Sorry this chapter took a bit longer than usual. This chapter kinda connected some stuff and I had to make sure to time it right, or one of the worlds would be spoiled a pretty big event. So... enjoy ;)
"By the …. power of ….. the hammer… god damn it," Jim cursed, opening the spell book yet again. He has been trying to cast a basic spell for the past hour, but he kept either forgetting the words or mixing them up. And even if he did remember all the words, he still didn't know how to force his mana to move.
Frustrated at his last attempt ending in failure, he fired up his furnace manual and began to pummel away at an ingot to release some frustration.
"You already started?" Egrevaht asked, walking into the room with some monster parts.
"Oh god, what is that?" Jim asked as the blacksmith dropped a large head, some bone and hide onto the table.
"This is the wave boss. A Dimensional Thunderwolf. And what a bugger he was. Kept paralyzing everyone and piercing armors. Luckily, he was pretty weak stat-wise so we didn't lose too many people," Egrevaht explained, pointing to the head. As Jim leaned closer to look at the head of the monster, he didn't notice the gem of his hammer light up as it touched the beast.
However, before either of them could react, the head began to glow and it was sucked into the hammer's gem.
[Thunder Fenrir Head Hammer Unlocked]
"Uh…"
"What did you just do?!" Egrevaht yelled, staring at the hammer. He grabbed the gem and tried to reach into it. "Spit it back out!"
"I can't! I don't know how!" Jim yelled back while the blacksmith continued to shake his hammer. After a few more seconds of the blacksmith trying to pry the holy hammer open, he gave up with a heavy sigh.
"Tell me it ,at least, gave you something useful," he asked, finally letting go. John looked through the list of hammers and pressed on the newest one.
His hammer transformed into the head of the beast he just absorbed, the red gem placed as its eye. Black and dark yellow metal acted as the fur of the beast, and several metal lightning bolts popped out of the back. It also had a bit of lightning yellow fur attached to the chin atand the very bottom of the handle.
Thunder Fenrir Head Hammer N
Abilities Unmastered: "Mjollnir"
Special Effects: Paralyzing Thunder, Lightning Resistance (Weak)
[O]
Mjollnir? Like Thor's hammer? I'll have to test it out later, but I guess it's just a fancy name for a thunder bash skill. The two special effects are interesting as well.
"Huh. So this is the power of a holy weapon," Egrevaht muttered, staring at the weapon in awe. Jim swung it around a couple of times, surprised by how light it was. "Anyhow, let's refrain from absorbing everything and anything from now on, ok? I can't teach you how to imbue ores with monster materials if you keep absorbing them all."
"Wait wait wait! We're moving onto monster parts now?! I'm still barely average in metalworking! And I still don't know how to move mana around!" Jim protested. As excited as he was to make cool gear and power up, he couldn't cram everything about everything in just a few days.
"It'll be fine. I'm just showing you the basics, and the rest is on you. Besides, you have the holy crafting tool of legends. You'll be making god-like artifacts in no time. Now let's turn the heat up," Egrevaht said, pressing something on the side of the forge. Without warning, a huge burst of heat washed over Jim and he had to jump back.
"What the hell was that?!" Jim yelled. In response the blacksmith tossed him a small red and gold accessory.
Huh. Looks expensive.
"Put it on."
Jim looked at the accessory for a bit.
Blacksmiths Golden Band
Quality: Excellent
Special Effect: Fire Resistance Up (Medium)
Jim put on the bracelet and the heat from the forge seemed to disappear completely.
Huh. Video game logic. Neat.
"Alright, we need to melt this completely," the blacksmith said, grabbing an ingot from the shelf and throwing it in a crucible and chucked it into the furnace, before closing the entire thing. "It should be ready in a couple of minutes."
"Why are we melting it?"
"We're gonna add the fenrir bone to it. Watch this."
With that, Egrevaht grabbed two of the bones and slammed them against each other. Without a warning a blinding light shot out from the bones and sparks flew everywhere.
"These things are still electrified. It's monster parts like these that make the best weapons. They add special effects to different equipment and electricity is one of the easiest to melt. Wanna guess which element is hardest to add?"
"Ice?"
"Yep. Tried adding an ice element to an ingot and I ended up having to melt that bugger for days over and over. I added a bit of the ice monster's parts and it just froze over."
"I see. Sounds complicated," Jim replied, looking at the bones on the table.
"Alright, that should let us get started," the blacksmith said, once the furnace heated up. "Grab the second one and follow in my lead. Oh, and put on some proper gloves, these bones can still paralyze you."
[]—
*Pshhhhhhhhhhh*
Jim sighed and put his newest creation onto the table, before dropping his head next to it. The weapon Egrevaht made him make this time was a bow, and now Jim was waiting for it to cool down.
"Not bad at all. You're getting the hang of this even better than expected. I guess that's the holy crafter for ya. I'll be right back, I have to talk to a friend."
And without even waiting for Jim to react, he put his hammer on the table and walked out of the room.
