"Blop!"
"Acquired smithing!"
Finally! With this, I hope that my dear and lovely Bonger will guide me along with the next levels of the blacksmith journey!
With my desired skill finally showing up on my status window, I can start taking this seriously. Following the advice of Eve, I place the ingot into the forge. If I were to be a real cultivator, the stories tell that I could use my inner energy to raise the temperature of the heat, but my system does not provide such facilitation yet.
With fastpaced moves, I grab one of the nearby bellows, put it in special handle on the forge's side and start pushing the handle down. As the bouts of fresh air are repeatedly introduced into the flames, I can feel the scorch on my face becoming more and more intense with every push I make.
While this sounds strange, even twenty minutes of actively working at the bellow don't tire me up! If not for the ingot already turning red, I could very well keep going for a lot longer!
But there is no need to do so yet. Closing the vent on the bellow, I pick up pincers from the tool cupboard and raise the ingot into the air. While I'm not a professional by any means, just by staring at the simple beauty of heated up iron I think I can understand why some people devote their entire lives to this job.
Placing the burning ingot down on the anvil, I replace the previous tool with the hammer and raise it high into the air. For some reason, when it reaches a certain height, my movements stop involuntarily!
Even if this is a strange feeling of a fragile blockade, I decide to follow my feeling and bring down the hammer onto the heated iron!
CLANG!
This time, the sound is different! Even this single hit was able to make a visible dent in the material! Unable to contain myself anymore, I repeat this action and watch with satisfaction when my tool elongates the former ingot a bit!
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
With every move that I make, I'm closer to finding a perfect balance between the height of the raise, strength to pull it down and an angle that I should hit the ingot at!
CLANG CLANG CLANG.
Slowly getting used to the hammering, I notice that the lump of metal is losing its yellowish vibe. Still trusting my gut feeling, I leave the hammer on the side and move the metal back to the forge. It's time to work the bellow again!
"Blop!"
"Smithing skill raised!"
Good, it seems that hard work can bring me some profits!
As the process of the hammering, heating up, hammering and heating it up yet again keeps going, this lump of metal slowly starts to take a shape of a simple sword. Every so often I can hear in the periphery of my hearing another blopping from my dear Bonger. No matter what I said about it before, when I finally started doing some real work instead of relying on it to solve everything for me, it's quite generous with its rewards!
"BLOP BLOP BLOP BLOP"
"Smithing skill raised by four levels!"
WHAT?!
Suddenly overwhelmed by a bout of dizziness, I fail to control my strength properly and drop the lump of heated up iron from the pliers all the way to the ground!
Despite how hard I worked on it, I can't focus my mind on it right now! Grabbing a nearby table for support, it takes me a while to stabilize my breathing.
"Did something happened?!"
Alarmed by my sudden outburst, Eve jumps down from her seat from where she was enjoying the show and closes on me. Extending my hand to stop her from approaching, I wait a bit for the numbness of my head to pass.
When this sudden attack is over, I take a look at the iron lump lying on the dirty floor with regret. All this hard work went to waste…
NO!
Even if it absorbed some dust and other unwanted elements, I can still fix it!
Grabbing the pincers, I use them to carefully lift the dirtied material. After quickly inspecting it, I feel another bound of dizziness. Since I expected it, I was able to brace myself in time and toughen it out. Thanks to that, I know what had happened!
I didn't realise it when the levels were raising one by one, but every time that my proficiency at smithing works, the system is loading bits of knowledge and experience into my brain! It's just like speeded up course of blacksmithing!
But I won't give up on this piece of iron just like that! Even if the coal dust is sprinkled all over it! Hmm… Coal dust? Wait a moment, why does this ring a bell?!
With a sudden burst of inspiration, I signal Eve to come closer.
"Could you pump the bellow for me a bit? I don't have enough hands nor the stationary one to do it myself!"
"Sure, just tell me what to do."
With the puzzled look, she still comes to my aid. Great! Now I will be able to test out my idea!
With the fire supplied with fresh air, I hold the lump of iron with my pincers over the forge. Just placing it on the coals won't be enough! Following my intuition, I manipulate how high it stays over the flame for a prolonged amount of time. When a lamp in my head lights up, I quickly move it out of the forge, place it down on the anvil and start hammering at it while still holding the metal with my pincers.
With every hit, a pleasant CLANG can be heard. I do not smash the same place twice, perfectly controlling the angles and aim of the hits. With just three repetitions of the process, the formerly clumpy piece of iron already takes a look of a proper, long sword. Feeling that this is the moment that I was waiting for, I place the hammer away for a moment and pull out one of the Mystic Hawk's claws and drop it on the heated iron.
Picking up my hammer again and again and again, I can see the magical ingredient dissolving properly in the frame of the sword. Directing this process towards the edges of the blade, I prepare myself for the last step of the job.
"Okay, ignore the bellow now. Could you fetch me a bucket of water?"
Not even sparing a single look to my goddess, I keep hammering the future sword to ensure it's perfect structure.
"Blop!"
"Host managed to upgrade the grade of the sword by properly adding in a low-grade magical element."
"Smithing raises!"
Ignoring the message, I keep my focus on the blade. I can't allow even a single mistake now. As soon as the water arrives, I plunge the half-made blade into it. As soon as the heated up metal touches the water, a cloud of steam rises with the desperate hissing of the water. Now, it's time to heat it up again!
Only after heating it up, hammering it down and hardening it down in the water for four more times, I'm satisfied with the result! Grabbing one of the handles hanging on the wall, I place my newly made blade on a special stand and hammer the handle down on its pin. With that, my first true masterpiece is done!
But the problem is that I never was a fan of the swords!
"Blop!"
"Host finished his first blacksmith's masterpiece"
"Smithing rises three levels!"
"Host reached the pinnacle of amateurish smithing!"
"Do you wish to unlock bad blacksmithing?"
"Cost: 100 attribute points!"
Ugh. I should've expected that. While Bonger appears to be helpful at times, it's still as stingy as it made me used to. But I notice a small exclamation mark flashing in the corner of my eyes. Upon moving my mind towards it, I extend the list of the items in my storage ring only to find a single line of description added to the Fury's heart name.
"It can be forged into a weapon with bad blacksmithing skill!"
Ah, forget it. Bonger needs to offer me some incentive to keep investing my precious points into it! What a greedy beast!
When I shake my heads to stop thinking about this bastard, I notice Eve's eyes glued to my new blade. Since I have no use of it, I grab it and pass it to her.
"Here, you can have it. Thanks for the help!"
Before she even manages to touch the blade, I hear yet another Blop!
"Target is now ready to..."
Before the notification resounds in my ears, I can see Eve throwing herself at me before I experience an unknown and insanely pleasant sensation on my lips. As if selling me reverse favour, the Bonger lives to its name and kindly reminds me of it's earlier mischief by making me feel all the blood flowing out of my brain to the other as an important part of my body. This time, however, due to Eve's closeness, I have no way to hide it from her as it already touches her abdomen!
"... mate."
"Mating is recommended to gather…"
The rest of the Donger messages dies out when my lower body explodes under a mindnumbing feeling of pleasure coming from under my pants.
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Discord link if you have an idea You want me to implement into the story:
https://discord.gg/5PrTcac