He glanced at Timothy’s watch just to make sure that it wouldn’t be completely awful to make a little more noise now.

Eleven in the morning. So four hours till sunrise? Should be fine. They’ve all slept for quite a while already. They might even be awake already, they had like ten hours of sleep at least. I should have considered that at least before starting with the blooming process.

He would have liked to create a real tool out of the piece of bloom he had sitting here but knew it would be the wrong decision. Getting something akin to a proper anvil would hopefully be the better decision in the long run.

He lacked the several dozens of kilos of iron usually required for an anvil but he had an idea of how to work around that problem. Cladding the log, he had used as an anvil until now in iron might work.

He began smashing the bloom with his hammer and the corresponding skill. Quickly noticing an issue. Even though his hits had improved in power by a good margin each hit had a lot less impact on the form of the bloom this time around.

Oh, boy is this hard, maybe it is steel?

His efforts weren’t in vain. The slag that was attached to some parts of the bloom crumbled off slowly, and as he turned the bloom, he slowly evened out the structure and got clumps of slag out from the inside.

It was arduous, time-consuming, and loud. Only Timothy had gotten up since then, and looked over Nik’s shoulder for a bit before he had started on getting another fire going further removed from the loud impact of the works.

The refining was boring, but he had an idea. He still hadn’t gotten the sort of magic skill he wanted out of his experiments. And to get a more useful manipulation skill out of this situation would be nice. His other class skill [Lesser Forged Domain] gave him heat resistance, and he smelled a good opportunity to improve the overall quality of the metal by removing the last remaining impurities.

The 96% purity marker that now showed upon identifying the bloom was a sign of good progress. The more interesting development had been a name change from iron alloy to steel.

Three percent increase in purity. That might be good.

Onwards to testing.

Trying to not do anything too stupid, he pushed mana out of the tip of his pinky while slowly approaching the metal. Initially, nothing happened.

Trying to not lose hope he began changing the mana’s intent by impressing a sense of change, of purifying the steel, of removing impurities.

Still, nothing happened. The possibilities on why that was were borderline endless and with his lacking knowledge of the world, he would even dare to puzzle out the issues so he moved on to something he deemed easier.

Since it didn’t really matter how he spent his mana thanks to the berries he increased his expenditure, changing the general intent to getting the metal to move.

The mana was now flowing at a steady stream, though it felt directionless. The idea of stuff coming to Nik felt the most natural to him, so he went with it. He pushed his expenditure even higher and in a vent of frustration, he pushed a little over half of his entire pool out towards the metal.

“AHHHH FUCK. THAT WAS SO FUCKING STUPID! AHHH” he yelled into the world and began dashing off towards the creek as fast as possible to cool his hand.

The metal had closed the distance to his finger in the blink of an eye, too fast for him to even notice what had happened. The tip of his finger was lacerated, though there was no blood, only a large blackened crust of what had once been skin, nail, and maybe flesh.

The metal lay on the floor, forgotten.

I’m so stupid, why do I keep doing stuff like that. It was obvious in hindsight that he should have either tried using a different direction or started using a larger amount of mana instead of changing the intent behind the mana. But impatience had been telling him to change as many factors, to try as much as possible.

Should have paid more attention in my experimental methods class. He continued admonishing him while he was running further towards the creek. The pain was only borderline perceptible now. Nik was aware of that, yet all his instincts screamed at him to cool his finger.

When he reached the stream after a couple of minutes of sprinting the cold touch of water was the largest relief he had ever felt.

The scene that was currently taking place at his pinky was pretty gruesome, so he chose to look away, and focus on something else. He had just the thing.

New Class-skill unlocked.

[Lesser Metal Control] [Locked] – Control the location and movement of metal at the cost of mana. Cost dependent on Material.

[Lesser Metal Restructuring] [Locked] – Change the internal structure of metallic materials at the cost of mana. Heat increases efficiency.

Ahh yes! I want them both. They could be so useful. If the latter allows me to purify metals, it would be godsent. It could help properly analyze metals and alloy them to stuff I know. Though Metal Control… That’s even more awesome. That’s full-blown wizard magic, isn’t it? I bet I could get a metal mage evolution from that. Or something close at least – if evolutions exist.

