Chapter 267 Stahl's Smithing
The four originals that were currently there looked at Stahl with surprise, and after a few moments of startled silence, Brody spoke up. "You wanna know everything that we know? You realize that's gonna take a while, right?" He pointed out, and Stahl immediately nodded his head.
"Of course I know that, and I'm talking mostly about the basics here. I want to be able to do a little bit of everything." Stahl explained, before the four of them looked at each other for a few moments. Evalia, Jyuuk and Brody agreed basically immediately, because they didn't have much to do on the ship at the moment anyway, but Xenia took a while longer, mostly to regain her composure.
But soon enough, even she nodded her head. "Alright, before then… I'll need some time to get the basic crafting skills that my gramps has. That means blacksmithing, tailoring, leatherworking, alchemy and enchanting. Then I can work toward things like Brewing and Bookbinding if I need to. Can any of you tell me any tips how I can practice other things while working on that?" Stahl asked curiously, and Brody immediately nodded.
"I can really only suggest Meditation. You'll probably need a bunch of mana for alchemy and enchanting, so Meditation's gonna help you with that." The Demon-Orc halfling explained, and Jyuuk also immediately nodded his head.
"I also suggest taking any chance you can get at taming a monster. That skill will constantly increase over time while your monster is off doing something as well. And depending on what kind of monster you get, you might be able to have it assist you with your other tasks." Jyuuk suggested, and quietly, Xenia also nodded her head.
"I-I suggest trying to u-use your mana the least amount as poss-possible…" She said, before Stahl looked at her confused. "You want me not to use my mana? But why that?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly explained after taking a few deep breaths.
"Because if you r-reach rank 2 in mana manipulation while only ha-having crafting skills, then you'll get an element that ha-has to do with that. If you want to be an all rounder, th-then you should wait for that until you learned different disci-sciplines…" Xenia explained, and Stahl had to admit that it made sense.
"Alright, thank you. Then I guess I should ask you for help last… I'll just use my mana enough to get enchanting and alchemy up to rank 1, and the same with Necromancy…" He muttered to himself, before slowly turning around and stepping up to the door, before realizing something important.
"Erm… We don't actually have any workstations on this ship… So how am I supposed to start with Blacksmithing?" Stahl asked the others, before Jyuuk scratched the back of his head before waving his hand to the side. A large flame shot up immediately and soon turned into the shape of Akatori.
"Here, take him with you. His flames might be enough to heat up a little bit of metal enough. And then also…" Jyuuk slowly muttered before summoning his Beastiary and slowly flipping through the pages, before nodding his head. Immediately afterward, a large lizard that looked a lot like a Komodo Dragon, just with grass growing on its back. "And this big boy as well. He's a Rock-Type Monster with a few spells, so he should be able to somewhat help contain Akatori's fire." He explained, and Stahl nodded his head with a smile.
"Thanks my dude. I'll bring them back to you when I'm finished with Blacksmithing, I doubt I'll need them for other things anyway." Stahl answered, before making his way to the door and down to the workspace at the bottom of the ship, where a certain young man was already excitedly waiting, although his expression became a bit more cynical when he saw Stahl instead of Eisen.
"Oh, hey. Do you know when Eisen is coming down here?" Sky asked, but Stahl simply scratched the back of his head with a wry smile. "Sorry… He's not coming today… For about a week, he probably won't wake up. When he went to bed last night, he apparently wasn't feeling well and then told the others about it. Really sorry, man." Stahl answered, and Sky's expression immediately slumped down.
"O-Oh… I see… Erm, I guess I'll see you later, then…" Sky answered with a deep sigh, before Stahl scratched the back of his head again. "You… wanted to learn Bookbinding, right?" Stahl asked, and Sky turned around with a frown. "Yeah… What about it?"
"I don't know much about it, but I do know a little bit of the techniques… And you know books a lot better than I do… Erm, I know you probably wanted to learn it from Gramps, but how about you surprise him by already knowing how to when he comes back? I could use a little company in there as well. Or rather, company that I can actually talk to…" Stahl chuckled as he looked at the Lizard and Bird that were following him, before Sky looked at the young man somewhat suspiciously, before slowly nodding his head.
"…Sure… That might be nice…" The young Fey-Kin answered, remembering how Eisen told him to try and be more sociable before.
With a smile, Stahl then opened the door to the room and stepped inside, explaining what he wanted to do for now. "So, I don't actually have any skills right now, like at all. I have appraisal, Shield Arts, Swordsmanship, Mana Manipulation and Mana Modeling. While my grandfather is asleep, I want to learn a bunch of different skills and get to the point where I can gain an interesting occupation. For that, I want to learn the basic skills that my gramps learned as well, starting with Blacksmithing, then Tailoring, and then Leatherworking. At that point, we should be able to figure out stuff for a book, right?" Stahl said with a smile, and Sky nodded his head quietly. So once again, Stahl was the one that engaged the conversation.
