23rd Muriel, 1093.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Otto Knutsen, filled with pride, paraded through the dwarven workshop, a behemothean cavern more than five thousand square meters in size with a ceiling over three hundred meters high. Impressively, not a single square inch of this great cavern was put to waste. Giant cauldrons and blast furnaces littered the room, massive gears and rails used to transport ore from one place to another.
Natural lava over 2000 degrees flowed through special pipes into the cauldrons and furnaces, their fierce heat rendering the need for flames mute. A massive wooden hull that looked like a ship hung from cables attached to overhead beams, with metal scaffolding placed next to it.
Although this seemed like a big project, the dwarfs had temporarily abandoned the hull. The hardworking artisans instead focused all of their attention on the metal plates or ingots on their anvils, each hammering with an intensity and focus that would scare off any potential distractions.
Admirable though it was, Otto Knutsen was not too proud or impressed, as this focused hard work was something expected of dwarfs. It came as easy to them as breathing and eating. No, the source of his pride was...
Ah, there he was...
The Chief of The Hands' grin widened as he spotted a daeben hammering on a thin, heated blade, steam visibly rising as sweat evaporated from his muscles. The daeben, oblivious to the attention on himself, pounded on the black, heated edge with an almost hypnotic rhythm, bloodshot eyes exuding immense pressure as he forced a piece of his soul onto the blade with every strike of the hammer.
Otto Knutsen could not help but recall their meeting four days past with a gaze filled with admiration and disbelief at the daeben's skill and perseverance. Dear Aygor, how he had underestimated the lad before him...
4 Days Ago,
"Wh-wh-wha!?" Hundreds of dwarfs stared in shock at the mountains of monster pelts piled in the middle of the forge. Even more eye-catching was a stretch of dark hide, which was at least fifty square meters despite being folded on itself.
A conspicuous daeben stood at the fore of these pelts, red eyes displaying hints of amused relief. "These have been piling for quite some time now. My inventory was nearing its limits," Kashi joked as he admired the testament to all the beasts he'd slaughtered since leaving Riven.
Although that was the case, he obtained 80% of these pelts during his experiments in Merriheim. As to how he managed to obtain so many high-level furs in such sizes despite their low drop rate?
Better left unsaid.
The large, dark scaly skin naturally came from Krakul. It seemed the inventory system combined all the pieces he picked up in the tower into one.
Standing next to the daeben, Otto Knutsen gaped at the pelts. "This... This is enough to outfit an entire army! How did you get this many pelts?"
Kashi coughed, eyes shifting to the side. "Let's not talk about that," he prompted. "If we tan these pelts, how much leather armor do you think we could make?"
Otto scratched his chin. "I'd estimate somewhere around five thousand." He looked to the black scales. "An extra thousand or so if we add the big one."
Kashi nodded. "Do you have any leather or iron in reserve?"
Otto raised a brow, a teasing grin on his face, "Can a dragon fly?" He guffawed loudly, and confidently patted his chest. "Don't worry, kid. We've got enough metal to outfit five armies. It's our leather stock that has dwindled over the years. Even then, if we squeeze ourselves dry, we should be able to outfit fifteen thousand men."
"Great!" Kashi exclaimed with joy. "I've got some armor and weapons I want us to craft for the three armies."
"Three armies?"
"Yeah, the humans, dwarfs, and Drakul. I've got different designs for all three. I was just worried the materials would not be enough."
"Heh?" Otto muttered, bright eyes betraying his curiosity. "I'm intrigued. What've you got in mind?"
With a smile, the daeben asked, "Can I have some blacksmiths as my secondary? It'll quicken the process, so I do not have to do everything myself."
"Okay, take as many as you need," Otto readily agreed. He was immensely curious as to what the man chosen by Aygor could craft. Of course, even if the daeben failed, there was still an ample amount of old armor and weapons stored away from ten years ago. With a bit of polishing and grinding, they would be as new. Although a little deceitful, he did not let the daeben know as he wanted Kashi to put everything into whatever it was he wanted to make.
"Thank you for your generosity," acknowledged Kashi with a short bow. An excited gleam in his eyes, the daeben quickly picked seven random dwarfs from the crowd.