He considered for quite some time, still holding his left hand into the water until he heard a voice approach further down the stream.

“I’d imagine he had run here. The stream looked clean so it would have been my choice too. Well besides the fact that he could have just come to me. I’m basically a doctor in all but title anyway,” said a familiar female voice. “Would have finished Med school next year too. Well, maybe there is still a chance.”

Vera… Damn, she is so right. I should have thought of her or at least told the others where I went.

He called out to them then.

Trying to keep a calm expression he apologized for his lack of foresight. Though both Timothy and Vera seemed to think not much of that and focused on his injury.

Vera began inspecting his finger, asking for feedback to touch, pain levels, and other bodily responses while asking the occasional off-topic question.

“Hmm, is there a reason why you felt like you had to stay up the entire night, without letting us take some responsibility as well?” she asked. “I know this might be hard for you, but you aren’t alone anymore, and you can let other people help you.”

Nik just nodded, not quite comfortable with how he was put on the spot.

“I don’t do trusting very well,” he responded after a short introspection. He had come to terms with that some years ago but felt it was justified for people in his situation.

As the diagnostics part concluded Vera turned her full attention to Nik. It was weird, she had been paying attention to him before, but she had a sort of presence that made you feel noticed.

“I have to say, this is quite the surreal experience. I’ve received several notifications telling me I have unlocked three skills while I’ve been working with you just now. [Lesser Diagnostics], [Lesser Wound Treatment], and [Lesser Solace]. Does it always work so fast?” she summarized. “And I really don’t like it. Is that going to mess with my mind?”

“I don’t know. I’ve done very little with my class so far, but whenever I did something for the first time I usually gained a bunch of skill options. It’s kinda weird. You don’t get them always, and sometimes only after you have done something a bunch of times. But generally, yes,” he pitched his voice as he concluded his statement, to underscore his uncertainty. “Can you take the Wound Treatment one? You don’t have to, I’m just asking.”

“I used my first two skill slots on [Lesser Stabilization] and [Medical Intuition] to take better care of your friend,” she paused for a moment before continuing. “That means I can’t. However, it is not far for me now to get to level three, which is where you got your second slot right? I might get one at that point as well.

“I have some ibus, midazolam, dopamine, and diazepam but unless completely necessary I would rather not use them, on a non-emergency. I think you will be mostly fine after getting some rest, I don’t have much I could use to really treat this. I might… Timothy, you said you have aspirin with you. That’d be good to reduce pain and swelling. It’d be great to have a bunch of antibiotics around but as of right now we can’t do too much. Keep the finger away from dirt and contaminants,” she got up and offered a hand to help Nik up.

“Wait. Can you check something? What happens when you identify the meds?” asked Nik.

“Huh… yes I can, though it doesn’t tell me anything specific. Only says various chemical effects based on the race of the recipient.”

“Can you activate [Medical Intuition] while identifying them?” he further inquired.

“Huuh, it seems like that does help a bit.”

That at least confirms that suspicion. Classes influence Identify’s output.

***

“You are such an idiot…” Max said when they arrived back at the cave. “But was it worth it? Timothy told us a bit about what he saw you do. You hit yourself with a piece of burning hot iron?”

“Steel. But yes, I got it to fly right at my pinky, very smart I know. Laugh all you want. It might have been worth it. I don’t know yet,” Nik responded. “We will see in a few hundred exp though.”

“Oh, don’t be like that,” the still chuckling Max said. “Give us the juicy deets.”

“Hold up. It might be better if Nik could show us a bit more around and would lay down after that. We need to get a bunch of stuff done anyway, and now that the person who might be the most valuable as of right now got himself injured it is even more important,” Tim interjected.

“I’d be willing to work on creating some basic bedding for us. Max, if you could try to gather more stones and wood that would be greatly appreciated, or do you know any practical applications in the wilderness,” Timothy asked, actually poking his tongue out at Max.

Wow, are they friends or something? I swear this is how Mathew and Max used to banter. Timothy seemingly paid no mind to wherever Nik’s thoughts were going and kept talking.

“I guess plant matter, in general, would be pretty good. It should be obvious that Nik needs to take a nab, but I honestly don’t know what you could do besides taking care of Nik, Vera. Do you have any experiences that could help us out here or do you want to help Max hauling?”

