Final Test

Mythology on earth had a very interesting tales of weapons. Every powerful god was depicted with their signature weapon: Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Odin's spear Gungir, Zeus lightning bolt, Poseidon's trident, Khronos' sickle, Pangu's Axe, and the lord of numinous treasures blades.

All these weapons were magical in nature and said to slay deities. Due to the nature of runes and soul smithing, us forgemasters are able to create similar artifacts. These artifacts although are weaker in effect to their mythological counterparts, they are strong in their own right. Who knows maybe a rank 9 forgemaster can create something similar.

I am currently trying to create such a weapon that can compare to such myths. I have gotten some extremely rare materials and items that could possibly make my tool a growing weapon that could reach the heights of the myths.

Although I'm a newbie forgemaster who would never have gotten access to these materials normally, my family seems to think I can do well with them. I likely can't bring out all their qualities but I can certainly try.

My guests are quietly staring at me and talking to each other as I trace ideas on a paper in front of these objects.

I also ask them occasionally questions like

"Hreidmar, would a grinded down sister stone exhibit the same qualities?"

"Hilda, please answer me this question on the eye."

The eye is called a vision into the future by the way. It's just too rare for a maid to have so they didn't say it out loud. It's from a beast that is said to have psychic abilities.

Looking at my writing, I finally came up with a comprehensive plan. I walk over to Nordri who checks my work. He furrows just brow for a moment then laughs.

"I am not exactly sure what you intend to do with some of these materials, but I look forward to it."

I then walk over all alone to the forge room. I first have to prepare my materials.

I have:

Desert Storm metal

Ice Ghost metal

Seed of the tree of life

Heart of a dryad

Vision into the future

Sister stones

Soul of the thunder beast

Yetis leather

Evolution flame

A bellow

And Gaea Stones

I first begin by preparing my initial Alloy.

I am going to make a quad alloy based on the two metals, the Gaea stones, and a Sister stone.

That way the metal has properties from all the ingredients here evenly.

This works in my favor as well. Normally two rare magic metals would never be alloyed for the first time due to unpredictable effects magic metals can exhibit without proper testing but I can already guess the result of this one is super criticality.

Súper criticality is a state certain materials reach when they are cold enough. It causes whatever material to become a súper conductor and have nearly no resistance to current.

Nordri has a collection of the ratios of many magical metal alloys and their different affects. This magical metal cross is unknown but, there has been crosses between these metals and other metals. Because of that I was able to estimate what their affects will be when mixed.

I put the Sister stone and the Gaea stones in the grind machine in the corner. It used pressure to pulverize small objects in a bowl like container. It's fueled by runes of course if not a traditional grind bowl would take hours.

While that is going on I prepare the artifact heart. In Soul smithing, bodily adjustment takes special care to teach how artifacts are made. The main piece of an artifact is its heart.

Anything can be a heart. Even A fruit can be a heart. The only requirement for it is its size and compatibility to the base.

In this case my job is two fold. I am placing the thunder beast soul into a heart that is the fusion of the dryads heart and the tree of life's seed.

How do I fuse this concoction? Runes of course. Runes are applicable here because of one rune in particular, Blanda. It means to mix. The mixing this rune does is magical in nature. It mixes magical properties.

I take out my carving knife. Carving Is a difficult art as carving too fast or too slow will make the rune incomplete. See runes aren't just words. They are structures of mana. The mana flows through the crevasses of the rune causing an effect. If I don't carve perfectly, the rune will blow up due to too much mana or die out due to lack of it.

Luckily, three months of training in carving made me slightly confident. Those theee months I practiced the basic runes I'd be using and nothing too advanced just so I got my feet wet. I know already enough runes to fill an encyclopedia but I can hardly carve all of them.

Taking out my knife, I zero in on a smooth spot on the heart. Currently I'm holding the heart steady on a work bench. My focus entered a type of trance I had begun developing overtime.

I slowly begin to etch the word. It looks more or less like this ᛒᛚᚨᚾᛞᚨ. I have to carve it all in the same rhythm which is not easy since the heart contracts every now and then. I began carving right after a beat to increase my time.

My left hand is not bored either. I have the seed prepared to insert at anytime.

