When Thomas woke up the next morning he made a decision. Today would be his last day of crafting. He'd made all of his armor and his new rifle. He didn't have nearly enough ammunition but at the same time, he didn't want to spend the next few days just making bullets for a rifle he couldn't even use yet. He could always make more bullets for it later. Hell, he might even be able to make them much faster once he got his attributes to a higher point. After all, he planned to nearly double all of his attributes so wouldn't it make sense for his work speed to nearly double once he had? Today he would make his new sword and tomorrow he would head into the dungeon.

He sat in his bed and tried to think of what to do about his sword. He knew the form the sword was going to take but with recent purchases, he had to decide on what material he was going to make the sword out of. Originally he had planned to make it from Mithril and he still could. However, he also had two new materials he could use to make the weapon. Truesteel and Orichalcum.

After thinking for a bit he dismissed the thought of making the sword from the exceptionally rare Orichalcum. The single ingot he had cost him a million gold. He was not about to risk wasting it so soon. The material itself was already legendary grade and if it was the primary material of the sword it just might push the weapon itself to become legendary. In his opinion, that was a bad thing. First, it would upgrade his title Epic Crafter to Legendary Crafter. That might not seem like a bad thing, but odds were that he would be stuck crafting within the Epic tier for quite some time. He would lose out on all the experience points he could gain from crafting Epic items. Compared to monster killing it wasn't much experience but it was still some.

Another reason he decided not to go for making a legendary weapon right away was his lack of knowledge. He'd never seen even an Epic item created within AoG by someone else. It made him a little uncomfortable. There was also the lack of global notifications about him doing so. There had been no global notices about anything crafted above Magic rarity yet and that had him concerned. He found it highly unlikely that someone had crafted Epic rarity items before him and even if they had there should have been global notices of their achievement. Why hadn't there been any? With no real evidence, his best guess is that it was because he, and likely other players, were 'cheating'. Not breaking game rules but he'd been using artificially purified materials for a long time now. Perhaps that somehow didn't count?

It was all speculation, of course, it was possible he'd just happened to be logged out when someone else happened to reach the next tier of rarity. Though, he found that to be nearly impossible. Something was up with the crafting he was doing and his best guess was that it was his Transmutation preventing the announcements. If so, then his items weren't 'true' Epic rarity or whatever rarity he made them. If that was the case he couldn't risk wasting the precious Orichalcum. So in short, all the thinking he had been doing was just to talk himself out of using a rare material and postulating about things he could never really know for sure.

That left him with the Truesteel and Mithril for his main choices. Mithril was still his first choice. It was harder than regular and Origin Steel, had better mana conduction and was easily available at the moment so he wouldn't be too upset if he 'wasted' a bit of it. However, there was also the Truesteel. It was more expensive than Mithril, at least at auction. Since he didn't know much about it, he retrieved one of the pieces of ore from his inventory and looked it over. It really didn't look all that different from other metal ores. Most metals tended to have a silver look to them making them rather hard to differentiate from each other just by sight. Usually, iron ore would be red due to oxidization or rust but the Truesteel showed small chunks of silver sticking out of it.

Thomas ran his fingers over the rough surface of the protrusions on the ore before channeling some of his mana through it. He was surprised to find that the Truesteel had better mana conduction than Origin Steel, even though it was still not smelted or purified. If he smelted it the mana conduction could go up, let alone if he could purify it. The problem was, could he purify it and it still be steel? Or would it be reduced to iron? He looked at the small amount of ore he had. He was forced to fight back and forth over the decision inside of his mind. Finally, he came to a conclusion. The Truesteel was natural steel and not something manmade. Hopefully, that fact would prevent it from becoming iron when purified.

He stored the ore back into his inventory, he would purify it in the workshop later. With his decisions all made, he climbed out of bed and stroked Snowlily's head before getting dressed for the day and heading downstairs to get some breakfast. He met up with the girls and even received a not-so-subtle glare from Aria. It seemed she was still upset about the previous evening. He chose to ignore her and have an otherwise pleasant breakfast with the others. Once it was over he made his way to the Adventurer's Guild, unaware of two shadows following behind him.

Once he was inside of his assigned workshop he retrieved several pieces of Truesteel ore, "I really hope this works." He looked over at Snowlily as she walked in a couple of circles before laying down and getting comfortable, "Wish me luck."

Snowlily glanced at him and gave a soft woof to encourage him. He smiled at that and returned to his work. He loaded one of the forges with some coal and ignited it with a bit of Fire magic. While the coals got warmed up, he loaded the crucible with half of the ore he purchased. He roughly estimated it would be enough for two ingots. After swinging the crucible over into the forge he installed and manned his blower. He waited a bit for the ore to heat up and melt. Due to the fact that the Truesteel was not just steel but also a magical metal it took a lot of extra heat to melt the ore to the point he could start removing the impurities from the melted metal.

