Thomas held the cutlass in his hand and smiled broadly. He was right in his speculations. Without any special materials or enchantments, he'd turned a regular iron ingot into a true magical weapon! If he used special materials like Origin Steel or Fahrentite Ore, he could likely make an uncommon rarity item. If he threw in an enchantment or something fancy during the creation process he just might be able to hit the next rank of rarity.

However, he paused when he thought to there. He couldn't make something of that rarity just yet. He was stuck in this cave until he could break out. He would be earning zero experience to increase his attributes with and his only source for it would be his crafting. If he could continuously create uncommon rarity items he would earn fifty percent of the skill experience as actual experience. It would be less than what he would earn inside of a dungeon, but it was far better than nothing. He nodded to himself and went back to examining the cutlass.

He gave the sword a few quick slashes through the air. The sword was extremely light to him and felt rather well balanced. The extra weight of the handguard counterbalanced the weight of the blade and made it easier to swing. Of course, even without the large handguard, the sword would have been easy enough to maneuver with brute force. After a few swings, he lifted it up and activated his 'All Seeing Eyes'. Using them while seeing the flow of mana chewed through his mana pool faster than any other mode but the size of his mana pool made it manageable. Hell, he could use it while channeling his mana into the ore so it wasn't all that bad.

As he held the sword and looked at it with his glowing eyes, he began to channel a small trickle of mana into the handle. He watched as his mana mingled with the trapped fire mana within the iron and excited it. Immediately heat began to emanate from the blade. As the person wielding the sword, he felt none of the heat but he could see the air around the blade begin to waver as the temperature of the air climbed. The blade was currently hot enough to burn someone but not hot enough to ignite anything. He widened the mana channel to allow more of his mana to flow into the blade. The trapped fire mana grew even more excited until the mana reached a critical point and ignited.

Flames erupted out of the blade in a burst of power then swirled and wrapped around it coating the entire length in crimson flames. The flames made hardly a sound as they danced around the blade. As for the blade itself, it showed no reaction to the flames. No soot or blackening at all from the pure flames. Even with the flames wrapped around the blade, Thomas felt no heat from the sword at all. It seemed like protection for the user was built into it automatically. He even reached out and hovered his hand near the flames but felt nothing. Going further, he reached out and touched the spine of the sword only to find that it was cool to his touch.

While Thomas was playing with fire, literally, the guards were watching him with shocked expressions. When he'd finished the sword they thought little of it. It was just an iron cutlass after all. Nothing to get impressed over in their opinion. The moment it caught fire their expressions changed to shock. A flaming cutlass was in a completely different realm from an ordinary cutlass! Their shock only grew when they watched Thomas stick his hands into the flames without getting burnt. Even if Thomas couldn't feel it, they could feel the heat of the flames from where they were a few meters away. Well, heat might be too strong of a word, warmth would be better. The heat from the blade only made them feel comfortable in the distance so they could only imagine how hot it was if they got closer.

On his side, Thomas was still observing the fire mana moving about excitedly within the iron. Seeing how it was reacting he could instinctively realize why the weapon would self destruct if too much mana was channeled into it. The fire mana would likely go out of control and erupt out of the confines of the iron. Thomas expected that if that did happen there would be quite the explosion. The way the fire mana moved within the iron put internal pressure on the metal. If the pressure went too high... BOOM! The iron would rupture and explode. There'd probably be iron shrapnel as well. He thought that might be a good thing to keep in mind for potential weaponization in the future.

Thomas cut off the flow of his mana causing the flames to immediately cut off and disappear. During the process, he hadn't felt any of the heat from the blade throughout the entire test. That was also something he needed to keep in mind for the future. For example, if he crafted a suit of flaming armor he would be immune to the heat of the armor while everyone around him suffered from it. That could be interesting. He walked over to the side of the forge and set the cutlass on an empty weapon rack. He didn't give a damn who would be using it or to explain how he'd made it. All that mattered was that he had made it and it would make an impression on his captors. If he could keep them impressed with his work they would likely lower their guard... eventually.

As he turned to fetch another ingot and make something else, Yorik arrived at the workshop. He flagged down Thomas, "One of the guards told me you made a flaming cutlass. I'd like to see it."

Thomas glanced at Yorik then gestured to the weapon rack where he'd just set it down. Yorik went over to pick up the cutlass and examine it. Reading over the description he frowned and looked over at Thomas, "I thought you said you could make uncommon rarity items. This is only magical rarity."

Thomas stopped in the middle of picking up an ingot and looked at Yorik in disbelief, "Of course it's only magical rarity! What do you expect when it's just an iron ingot and some random piece of wood! I won't be able to make anything of a higher rarity without better materials! You want me to make uncommon grade items? Get me rare materials of any kind and I will make uncommon items all day long." He gestured to the cutlass, "Until I at least get the supplies for enchanting that's the best I can do!"

