Eleven kids and an eccentric woman wearing white fur coats and golden chains were seen overlooking a screeching robot inside a gigantic octagon cage. The woman turned to her students and spoke in a weird noble accent.
"Since all of you are now here, let's begin today's lesson. The beast that is chained in the middle of the arena below is a Charger. This type of machine lives in mountains like ours, they are harmless but don't get too close or they will take it as a challenge and attack.
We will study it in three ways, first we will release it and try to understand its thought patterns, then I will let you fight it and finally we will cut it open to examine its body. Don't be scared, it's very similar to the bull we cut open two months ago.
The first part was easy, the charger was very aggressive once it was released, it charged into the walls of the arena, it got stunned for three seconds and calmed down.
Falco was the one chosen to go fight, he first tried to fight the machine in close quarters but quickly noticed that his strikes with the training sword didn't do much damage.
He then did the obvious choice for any gamer, taunt the charger, dodge and let it crash into the wall. The fight quickly ended when Falco sliced a pipe on its underbelly causing its energy fluid to bleed out.
The ensuing lecture about robot anatomy was different from the one I got from Oslo, the teacher mainly focused on the movements and attacks it could make depending on each parts instead of de technical wonders and uses for crafting.
Another important knowledge she taught us was its weak points, that were often common to all machines.
The containers that could hold a liquid called blaze, coolant or acid. Depending on which one they would use fire or other elemental attacks to blow it up and inflict heavy damage to the machine.
Cable, pipes and energy converters were seldom outside the hull but could reduce the fighting capability of whatever system they alimented.
The last weakness were mechanical joints, plates or engines that could be easily damaged to reduce a Machines defence or movements.
The next day we had specialised learning. Oslo wanted to teach me about the basics of crafting.
"While I know that you mainly want to learn smithing and engineering, a little bit of basics won't hurt you."
That day I was somehow able to prick and cut myself around twenty times while making a cloth out of fibers, a rudimentary trap and many other trinkets or things that could become helpful if I wanted to tinker or repair something.
All the necessary precautions and techniques to make basic survival objects were learned during the following week, and forge my first weapon.
"Don't expect much, usually it takes around a hundred tries to make your first usable weapon, before that you will just have a piece of crap."
"Thanks for the encouragement, then will you watch as I make a masterpiece on my first try?"
"Haha, while you are a genius in terms of intelligence, I'll bet a barrel of liquor that you'll make a piece of junk."
I laughed and approached the smelter. Like all the times I made pendants and needles for training, I grabbed the claw and with it the burning piece of iron, I hammered it into shape, sharpened the edges and cooled it off in a barrel of cold water.
I was finally able to see the final result once I took it out of the water barrel and it was-
"Trash, absolute trash! What did I tell you! Experience and passion are the most important while smithing. Your dagger has a good shape, you even remembered the fact that coal makes the blade stronger.
What you didn't do right however is the quantity of coal and when to integrate it into the iron and neither have you checked its purity.
Let me show you what I mean by using this thick branch. "
He then slashed the piece of wood with my dagger. The cutts weren't very deep and after the tenth slash, the dagger broke into pieces.
" You see… Even though in theory your blade was mostly correct, in reality you can't expect everything to be perfect. Take the sharpness of your dagger for example.
The only reason it was able to hold until the tenth slash was because everytime I attacked parts of the blade it would chirp off the edges leaving the dagger mostly intact. You could say that it slowly breaking down made it last longer. The balance was almost correct and the steel was not compact enough."
"So, I must increase my proficiency with steelmaking, be more precise in my charpening process and most importantly keep my hammering technique for longer and better balanced… I'll train those for a while."
Since I left to work on metallurgy again, I couldn't hear what Oslo was whispering to himself.
"He did a better job than my first try and was able to find his biggest flaws after I pointed out the mistakes he made. While there are some other flaws, I am sure that he will notice them quickly.
I got lucky to have him as my apprentice… Better not tell him about it or he might neglect his training."
My life continued like this, learning to fight, to forge and to learn more about ancient technology.
I went through the process of making piles of weapons, most of which were too weak, too heavy or simply had nonsensical shapes.
I did improve however, to a point where half of my work could be considered "usable".
Oslo authorized me to make a spear for myself since it is relatively easy to make and that I learned to use it more efficiently during the fighting classes.
The final product was a double sided pike made entirely out of a silver metal that they call servium. I am pretty sure that it is an alloy made out of aluminum and some other materials.
A pretty good material for beginners like me since it's very light and durable. At least I won't need a new training weapon soon.
Now all that's left is trying it out.