Magic-Smithing-Chapter 120.4

I knew hope could be dangerous for people in our situation, but I was starting to get optimistic.

After hours of searching for and prepping what little I had— and a lot of cutting on Tabitha's part— my stack of roots had quadrupled in size, and everything was essentially ready. I had fuel, a forge, a crucible, a workstation, and metal to work, all the basics I needed to attempt this little endeavor of mine. I was still missing some of the more mundane tools a blacksmith needs, but I wasn't focusing on that now.

Until now, everything had been in my head, but now that I had the essentials in front of me, I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. The small amount of water we discovered while gathering roots was just the icing on the preverbal cake.

I had already taken a quick nap and meditated to draw in as much ambient mana as possible, so I was brimming with energy—Let's just hope it was enough.

“I’m ready," I say aloud to pump myself and clear my head, signaling Tabitha that I was finally starting.

Tabitha almost instantly appeared at my side, her support unwavering. She knew what was at stake, and her stone-like demeanor didn't so much as crack under pressure. Knowing she believed in me gave me the strength to not second-guess myself, so I started.

I first carefully added the driest roots to my forge, interweaving them around the crucible like a bird might build a nest. The metal fragments we scavenged from the skeleton were already inside the crucible, waiting to be melted. My theory was that the drier roots would ignite easier, and once I got the fire going, I'd add the others as needed.

“Here goes nothing.” I place my right hand over the forge, bracing my wrist with my left.

“Llaif gamfr ol e nnamse!”

A small flame sprouts from my fingertip. It was comically tiny and produced very little light in the dark hallway, but it didn't stay small for long.

Mana Manipulation, Inject Mana, and Empowered Spell synchronized, turning the minuscule flame into a roaring inferno.

I didn’t hold back; I couldn’t. Next to me, Tabitha dropped her light spell to conserve mana as the flames spewing from my hand illuminated everything around us in a warm glow.

I could feel my mana pool emptying rapidly, but I didn't stop—I didn't even slow down. The grey bricks were gradually turning red under the magical fire. It was working; they were absorbing heat like I hoped they would. However, they weren't my focus; the roots were. Their outer casings were charring, but none of them were burning yet.

All right, step one is complete. It's time to move on to phase two.

I kept conjuring fire from my hands but stopped trying to burn everything in front of me indiscriminately. Instead, I split my focus between maintaining my spell and using Inject Mana to directly force my fire mana into the roots.

“Come on!” I shouted over the roar of my empowered spell. I was trying to burn the roots inside and out, but I would run out of mana if something didn't give soon. All the work I've done getting this far will be pointless if the roots don't light. I couldn’t melt the metal fragments with my mana alone, not even if I had ten times the amount of mana I had now.

I'm able to force my fire mana into the steel-like wood, but even partially dead, the roots' internal mana refuses to ignite.

To the side, Tabitha stood like a statue in the face of the heat I was producing. In her hand was our last mana potion. If my mana pool dropped to twenty percent before the roots started to burn, I would have to drink it, but that was my last resort. Along with the one remaining health potion, it's all we had left, and we needed everything we could get our hands on for our fight against the winged serpent.

If it were up to me, I'd never touch the potion; sadly, the choice was out of my hands. If the roots didn't catch fire soon, I'd have no choice but to drink it. We could plan around not having a mana potion; the same couldn’t be said about Tabitha’s shield. That said—

“Light, damn you,” I grit my teeth as my mana dipped below 600. I would reach the 20% cut-off mark in another few seconds. I couldn't afford to go any lower than that and risk passing out. If I did, I could be out for days, which was basically a death sentence.

Light

Light

Light!

As I was about to lose hope, I felt a spark not sustained by magic. A single tail of smoke wafts from the tip of one of the roots—it was burning!

It started slow, but I could sense the fire spreading inside the root. That said, I wasn’t going to risk stopping prematurely.

I kept channeling my magic until it wasn't wise to exhaust myself even further. By that point, a handful of the roots were burning brightly, to my immense relief.

