After Hephaestus obtained his newfound godly domain, he became obsessed with mastering it.
Using flames and lava, he would start to create works of metal that made his previous crafts look like twigs.
After his crude metal hammer was created, Hephaestus began working on making a beginner forge.
First, he collected some clay and molded it into bricks. After blasting the bricks with his flames, the dried bricks were placed into the shape of a furnace.
Hephaestus would then go find various deposits of iron ore and drag them near his furnace. Dipping iron ores into the lava would melt away the rock and leave behind raw iron.
Placing the raw iron into his furnace to cook would eventually give him a plentiful amount of wrought iron.
After collecting enough wrought iron, Hephaestus would heat it again while using his hammer to slowly shape the wrought iron into his desired form.
After a day of hard work, Hephaestus finally created an anvil.
And thus began the cycle of creation.
Using the anvil and his crude hammer, Hephaestus was able to create a better hammer made of steel. The new hammer would lead to Hephaestus making a multitude of objects.
Hephaestus first began small.
He made bowls and plates, many of them turning out uneven and disfigured. For each product that was not up to Hephaestus's standards, he would recast the item into the furnace and hammer down at it again.
Eventually, he would succeed and make three sets of bowls and plates to then he would up the difficulty of his craft.
He would move on to spoons and forks, then to simple furniture such as metal desks and chairs, and finally to the creation of smaller tools to aid him in more delicate projects.
Instead of sculptures made of stone, he would now create sculptures of metal, made by small individual pieces of iron hammered out by a small hammer.
After perfecting the craft of metal sculptures, Hephaestus moved on to bigger projects such as a metal door that would only open with a special key or a metal chariot that would shoot spikes from the front and sides. He even made a clock with three hands that would tell the locations of Hephaestus, Thetis, and Eurynome by pointing to twelve locations on its face.
And once Hephaestus felt himself reaching a bottleneck in skill, he decided to take on an audacious project.
After a month of hard work and tinkering, Hephaestus finally created his first major achievement in metalworking.
A functional humanoid automaton.
By shoveling coal into the automaton's mouth, the automaton would begin to move and complete simple actions such as carrying heavy stuff or fetching some water.
Hephaestus had to remember to notify his adopted mothers whenever he created something that moved by itself.
Hephaestus's first automaton was destroyed by a terrified Eurynome when Hephaestus sent the automaton to fetch some water. After a lot of lecturing, Eurynome told Hephaestus that she thought the automaton was a weird monster invading her home and killed it with Hephaestus's safety crossbow.
Although the crossbow was never meant to kill, against the delicate workings of Hephaestus's amateur automaton, the blow was enough to shatter a few key comments and reduce the automaton to waste.
But after a year of hard work, Hephaestus's automatons were no longer as delicate and could take a full punch to the face and still function at a hundred percent capacity.
But something about the automatons was lacking.
Although the automatons moved, they were never truly alive.
They felt no pain, no emotions, and no independence. They would only move when given an instruction and would cease to operate the moment they were finished with their task.
With furrowed brows, Hephaestus stared at another lifeless automaton.
How could he create these automatons to have some sort of independent functionality?
It was as if this question was the wall that stood in the way of Hephaestus improving his craft. And it bugged him. His automatons would improve in detail and strength but their base intelligence would remain the same.
Although he was still improving minutely every month, the progress would soon come to a stop. Perhaps when he made an intelligent automaton, his skill would reach another level. Or perhaps this was the limit to what he could achieve.
But Hephaestus knew that this was not it. He could still go further beyond.
Right now he was stuck at the level of a mortal. Perhaps if he took one step further and created an intelligent automaton… he would become the god of metalworking.
Although Hephaestus did not care about his godly title, knowing that his skill could improve yet was unable to make his hands restless.
His restless hands would continue to create while his uncomfortable mind would constantly think of ways to obtain this new dominion.
But how?
As he pondered this enigma, Hephaestus was struck with a sudden idea.