Yorik looked slightly embarrassed. Though he was playing at pirates, he was still just a regular guy at heart. He wasn't as cold-blooded or blood-thirsty as one might expect a pirate to be. He was just a player having fun inside of a game his way. He scratched his head before he came to a conclusion, "Alright. I already got the list of specific supplies that you requested but, if other supplies you didn't specifically list might help you make even better equipment..." He turned to face the guards, "Go get Mr. Pancake."

Thomas gave Yorik a questioning look and Yorik just rolled his eyes. Thomas nodded in understanding. Age of Gods was a game after all and it had been common since the dawn of MMO's for people to sometimes have silly or ridiculous names. Honestly, it was more shocking that he hadn't come across people with names like '2 Strong 4 U' or other such garbage. Then again, Thomas didn't spend too much time around other players... as far as he knew anyway. With no indicators, it was hard to tell who was a player and who was an NPC without checking each one individually using the 'Spark of Divinity' that he'd discovered a while back. He was too lazy to check every single individual entity he came across so he treated them all the same.

After a few minutes, a thin man wearing a tall chefs hat walked into the workroom. Yorik gestured to him while speaking to Thomas, "This is Mr. Pancake. Despite how he looks he's actually the quartermaster. From now on any supplies we loot that might be related to making stuff will be given to him. He'll keep a list of whatever is available and distribute it to you whenever you ask."

Yorik turned to Mr. Pancake, "Got it?"

Mr. Pancake nodded and gave Thomas a bright smile, "Pleasure to be working with you."

Thomas nodded back and took a closer look at Mr. Pancake. He was a thin man and like all players, looked young. All players had started out looking about the same age but various things like their attributes modified their body types. Seeing how thin and scrawny Mr. Pancake looked, Thomas felt like he'd put almost nothing into his Power attribute. Mr. Pancake gave off a simple and pleasant vibe, though it was somewhat clownish thanks to the nearly meter tall chefs hat on his head. Thomas gave a nod to him and smiled, "Pleasure to be working with you too, Mr. Pancake."

Mr. Pancake had a bright and cheerful smile as they exchanged greetings, "I'm not just the quartermaster you know! I'm also the chef! If there's something special you want to eat just let me know and I'll whip it right up!"

Thomas smiled, "If you can, just be sure to give Snowlily some good food. She prefers cooked meals to raw meat. Oh! And make sure she eats her vegetables!"

Mr. Pancake looked confused, "Who's Snowlily?"

Yorik interrupted, "She's a little wolf we captured along with Cain here. I'll introduce you to her later."

Mr. Pancake gave Thomas a thumbs up, "Don't worry! I'll make sure she eats a well-balanced meal!"

Thomas gave Mr. Pancake an appreciative smile, "Since you're the quartermaster I'd also like to ask you to make a list of weapons and armor that the others might want so I'm not wasting my time making something no one wants to use. You can also write down if they have an elemental preference and what kind of enchantment they want. I can't guarantee that I can do the exact enchantment they want, but I will do my best."

Mr. Pancake nodded seriously. Despite his name and odd hat, he was very serious when it came to his assigned roles within the pirates. He would do as Thomas asked since it was an order from his captain to work with Thomas. Besides, his order would be the first on the list. He was imagining a nice set of chefs knives enchanted for maximum sharpness for his culinary pursuits! He smiled broadly as he waved goodbye to Thomas, "I'll get to work on all of this right away. Captain, we should go through the loot you brought back and see if there's anything in there we should hold aside from selling before the others get it all divvied up and sold!"

Together Yorik and Mr. Pancake left the workshop. Yorik took the flaming cutlass with him, he intended to use it as a display item to show his crew the skills that Thomas had. Thomas watched them leave then picked up an ingot to get to work on something else. This time he wanted to try a different element. The question became, which element? He pulled up his character sheet to look at his list of magics to remind himself of everything he had. As he looked, everything looked interesting but one, in particular, caught his attention. What would happen if he used Metal magic on a metal weapon? He had no idea!

Grinning to himself he set the ingot into the coals of the forge and bent down to feed mana into the blower. As he was doing so he came to a stop and paused. Why did he always have to channel the mana into the blower from his hands? He straightened up and looked at his foot. Why couldn't he just channel the mana into it through his foot? No one had told him that he could. Then again, no one told him that he couldn't. If he could cast a spell on his legs why couldn't he channel mana out of his foot? Though it was two different concepts...

Thomas wiggled his toes in his boot and then gently placed his foot on the blower. He mobilized the mana within his body and guided it down from his chest, through his abdomen, and into his right leg. From there it went into his foot and he guided it just like he would through his hands. It actually felt a little weird and less natural than channeling mana through his hands. Still, the mana flowed through his boot and into the blower causing it to come to life. The flames roared while Thomas smiled. Being able to channel mana from other parts of his body opened up a lot of possibilities for him!

System Notice: Skill evolution conditions met.

Mana Control Rank 100: 123/100 - Passed

Channel mana through a point other than a hand - Passed

Mana Control has evolved into Mana Mastery.

Mana Mastery // Rank 1 // 0/20 Exp