Blacksmithing 3

And that's how Jack ended up spending the next month. The process of taming the will of a creature and making it submit without killing it was the hard part. He had to intimidate it enough so that it listened, but he had to make sure he didn't overdo it either. He had to learn just the right amount of beating some sense into the wills to make them submit. The worst part was that he couldn't use anything except his hammer and himself. There are no items to help or support him. In the end, it took him over a month, but he finally understood the process.

After a month's practice, he had one of the last basilisk scales in hand, holding it above the chest plate he had created weeks ago. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the air entering and escaping his lungs as he channeled his mana into the hammer and then slamming it down on the scale that was on top of the armor. Doing so caused everything around him to turn dark, as in that moment he had entered the mindscape of the creature combined with his own. Yes, the creature was dead, but its will was alive, and he had to overpower the creature's will and make it submit.

He smiled as the will of the basilisk materialized in front of him again, baring its fangs at him. He had a basic idea of how to make them submit as he walked towards the will, holding his hammer. After getting close enough, the basilisk swung its tail at him, which he dove under and grabbed so that when the basilisk pulled its tail back, he could use the momentum to accelerate himself upwards. 

By doing so, he found himself right above the creature's head, and with one strong swing of his hammer into the head, the creature was smashed into the ground. he landed right on top of its head pushing it into the ground as he stood atop it "stay down" he said but the will did not listen as it tried to raise its head he punched the creatures head back into the ground causing small cracks "I said stay the fuck down." 

His voice was the only thing that resounded in the mindscape as of right now. The basilisk did not give up trying to get up, but every time it did, it was punched back and deeper into the ground, as it ultimately gave up and submitted, keeping its head on the ground. Seeing this jack smile as he jumped off its head, "Get up," he said, testing if he had been successful or not. As he ordered, the basilisk raised its head, but instead of attacking Jack, he just lowered his head in front of Jack. Seeing this made the man smile out of joy as he placed his hand on the created head before it turned to white light particles and vanished, leaving the mindscape empty. Seeing this made Jack worried, wondering if somehow he had done too much damage again or if he had failed. He just braced himself for an explosion to the face, but then the expected explosion never came.

He finally left the mindscape, opening his eyes to see that the scale of the basilisk was no longer on the table, and more interestingly, his armor had scale-like patterns all over it, as if it were made of multiple scales. Seeing this made Jack's face light up with joy. It took a month of hard work.

"Congratulations are in order, I suppose. You took longer than I expected to tame the will, but the results are as impressive as your armor," the hologram of the DM said while looking at the armor up close while inspecting it. During this time, Jack sighed and sat down for a bit, calming his nerves. The DM gave him his much-deserved rest, after which they would move onto the next part. 

"Now the more complicated part of blacksmithing; this is more of a hit-or-miss thing, but I'll be teaching you nonetheless. Remember the gems that I said we'd talk about later? Yes, later is now. It's about time you learn infusion."

"Infusion?" Jack asked with a rather confused look. Honestly he had forgotten all about the gems. He assumed his blacksmithing training would be ending there along with the dungeon but seems like that wasn't the case. The hit or miss statement did make him raise an eyebrow.

"Well yes infusion but before that let me give you a crash course on the best power source that everyone in the cosmos uses. Mana crystals"