Jim took a few deep breaths and looked at the results of today's work. While Jim almost failed the first bow with the thunder bone infused metal, his teacher was able to salvage it and forced Jim to start from scratch. He was even able to make a sword out of the magic metal at the same time and there were small gems in the middle of the hilt and in front the bow that Egrevaht added. He said they were used to enchant weapons the same way accessories were made.
But because of how large the wave beast was, there were still quite a few bones left over. They didn't even use the hide. After making sure that Egrevaht was out of range, Jim grabbed a piece of bone and hide and threw it into his hammer. Two new weapon forms unlocked and he smiled.
[Thunder Fenrir Hide Hammer Unlocked]
[Thunder Fenrir Bone Hammer Unlocked]
More stat bonuses. I really should start mastering the new ones now. I got the first craft quality and the basic hammers +3 attack, but I still have yet to master the rest.
He was about to start cleaning up when his fingers brushed against the hammer and the gem shimmered in response. Jim raised a brow as he grabbed the hammer and waited for his to finish copying it.
[Blacksmith's Old Hammer Unlocked]
Blacksmith's Old Hammer N
Abilities Unmastered: Craft Quality 2
[O]
Jim's eyes widened and he ran to the bow, equipping the hammer immediately. He tapped the bow slightly on the tip's not actually changing anything, but he hoped it would be enough to apply the new bonus.
He held his breath as the weapon's stats loaded. The hammers glow surrounded the bow and Jim thought that maybe the glow was just a bit brighter than usual.
Thunder Bow
Quality: Great
Special Effect: Charged Arrows (Weak)
[+75 Crafting Exp]
"LET'S GOOOOOOOOO!" Jim yelled at the top of his lungs. His crafting level got up to level 5, and was just one crafted item away from level 6. His stats also rose and he felt himself become just a bit stronger from the two level increase.
Even if the bow only gave a weak bonus to the arrows, it still meant that Jim has just successfully crafted a bow with a special effect. And the fact that his own efforts only gave it a normal quality and the rest came from his hammer didn't seem to dampen his mood.
"What's the commotion about? I left for five minutes," Egrevaht asked, walking in on Jim cleaning up with a huge grin on his face. But his face also brightened when he saw the bow's stats.
"Not bad, not bad at all! You managed to learn this much in such a short amount of time!" he exclaimed, picking up the bow and looking it over. He smiled and picked up the rest of the items. "At this rate you'll reach my level in less than two weeks!"
Probably sooner since I just need to be able to make a Good quality weapon instead of Normal.
"Well, this will do for now. Don't waste all the extra monster materials while I'm not here. And hurry up with the magic lessons. We need to get you up to speed so that you can learn enchanting."
"Alright. I'll try my best," Jim replied, watching Egrevaht leave.
*SHATTER*
Jim raised his head and looked around, trying to find the source of the sound. It was as if someone shattered a glass vase right above him, but he didn't see anything. After waiting for a few more seconds, Jim shrugged and continued to clean up the forge.
[]—
"Cosmic Barrier!"
The wolf the ring bearer was fighting was trying its hardest to claw away at the barrier. When it realized it couldn't, it jumped back and its mouth started to glow.
"Erste Blast."
A bright beam erupted from the gem of the ring and crashed into the mouth of the beast. It recoiled from the pain and the ring wearer used this moment to get closer to the beast
It tried to run, but the ring user wasn't having any of that.
"Magic Bind."
A magic circle appeared on every limb of the animal and held it in place. It roared and tried to summon another fireball, but the ring bearer ran up to it and pointed his ring into the mouth of the beast.
"Scatter Shot!"
Several beams erupted from the gem and crashed into the insides of the monster. With a final twitch, the monster collapsed and the crack in the dimension began to shrink.
"Sir," the right hand knight walked up to the ring bearer. "The casualties are only heavy with the newbies, the rest of the squad is fine."
"Good. Keep everyone on their toes until I return."
"Return from where?" the knight asked as the ring bearer reached into the crack. It seemed to stop shrinking as his hand went in.
"I need to check out the other side. I'll be back," he replied, saying the last line in as deep of a voice as he could.
All around the royal knight, the other knights began to gather the survivors and heal the injured. As soon as the boss died, monsters stopped spawning and it seemed like the only reason why the rift wasn't closing was because the ring bearer went through it. However it began to get smaller and smaller with each passing second.
Just as it was about to close, the ring bearer returned with the rift closing right behind him. Unlike when he entered, he now had a weird object in his hand. It looked like a small metal jar with a bright purple gem, similar to his green one. The golden bands wrapped around the white surface of the jar and covered the lid. The ring user was covered in blood, but he was grinning from ear to ear.
"Sir! What happened? Someone get a healer!" his loyal knight yelled, but the ring user patted him on the back.
"Don't worry, it's not my blood."
"I see. Are you sure you're alright? We have more than enough heals to go around," the knight asked, still worried, however the person with the ring just laughed.
"Never better!" he smiled, looking at the jar like how a child would look at a new toy they got for christmas.
Today is certainly a good day. I got way more out of it than I thought I would.
