Chapter 10: Chapter 9: Mana

After settling Bog down, and reassuring him that he wasn’t mad, Caleb grabbed a shovel to clean up, but found that not only did Bog’s leavings smell like slag, they were actually slag. While the metal from the ore he’d eaten made its way to his hide to form new scales, the rest found its way out through more traditional means. While this made the mess much harder to clean, as it had already begun to harden, it was far more palatable than what Caleb had been expecting.

Caleb gave Bog a reassuring head pat, and then finally tended his hand wound. He’d cleaned it out when first returning to their base, but it hadn’t been bleeding anymore by then, so he’d moved to prepare dinner before properly bandaging it. He’d boiled water to sterilize crude bandages cut from the bedding, but now when he went to apply them and wrap his palm, he found that it had noticeably healed since he last inspected it.

He examined his status and saw his stamina was below its maximum. He’d not used any of his class abilities.

“How?” he asked himself before recalling something his brother mentioned.

There were some skills that could draw on stamina to rapidly accelerate healing—his brother had one such as that. But even without those, stamina was consumed to heal the body.

“I’m such an idiot,” he said. Not because the answer was obvious, but because he was realizing how lucky he was. An unarmed smith simply shouldn’t have survived that fight.

While few outside the initiated in his village had arms and armor, as the apprentice to the village blacksmith, Caleb had been making his own equipment for practice. He was, of course, doing so in secret in his own free time, experimenting out in his waterwheel-powered forge. He’d not brought any of it beyond his spear because he hadn’t expected to be gone so far or long.

Bog nuzzled Caleb’s leg and sent questioning emotions through the bond.

“I should have turned around after the first night,” Caleb said, patting the dragon on the head. “I just got too excited about that ore. I wanted to unlock an uncommon smithing class, but… I suppose I did better than that.”

Bog didn’t understand the nuance of what Caleb was saying, but sensed the turn in his emotion.

“I found you, which is something I’m still wrapping my head around to be sure, but this class—your affinity…” Caleb trailed off, closing his eyes and sensing the metal around him. “I think this might be better than anything I could have hoped for.”

After sitting a while with Bog, Caleb forced himself to his feet.

“We need to figure out a way out of this place,” he told his companion. “I don’t think exiting the way we came in is an option unless we think we can kill an adult frost dragon.”

Bog deflated at that, sending strong apprehension through the bond.

“So we need to find a way out. I think the collapsed tunnel might be our best bet, but… I want to collect more of this ore before we leave.”

At the mention of the bucket of magical ore, Bog perked up.

“You can eat some more once we have more,” Caleb said, sensing the dragon’s hopes. “I can’t exactly smelt it in this cave—it takes a lot of charcoal—so we’ll need to take it out with us. Whatever we can’t carry, you can eat.

“First things first,” Caleb continued, moving over to the forge, “I need a better weapon and some armor before I leave this room again.”

He looked back at Bog, who was ignoring him, still staring longingly at the ore bucket.

Snap

Caleb snapped his fingers in front of the dragon’s face.

“You in there?”

Bog shook himself out of it and looked at Caleb.

“I’ll let you have a piece of ore if I can have one of your pickaxes.”

Bog leaped over to his stash of metal chew toys and riffled through them, trying to find the one he wanted least, but he was too impatient. He picked a random one up in his mouth and tossed it toward Caleb.

Caleb, surprised by the sudden throw, was forced to use his magic to push the speeding pick away from himself.

The dragon, oblivious to the near-accident, already had the largest chunk of ore in his mouth by the time he had recovered his wits.

Caleb was finally letting himself do what he’d longed to ever since entering this room: examine the forge.

He’d only given it a cursory look so as not to get his hopes up, but had found all the necessities. Now he needed to see if he could start it up.

The coal was spread out, as if left to cool overnight and never retended. Caleb did a quick check to ensure the tuyere at the bottom, the vent beneath the coals, was clear so air could flow up into his flame. Next he burnt some dirty rags by the flue and watched the smoke rise up. He wasn’t sure where it went, but he was certain that it was away from his forge, so he deemed that acceptable.

Once he was confident he wouldn’t suffocate or die of smoke inhalation, Caleb began the process of lighting the forge. Building a nest of coal and kindling, he then set it aflame by carefully feeding it more and more coal until it caught fire. Once the coal was burning fully, he piled more on and set about finding material to use.

While the equipment in the forge wasn’t as nice as that which he was used to, the place had everything he needed, if not everything he wanted.

Caleb collected all the bits of metal lying around and ended up with a pickaxe, some cutlery, spare tools and some pots and pans. Using his affinity, he was able to sort the metal by type, finding that the metal in two of the pans was identical while the others were unique. He also checked the pickaxes and confirmed they were all made from roughly the same batch of steel. With his magical senses, he could tell which steels had more carbon than others, but he didn’t yet have a way to connect that to his practical blacksmithing knowledge.

