14. Back to Work

"To be honest chief, I have never fought with anyone in my life."

The chief just looked at Mark with his own confused look now.

"Ahem, I can understand why no one your age would pick a fight considering how big you have always been."

Mark didn't just undergo some sort of growth spurt, he had been much taller than anyone his age since he was a toddler.

His father was the one who used to go out to collect ores, and he would regularly fight the mountain beasts.

He would bring the meat back for his kids to eat, and Mark always ate the most. It had long been known that eating mountain beast meat would cause someone to get stronger, but if someone ate too much it would just cause them to vomit it all back up.

No one knew why this was, but only Mark's family knew that this did not apply to Mark for some reason.

Thus, Mark was bigger than his oldest brother by the time he was 6, and no one ever picked on him, not even his brothers. Not that anyone really had the time to pick on him.

Mark had always been at the forge since he could walk. Any time his father was working, Mark was there observing.

Regarding the question the village chief had, Mark added: "Chief, while I have never fought a person I have in fact bested many mountain beasts. Some of them I have had to fight with my bare hands until I could get control of my weapons so it shouldn't be harder to fight a person if I need to."

The chief was relieved to hear that such a giant would be willing to protect the village, even if he was not sure that he actually could. But thinking about all the beast pelts that the guards and villagers have reported him bringing to his house, the chief felt reassured.

The chief then thanked Mark, and they finished their cups of wine before Mark headed home.

He received more words of sympathy on his way home to which he tearsly replied.

Everyone just attributed it to his grief and ignored any form of disrespect they may have otherwise felt with such a response.

When Mark made it home, he noticed many gifts at his door. Some notes of encouragement but mostly cooked foods.

"Huh, this happened when mom died too."

Mark was not reluctant to grab the food and bring it into the dining area. He was almost out of dried warg meat and needed something else to eat anyway. Some cooked regular food would be nice for a change.

After eating, Mark grabbed a pocketful of the leftover warg meat and the orders for the day and headed to the forge. 

Since he took few breaks during the day, he usually just kept some dried meat on him to snack on.

The orders for the day were few so he figured most people had held back due to the death. Mark just thought was annoying. It would only make more work for him tomorrow on the day he needed to go out and look for iron.

"Well, I guess I just need to adjust how long I search for the purple ores, no need to stuff everything into one day. I still need to do the fifth step for my sword anyway."

All that was needed for the day was a few repairs and one craft.

Crafting was probably easier than anything else, especially when it's like today where he just needed to craft a tool.

Tools didn't have much to them and the only hard part was the quench.

Not that Mark ever had a problem with a simple quench anymore.

The tool he needed to craft was a hand pick which didn't even need to be sharpened. He just needed to cast it in the mold and add a handle.

It was also called a hammer pick and it was used by the masons to work on rocks or something, Mark was not sure exactly what it was used for he just knew how to make it.

He threw a refined iron bar into the crucible and placed it in the flames that could melt the bar.

Then he located the correct mold and sprinkled some black sand on it. The black sand would not melt when the molten iron was poured into the cast and it would prevent sticking without messing up the shape due to how fine it was.

It also had a property that he liked where it would kind of stick itself to the mold in a way that basically defied gravity but was easy to wipe off later. 

With that taken care of he just waited for the metal to finish melting before he poured it into the cast and used the small leftover to make beads out of by slowly pouring it into water. Later he would smash the beads to make some crack dust.

He then set the tool aside to cool while he went on to the repairs on the list.

He had a shovel with a crack, easy to fix, and a couple of things that just needed to be sharpened.

He wanted to take his time to reinforce the blades of these tools since they were looking sketchy and he knew he could prevent them from making their way to his forge or his blast furnace in the near future.

He started with the shovel and just heated it up before using a binding catalyst and some crack dust to fill the crack. Then he hit it with the hammer a few times to set the repair and make sure the bond was strong. 

Once he was satisfied with the repair, he got a sanding tool out and made the repair less noticeable by sanding it down. This process was necessary for this type of tool since the repair needed to be as smooth as the rest of the shovel to prevent unnecessary strain on that area.

Once he was done with the shovel he grabbed one of the bladed tools, a scythe, that needed to have its blade reinforced and sharpened.

It was a bit more work than what was commissioned, but since he didn't plan to collect the ores today he would take some extra time to practice.

He would just reinforce it with some iron and then compress the edge before sharpening it which would make the edge much more sturdy than before.

For this process, he wanted to remove some of the original edge that had rusted and then replace it. Both parts of the fourth step that he was familiar with.

Then he would finally get some practice with the fifth step.