Without wasting any words on pleasantries, Kashi began doling out orders. "You two, search for and tan ten manticore pelts. You two, please pound out some Lv.90 darksteel ingot. About thirty-six pieces should do." Kashi turned to the remaining three. "You, please get me some steel ingots. About fifteen should do. Finally, you two, you're with me."
Kashi walked over to a forge station that already had an anvil and hammer placed in front of it. While he waited for the dwarf to return, he took out one of the gemstones in his inventory and began inscribing something on it, drawing curious glances from the crowd.
Kashi did not have to wait long. Roughly ten minutes later, one of the dwarfs he sent out returned with five steel ingots in his hand. With a quick word of thanks, Kashi placed the first ingot on the anvil and picked up a hammer. If he were going for maximum stats, the daeben would have first heated it in the forge, but he did not need to for this first step.
With a determined gaze and an image in his head, the daeben pounded on the ingot. Kashi slightly smiled when it began to morph according to his will. Eventually, a perfect wheel with a strange center made of alternating gear teeth emerged.
While the dwarfs wondered what possible purpose that object could have, Kashi placed another ingot on the anvil and pounded it until it resembled a clamp or vice. This, the dwarfs recognized. They often used vices to hold metal or wood for cutting. Strangely though, one of the vices had a protruding circle with jagged teeth. To their surprise, the daeben lifted the wheel and placed it within the clamp, the gear teeth fitting snugly into the left clamp.
Kashi tightened the right clamp, which had a thin rotating metal disk onto the circular object. With a slight shake test, Kashi confirmed the wheel would not shake then placed the gemstone he had been crafting into a slot on the left side of the clamp. The dwarfs could not see, but a small gear motor inside the clamp was connected to the larger, external gear.
With crossed fingers, Kashi inserted some mana into the gemstone. He quickly removed his hand as a strong suction force immediately drove air into the gem. On the other end, hidden inside the clamp, pressurized air was forced through a very tiny hole, at the other end of which were the teeth of a small gear motor. The pressurized air moved the gear, causing the circular object to rapidly spin at speeds that discouraged any mortal from laying a finger.
The dwarfs stared at this spinning wheel with shock, some muttering 'Magic' while others pondered what use it could have. Kashi, not one to waste time on suspense, quickly took out an arrow from his inventory. Before their very eyes, he placed the arrowhead against the spinning wheel. The dwarfs were an intelligent, blessed race in the arts of crafts. As soon as Kashi took out the arrow, over ninety percent of them already had gaping mouths as they worked out the use of the spinning wheel.
But to see the arrowhead actually sharpened in front of their eyes, the sparks from the metal paled in comparison to the fire in their eyes. If it were not for their considerable self-restraint and rule not to disturb another while in the middle of work, they would have stormed over with a thousand questions.
Kashi could not help but lament how far the dwarfs had fallen to be so shocked by a simple grinder. Although this type of grinder did not exist in King's Journey, at least the dwarfs then had invented the manual grinder.
Technology, rather than advancing from the previous game, had fallen behind a thousand steps. However, the daeben was not overly discouraged. The dwarfs were a thousand times sharper than any other race in terms of crafts and construction. They would soon surpass Kashi's high school and internet knowledge with a little hint here and there.
Now that he was sure it worked, Kashi placed the grinder to the side. It was possible to make it portable, but the daeben decided to leave that breakthrough to the dwarfs. Kashi picked up the last ingot. This time, rather than place it directly on the anvil, he called up the craftsman's sphere, or as the dwarfs liked to call it, Aygor's sphere. Previously, only Summoned could use it, but with the release of Aygor, every sentient being could.
Kashi started placing the remaining ingots in the sphere, and then, with a static, clear picture in his mind, pounded out everything he should need for this project. Because of its complexities, the clamp had taken him three full minutes to pound out, but this time each object only took him about ten seconds before a variety of iron tools lay on the anvil. Everything he should need for this project was there, from tiny rivets to different types of hammers.
About an hour later, two of the dwarfs he sent out returned, a bag of darksteel ingots in hand. Darksteel, a rare alloy created by melting iron ore, platinum ore, and volcanic dust in a secret ratio, was sought after by thousands. Kashi thanked the dwarfs as he picked up the darksteel ingot.