For all he knew, the highest-carbon steel of what he had was still a mild steel, unsuitable for weapons.

That was what the grindstone was for. First, though, he’d use it to perform a spark test. Using the pedal, Caleb got the stone spinning, then touched the edge of the first pot to the stone. A spray of white sparks flew out in straight lines—only a small amount of sparking.

It was like he was a blind man who’d suddenly gained sight. He’d known what an apple was, but he hadn’t known what an apple looked like. The spark test, used to identify the type of steel, was Caleb using a familiar sense to identify the newly perceived apple.

“Mild steel,” he said, using his metal sense to connect all the knowledge together.

To make sure he wasn’t getting too far ahead of himself, he checked the pan that his affinity told him was made of the same material as the pot and the spark test proved his initial assessment correct. From there, he discarded a few pieces that had even lower carbon than the pot. What he had left was a pickaxe, a rasp, a shovel, and an extra hammer.

At first, it was strange to Caleb that the pots and pans would be made of steel. Back home, steel was rarely used for cookware, as there were other, easier-to-forge materials available.

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Caleb suspected that this mountain was full of iron, however, and whoever worked this forge used what they had at hand. That would suggest there was a means of smelting the ore somewhere in this place.

No, he told himself. You need to leave as soon as you can. Everyone probably thinks you’re dead.

The more he thought it over, the more certain he became. He was more experienced with cold-aspected steel than any other and was aware of its peculiarities. The metal was soft and slow to heat, but once it got hot, it became brittler than other steels. Its properties made for poor cookware and would only be used if it was all that could be found.

He went back to his testing and found the pickaxe and hammer to be of similar properties to his smithing senses, though his affinity sensed a difference. What that difference was, he’d yet to identify concretely, but he had a solid hunch.

All ore had some aspect to it, be it earth, cold, fire, or any of the other countless aspects that people could develop affinities for. This aspect was based on its region and the type of magic there. Before, this concept of “magic types” was an amorphous term with little concrete meaning to Caleb, but he was quickly starting to suspect essence had something to do with it.

The ore of his mountain was cold-aspected, and comparing his knife from home to the pots and pans, he found they matched this mystery attribute he had detected. The pickaxe and shovel had a second aspect to them, while the hammer and rasp had a third. While these attributes were as foreign to him as the sight of a bird would be to a formerly blind man, there was something about the aspect in the hammer and rasp that called to him.

“Some sort of metal aspect,” he said, sure of it.

While he had no way of confirming it, the aspect in these items was clearer to his perception. If that was the case, it was a safe bet that the aspect of the pickaxe and shovels was earth or stone. Aspects of steel were usually not as big of a factor as the overall quality of the smelted product, but all things being equal, an earth-aspected pick would last longer bashing against stone than a cold one, while a cold-aspected sword was less likely to shatter in the freezing weather than any other.

He did an inventory.

Caleb had earth- or stone-aspected pickaxes with medium carbon content, a few cold-aspected mild steel pots and pans, and some high-carbon smithing tools—some-sort-of-metal-aspected. While most of these were educated guesses, the metal aspect he was certain of. It resonated with his affinity.

While he’d been willing to use the tools as raw material when he thought they were spares, now that he knew they were of a type that matched his affinity, he was reluctant to ruin them. If a stone-aspected pickaxe was best for stone, how much better could a metal-aspected hammer be for forging?

He checked the anvil and found it too had a metal aspect. While it might be thought metal-aspected steel would be common, Caleb had never seen any before. A object’s aspect was governed by its environment. Ore in an area with a lot of—well—cold was more likely to be cold-aspected. If he had to guess, metal-aspected ore came from deep within veins. Deep enough that only metal surrounded it.

Caleb didn’t know what imparted the aspects, but something told him it had to do with essence. There were many things he was taught in his craft that people knew to be true because their tests were repeatable, yet the mechanisms behind them were mysteries. Already with his new senses he was getting a glimpse within the steel and seeing the truth. Essence was a pillar of reality he’d been wholly unaware existed. His brain kept trying to fit it in his worldview, to fill gaps that had always nagged at him.

He pushed the thoughts aside.

“I need a weapon, and a helmet,” he said to Bog, who’d regained interest in the process after his last snack.

Caleb held the pot up to Bog.

“This is most of the way to a helmet, and it being soft won’t matter too much.”

Next he showed him the pickaxe.

“There’s enough metal here for a sword, but it’s too soft for that, and I don’t have the time or energy to make something that involved. It should make a decent spear, however. A spear would have made fighting that cloaker much easier.”

Bog watched Caleb work. He cleaned the surface of the pickaxe, removing all the dirt and rust that coated it. Eyes unfocused, he relied on his affinity sense to tell him where material needed to be ground off.

Once satisfied he’d cleaned it sufficiently, he threw it into the coals to heat it. He paused to sense the heating metal, but its properties weren’t so clear without contact. Only half the pickaxe was in the forge, so he touched the tip sticking out, sending his mind into the object. He watched the heat slowly build and saw how the structures within the metal started to loosen.

