Waking up before the sun is up I leave the shop and go to the inn to get some food. I have really pushed my meals in the last two days and I know my body is going to start demanding I eat, as I exercise more and more. I get some fruit and cornbread. At least they have some variety. I eat at the mostly empty salon without being charged anything extra. Some variety in my diet does lift my mood a little. Still, with no wild berries in the forest it’s not the same.

There is so much that looks like old earth, but it is actually a completely different world. All the plants are facsimile of what we had on earth. Everything from the trees, to the food. The rocks, the soil. They are all small differences, but it’s noticeable for someone attentive.

Before returning to the smithy I get the tree I cut from the forest. Finding an axe in the back of the shop, I cut the trunk in manageable pieces. I return half of it to my room, and pile the rest on a corner of the forge. Still not being time to light the forge I start to meditate again.

The sun goes up and I wait half an hour. I use a few points of mana to light the fire and put another couple of points in the machine at a rate of 10 seconds per point of mana. In less than a minute I’m done and I go back to meditating. The forge slowly heats up, given the wood inside is not infused and most of it is still green. I carefully place the wood inside so the drywood will burn under the green one and the whole thing works. There is just more smoke than normal.

When I hear people going to the town square, I cover the mouth of the forge. That way I’m certain the whole forge won’t somehow burn down. It’s one of the few buildings in town mostly made of stone, but better safe than sorry. I was already tempting fate with my drying room. I get to the square as the mayor starts his speech, but it is only fluff and a few details we already read from my book.

The meeting afterwards also doesn’t bring news to me. So I quickly leave and come back to the forge. Getting there I start to pile the wood in so when Mr. Blackwood gets here the forge is ready for him or at least close to it. In only 10 minutes I hear him open the door. I’m in the middle of getting the tools to the place he likes them.

”Hunn, boy are you causing mischief?”

“No. I just lit the forge and I’m putting everything in place so you can start working.”

“Good. I see you have a new dagger on your belt. Can I assume you made it yourself?”

“Yes. It’s a basic but solid tool.”

“I can see that. Keep up the good work.”

The other workers get to the smithy, as we are talking, and start to help.

Mr. Black wood looks at the inside of the forge and says.

“Did you put green wood in it? Don’t you know that lowers the temperature?

“I only put a little on the edges, just enough to help heat up the forge. All the rest is proper infused wood.”

“Well, good initiative. Did you have any success infusing wood?”

“Some, the efficiency is still quite bad but I’m getting there. I need a little more experimentation to get me to a point where I would be comfortable spending all my mana like this.”

“Good, I knew you had potential. Given a week and you might already be good enough to make plenty of wood.”

I think that he is underestimating me, but I don’t correct him. We go on at the same pace as yesterday, maybe slightly faster. By mid-day Mr. Blackwood has let me use his hammer a little to start shaping a couple of the weapons he makes. He gives me advice on how to hold the hammer, on what to concentrate, how to think about the metal shaping. I think about why he has already let me begin to forge. He probably thought that since I’m good enough to make a dagger I can start to get some practice.

“Come on master, let me at least hold the hammer. You let him make half the stuff today.” Says a whining Brad. He is always complaining about something. Today he has chosen to annoy the smith.

“Not your master, and as I told you before no.”

“-But master, it isn’t fair. He gets to increase his skill level while we don’t even have the skill.”

“How much time outside your work have you spent forging?”

“What,” he says and without realizing the faux pas he is about to commit he continues. – None. I already spent the entire day here where I should be learning to forge. Not that I learn anything.”

“Then you are doing something wrong. The day you show-up here with something you have forged on your own I will let you help me with more than grunt work. ”

“We don’t even have the time to go to the bathroom or stop to eat lunch. And how can I do that, if you won’t teach me.”

“Dismiss your preconceptions and learn on your own. If you pay for the wood and metal you can forge anything you want. And if you need to eat, just tell me, I’m not your mother.”

Brad just grumbles. Everyone says they want to get something to eat so he leaves with them. I stay and continue helping as well as I can.

“So aren’t you going to eat? Your species seems to prefer eating three to five times a day.”

“My species?” I say having confirmed my suspicion that they may look human but are not. On a different note I continue “I only eat once or twice a day. I have eaten today.”

“Huumm. So you are an outlier. Well it is not like I couldn’t see it. Hell, you don’t even use shoes.”

With a big grin on my face I say.

“Not my fault, the system didn’t give me shoes when I came here. So unfair I didn’t get shoes. Everybody else can have their feet all warm and cozy in their shoes while I get to rough it out.”

“Why do I get the impression you don’t actually care? Maybe it is the fact I haven’t seen you rub your foot a single time. And it’s not like you slack off. You work twice as hard as anybody else here.”

“I’m not used to giving half effort to anything I put my mind to. Some would say I’m obsessive.”

“You are driven. Now it’s time to train your mana control. Just like yesterday. Send as little mana as you can into the input plate.”

I sit, place my hand on the input and start meditating. I send a smaller trickle of mana than yesterday, but still more than my minimum. I measure about 1 mana every 15 seconds. I start the endeavour nonchalantly but soon I’m getting deeper and deeper.

I focus absolutely and let everything else fall away. The world does not exist. All that exists is the flow and the flow is all.

Smooth.

Smooth.

Time goes by; everyone is back from their lunch. Work is back at full steam and I keep going without even noticing. I even get a bump on my head. I don’t feel anything but a certain douchebag has a big grin on his face. The smithy isn’t here to give everything spoon fed to you. The guild people stop by. They buy tools and equipment. With 5 silver they get at least one of everything, except the arrow tips.