Although iron ore was common, platinum was not. Kashi knew that although the dwarf boasted enough metal to outfit five armies, more than eighty percent of that metal was iron. So, he abandoned any idea of making full plate armor. Instead, he decided to go with placing plates atop a leather base. This way, he would not have to use as much ingot per person.
However, tanning a beast's hide could take up to half a day, whereas converting ores to ingot barely took seconds, except situations where they needed to be melted down and cooled to form alloys. These cases usually took about an hour for completion. Still, because the leather was still far from arriving, Kashi focused on the ingots before him. Nothing to it. He'll just have to make the plates first.
Since Kashi was going for maximum stats this time, he placed the ingot on a pan, which he then fed into the furnace. Unlike regular furnaces that used flames, natural underground molten lava heated this one
In a matter of minutes, the ingot was red-hot. One of the assisting dwarfs removed it from the pan with a pair of tongs, and then placed it on the anvil.
With a shorter pair of tongs, Kashi held the heated ingot in place as he and one other dwarf began pounding on it, the rhythm dictated by the daeben tapping periodically on the anvil. As the ingot began to flatten into a plate, a short smile blossomed on the daeben's face as the rhythmic action took him back to where it all began.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Dwarfs, humans, and elves rushed around the back of a famous weapons shop, home to one of the best forgers and blacksmiths in the city. The owner of this establishment, an old dwarf, Golock Tarf, stroked his beard and examined the letter handed to him by his assistant.
"What the hell's that geezer up to this time?" He glared at the young red-haired boy across from him. Although the youth had fierce eyes, they could not hide his apparent young age. Thirteen, at most fifteen. Although dwarfs that age could already be seen in forges, it was not common for humans or elves. Then again, the lad across from him was a Summoned. It was well known those guys did not follow common sense. "What's yer name, lad?"
"Razznik," the boy replied, gaze even though he could not hide the slight traces of curiosity as he sneaked glances at the workstations.
"Razz-boy eh?" Golock shook the letter in his hand. "Got an interest in forging, have ye?"
"I was told it would make me stronger," Razznik simply replied.
"So... no particular calling?"
"Does outsider's curiosity count?"
Golock frowned. "Based on that alone, I oughta toss you out my shop." With an exasperated sigh, he tapped the letter in his hand. "But I owe that geezer a favor, so I'll test ya. Fail, and he can't blame me."
"Sure," Razznik agreed with a shrug. "What do I have to do?"
Golock signaled one of his apprentices who came running over with an ingot in hand. With another signal, the apprentice then placed the ingot on a nearby anvil. Golock pointed at a nearby hammer. "Ingots got lotta impurities in them. As a blacksmith, ya gotta know how ta pound 'em out. So you pick up that hammer and pound away. Wanna see what you got."
Razznik shrugged and lifted the hammer. "A little heavy," he muttered, oblivious to the shock in Golock's eyes.
Before he could even make his first swing, Golock interrupted him. "Kid! What's your strength at?"
"62," Razznik succinctly answered.
"Level?"
"One."
"Class?"
"None."
Golock stared at the boy, eyes wide in shock and mouth ungallantly agape. 'That bastard! He didn't give up! He really wants to create the Perfect Body!' Golock looked at the boy with newfound appreciation in his eyes. Picking up a hammer by the side, he relieved the apprentice and took over the tong that held the ingot. "Laddie, come lemme show ye how it's done. You'll be my secondary. The important thing's to master the rhythm. If ye can do that, and reach an understanding with yer secondary, this tedious job becomes much more bearable. Come. For now, we'll keep it simple. One tap on the anvil you strike. Two taps on the anvil, you stop. Ready..."
"Good," Kashi muttered as he admired the finished plate on the anvil. Rather than one single breastplate, since he would place it on a leather base, he chose to make smaller plates by cutting the larger plates into smaller pieces, heating those parts once again, then hammering them to specification.
All these could take him days or even weeks to complete in real life, but thanks to game logic, it only took him a few hours before he had all the pieces for the future breastplate ready.
Of course, since he would be making these for more than one set of people, he had to forge a dwarven version and a female version.
The shoulder pads for the Maggots were a bit trickier to make. Making three sets of overlapping plates for the shoulders was easy enough. Even engraving patterns with an engraving knife onto the plates came easy once the plates were heated. The challenging part was the designed, short metal sleeve, which he wanted to take the form of a wolf bust biting down on the arms. The dwarven version was simple darksteel plates, so they did not have this problem.
