The birth of Sabretooth

After many trials and errors, the dagger made for Lin Cian was completed. It looked like a single piece of weapon. More than a weapon it looked like a piece of jewelry.

All the stages of the construction are proposed by Lin Cian. After working hard for nearly ten months' the master blacksmith finally completed the piece. The construction of the blade is as below.

The blade is made first. The blade of a weapon is usually forged using elemental cores or remains of mythical beasts. But Lin Cian wanted to use normal metal because it is cheap and affordable even if the process fails it won't be a huge loss. The proposal was initially rejected by the blacksmith but later was amazed by the perception of Lin Cian.

The blade is done by the master blacksmith and the inscriptions are done by Leena, wife of the master blacksmith.

According to Lin Cian, the blade model should be forged of four layers. A soft layer, a hard layer, and two medium layers.

Even if Lin Cian is knowledgeable he doesn't possess a profound knowledge of metals. As a expect of metals the master blacksmith even replaced some materials in Lin Cian's proposal after many trials and errors. What he was satisfied with of Lin Cian's proposal was the model and his creativity about embedding various inscriptions in a single model.

Only a single inscription can be inlaid for a weapon with normal metal. Even it is hard to inlay a single inscription. Lin Cian proposed to inscribe four different inscriptions in the different layers of the blade and stack them together as a single blade.

Initially, the core or the soft layer of the metal is planned to be made with pig iron. But the inscription planned for the core is 'Aura conductance' in which the pig iron is really bad at.

It is ok to use pig iron but the blacksmith wanted perfection so he used the cold iron instead. The cold iron is different from the ice ore. The ice ore possesses ice energy but the cold iron is found in the deep sea where the temperature is very low. It always emits a weak cold aura around it. Even it is heated to several degrees celsius once it is cooled it started to emit a cold aura. The disadvantage of cold iron is it is soft so it can't hold an edge. But the disadvantage turned into an advantage here.

A small piece of 'Cold Iron' whose diameter is the same as a finger of a person is taken. The inscription of aura conductance is inscribed into the piece of metal.

Then the metal for medium layers or the faces and the hard layer or the edges are made. Fine iron sand is taken and bloomery steel is made. The bloomery steel looks very shiny hence called jewel steel. The best pieces of jewel steel are carefully selected by the blacksmith. Then the chunks are flattened and broken into pieces. Upon inspecting the broken chunks, the materials for faces and edges are separated.

The broken chunks are stacked and forged-welded into billets separately for the faces and the edges. Then the billets are flattened, cut folded, forge welded and again flattened under the forge. This process was repeated nine times on each of the billets to avoid possible impurities. The billet for the edges is lengthened to cover the sides and tip of the core piece which is of 'cold iron' and the billets for the faces are reduced in terms of thickness and broken into two for both sides.

The longer billet for the edges is inscribed with a 'Pierce emittance' inscription. This inscription is mostly used for heavy weapons like axes with a blunt edge and its purpose is to emit a sharp aura. The sharpness of the blade is directly proportional to the energy of the user.

The faces of the dagger are inscribed with 'Shock absorption' and 'deflection' on each piece.

The shock absorption is used for armors as the shock produced by the hit of an enemy is nullified.

The deflection inscription is used on spears as it is easy to deflect the enemy's attack because of its long body in order not to get stuck.

The inscription is a way to change the property of a material. For example, A metal is a good conductor of heat but with the heat resistant inscription the property of the metal will be changed as a non-conductor.

As soon as the inscriptions are done the forge welding is to be done. This is one of the critical processes in which metal of a single nature is changed into a metal of 4 different natures.

The long billet for the edge is wrapped over the sides all along the tip and both pieces are fastened by metal wires to hold themselves in their place.

Then both the pieces are forge welded. In this process, the blacksmith should try his best to avoid oxidization in between the two layers by introducing flux.

After the two layers are forge welded together the medium layers for faces are forge welded on the sides covering the core in the center.

Once it is done then it is proved that the material for the blade now has four natures. The piece is forged and beveled into a rough dagger shape. It had the width of three fingers at the base.

Then it was ready to be beveled. It is a process of creating edges by hitting the ends of the rough-shaped blade as the width of the edges are gradually decreased towards the edges. The edges are planned to be convex.

It was then finished to perfect shape by some filing and grinding. Now it almost looked like a finished piece of the dagger. And now it is ready for heat treatment. But what Lin Cian suggested was really weird. He suggested engraving.