It makes economic sense. A bow along with everything that it needs, cost over a silver. It is also more fragile and requires more skill to wield effectively. It could be good when our budget isn’t so tight and we can afford it. Especially as a secondary weapon. Shooting with a bow, or a crossbow and finishing it off with a melee weapon.

Over an hour later I’m deeper than ever before in my Pando meditation. I can sense something almost at my grasp. Something elusive and undefined but as I’m reaching out to it I’m wrenched out of meditation. A powerful voice bellows and I’m up.

“That is enough. We can’t have you fainting of mana depletion. You already heated up the forge enough I could make this baby.”

He says this as he shows a gleaming long sword. I inspect it and for the first time I see its stats.

Well-made Basic sword – Increase attack by +3

This is the first +3 weapon I see. The ones on the walls are way out of our range, but this is probably within the guild’s budget. Curious, I ask the price and the answer surprises me.

“Normally I charge 3 silver for a weapon this good. Given you helped me save the coal I would have to use… 2 silver.”

Damn, more expensive than I was hopping. Still it’s 50% more damage with a weapon that is already longer and heavier. That thing could do some damage. The thing would provide a massive Exp boost at the start if someone managed to find enough monsters to kill. Someone with some tracking skill and that and could handle a pack of wolves alone, would be leveling like crazy.

I think over what happened and I reach the conclusion that this progression only happened because of my contribution. It’s like he couldn’t have done it before. The problem seemed to be system imposed limitations. He could only work so fast depending on how many people he had helping. Now I discover that the upper limit of equipment depends on the forge’s temperature. The little mana he provides the blower with is only enough to barely melt the steel. Steel seems to be the most basic metal he works on. The temperature must not have increased too much. Simply increasing it by a bit must have been enough he could make this blade. It seems, the longer you keep your metal hot, the worse the performance.

Thinking over his habits I do notice he tends to roughly shape the weapon as fast as he can and spends a longer time on the grinding stones finishing his work. It’s not that keeping the metal hot was actually good, but on earth we focused more on the final quenching instead of work time. Perhaps this is another difference from the way things are done here. Possibly some magic aspect I’m unaware of.

As we start to wind down at the end of the day, I think that perhaps when we get more of the village outfitted, we could get a couple of magic users to run the blower around the clock. Maybe increasing the mana infused would be another way to achieve this. If the other apprentices learned magic we could all contribute and have the forge working around the clock as well. I talk about a couple of new insights I have and all of them pay close attention. One of them even shows me he gained mana manipulation.

Unlike the other days, the blacksmith pays every one early and at my turn he shows me 12 coppers.

“This is for you going the extra mile today.”

I take only 2 coppers and say:

“Thank you, I will want 2 ingots today.”

He chuckles and pockets the money. Two others get an ingot each and stay with me. The others, tired from a whole day at work, leave. Jack and Li Wei stand there while the smith says:

“This time, you guys can use a couple of wood logs. You can also use the scrap wood and the leftover leather for the handles. You can thank Nash for having heated the forge with wood he brought himself. Next time you either use the unburned scraps or pay for the wood.”

“Yes.” They both agree. I show them how I work and forge an axe-head. As I went to the grinding stone, they fumbled a bit but managed to get started on a dagger like mine. They may not have had any experience with blacksmithing before-hand, but they are earnest and I see they have paid close attention to the smith’s work.

I continue to work and soon I’m finished. Seeing them struggling,I help them a bit. The dagger is turning out well. They have prospects as blacksmiths. We are going to need that going forward. I later make a shovel using the rest of the second ingot and fit both of them with handles. I use the same scrap wood I used for my pen. Finishing everything, we all leave.

Both of them now have daggers on their belts. We say our goodbyes and I head to the general store. I see another person in the store working with the owner. The line is shorter and only minutes before it closes I get a bucket.

With my purchase I head to the river. Before leaving the city, I grab a loaf of bread at the inn and eat it on my way over. I find a place with some mud that should be good for what I have in mind. After collecting the mud and rocks I carried everything to my room. I pass by the guild and ask about the room next to mine. They say I can use it and they will mark it as industry.

I start digging. I dig a pit and a channel under the room and break the wood on the other side. I put the rock in place with mud around then. I break the roff on the opposite side but leave a smaller hole. After three hours I finish all the work. It doesn’t look pretty but now I have a place to dry my wood. I lit a fire to extract mana and slowly infuse the mana in the logs I brought last night. I cut them even more to help them dry faster.

I stack the few I got over the hole leaving as much space for air circulation as possible. Without much effort I get the equivalent of 10 logs measuring against the wood from the blacksmith. Even with just the hot air, they shouldn’t take more than one or two days to dry. After that the money will come in by the bucket load.

Muahahaha, my evil plans are coming to fruition.

I spend the rest of the night just going back and forth to the forest bringing wood. I take a few of the dying trees to use as fuel. And the green wood is stacked apart. I infuse and cut some of the green wood. My mana runs out as I hit about 60 logs worth. I make the fire bigger and go to sleep. This time I slept in a familiar place, my favorite tree in this village.

Just before I nod off, I go over my messages:

You have increased your Mana Manipulation skill by 3 levels: Mana Manipulation Lv.8 You have increased your Kinetic Meditation skill by 1 level: Kinetic Meditation Lv.21 You have increased your Carrying skill by 1 level: Carrying Lv.14 You have increased your Running skill by 1 level: Lv.29 You have increased your Blacksmithing skill by 3 level: Lv.9 You have acquired Unarmed Combat: Unarmed Combat Lv.2 You have upgraded Mana Infusion to: Mana infusion Lv. 0 Mana Infusion: You can now infuse materials. You have increased your Strength stat by +1 You have increased your Dexterity stat by +1 You have gained 272 EXP from manufacturing 2 items