"There're many ways to form designs on or from metal," Golock lectured, pleased with the attentiveness of the red-haired boy standing across him. "There's embossing, inlaying, carving, chiseling, Engraving, and many others." Golock used a tong to pick up a heated ingot from the furnace. "Today, I'll be teaching ye chiseling." Golock had Razznik hold the tong in place as he picked up a hammer and a chisel. "Note, the finer the detail, the smaller the chisel we'll be using."
As the dwarf hammered on the chisel, Razznik could not help but notice that the dwarf was not so much hacking parts of the ingot away as he was bending the malleable metal into the desired shape, like children did with clay.
Kashi examined the two wolf heads in his hand with a pleased smile. Following Razznik's teacher's advice, he resorted to chiseling at a heated ingot for hours before producing the desired shape. Since it was to be a hollow piece, he forged the top halves and the bottom halves separately before welding them together at the back end. He slipped his hand through the gap and was pleased to see it firmly held on his arm.
Following the one-size-fits-all rule, as long as it was in his inventory, if Kashi handed it to another person, Summoned or Resident, it would morph to fit them to a certain degree.
If the person in question were as thin as a rake or as large as a bull, they would have to wear small or large size versions. Luckily, once a craftsman made an object, the recipe, along with its size specifications, was saved in their crafts menu (Summoned) or directly fed into the brain (Residents).
Kashi placed the wolf heads and shoulder plates to the side, ready for the final step. One of the dwarfs took out a large ore from the furnace and placed it on the anvil. Kashi, who had taken off his top because of the heat, picked up a large hammer then set to work, pounding the ingot into a flat sheet.
Soon, only a large darksteel plate remained on the anvil. Kashi marked out the sheet, then cut out several pieces. With a hardened gaze, the daeben heated the first piece, then set to work, hammering at an angle, so it produced a curve. Still heated, he switched to a small hammer and chisel. He tapped away, causing uneven depressions to form on the curved plate. By the time he finished, the depressions had formed the face of a wolf. With a nod from the daeben, a dwarf let the plate cool in a vat of water as Kashi switched his attention to the next plate. For the dwarfs, their knee protector was engraved with ancient rune shapes.
Kashi repeated the curving process, but this time did not detail the plate. He made a number of these plates, their sizes varying from large to very tiny. Finally, he hammered out some armor for the outer thigh. As usual, he kept to his preferred method of overlapping plates rather than a single sheet to improve resistance to high impact weapons.
The very last piece of metalwork from the daeben was carving out the guild's emblem from an ingot.
Just as the daeben was about to drop his hammer, the first two dwarfs he had sent out returned with perfectly tanned Manticore hides. Kashi only now realized that over twelve hours had elapsed since he first started forging. And people wondered why most Summoned just used Aygor's sphere for everything. It was much easier and saved a shit load of time.
Kashi thanked the dwarfs as he lifted a hide that was triple his size and placed it on a work table. The rest he momentarily put on the floor. He marked out the leather with precise fingers and cut out some shapes with practiced ease. He repeated the same with five other pelts then handed those pieces to the dwarfs with the words, "Harden these please."
While the dwarfs left to soak the leather in their secret solution, Kashi turned his gaze to the remaining leather pieces. Although still useful, the leather was in so many pieces that they were only suitable for making gloves, belts, or straps. Although he would have to make those, the daeben turned his attention to the other manticore leather.
Kashi brushed the pieces off the worktable and placed another manticore leather on top. While doing this, he turned to Otto, who had not left for a second. "Can you get some dwarfs to descale the Hydra pelt?"
Otto nodded, absentmindedly ordering the surrounding dwarfs to do as he said. With a pelt that size, they would make no progress with one or two. The crowd around the daeben shrunk as over a hundred dwarfs went to fulfill the thankless task of descaling the Hydra's pelt. That number doubled when they realized just how challenging the scales were.
Kashi thanked the dwarf then set to work mapping out a pattern on the manticore leather. Once he finished, he cut out the trouser shaped strips. The needle he had in his inventory was too weak, but luckily Otto handed him one to use. He quickly began to hand-sew the leather together.