He suggested engraving two patterns of inscriptions on both sides of the dagger and inlaid with copper. Inscriptions are nothing but patterns that are drawn with the help of energy. They are drawn into the material and dissolve into it resulting in the change of nature in the material.

He suggested 'recollect' and 'rebuilt' inscriptions as the two engravings. Also, both the inscriptions actually looked very same.

Usually, the elemental ore or the animal remains have their own affinity so there will be no need for some inscriptions like fire resistance. But some weapons are dual-wielded such as twin swords. These weapons are swung like a single weapon but they are double. So the recollect inscription is drawn into the twin weapons which will have half of the inscription in each sword. This inscription can be broken but cannot be destroyed. So the inscription is broken into two halves. If a sword is missed amidst a battle as long as the other sword is in the user's hand he can summon the missed sword. Because the recall inscription collects all its broken pieces.

The 'reconstruct' inscription is used for powerful but brittle weapons which are made from spirit glass, obsidian and so on. This inscription will reconstruct the broken pieces as long as the pieces are in a shorter distance. The shorter the distance between the broken pieces the more efficient the inscription is.

The main idea of engraving in this project is the 'recollect' inscription collects the whole piece of the blade if it is broken and the 'reconstruct' inscription will construct the whole blade as it is before because this inscription works based on the user's memory.

Now a slurry type of mixture is made out of clay, dirt, charcoal and mud, etc. It is made and is coated on the faces of the dagger. This paves the way for differential hardening in which edges will be hard but the spine will be soft. This happens because the metal is heated to a certain degree and dipped into water or oil. The sudden cooling will cause the metal to be hardened but the slurry paste in the faces of the blade allows the faces to cool gradually so it introduces softness. The hardened edge will be good for piercing and the softer spine will help in shock absorption. Now the dagger is ready for heat treatment.

The blade was heat treated and it was successful because the heat treatment is one of the critical zones in which a chip or a crack can be appeared to ruin the blade.

After the heat treatment, the inlay of the blade was replaced by gold over copper by the master blacksmith. Copper is cheaper than gold but Gold is good at purifying soul or spirit energy other than copper can do. So the inscription is done with gold.

Then it is polished and ready for fine polishing. The blade had patterns over the edges which were displayed after polishing with special wet stones. It produced the patterns after several stages of polishing. The patterns near the edges are caused due to differential hardening.

Then the handle is made. Lin Cian proposed a wooden handle but the blacksmith replaced the wooden handle. The hilt is shaped of a single block of Jade. The color is actually planned as the imperial green by the blacksmith but it was too expensive, so he chose to have light color. The pommel is inlaid with a thick and bright layer of gold in the form of vines. These vines are crafted to precision perfectly and crafted rubies that are in the form of flower heads from the top of the hilt, to the lobbed quillons. The goldwork and red rubies really made it look like a royal treasure. It was made by a jewelry maker following the proposal from the blacksmith.

Jade has aura conducting capability. So it can be used as an energy-storing chamber. The energy inhabiting inscription is done in the handle. The spirit orbs are used for cultivation by the mages and the soul stones are used by the knights.

The same idea is used here which can help in Lin Cian's cultivation which is planned by the master blacksmith. The golden inlay and the ruby works are done to match the blade.

Usually, the spirit orbs or the soul stones can be used only for a short period. When energy trapped in the stone is completely absorbed it will become useless because these stores don't have the energy conducting ability they are formed due to the energy stagnating under the earth. So they cannot be refilled. But the jade has energy conductance so it can be refilled.

The final part is attaching the blade to the handle. It is usually made with glue made of different materials. In this case, the blood of the unicorn is mixed with the finely powdered energy purifying stone and the resin of the oak tree. Due to the cold nature of the unicorn's blood, it supports the connection between the blade and the handle because both have a similar cold nature.

The powdered energy purifying stones purify the bad aura or the aura which would damage the blade or the jade. Usually, energy purifying stones are used as stones embedded in the handles of swords. But it's hard to find it in a perfect size to fit in as a stone because of its impurities in the ore. So it is only found in high-grade weapons. But the only thing matter here is its surface area so Lin Cian proposed to powder the energy purifying stones. The powdered stone will have a good surface, compared to the big chunk of the stone thus improving the efficiency and reducing the cost dramatically.

The blade is put into the handle and it looked amazing. The blade of the dagger took the shape of the canine tooth of a beast thus the name of the dagger was derived from the beast itself. It is called the 'Sabretooth'.