Chương 116: Chapter 114: Personalized blade

I look for another player run shop. It doesn't take long to find. Cedric. Lesoth blood smith, level 33. HP: 1, 584/1, 584.

"Hello Cedric," I say, stepping into his shop. It's a much deeper shop, and I see that there actually is a forge in the back of it. Cedric is one of the tall demon blooded. He stands about two feet taller than me, and is a bit hunched over. He looks like he could rip me in half like a phone book. I'm sure his strength is prodigious, but he doesn't carry himself like that strength really matters. He's just big and strong. He probably doesn't even exercise. Other than pounding steel with a hammer, I mean.

"Ah, master Caleb," he says, after a few seconds of looking at me.

"Wonderful to meet you. How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for a dagger," I say.

"Preferably one that will help me with defense."

"A defensive dagger," he says, nodding to himself. He rubs a hand through a grease stroked beard.

"I can do that. I have just the thing for that, in fact. Have you ever seen a sword breaker?" I remember old fencing movies where people had daggers that were basically three prongs, and you were supposed to catch the blade of the enemy's sword between the prongs and use the pressure to snap the blade of your enemy. I don't think it would work on a sword that wasn't meant for fencing. Those swords are thicker, stronger, and heavier.

"I don't think that would suit my purpose," I say.

"Do you have anything that actually adds armor rating?" He rubs his beard again, and I can clearly see why it's grease streaked.

"I think I can do something like that," he says.

"Do you much care how much damage it does on its own? Are you planning to attack with it?"

"I'd like it to do some kind of damage," I say.

"As a backup weapon."

"Have you ever heard of demon steel?" he asks me. I smile.

"I have," I say.

"Just recently, in fact. Do you have a dagger made of demon steel?"

"No," he says.

"But I have some demon steel. Can you give me an hour or so?" This seems like a rare opportunity.

"Would you mind terribly if I watched?" I ask.

"I could maybe help out a little. I know a little bit about crafting. Not much, mind you, but I've got a few levels in the appropriate skills." He chews his lip for a few seconds. Then he nods.

"You can stoke the furnace," he says. He waves a hand over his shoulder and turns around, walking back towards the forge. He has to duck to get under the threshold that separates his store from his workshop. I do not have to duck to follow him. There is a bar of steel waiting on his anvil. It doesn't look that different from other steel that I've seen, except that it's black. Black like obsidian, which is probably why Ash's new armor is called that.

Cedric takes the bar of steel with a set of tongs and sets it in the fire, then points to the bellows for me to pump in more air, and hence more heat to the fire.

"I like to do things this way," he says as I pump and he moves the bar around the coals in the fire.

"I could do it with magic, but this feels more authentic. Less like a game, you know?"

"I understand," I say.

"I like things that make it feel less like a game too." He nods a few times, shifting the bar of steel around as it slowly begins to heat up.

"Did you know, I could probably make this dagger for you in half the time if I just used magic? I could heat it up faster, cool it down faster. It would be just as good, probably. But it would feel artificial. It wouldn't have any of the soul that a real knife should have."

"You have spells that specifically help you forge?" I ask.

"Sure, sure," he says, nudging the steel as it begins to glow with heat.

"Heats everything to the 'perfect' temperature. Lets you manufacture goods at a rapid pace, like clockwork. Like some kind of factory or assembly line. No soul to at it all. I like to read the heat of the steel. I like to get to know the individual piece I'm working with. Because there is no perfect temperature. What works for one piece of steel won't work quite the same for another." I smile.

"You're an artist," I say.

"I almost took that class," he tells me.

"Almost went ahead and switched over to artisan. But that didn't feel right, either. What I'm forging isn't art. These are weapons. They're meant to kill. They're built for destruction. There's nothing artistic about that. These are utility tools. Harsh and brutal. But these ones, the ones that I make, they still have soul to them. They're made with respect." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"I can appreciate that," I tell him. I keep pumping the billows when he signals for me to do so. It's very hot in here, but I notice the heat more as a passing thing than a pressing thing. It isn't oppressive to me, possibly because of my resistance to fire. I acknowledge the heat, I feel the heat, but the heat doesn't bother me. It doesn't seem to bother Cedric, either. He's closer to the fire than I would ever believe was safe. I'm kind of surprised his beard doesn't catch fire.

He leans in close to the steel, listening to it and to the fire around it. He sniffs at it, and I wonder what he smells. Can he tell when the chemical bonds are breaking down, when the steel gets to just barely this side of solid, when it becomes truly malleable? After a few minutes, he takes the demon steel out of the fire and I stop pumping the bellows. He puts the steel on his anvil. The steel is glowing now, nearly white with little tinges of orange and red thrown into the haze of color.