Like the grinder, the sewing machine was lost in the cataclysm, forcing residents to sew everything manually. Kashi could use the craft sphere to instantly craft himself a pair of trousers after inputting the materials. Still, since he was going for maximum effort, he chose to do everything manually.
Of course, immediately after this, Kashi decided he would release sewing machines and grinders' designs to his guild and the dwarfs to reduce the workload.
Sewing didn't take as long, and after struggling a bit with adding the zipper he crafted from some spare ore, Kashi finished the trousers.
For the female version, Kashi used the exterior of a manticore leather that he wet and stretched. Then he made it fitted, to draw out a woman's curves.
Hey, who said beauty and security could not go together.
Although Kashi could tell from Otto's fervent gaze that the latter had tons of questions about the zipper, he pretended to be oblivious, choosing instead to pick out a piece of paper from his inventory, on which he marked out the shape of his arm just past his elbow. Following the advice from an internet video Suzuki once watched, he folded and cut out the paper according to its instructions.
Next, Kashi cut out a thin layer of the external portion of the manticore leather. Game logic bonus allowed the cut leather to be perfectly stretchy, not too bouncy and not too stiff. Kashi briefly dunked the leather in water and stretched it along the grain till it couldn't stretch any further. He let it dry and then repeated the process.
This time, after it dried, Kashi pinned the precut paper patterns onto the leather and started cutting. He used very tiny stitches to piece the glove together along the thumb side when he finished. The completed product, much to the daeben's delight, was a beautiful sight. He repeated the entire process one more time, for the other hand.
As usual, he had to repeat the entire thing for both women and dwarves, which was a real time-sink on his part.
Just as Kashi finished, the dwarfs returned with the hardened leather in hand.
Kashi, finally seeing the end in sight, readily accepted the hardened leather. Similar to the trousers, he picked two already cut large pieces and began sewing them together. Eventually, he held a hardened leather, sleeveless top. He sewed a hood onto the leather armor to replace helmets for those who did not like helmet aesthetics.
Kashi lined the top of the hood with thin overlapping plates for added strength and protection, then layered another thin sheet of leather to hide the metal.
The use of small, overlapping plates allowed the hood to retain its ability to be drawn back or over at will. The thin leather used to hide the metal plates was curiously the only piece designed with the guild emblem etched onto it at the front.
Kashi tested the leather armor and was pleased to see it fit very well, the only drawback being its complete plainness. The daeben, however, did not mind as the top was never supposed to show. He took off the top, and with expert ease, began punching small holes in the armor.
Kashi repeated each version's process, compensating for the lack of a wolf head in the dwarven case by extending the leather armor to the elbows.
Kashi used some of the remaining hardened leather to make smaller gloves that stopped at the wrist and made two shoulder pads.
Kashi bound several of the tiny armor plates onto the hardened leather piece using small rivets. Even in the gloves, the plates overlapped, mimicking the joints of the hand to promote movement. The finished gloves were as menacing as they were tough.
These were the very first finished work of the day. Kashi quickly brushed aside the prompt that came up as he rode the momentum to finish the next glove.
Adrenaline rising, Kashi turned his attention to the leather shoulder pads. He fastened the overlapping shoulder plates from earlier onto the pad with rivets then dug the wolf head underneath the plates, connecting it to the leather pad such that the eyes, snout, and teeth still extended beyond the plate. The ears fastened to the leather remained hidden from view. The dwarven version followed a similar build but without the wolf head.
By this point, the daeben's blood was running in hyperdrive! Kashi knew he was almost finished, and so began to speed up once again. Kashi quickly fashioned a high boot with some hardened leather. He overlaid the footplates on the boots from the toe, up to the final knee protector shaped like a wolf's face.
Kashi then crafted some belts and buckles which he bound to the thigh protector such that it could be fastened securely around the inner thigh.
For the finale, Kashi fixed plates to the front and back of the leather breast armor, binding them with rivets through the small holes he had punched earlier.
The all but finished pieces were then hung on separate mannequins to display their might. The only missing piece was the drakul's armor. Strangely enough, Kashi only crafted a pair of leather pants and hardened leather gauntlets. But then again, it could be understood since drakul notoriously wore very little to combat. Their scales hardened with every increase in level, creating the perfect defense.