"Alright, then I'll get right to it! My Grandfather had some tools around here, so…" He muttered and took a look around the room, before grabbing the basic Steel Cross-Pein hammer that Eisen was using for quite a while, and then looked at the Rock-Lizard.
"Can you make a super hard flat surface here, and something like a box with a small opening over there?" Stahl asked with a smile, before the Lizard gave out some kind of growl-like sound and did just as it was asked, before Stahl told Akatori what to do as well, and asked him to heat the inside of the makeshift furnace up as much as possible, before placing a small iron ingot into the flames. "Now, let's hope I manage to do it properly…" Stahl muttered out nervously, before Sky sighed loudly.
"I'm sure you will. And here, let me help you out as well." He said before grabbing one of the books he was carrying and flipped to a certain chapter, before speaking up. "Come out, Teacher." Immediately after Sky said this, a black figure appeared in the center of the room. It was a middle-aged man, wearing a Blacksmith's outfit and a bandana over his forehead.
"Huh? Who's this?" Stahl asked surprised, only roughly aware of how Sky's ability worked. And soon, the Fey-Kin boy explained. "This is the product of a small experiment. For the most part, I was always summoning imaginary creatures or people, or was using simple stories told about them to summon figures representing people that really existed. But now, I tried familiarizing myself with different people's Bioghraphies or Autobiographies, to see if that would change anything. I found that I can summon either a 'complete' figure of the one the biography is about while they were in their prime, or I can summon different versions from different chapters of the biography. This right here is the version of the last Generation's Grandmaster Blacksmith of when he was teaching apprentices. Go ahead and use him for whatever you need, I guess, my mana is higher than it used to be before." Sky said with a loud sigh before sitting down against the wall, simply commanding the Inkheart Teacher to help Stahl.
"Oh, nice! Thanks dude!" Stahl exclaimed with a bright smile, before he thought about what he needed to do next. "Hmm… It seems hot enough, so maybe- Oh, no?" The young man was just about to use some tongs to grab the iron ingot he put into the furnace to pull it out again, but he was swiftly stopped by the 'Teacher', who immediately shook his deep, ink-black head, as if telling Stahl to wait. And a little while later, the Inkheart Teacher tapped Stahl's shoulder and then pointed at the 'forge', so Stahl took that as a sign that he was supposed to use it now.
"Alright…" He muttered out to himself quietly, nervously trying to grab the ingot with the tong in his left hand before bringing it over to the 'Anvil' made by the Rock Lizard, and soon placed the ingot onto the flat surface. Slowly, he used the hammer in his right hand to, somewhat shakily, shape the ingot into what he wanted. Although he didn't actually know what he wanted.
So for now, all that Stahl did was try to turn it into the rough shape of a small blade, because that was all he could really think of. Strike after Strike, Stahl continued shaping it, and he was incredibly proud of what he was able to do like this! It was his first time, after all. He repeatedly had to re-heat the metal in the forge before actually being able to finish it, and when he did, he saw the notification in front of him.
[You Created a Poor Decorational Blade]
[Blacksmithing Skill Learned]
"Eh..?" Stahl muttered to himself, confused at the notification talking about a 'Poor Decorational Blade', so he swiftly concentrated on it and made another notification appear.
[Poor Decorational Blade]
[Quality – Lowest][Rank – 0]
[Description] An incredibly poor quality dull blade made by a nameless craftsman. It has neither a handle nor a sharpened edge, so it is not actually useable for anything other than decoration.
[Effect] None
"Hm? Something wrong?" Sky asked confused, noticing that the Inkheart teacher was laughing his lungs out, albeit as he couldn't make any sounds, it seemed more like a pantomime's laughter. Quietly, Stahl shook his head and silently placed the blade into the forge again so that he could reuse it and make something new.
"No, nothing is wrong. Nothing is wrong at all. I just made a national treasure that would be too dangerous in the hands of the wrong person, so I have to get rid of it immediately." Stahl explained, simply staring into the flames produces by Akatori, before Sky returned to reading one of his books. "Sure… Weirdo…" He muttered to himself.
But after a while, Stahl actually looked over at Sky again with a questioning expression. "Erm, actually, what does my grandfather usually use to give an edge to the blades he makes?" He asked with a wry smile, and Sky sighed loudly before walking over to the corner to one of the cloth-covered objects.
"How about you try one of the Grinding Wheels? Seriously, are you actually Eisen's grandson..?" Sky asked with a wry smile, before Stahl scratched the back of his head embarrassedly. "Heh… Sorry about that, my first time doing this…"
"I get it. Just hurry up, I want to make a book…" Sky said quietly, and then sat back down against the wall, before Stahl nodded his head, looking back at the 'blade' heating itself up in the forge, while Stahl simply closed his eyes and relaxed, trying to remember what he saw the many times he watched his Grandfather work on comissions ten years ago or so. Step by step, Stahl went through what he could remember, and even dug up things that he couldn't remember anymore. He wouldn't be able to figure out any incredible techniques like this, and he wouldn't suddenly get ten times better, but at the very least, he would be able to remember all the steps that his grandfather always went through when working with metal like this.