Caleb moved to cleaning the pot next. This took more effort, as he couldn’t clean the inside with the grinding wheel. It took a lot of time before he was content in the metal’s condition. He placed it into the forge as well and then pulled the pickaxe out of the coals with tongs, inspecting its color.

“It’s not hot enough,” he told Bog, who was enraptured by Caleb’s work.

The little dragon rarely sat still for anything other than a nap or a metallic treat, and when he enjoyed both those things, he was a twitchy mess. But as soon as Caleb had begun working the metal, he’d been fixated.

Through the tongs, Caleb could sense that the packed grains within the steel were starting to loosen but hadn’t gotten to where they needed to be. He only knew they weren’t ready by the color, as usual, but he was eager to see what steel ready to hammer looked like in his new sensorium.

Caleb looked for the bellows to add heat, but then smiled, realizing he could do better. He closed his eyes, sensing the wind. He could feel the current of the fire pulling the hot air up through the tuyere, but when the wind entered the coals, it disappeared to his senses. It appeared fire was not wind, even if it contained moving air.

His awareness picked up near the flue, feeling the burning air flowing up and away. Now that the chimney had airflow within, he could sense its pathway up to the range of his perception. It began as a smooth shaft, but then entered a narrow wide cavern stretching maybe thirty centimeters high and wide beyond his ability to sense. The cross breeze within suggested it extended far, but it wouldn’t be a way out for him and Bog.

Caleb grasped onto those sensations of a breeze, and he pushed them with his mind, like a child hitting a rolling hoop with a stick to give it speed. The draft surged, and the coals glowed white-hot as the fire surged, radiating a comforting yet scalding heat at Caleb’s face.

Bog let out a grumph of approval, and then the flame surged even more. The dragon joined in, puffing into the forge, making the wind blow.

“Too much!” Caleb shouted, jumping back from the heat.

Ding!

Imperium Ventorum has increased to level 4.

The flames died immediately as both dragon and rider stopped feeding them air, and Bog sent shame through the bond as he whimpered apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Caleb reassured him. “You can burn it if it gets too hot.”

Bog knew the word “burn” or at least the sense Caleb sent with it through their bond, and looked at him skeptically.

“Blowing air in like that isn’t really burning, but we just call it that. It ruins the steel and I can’t fix it here.”

At the mention of ruining steel, Bog’s eye grew wide and he sent more apology.

“It’s fine,” Caleb said, taking the pickaxe out, showing it had reached the perfect color.

Through his affinity, he sensed the grains widen and flow. Even without the color, he’d have known this was the time to hammer. He brought the piece over to the anvil. The pickaxe head was around eighty centimeters long, far too long for a spearhead, so he rested it on the anvil and reached for a chisel to cut the metal in half.

With each strike of the hammer on the chisel, he sensed the cut deepen through his connection to the steel. He practiced with his Metal Affinity, using it experimentally to hold the pickaxe in place instead of securing it through other means. When the head split, both pieces remained perfectly in place as if they’d been sitting on a table, not hanging precariously off the end of an anvil.

He let the cool side drop, finding it much harder to support the same weight of metal when it was suddenly two pieces. Then he got to work hammering the steel into shape. He began by flattening the steel with repeated blows of his hammer, reveling in the new experiences within the familiar task.

Through the tongs, he senses the ripple of each of his hammer blows. Flaws present in the metal from its first forging were clear to him, and he rotated the metal, pounding and reheating until he was convinced they’d been sealed. He experimented with his affinity, attempting to push these imperfections together. The effort drained tens of mana in an instant, but then he found that he could do it on the smallest imperfections, only it was not worth the cost.

As he hammered, flattening the pickaxe into the leaf shape of a spear, he played with his Imperium Metallorum for shaping. After his semisuccessful welding test, he moved on, using his affinity to move the steel itself. He placed his hand near the end to reduce the effect of distance and willed the steel to stretch.

The effects were far from impressive. It was as if he’d just pressed the metal with his hammer without swinging, and all he had to show for it was a depleted mana pool.

“That was dumb,” he said to Bog, who was still enraptured by the forging. “I need to take advantage of leverage and gravity.”

Next, he tried using his Imperium Metallorum to accelerate his hammer strikes. The results here were far better than the first attempt’s, but they came with an odd sensation. The skill’s pull on the hammer outstripped his muscles’ ability to propel the tool, and the strikes were wild and inaccurate. Through trial and error, he worked out a system where he swung his hammer as usual, only using his magic to add power to the strike at the end.

Caleb lost himself in the rhythm of the work and his experimentation until a thought pulled him out of his flow.

“Mana.”

He stopped hammering and focused on the metal with his magical perception. He saw the mana on the surface of the hammer, and through his affinity sensed the mana within.

It was awful.

“What have I done?!” he asked Bog, stricken by the utter mess of mana within his otherwise aesthetically pleasing spearhead.

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