Kashi, completely exhausted, picked up the final piece, the guild emblem, and heated its underside. Despite the sizzling heat, the daeben picked up the piece with his hand, wincing as the heat burned layers of skin and flesh. He withstood the pain as he clamped the figurehead against the vacant spot at the center of the breastplate.
A mad grin spread on Kashi's face as the sizzle increased, welding the two pieces together. Kashi's eyes turned red with excited joy when the sizzling stopped, signifying the welding's success.
But he was not done yet, and the game seemed to sense it as there was no notification. Kashi first fashioned capes out of the remaining leather for the armor, adding some of the manticore's mane to provide a nice tuft. However, the strange thing about this cape was that it started from the waist and ended just below the knee.
Kashi intended to have Absalon, his lieutenants, and their counterparts in the dwarven army as the only ones with shoulder capes—as a sign of rank.
With an excited gleam in his eyes, Kashi took out Rosario's brush and began painting each piece. He could have just used the auto-paint option, but that was not enough for him. He wanted each brushstroke to be filled with his aspirations, his desires, and the spirit of the guild.
Within minutes Kashi finished, and what stood before him were black pieces of oppression from which escaped auras so malevolent few dared to go near. The only shred of white was the guild's emblem howling on the ends of the capes.
Kashi raised his arms into the air and let out a scream, finally and fully finished with the armor!
(NB: The Dwarven Set have similar stats except for the wolf spirit.)
In all, it had taken Kashi nearly an entire day to finish the armor sets for the humans and dwarfs. If he kept at this pace, it would only take about ten thousand more days to complete the entire army's sets.
Screw that!!!
With the first armor crafted, the recipes appeared in Kashi's craft menu. So, as long as he had the materials dictated by the game system, he could use Aygor's sphere to turn himself in a manufacturing press, churning out the same product with half the effort. The only downside was the overuse of ingots and a slight drop in the stats.
Furthermore, Resident dwarfs had an innate ability to master the recipe to any crafts work as long as they were present and witness its creation from start to finish. It was an ability Summoned Dwarfs could gain if they became Grandmasters at any craft-related profession. This ability allowed the fifty or so dwarfs who watched Kashi work from start to finish to master each armor's recipe.
Without Kashi needing to say a word, the dwarfs swiftly divided themselves into several groups, some in charge of tanning, others dyeing, and some others pounding out darksteel ingots by the bucket loads. Kashi watched as the dwarfs got to work, swiftly flinging out one armor piece after another in quick succession.
Satisfied, Kashi, with his small group of dwarfs, turned to his next task: crafting mage armor. Kashi had gone with light armor when making the previous armors because it saved metal and was the most versatile armor.
Nearly every profession loved light armor, save one group: Mage-Related Professions.
Saving the drama, it took the daeben about six hours to churn out a set of mage armor. He chose to use the most abundant pelts he had: The Fire Snake's pelt. These 20ft snakes were about as thick as a man and were one of the most common creatures found in Merriheim. Although its leather was quite tough, Kashi chose this creature because it was a very rare mabeast.
Unlike Serisis, where mabeasts existed in premium quantities, they were relatively rare in other countries. The fire snake was one of the few species outside Serisis that could cast magic. As a result, its pelt contained natural magical qualities, which were perfect for mages if refined well.
Kashi ruined the first leather jacket he made because he overestimated the pelt's capacity for enchantment runes. On the second try, however, he got it exactly right and was finally able to bring out a respectable set of armor for the mages.
Once done with this, Kashi spent another three hours mapping Krakul's scales dipped in his blood onto a pair of leather pants and gauntlets. This was the only armor he chose for the drakul.
Finished with all these, Kashi finally left the dwarfs to take care of factory manufacturing while he decided to switch to his tasks for the next few days: making specialized gear for his teammates.
Since Kashi had an estimated few days to two weeks to work with, he knew he would not have enough time to make a full set for each of them.
So, he decided to make a new mage set for Syèl, an assassin's outfit for Shadow, and a new Katana for Shoko. Because of the new bow, he felt he did not need anything for himself. So, he instead chose to churn out arrows from leftover ingots every now and then.
And so days passed, the inevitable war drawing ever closer to the dwarven gates.