"For real? Like actually? With the hammer? God, I almost forgot about the whole blacksmithing part," he said in a sarcastic tone as he smiled, seemingly excited. When you spend six months looking forward to and working for something, you will really feel the excitement when you finally get to it. The DM only sighed.
"Yea, yea, calm down, first kid." The man was centuries old; he had every right to call Jack a kid. Jack only nodded, taking a deep breath before he picked up the black hammer with the golden handle he had been given six months ago and looked at the DM so they could finally start.
"Okay, so listen first. Go pick up one of the small crystals from that pile and place it on the altar in the middle of the room." Jack nodded and picked up one of the crystals and placed it on the altar. "Now what?"
"Patience, now use your mana and make it flow into the crystal; just a tiny bit is enough."
Jack nodded. He had also learned about mana and its workings during the past six months. To say it simply, everything in this world has a certain level of mana. Even humans who naturally couldn't control it still had a certain amount of mana.
Once you start using skills, your body becomes more used to the mana flowing through it, after which meditation can be used to absorb the mana from the air. It feels like you are breathing through your skin; it's a really weird sensation when you start absorbing mana. You also have to be careful not to absorb more than your body can flow and handle, or you will throw up. His teacher didn't mention it, so he had to find it the hard way.
Regardless, once you get used to absorbing mana, you can easily feel it flowing through your body. Releasing your mana is similar to breathing out. At first, when learning this, he would end up letting out too much mana from his body, making him pass out multiple times. It took a bit of time for him to learn how to release without passing out and how to stop at the right amount. He could also tell what the right amount was now, so that was also a plus point.
He also learned how to release mana from a certain part of his body and absorb it from certain parts only after that. Which brings him back to the current moment as he walked up to the crystal on the altar, placed his finger on it, and released some mana into it. The crystal started glowing brightly in that second, and as it did, the crystal shattered and a few items were left on the altar. There were a few black ingots of some material he was not familiar with, some gems of different colors that were emanating mana, and a pile of scales. "Uh, what are these?"
"Well, I was getting to it. Firstly, the crystal you just used is called a Hollow gem. It can store a certain amount of items inside a pocket dimension, which are brought out when the crystal is given a person's mana. Of course they are one-time use; there are multi-use ones as well, but buying those will make you have to sell off your bloodline." The hologram said it in a sarcastic tone, which he had learned from the man he had been stuck with for the past six months.
"I see. So back to the actual question I asked: What are these?" He pointed towards the materials. He understood what the gems were; he did not wonder about them, but what he was curious about were the materials that were on the altar.
"These are the materials you will use to craft armor. That black ingot is Adamantite. It is one of the most durable materials in the universe that every blacksmith uses, so you better get used to using it. The gems—well, I'll get to them later. And those are basilisk scales—yeah, like an actual basilisk, not just a stone statue. Let's start with the basics. Grab an ingot and think about a chestplate. Form the image in your mind as best as you can. The quality of your imagination will form the quality of your armor. And then, charging up that hammer with all your mana, smash it down on the ingot with all your strength."
He nodded as he grabbed an ingot, placed it on the altar, and closed his eyes while channeling his mana into the hammer, charging it up. As he charged it, blue sparks of lightning formed around it while he kept his eyes closed and imagined a design. What would he want his armor to look like after finalizing the design? He used all his strength, bringing the hammer down on the ingot. As soon as the two clashed, a giant white light illuminated the ingot as it changed shape.