited. I couldn't answer it alone, but soon, I would have multiple experimental candidates who would work directly for me.

What better opportunity to actually collect some data to build a better model could there be? I had tried to collect that information before, but self-reporting was notoriously unreliable.

I didn't expect to discover anything new, as I had no doubt many people had been working on how skills worked. The direct benefit of such knowledge was too important. Unfortunately, the importance also meant that it stayed a secret. There were many differing public opinions, but gossip deferred from the scientific process.

"Finally, a chance for proper scientific study," I said in excitement. It wasn't exactly the way I preferred. I rather worked on the mathematical models and conceptual designs while my doctoral students dealt with the boring experimental stuff, but at this point, I would take even the most boring experiment over the monotony of repairing the same weapon over and over.

I was actually starting to like my new job.

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Royal Road

SomethingOtherThanRain

Blacksmith vs. the System by Dirk Grey

Chapter 10

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"Now, let's see if picking Inspect was worth it," I said to myself even as I grabbed another damaged weapon. I dragged my finger over the blade as I closed my eyes, a subtle mental command was enough to activate the feeling.

The internal structure of the sword appeared in my mind once again. I wanted to focus on the physical structure first, as the Inspect increased the amount of detail I could catch significantly. I was able to catch many microfractures and other stress points. The details of it were fascinating.

But, not as fascinating as the details I was able to pick up about the Sharpness enchantment. With Analyze, all I could see was a bunch of straight glowing lines that stretched from the hilt to the tip. That much had allowed me to reactivate the enchantment by repairing the metal of the sword so far, but its magical aspect had been incomprehensible.

Not anymore. Well, not the incomprehensible part. I could merely see some kind of movement in those previously opaque lines of mana, without any corresponding knowledge of what was going on. But, that didn't ruin my mood. I was confident that I could leverage it.

Though, preferably later as far as the magic was concerned. As much as I wanted to start poking around with the enchantments, I knew that it was not a good idea. I had neither the tools nor the necessary safety measures. I didn't even know what would happen if the enchantments got damaged, whether they just faded away or exploded.

"Baby steps," I muttered even as I shifted my focus to the aspect I could understand. The physical components. Not just the first one, but every blade I had repaired. "Some changes are necessary," I muttered as I realized that my earlier process had weakened the edge unnecessarily. Not exactly critical when fighting against beasts that destroy the sword after a few successful hits, but a major problem against anything else.

Still, an easy fix for the future.

I noted that I should return to my repair task, ideally to impress my new bosses with my success, but the temptation of another plan started to stir. A plan that had long been ignored because of its immense cost. A cost that was no longer relevant thanks to the overstocked workshop.

Improving my Forge skill.

The Forge was an often neglected skill. A choice that was made not just by me, but the other Blacksmiths as well, for one simple reason. Unlike Repair, Forge was expensive to improve, requiring a lot of attempts. And, even when it succeeded, people preferred to buy pre-made enchanted weapons from the System Shop, at a relatively cheap price.

The cheap weapons had made Forged ones obsolete, especially since it took hours, sometimes days to forge a weapon according to the directions of the Forge. As a result, improving the skill required months of dedicated effort and money. Some Blacksmiths took the risk during the first year, usually sponsored by richer patrons, hoping to find some kind of synergy between the two skills.

They failed.

I could have tried the same, but those days, I was more focused on collecting the data for my research proposal, which had been a similar waste. Not to mention, I didn't want to spend months improving a potentially useless skill. If repairing a weapon according to the System instructions was a chore, forging a weapon was slow, tedious and torturous.

"Let's see if wasting material could help," I murmured even as I pulled a few ingots and threw them into the forge, softening them. Repair improved despite cutting corners. Maybe Forge would as well. The only problem was that I wasn't sure if I could turn the results back to ingots, because they were not pure but alloys.

Due to their process of forging, alloys could be tricky to refine back.

It was a fact that was true for even the ordinary steel that the world relied on before the Cataclysm. There were hundreds of types of steel based on carbon content, cooling process, and other minute additions, and they couldn't simply be turned back.

It was even more relevant for the new alloys, which included many other types of materials, some exclusively from dungeon drops, which was the reason why Forging caused the loss of material. It wasn't some kind of disappearance.

Of course, just like Repair, Forge's skill came with some instinctual understanding of the recipes and methods for new alloys, including the mixing temperatures, process and timing, and cooling methods.

For the moment, with my Forging below level ten, all the information I had was ordinary, requiring no exotic dungeon drops and other complicated stuff. Back in town, I had calculated what it would have taken to actually bring me to my first perk.

Technically, I could have done it for less than twenty silver as far as the material cost went. It was acceptable … but when I included the rent for the forge, and the loss of income from dedicated time, that amount had spiked to four gold even on the most optimistic scale. Using cheap materials meant that I needed to spend weeks on a single point. A waste for a skill that could potentially turn out to be useless.