Sweat dripped down my face from the heat of my spell and from exhausting 80% of my mana pool in under a minute. My legs shook, but that didn't stop me from grinning like a loon.

“I did it,” I mumbled under my breath.

“You sure did,” Tabitha placed a steadying hand on my shoulder.

"They're burning well," I note, staring into the slowly expanding flames in my forge. The dense mana from the roots mixes with my fire mana in spurts, causing the flames they produce to dance wildly and fluctuate. When the flames were low, it felt like the forge back home, but when they expanded, it felt like I was standing next to the sun.

Mana Skin struggled to cope with the immense heat, even with the improvements I had made since entering the mana-dense region. But it wasn’t enough— regardless, I didn’t back away.

“Alright, let’s see how hot we can get this." I waited a few minutes for the fire to stabilize before adding more roots. One by one, I fed more wood to the fire, to the point that it felt like I was the one burning.

Tabitha had long since stepped back, unable to tolerate the sheer amount of heat my forge was putting out.

The rust on the metal scraps had already vaporized under the inferno, but other than that, they were still whole. “It needs to be hotter,” I talked to myself while I worked, partially to narrate for Tabitha, who was watching me work from a distance, but mostly to distract myself from how hot it was standing next to the magical fire— and it was magical.

Adding magical substances to the forge wasn’t new to me, but this wasn’t simply adding magicite to an already raging fire. The roots didn’t have the mana density of magicite, but they were close, and this wasn’t mixing two substances together to create something new.

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The roots and the mana within them were one structure. As the wood burned, so did the mana inside it, as was the opposite. It created a perfect feedback loop, producing powerful, magic-infused flames.

The force-absorbing bricks I used to make my forge were bright red now and couldn’t contain all the heat they were absorbing. In the bright light produced by the magical fire, you could see the air twisting and shimmering around each brick like the air itself was about to catch fire.

At some point, while I worked, Tabitha pulled out our waterskins and held them in front of her with the caps off. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see faint traces of steam coming out the tops, meaning the water inside was either boiling or close to it.

My body screamed to step away from the flames, but I ignored its warnings. I pushed through the burning sensation and added more roots until it happened. A single bead of liquid metal ran down the side of one of the metal fragments as if it were sweating.

I wish I could say the same about myself; my sweat vaporized the moment it left my skin.

But that didn't matter; the fragments were melting, and with them, an unimaginable weight was lifted from my shoulders. My crazy plan was working, but I couldn’t celebrate yet.

I had to keep tending to the fire, which was difficult without tools. I used the longest tree roots as makeshift fire pokers. However, they only lasted a few seconds before they, too, burst into flames, and I was forced to add them to the forge as kindling.

More metal fragments began to liquify, and soon, a puddle of molten metal was at the bottom of my crucible. At the same time, my pile of roots was steadily vanishing into the flames.

I kept working, ignoring the burning sensation that had now seeped into my bones. I couldn’t stop— I wouldn’t stop.

This shield was our salvation; I had to tough it out.

Then, when I felt like I couldn't take anymore, a cool sensation briefly washed over me, offering me a moment of respite before the heat returned in full force. It happened so fast that for a second, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but then I felt the trickling sensation of experience points fusing with my soul.

I didn't need to pull up my status page to know what skill I just unlocked. Ever since I started apprenticing under Del, I wondered if I would ever unlock this skill. I thought I would never get it because of Mana Skin, but I guess enduring these magic flames was enough to do the job.

I finally acquired Heat Resistance, my tenth tier 3 skill.

At level 1, Heat Resistance did nothing against what I was currently facing, but I was happy to take whatever I could get; the psychological boost from unlocking it was enough to help me endure the heat a little while longer.

Resistance skills are some of the most coveted in the world and some of the hardest to obtain, and I just got my third. What does that say about my life?

Grinning through the pain, I kept tending to the fire.

"You aren't going crazy on me again, are you?" Tabitha's deadpan voice reached me over the burning hell pit that was my forge.

"Not this time," I hollered back with glee. "I just unlocked Heat Resistance."

“You hadn’t already?” Tabitha seemed genuinely baffled.