Cedric seems satisfied with the color, and he picks up a massive hammer. He brings the hammer down on the steel once, twice, then misses the steel and hits the anvil. He does this same pattern again a few times before it occurs to me that he isn't missing. He's intentionally hitting the anvil instead of the glowing steel.

"Why do you hit the anvil so often?" I ask him.

"It's an old smithing trick," he says.

"You don't want the hammer to get too hot. So you hit it on the cold steel of the anvil every so often to keep it cool. That way the hammer doesn't get warped, and you can keep up the pace on the steel." He pushes the steel back into the fire, and gesture for me to pump the bellows again. It doesn't stay in nearly as long this time, and soon he's hammering away at it again, hitting the steel twice and then then anvil once, in a steady, soothing rhythm.

Slowly but surely, the steel begins to take the shape of a dagger. He flattens it out, teasing the steel into the shape he wants, stretching it out to make the blade and the long tang. He hammers holes into the tang, where he'll bolt the handle into place. After he has it in the shape he wants, he gives me an embarrassed look.

"I know I said I don't like to use magic to heat the steel," he says.

"But that doesn't apply to cooling it. When you quench, there's a lot of danger to the steel. You never quite know how it's going to go. It might cause a warp in the steel, it might case microfractures. It might do all kinds of things. Steel is temperamental." He puts the still glowing shape down on the anvil and holds his hand over it. A few seconds later, the shape hisses as if it's been placed in water or oil or something, and all the color leaches out of it. He looks at me with a triumphant smile.

"Perfect every time," he says. He then proceeds to make a handle for the dagger. He looks me up and down, taking note of my clothing and probably guessing about my history.

"You're a ranger," he says.

"So I'm thinking horn for the handle. What do you think?"

"I think you're the smith," I say. I stop myself from calling him an artist again.

"I trust your eye." He nods, rubs his beard, and then says to himself.

"Definitely horn." First, he grinds the blade down, scraping away the dull metal and leaving a shining black blade in its place. It looks wicked, both in the sense of looking like it could deal some serious damage and in the sense of just looking cool. Once he has the blade polished down to where he wants it, he affixes the horn onto the tang and hammers supports through the handle to keep it place. He starts to grind the handle into something that will better fit in my hand. Then he stops and looks at me.

"Let me see your hand," he says.

"The one you'll be wielding the dagger in." I hold out my left hand, and he takes it in his massive hands. Spread out, my fingertips don't quite reach the edge of his palm. Nevertheless, his grip is gentle and careful, as he turns my hand this way and that, carefully bending my fingers down the way they would be bent holding a dagger, all the while mumbling to himself. Finally satisfied, he lets go of my hand and goes back to the grinder, adjusting the way the handle is shaped.

He makes the dagger specifically to go in my hand, and I can see that it will be comfortable to hold. He may not think of himself as an artist, but I beg to differ. He takes a sheath from a large pile of premade sheaths and measures it against the dagger, making sure that it fits snugly, cutting off a bit of the leather to make sure. He then slides the dagger into place and holds it out to me, triumphant. I look carefully at what he's handing me. Black dagger of defense. Very rare dagger 9/30. Base damage: 99-103.

+3 defense.

"It's beautiful," I say.

"And took just an hour," he says, clearly very proud of himself. I'm impressed. I don't know how many short cuts there were thanks to the gamified elements of the world, but it looked like he took his time and did everything right, and still managed in just an hour.

"How much do I owe you?" I ask him. He made the dagger to my specifications, explicitly for me. Of course I'm going to buy it. That's a better sales tactic than any I've seen. This guy is truly a master of his craft.

"The material is worth about seventy gold," he says.

"The know how is worth far more than that. Let's call it one platinum fifty?"

"That seems fair," I say.

"Can you improve it a few levels if I pay you extra?" I pull out two platinum pieces and show them to him. He nods and takes the dagger back from me. He moves over to a sharpening stone and runs the blade across the stone a few times, then polishes the handle a bit with a substance that looks both smooth and sticky. The grip of the handle comes away a bit more coarse, a bit easier to hold on to. And the point of the dagger is a bit more fine.

For another twenty minutes, he putters around, making tiny changes to the dagger and to the sheath. Finally, he presents it to me. Black dagger of defense. Very rare dagger 18/30. Base damage: 108-112. +6 defense.

"It's perfect," I say. He shrugs.

"It gets harder to raise the level the higher the level gets," he tells me.

"I know," I say.

"It's still perfect, just as it is." He smiles at me. I hand him the two platinum. I see no need or desire to haggle over this price.