She raised an eyebrow in response.

“Helping Max is doable; I can’t do much for Nik without the correct tools.”

“I have an idea. So, I don’t know how well that would work, but Vera, you might be able to gather some berries with the help of [Medical Intuition].”

They discussed it a bit more and finally concluded that Nik would show them the tree which had been his resting spot for most of the nights here, to gain a better understanding of the area and help Nik carry the baskets and other stuff he had to the cave.

With regard to his damaged pinky and the “maybe doctor's” advice he moved back to camp after showing them the lake and finally decided to take a nap, even though he wasn’t that tired. Doctor’s orders and all that.

He passed the steel bloom on the last stretch of the journey, just laying there like I reminder of his silliness. Though he wasn’t mad or annoyed anymore the opposite in fact. He was looking forward to whichever skill he would pick in the end.

***

“So, which do you think I should pick?” Nik asked Max.

“Honestly, the smart choice would probably be Restructuring, or maybe even both. Hey! Don’t give me that look. I know the temptation to bet on a metal magic class is tempting, but you are ignoring a few key issues here. What if you can’t change your class like that? What if you had to fill all your skill slots with metal magic skill stuff to evolve in that direction? What if you had to kill hundreds of monsters with metal magic? There are too many factors we have no clue about. We might be alone out here Nik, we should all stick to what we can do best,” Max responded.

“Is that the min-maxer in you speaking? For real though, are you such a good mage, huh?”

“Maybe. That is debatable. If I had gained a class like you, I’d try to forge the equipment of legends for my friends.”

“I’m so far away from that, it is kinda ridicules.”

“But for real, you want that other skill. [Solidify Energy], right? And the last time you gained a skill slot was at level seven?” Nik nodded in response to the questions. “I’d imagine that there is a good chance you get one at level ten again. Maybe if your class evolves at the end of the level, you’ll be good. And that would give you a good boost until then.

“I think you should also consider that we are basically screwed once Tim runs out of ammo. I don’t know if you could create bullets – I doubt it actually – but you might be able to make spears or something of the sort for us. I don’t know how much your class helps with that, but it feels negligent to just throw such a capability away,” Max concluded.

“I don’t disagree with you. It’s not even that I don’t like the smith class. Just… It feels like I’m missing out, you know. Especially now that I know one can be a mage for real.”

“Why do you wanna be a mage specifically anyway? Your builds always sucked, no front. You just lacked the commitment to go all in to spellcaster stats and it’s not like you have the stats to be one in the first place. Also, what do you mean by missing out? You have race skill slots out of your ass. Oh, by the way. I took both energy skills you recommended. I would have liked getting [Running] or something sneaky, but I’m outta slots and have no stamina.

“I don’t know. It sounds cool. Also, why wouldn’t I want to be a mage?”

“Well, why wouldn’t you want to be a smith?”

“Hmm. Don’t really have an answer to that.”

“So anyway, when are we going monster hunting. Your finger is looking quite a bit better already,”

“What no it isn’t,” Nik said confused. He held his left pinky out to demonstrate his point. The finger’s tip was baby pink and still missing a good chunk of pink.

Nik’s face was a sight to behold.

The dark crusty burned skin at the tip of his finger had healed. To a lesser extent, yet most of the skin was replaced with soft pinkish skin, giving his finger an odd look.

It took a moment to figure out what was going on. He glanced at his health bar, seeing his health reduced by over a hundred points, which was odd – since he had only lost a dozen when he had burned his finger in the first place.

What about my regeneration?

“How long have I slept, Max?”

“Hmm, about four, maybe five hours I’d say.”

“Shit that’s about four hundred health. That… Hmm isn’t too bad.”

Max squinted at his slight outburst. “See, this just proves my point.”

“Oh, hmm. So, I’m not so sure about this, but health isn’t actually an indicator of how healthy you are. Well kind of. It is your potential to become healthy. Does that make sense?”

“Maybe, you were not really…”

“Wait, I got it. Health is like bottled-up healing. Like a health potion. At least mostly. I think it also does some damage shielding, but I’m not so sure about that. Do you think I should ask Vera to have another look?”