“Never needed it before," I continued to smile through the pain. My lips were so dry, I could feel the moisture being sucked out of them along with my throat and lungs, so I added another round of roots to the fire and finally stepped away from the fire, and retreated towards Tabitha.

I didn't care if the water was safe to drink or boiling; I grabbed my water skin from Tabitha's hand and started chugging. There was a considerable temperature difference where Tabitha stood compared to next to the forge, but it was still unbelievably hot. All the grey bricks around us were absorbing the ambient heat and dispersing it amongst the greater structure, but they couldn’t keep up with what the forge was putting out since they weren’t connected.

After guzzling half my boiling waterskin and thinking it felt cool against my lips, I returned it to Tabitha and forced my way back to the roaring inferno.

While I was gone, most of the metal fragments had liquified, but I could still sense some chunks stubbornly refusing to melt suspended in the liquid solution. Everything needed to melt before I moved on to the next step, or I risked the structure of Tabitha's soon-to-be shield.

By this point, almost all of the tree roots we gathered had been fed to the fire and turned to ash— It was going to be close.

I added the remaining roots to the fire one by one until I was down to my second-to-last root. Carefully, I placed it where I thought the forge needed it most and stepped back, as there was nothing more I could do.

I needed the last root to make Tabitha's shield, and there was no time to cut down more. This meant I had nothing else to add to the fire besides my hopes and dreams, and those didn't burn so easily.

Using Sense Mana, I monitored the liquid metal in the crucible and the slowly shrinking fragments hidden under the surface. The flames were slowly decreasing, but the heat was still intense. The temperature was slowly dropping, but the heat loss wasn't too bad, thanks to the grey bricks holding it in.

"How is it?" Tabitha asks as she rejoins me at my side now that the temperature has fallen to a more reasonable level.

“There’s a few more fragments in the process of melting,” I told her without taking my eyes off the forge.

"I take it that's bad," she says with little emotion. I took my eyes off the crucible for only a fraction of a second to steal a glance at her, but even in that short time, I could see the signs of worry hidden in her eyes.

“If they don’t melt fully, it could lead to a critical failure in your shield. I don’t have to tell you how bad that would be. Two fragments left," I note clinically as I stare into the dying inferno.

Neither of us said anything else as the fire dimmed.

We stood there silently until the last flames went out and were again plunged into darkness.

“Tikth idwessgh fral nhtig!”

Tabitha slowly recited her country’s version of the light spell, pushing back against the abyss but not fully conquering it.

"Well?" She asks, the slightest trace of worry in her voice.

After a moment and a massive sigh of relief, I gave her the good news. "It's done—barely." I gave her a thumbs-up.

“And that’s okay?”

"Should be, now, for the fun part." Rushing forward, I glanced down into the forge at the still-glowing pool of liquid metal. Time was of the essence.

Gritting my teeth, I dropped Mana Skin on everything but my hands, channeling the small amount of mana I recovered waiting for the fragments to melt into what remained. Without my skill protecting me, I was forced to bear the brunt of the remaining heat with nothing but my physical stats and LV 1 of Heat resistance.

Scratch that, LV 2 of Heat Resistance; I grin, feeling a minuscule amount of experience points fusing with my soul.

Needless to say, my already red skin started to blacken as I was cooked alive. Holes started to form in my clothes, and I could smell burning hair. Not wasting any more time, I leaned in, grabbed my makeshift crucible with my bare hands, and pulled it out of the forge.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," I swore over and over as I rushed to my impromptu workstation nearby. The air between the layers of Mana Skin protected my hands, but it did nothing for the rest of me.

"Do you have my hammer?" I called over my shoulder, sensing Tabitha right behind me.

“Ready," she replied.

“Good, because we only have one shot at this. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t look very nice," I tell her.

"As long as it works, I could care less what it looks like," Tabitha deadpans behind me.

“You say that now, but what about after we escape? What will people say about my work then?”

"Then I'll just beat them up; now hurry up; you're starting to smell like a well-cooked steak."