As I slowly complete the rune I feel a slight tinge of color come from the rune. This means the rune is about to activate. Certain objects contain mana so runes like this will activate just being carved. This is the reason I had the seed prepared.

I quickly insert the seed which causes the rune to light up even more.

I take out a diamond to insert in case the rune depletes its energy, which it did a few seconds later, prompting me to insert the gem.

This scenario doesn't require me to carve the diamond since technically my new power source and subject became the heart.

As I insert the diamond, the heart gives off a green glow. It begins to beat rapidly. I can see something akin to roots coming out of the heart. I believe the seed sprouted. I then take out one surprise material, the eye.

I quickly insert it as well only to see something like stars coming off the heart.

As the glow intensifies I hear the grinder stop shaking.

This mixing process will take a while so I'll move onto the alloying.

Getting up from the bench I stretch a bit only to see Nordri staring at me in the corner with a smile.

"I have to say that even I am curious to see the result of that heart."

"So am I master."

He then walked over and helped me change the bellow out and picked up the evolution flame.

"Refine the metal first, cast the alloy, Forge the weapon, heat with the flame, quench in oil, and complete the spirit refining."

"Yes master!"

"Have You figured out what to do with the yeti leather?"

I looked at the the white leather and furrowed my brow. My original plan made use of everything except for the leather. I only thought of using it as a grip, not to take advantage of its properties.

"Master I honestly have no idea"

Nordri looked at the leather for a moment.

"Why does everyone think leather is extremely useful for weapons?"

He then grabbed the large amount leather. It was about 6ft in height. He took out a sharp knife and began cutting it in half.

"If he weren't your central general, I would think he were dumb."

I am astounded at this. Nordri was clearly mad. He never gets mad though.

He took about half the leather and tossed it over to the growing green glow that was the heart. Suddenly, the leather began to magically cover the heart and the green glow picked up a pure white tinge.

"Add a diamond to it to keep up the power and use the rest of this for the grip."

I look dumb founded at Nordri's uncharacteristic anger.

Nordri noticing my stunned look quickly calmed down. He then took a diamond out of his pocket and flicked it to the growing heart increasing its glow.

He then looked to me and sighed. "Tyr and I have history." He then stopped to find the correct words. Coming to he explained, "he's somewhat of a rival for me. I, for all intensive purposes, am the leader of the dwarven blacksmiths while he's your head general. Although I'd never defeat him in tactics and he can't beat me in forging, we always compete in everything else including drinking, games, and battles. I guess our new battlefield is how to train you."

So I'm stuck in a pissing contest between these two demigods. Wonderful.

"Just continue your forge. I will go and placate our guests if they haven't already gone through the liquor cabinet."

I nodded then turned to the grind machine. Taking out the tray out of the chamber I struggle with both hands to take it to the anvil.

The Gaea stones were indeed very heavy and although my strength is close to an average man, I struggled to carry the dust. The tray of grinder stones wasn't even large. It was only two feet long and wide.

I slowly pour the the grinded stones into a crucible next to the anvil.

I then start heating up the furnace. I'm not purifying carbon out of the metal so much as just removing the stone slag. There is carbon in the ore but these magical metals are usually found in the core of a deposit and normally don't have a lot of carbon anyway.

Taking the next two and a half hours I smelt the Ice Ghost metal. This one has a slightly lower melting point than iron so the process was relatively similar to the iron. In fact it was so easy I can physically see the metal in the furnace as a different color even though I had never worked with the metal.

As I took out the Ice Ghost I kept the forge going and inserted the Desert storm to begin smelting.

I then take my still tiny hammer and begin to refine it.

I can tell off the first hit that it has very low amount of carbon and impurities. In fact most of the carbon was already on the edges.

I am gonna refine it by slightly pushing it to the edge. I can't push it all out but this is a golden opportunity to get it to maybe 90% purification.

Starting my forge I hammer away. At some point I take a break and refuel the smelter.

This process is extremely grueling and long but I can't let everyone's hopes in me down by making something subpar. All my weapons have been subpar so far and no one besides Nordri's storage has seen them. It's because I'm slightly ashamed of them but also because I want to roll out a Good work first to build rapport.

This is why I'm going all out physically and mentally.

Which all paid of since I got a purification of about 92%