But, that was back then. I had a forge dedicated to me that I could never afford otherwise, working with alloys I couldn't purchase.

There was still a chance that it could be a total waste, but the temptation was too strong … particularly since I could mislead Eleanor. Not by fudging the numbers, of course. No need for that when I could simply claim that those experiments were how I managed to cut the repair time to four minutes.

An innocent white lie. I had told much worse lies during grant applications.

Science might be an honorable pursuit, but the same wasn't true for grant applications.

I grabbed multiple ingots of a bronze alloy variant — one that was stronger than steel — and threw them into the forge, letting them heat up, while going through the designs that the skill provided, trying to pick the simplest one.

I settled on a small dagger. Normally, it would have been a terrible choice, as there was little chance it would be sold — daggers were not exactly the preferred weapons for slaying giant monsters — but since they would go to waste, speed, and material consumption were more critical.

Once the material was ready, I focused on the skill, trying to find the most ideal method. Unfortunately, even as my hammer landed for the first time, there was no reaction. My skill level was too low to work on the material.

"Frustrating," I muttered. I was hoping that there would be some kind of suggestion. There wasn't. I did my best to follow my past experiences to forge a dagger. Using long tongs, I rotated it meticulously as I beat it repeatedly, flattening it. Then, I folded the metal into two, heated it, and repeated the process.

Only for the metal to crack. A failure. A spectacular one.

"I wish it triggered the repair," I said. Unfortunately, for that, a weapon first needed to be completed based on System specifications. Another clumsy detail of the System.

I tried four more methods, wasting four more ingots. Ironically, since my mistakes were so catastrophic, the weapons didn't exactly turn useless. I could still use them to Repair —

"Oh, I'm a moron," I cursed myself, realizing that I had missed something very obvious. Yes, the Forge skill didn't tell me how to work with this particular alloy. But, Repair did.

With a big smile, I grabbed another sword, but this time, I followed the System's suggestions religiously. An hour later, I was not even halfway done with repairing the sword — not having Warm Blow was slowing my work considerably — but that didn't ruin my smile.

I had already learned a lot about how to use the alloy without fracturing the metal, and the detailed information provided by Inspect already showed its worth, though only because I had spent some time trying to understand every metallurgy resource I could find.

I made another attempt to forge a dagger. This time, I managed to fold the metal six times before I ruined it. This time, it was useless even for repair work, but I didn't care. I heated up another ingot and made another dagger. This time, I only folded the metal four times before I started shaping it.

In every objective standard, it was a terrible dagger. It was structurally weak, brittle, lacked the necessary tempering to properly hold an edge, and had multiple stress points that were begging to be snapped. Stabbing someone was more merciful than giving them this dagger as a weapon.

Yet, none of those details could ruin my mood. A notification popped.

[Forge (Common) - 8 - 11]

[Perk Options — Masterwork / Intuitive Forging]

I froze as I read the perk offers. Masterwork was one of the options I expected, but to my knowledge, the other perk was supposed to be Frugal Forge, which worked in a similar manner to Efficient Repair. Masterwork, on the other hand, provided better designs, but they cost more to complete.

"Why can't the System give explanations for perks," I muttered, frustrated even as I found myself in a dilemma. Should I pick Masterwork, or take the risk. But, even as I bit my lips in worry, I knew what I would do.

I had very little use for Masterwork. Even ignoring the name, just the fact that I was getting a previously unknown Perk was a good opportunity. It was very likely that I was not the first one to discover such an opportunity, but people didn't go around sharing secrets.

I made my choice.

[Forge (Common) - 11 [Intuitive Forging]]

Curious of its impact, I started working on another ingot, forging another dagger. Once again, there was no detailed connection from the System, but as I worked, I noticed a change. Occasionally, I was getting a slight suggestion, allowing me to catch some big mistakes.

This time, I managed to fold the dagger properly ten times, and the rest of the process was smoother as well. Once the dagger was completed, I received my reward.

[Forge (Common) - 11 - 12]

"Excellent," I muttered as I melted the daggers to destroy the evidence, and returned to my repair work. Improving my Forge skill had been nice, and discovering a new trick to use Repair to improve Forge was even better.

However, I couldn't ignore the role played by the extremely valuable tools in the forge, the kind that I wouldn't come close to purchasing even with my newfound wealth.

I needed to keep my employer happy. Luckily, all I needed was to repair enough weapons to keep them satisfied. And, since I had yet to reveal my latest achievement of dropping it to four minutes, that was relatively easy to accomplish. Just another improvement to a rate of twelve minutes was enough.

I received another notification as I worked, which put an even bigger smile on my face.

[Repair (Common) - 25 - 26]

Sometimes, hard work was its own reward.

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