"That's not funny," I whine as I pour the liquid metal into a circular divot on the top of my workstation, which was nothing more than a stack of grey bricks. Now, of all times, Tabitha decides to prove she has a funny side—what a joke, but I'm too busy to laugh.

"I wasn't joking," Tabitha retorts with a sly smile.

"I liked you better when you were serious," I jokingly tell her as the divot in front of me is filled with molten metal. As soon as the last drop fell, I chucked the glowing grey stone that was my crucible into the distance like a hot potato. It crashed against the wall across the hallway, shattering into a million angry red fragments.

Even the grey stone couldn't hold up against that kind of temperature for that long.

Now that I wasn't holding a crucible barehanded out of the hottest forge I'd ever felt, I could again use Mana Skin to shield my body. The relief I felt was instant.

Checking my status page quickly, I frown at the 500-odd health points I lost on that little stunt. I wish I could’ve done things differently, but no matter how you sliced it, it was the only way I got the crucible out of the forge before the metal inside started to harden.

Glancing at my arms, sections of my skin were flaking off in patches, but at least my hands were okay, which meant I could still work. I had to hurry.

Unlike the forge I built on the exposed patch of earth, my workstation was connected to the rest of the colosseum, so it was sucking the heat out of Tabitha's shield, which was exactly what I wanted. My mana pool was still floating barely above 20%, so I needed help to bring the metal down to a more workable temperature in a controlled manner.

I waited for that crucial window of opportunity where the metal was cool enough to temper with my hammer but still malleable enough to work. I had no way of heating it back up again, so I only had one chance at this.

I could sense the mana structure inside the metal settling into place as it cooled. Once it was fully formed, that was the time for me to start hitting it with my hammer.

Now!

Holding my hand out, Tabitha handed me my hammer. It was a good thing I had practiced using it to fix her armor, or else I might be more nervous than I already was.

I didn’t hold back and used every one of my physical skills to swing my hammer down on the glowing disk. The result was a ringing noise so shrill it cut my eardrums, filling the empty tomb.

The grey bricks making up my workbench groaned and cracked under the force of my swing, but I barely noted any of that because my hammer flew back at me with almost as much force as I had swung it.

“I wasn’t expecting that," I wheeze sillily as I try to steady my hammer.

Luckily, I saw it all with Sense Mana. Like the gray bricks around us, the shield absorbed a part of my hammer strike, but unlike the stones, it didn't hold onto the energy and release it over time— it did so all at once, right back the way it came.

Holly shit, did I just recreate magic Vibranium?! It was missing a few of the qualities I remembered from comic books in my past life, but the comparison was close enough.

I couldn’t help but cackle maniacally as I swung my hammer again. On the surface, it looked like my hammer strikes were doing nothing, but that was the farthest thing from the truth. With each swing, the metal's mana structure was refined— With each swing, more of my hammer's force was repelled back at me.

Three, four, five; on the sixth swing, my arms feel like they're about to fall off. Taking that as my cue to stop, I grab the remaining tree root and press the end against the still semi-pliable metal. Like the grey bricks, the metal wasn’t the best against constant force, so I could feed a few inches of the root through it where the root wouldn’t damage the internal mana structure of the shield, creating a way for me to craft a handle for Tabitha.

When the last of the heat was sucked out of the shield and dispersed around us, I picked it up and examined my handiwork with a manic smile.

It was only eighteen inches in diameter, making it more of a buckler than a shield. The edges were jagged and irregular, and the metal was unevenly spread. What little weight there was was noticeably off-balance.

Now that it was cool, the metal had turned a sickly greyish/green color. It had no embellishments or any other defining features other than how horrible it looked up close—

It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Tears welled up in my eyes as I gazed down at the shield in my hands.

"I think—" I struggle to say. "I think we have a chance.”

Wiping the tears from my eyes with my shoulder, I finally turn to face Tabitha, who had subtly relaxed upon hearing my words. “Let’s kill a dragon,” I grin wickedly.

My arms hurt, my skin was flaking off in places, and my ears felt like they were bleeding, but even so, I couldn't stop smiling.

The fuckin snake wasn’t going to know what hit it!