"Clang! Clang! Ugh. Clang!". The sound of metal striking metal reverberates through a dimly lit workshop as a young man of around 30 hammered at the forming blade held between his tongs.
He would now and then set it back into the furnace to be heated before returning it to the anvil to continue the shaping process away again.
Sparks would fly. Impurities would fall off. There will be a clang, but he continues to strike the hammer with the precision and intuition honed by years of experience.
The young man was sweating and panting, but most importantly, a grimace could be seen on his face every time he hammered away.
"Urgh! I shouldn't have forgotten my migraine meds," he said aloud. Not that it would help if I didn't take a short rest after taking it, and this damn order hit me like a truck.
Well, it's my fault I forgot to check my orders this week. I usually only get a few orders this time of year, so it slipped my mind to check. Instead, I was busy doing inventory and managing the website.
Great profession I chose for myself. With chronic migraines to be working in a hot, bright, and loud forge is a joke. But I couldn't see myself doing anything else in this world.
Strangely enough, maybe I should have gone with writing. I know a smith writing novels is funny, but the only reason I got into smithing was to be closer to my actual hobby. "yeah, I should have been a writer." The reason I even smith is the same reason I'd like to write.
My actual hobby and my true love have always been fantasy novels. I loved dragons, magic, swords, and spears. I wasted most of my school days reading fantasy novels. I eventually started learning about medieval weapons, military tactics, and supplies so that I could fantasize about being in those worlds and dominating it with their own magic combined with modern science.
My baser desires also surfaced rarely… occasionally… ok; every time, it had to have a harem and incest. You got me.
I eventually decided that school was a waste of time for someone like me. I'm not dumb, mind you, it's more that I matured quickly, and no one wanted to give me straight answers. When my fantasy addiction kicked in, I didn't have the interest to spare on a boring 9 to 5.
I had moved out only a few years ago as I never knew what to do with my life. I'd never be able to cast any spell or ride dragons. After all, my obsessions didn't exist.
So I decided to learn blacksmithing. This small thing kept my hopes alive as I had no reason to work or feed myself.
I lost interest in everything that wasn't blacksmithing and furthering my knowledge to one day dominate a likely nonexistent fantasy world. I developed many skills that I believed would help me in my future endeavors. Practicing business and reading about how wars are fought and won. Even going as far as setting up a small garden that remains pristine to this day.
But the most important one was blacksmithing. I based my livelihood on that one. And I mostly don't regret it.
"BOOM" a deafening explosion and a blinding light shocked me out of my thoughts. I dropped the blade and took a few steps back, but I couldn't see and refused to move any more than I already had.
I waited, hoping my vision would return and I could find out what that explosion was.
Was I in danger? What could have caused this? Was it something wrong with one of my machines?
But honestly, did I particularly care?
Not really, so I waited patiently. My vision cleared, but before me was the vast emptiness of space. No longer was I in my workshop. I could now see distant stars and planets I couldn't recognize all around me.
I won't lie to you; I was excited. I had likely died in whatever just happened, and here I was about to break out into a manically laugh as I was either going to cease to exist soon or…
OR! I was going to Reincarnate. I wanted to know where id reincarnate or at what social level, but I'll take being a peasant as long as it's in a magical world. And that brought me joy.
Again lost in my fantasizing, I overlooked one of those distant stars getting larger. It was expanding at an alarming rate. Eventually, I snapped out of my delusions to look around me again. I wanted to bask in this space. I was curious to know when or if I would ever see this again. That's when I actually saw what that expanding star actually was.
When I witnessed its powerful body destroying anything in its path, I was awed by the sheer might and majesty that this being was exuding. All it did was approach me at a speed likely faster than light, which I could only assume as the distance it must be covering is absurd.
A massive Dragon that dwarfed even the Sun was rapidly shortening the distance between us. When it finally was close enough, it let out such a mighty and deep ROAR that the nearest stars to us had grown brighter as they went supernova.
And before I knew it, I lost my vision again, but this time it was accompanied by a loss of consciousness.