It took some time but he managed to completely melt down the ore and remove as much slag from the top layer as he could. The rest would sink to the bottom of the crucible. Once he was certain no more would float to the top, he set out an ingot mold and began pouring the molten steel into it. Once it was full he gathered another mold and poured the remaining molten steel into it. The remaining metal only filled three-quarters of the mold. If his math was right then that meant he had enough Truesteel ore for a total of three and a half ingots worth of the metal. He left the rest of his ore inside of his inventory for the time being. Once the ingots cooled, helped by a gentle breeze of Wind magic from his hand, he examined the final result.

Item Type: Truesteel Rarity: Epic Quality: Above Average Description: Truesteel is steel that has been naturally formed deep within the core of the planet. When properly processed it becomes stronger than man-made steel. This ingot has been properly smelted removing the majority of its impurities.

Purity: 94.7%

Seeing the good job he did brought a smile to his face. He looked at the smaller ingot and decided to use it for his experiment in purification. If it failed and turned it into iron then he wouldn't have wasted as much material on the experiment. With the decision made, he got to work and picked up the smaller ingot. His hands glowed gently as he activated his Transmutation and began to purify the metal. thin wisps of black smoke left the ingot and floated through the air. For whatever reason, during the purification of more material items, such as metal, there was a minimal loss of mass from the purification. Unlike when he purified mana crystals that tended to lose fifty percent or more of their mass. He attributed that to the crystals being solidified mana instead of a more natural material like metal.

After a brief amount of time, the smoke stopped flowing out of the small ingot. The metal had transformed within his hands. Much like other purified metals, it became a brighter almost glowing silver color with a natural mirror finish. Almost like it had been chromed. It was time for the moment of truth. His eyes flared and glowed blue as he examined the ingot once again.

Item Type: Manaborne Truesteel Rarity: Epic Quality: Perfect Description: Manaborne Truesteel is steel that has been naturally formed and purified deep within the core of the planet. When properly processed it becomes stronger than man-made steel and capable of withstanding massive amounts of mana flowing through it. Weapons made from this steel have edges that will never dull.

Purity: 100%

Thomas let out a deep breath and relaxed. The Truesteel was still steel and hadn't reverted to iron. This was good news for him. It meant that if he ran into other naturally mixed materials in the future then he would likely be able to purify them as well without ruining them. Without wasting any further time he went ahead and purified the full-sized ingot into more Manaborne Truesteel. With his metal finally chosen and ready, he placed the two ingots back into the forge, directly into the coals this time. The weapon he was planning to make was going to be his personal melee weapon for quite some time. This gave him the desire to do the work by hand.

Once the ingots were inside of the forge he powered the blower and got the ingots up to temperature. He plucked the smaller ingot out first and brought it over to the nearby anvil. After retrieving his sledgehammer, he took a deep breath and focused on conjuring up his mana. He let his silver-colored mana flow as he started to pound it into the ingot. For this weapon, he chose the Metal element. It would enhance both the sharpness and durability of the weapon. His hammer rang loudly as he pounded more and more of his mana into the ingot. After it flashed with light to signify it was finished. He wasted no more time and moved onto the second ingot to repeat the process.

Once both ingots were imbued with the Metal element mana, he tossed them back into the forge and started to reheat them once again. When they were ready he plucked out both of them and began to hammer the two ingots together. He was forge welding them together into a single larger ingot to make his sword. He really wished he had some flux on hand to make the process easier. Still, even without it, he managed to pound the two pieces into submission and make one much larger ingot.

After heating up the new ingot he started to hammer it into a rectangular shape. Once it became too long and unwieldy he conjured a hot cut tool with his Metal magic and used it to cut most of the way through the metal. After that, he flipped it over and hammered it back on itself. Though it was unnecessary it was still an integral part of the process for making the weapon he had planned. Through multiple heats, he stretched, folded, and restretched the metal building up layer after layer of metal. He folded the metal over ten times creating a grand total of over two thousand layers of steel.

After the final fold and reheating the steel, he began to carefully stretch it out into the blank for a blade. Once the majority of the heavy work to move the metal was done he swapped from his sledgehammer to his cross-peen hammer. using the lighter hammer, he began to hammer one side of the sword to get it into a rough angle. The sword would be a single-edged weapon and better at slashing. He carefully hammered the edge and tip of the sword to save himself some effort later on when it was time to grind it. He did as much work as he could with the hammer while the metal was hot.

As he was about to stick the sword back into the forge to heat it up, he felt a sharp pain from his calf. When he looked down he saw Snowlily gnawing on his leg. He wasn't angry, in fact, he chuckled, "I guess that means it's after lunchtime?"

Snowlily looked up at him after releasing his leg and nodded her head. Thomas laughed and moved to the area near where she liked to rest. Food started to appear from his inventory as he set out a nice spread for the two of them. The two of them enjoyed their lunch together while his work in progress rested in the forge. As they ate he stroked Snowlily's soft fur with a smile. Once he finished the sword he would make a small trinket for her using some of the Frozentite Ore he had sitting around. There was also the Frozentite Ore sitting on the collar around her neck. Just a simple enchantment on that could give her a decent boost to her ice magic. While munching on his lunch he started to plan that out. He just hoped she would like it.