Loki and Ignatius walk towards the forge; to the left there is a crate of coals and a pile of Iron ore. They start off by organizing their tools and cleaning out the old coals from the forge.
"Gotta keep the forge clean if you want to create the best equipment" teaches Ignatius.
With the forge cleaned out and ores ready, Ignatius begins giving Loki pointers to start the adventure of Blacksmithing.
"First, the new coals go into the forge which you will light with an automatic lighter. This helps speed up the process to get to your design for your equipment while waiting for the forge to be hot enough to melt your ores" Ignatius states.
"Second, once the forge is hot enough and you are confident in remembering your design, you can't look at it again while shaping the ingot. The scorching ingot should be your focus, spending time looking at the design will ruin your concentration. Then once your ore is melted, you'll grab one of our molds which will make it easier to shape your sword. Let's grab your small rectangle mold to start the shape."
Loki follows every order and once he pours the melted ore into the mold, a light sizzle is heard as it fills the mold into an iron rectangle with smudges of black coal around it. It cools down fast as if the mold is magically cold to speed up the process. While increasing purity as it cools with sped up runes.
[Iron Ingot]
Grade: Common
Purity: 56%
Purity is the make it or break it of deciding factors of how good an item will come out, the higher the purity, the better the stats on the forged item.
Ignatius nods his head praising Loki's ability to follow instructions "Good work, now we take our iron bar and return it to the forge with our tongs and make sure to keep watch so it's hot enough and malleable but not melted like before. Take it out and begin hammering it into the shape you see fit or from the design, and repeat until it gains a rather sharp edge and a strong middle."
Repeating the process of heating up, hammering, heating up, hammering, is taking a toll on Loki's body after 25 minutes of the process. Loki looks haggard and out of breath and he starts to slow down his hammering.
"Is that all you got, boy? Weak strikes after a mere 25 minutes? You won't make it out in the wild if you can't take on a piece of metal" Ignatius jabs at Loki, making Loki grimace in shame and anger.
Loki has always been praised his whole life; in the small village he was smarter, more athletic and faster at learning new things than every other kid around him. He had pride that he could learn and master anything with ease, however, things were different in a bigger city; more to learn and more challenges to face.
Next thing Ignatius sees is Loki gritting his teeth in determination, hammering again but with more fervor and strength. After only 10 minutes, the ingot starts taking the general shape of a short sword. The edges gained sharpness like a normal common grade Iron sword.
Finally, to quench the sword in what looks like oil and clean it up to be shiny and appealing too, the end result:
[Basic Military Sword]
Level: 1
Grade: Common
Attack: 5-7
"Hmm, good start boy, you've made a usable piece of equipment on your first try! With determination, you can use your strength for sure." commended Ignatius.
With the sword finished they place it in a barrel with the rest of the common weapons that have been made before. Even though Loki made it his first try, it is still a bottom of the barrel weapon, unfortunately.
"Now, we can start moving forwards with learning equipment. Defensive armor is always the next best selling point for blacksmiths. First, a way to kill, and second, a way to live. Especially in this law of the jungle world where strength is absolute." the Blacksmith says.
Moving towards new ores for the forge and cleaning the tools just used, the blacksmith begins to talk about the process of making a suit of armor.
"Now armor may only be second in terms of demand, but it's first in complexity. We'll need 4 different pieces to make a whole suit; the helmet, the chestpiece, greaves and boots. However, people can buy each piece separately as needed, a lot of people do it to lower the price or to add to what they already have." Ignatius states.
Beginning with the helmet, Loki is told to place a small amount of iron into the forge and be ready to mend and turn the resultant ingot into a bowl like shape, while also making sure people can see out of it. Even though it takes time and a lot of strength, it is one of the most important parts of armor in this era, as it helps protect the head and neck against sneak attacks and blunt armaments.
Moving on to the chestpiece, probably one of the hardest to make as you need to make the plates of both front and back and shoulders and then put them together with metal pins and connect them equally
Loki proceeded to the chest piece, which is easily the hardest part of armor. The blacksmith instructed Loki to make the plates for the front, back, and shoulders and combine them with metal pins to connect them equally. After an hour and a half, Loki manages to make each piece and put them together, sweat glistening off his face. Moving towards the table with his finished chest plate, Loki felt extreme satisfaction.
The same process is generally with the greaves and boots, however, for the greaves, there are two plates one bigger for the calf and one smaller for the shins. For the boots, take multiple plates in an arrow head while rounded to make it into a shoe shape with a metal plate on the bottom
(Author Notes: looks exactly like armor you'd see during medieval times, however it's basic so not all armor will look the same).
After 3 hours of melting Iron, with the heat overpowering the whole shop, small black smoke coming out from the chimney and smelling like an old cave that housed a campfire for a year, with the end result out:
[Iron Armor Set]
Level: 1
Grade: Common
Armor in set: Helmet, Chestplate, Greaves, Boots
Defense +15
Set effect:
4 pieces: +10 defense