While the bathwater melted, Caleb cleaned up his spearhead, sharpening it and fastening it to a thick wooden pole heâd found in the pile of timbers. Once it was completed, the spear description remained unchanged save for losing the (incomplete) note.
Then, with the water still not ready, he took another pot and got to work forging it into a helmet. The pot was far larger than his head, so after heating the piece, he cut out sections, folded the seams together so they overlapped slightly, and hammered the seams to create welds. He did this multiple times, shaping the helmet as he went to contour to his head and using his Imperium Metallorum liberally to fold the hot, thin metal far more accurately and nimbly than he could with two crude tongs. As he worked, he forced the mana out of the metal to prepare it for his strength enchantment.
Halfway through the process he reached for more flux, meaning to sprinkle it on a weld, only to find the container empty.
âCraters,â he groaned, quickly looking through the forge for more and coming up empty.
Suddenly, all his plans for walking out of the cave clad head to toe in enchanted armor fell away like dust. Without the material to protect his metal from the air as he worked it, the surface would develop scale that would weaken the welds. He could still craft, but anything he made would be full of flawsâflaws heâd be hyperaware of due to his magical sense. He doubted very much heâd be able to enchant armor that wasnât at least halfway decent.
Thinking of his magic, he took a moment to reconsider.
I just moved metal with my mind, what else can I do?
He continued with his welding, hammering the metal together, ignoring the mana momentarily as he focused all his acuity-powered Magical Perception on the metal. Across the surface of his steel, he sensed something entering, changing it to something not quite metal, though he could still detect it with his affinity.
On and on he continued, trying different techniques on the steel before even attempting another weld, brushing off the scale as it built up, only to watch it reappear. With considerable effort, Caleb found he could prevent the scale from forming in a small area by focusing on the surface and willing it to remain inert and unmoving. But when he tried applying this to a weld, the effort he exerted to hold the metal in place prevented it from welding together. On top of that, the concentration made it impossible for him to use any of the other magical smithing techniques that had so quickly become indispensable to him.
He took a step back, and looked at Bog relaxing in the fire.
âWhatâs making the material change?â he asked himself.
Bog snorted in his sleep, sending a blast of air into the coals, and sending up dust and ashes that the flue pulled into it.
âThe air?â he asked.
Something is getting added to the steel, and the air is all thatâs there.
He went back to his work, splitting his focus between both affinity senses. As he worked, notifications appeared, but as usual he ignored them. The pings meant he was doing something right, and that meant he had better keep at it.
The effort of splitting his attention hurt his brain, so he instead repeated his processes with one sense active and then the other. While his Wind Affinity only let him sense the movement of air, with his newly enhanced Magical Perception, he was finding that even still air was full of movement. Around the surface of his hot steel, the air flowed, heated by the metal and then rising up as cooler air took its place. When this air touched the surface, a very, very, very tiny amount of the air disappeared from his perception.
Switching to his Metal Affinity, he saw this from the other side. As the scale formed, something was added to the steel, making it less vibrant on his senses. But even with his dimmer view of the material, he could tell there was more there than there had been.
The metal is taking something out of the air⦠but what?
Much like Calebâs Metal Affinity had shown him the deep inner workings of the material heâd spent his life working, his Wind Affinity did the same for the air heâd spent his life breathing. The difference was, heâd learned a lot about metals and their properties through his apprenticeship, while air was just sort of there.
You didnât think about it.
His Metal Affinity had overwhelmed him with the complexity of the steelâs make-up, but heâd been able to eventually identify everything his new senses showed him. The air around Caleb had the same level of nuance and depth, but it was all foreign to him.
He took a step back mentally, and thought about what he knew of air.
âIt changes⦠somehow. You canât hold your breath indefinitely, and when you exhale, something about what comes out is different. Fire needs it to burn as wellâ¦â
Caleb focused on the air in the room, trying to get a feel for what made it up, and took a deep breath. Once within himself, he lost all perception of the air, but he held his breath in as long as he could bear. When the burning in his lungs was too great, he slowly exhaled, examining the properties of the air as it left his mouth.
It felt noticeably different. While before there were two major types of air within the breath, three-quarters were of one variety, a fifth of it a second variety, and the remaining bits were too chaotic and varied for Caleb to sense. After he exhaled, the first type remained unchanged while the second was nearly completely gone, replaced with an equal amount of one of the insignificant types from before.
The type that had vanished was the same type that heâd seen disappear when it hit the hot steel.
Caleb played with his Imperium Ventorum, spinning the wind around him. As it spun, he tried separating it into its component parts, pushing the scale-causing air to the outside while leaving the inert air in the middle, drawing on his experience creating the mana vacuum to suck the mana out of the metal. Slowly he pushed with his mind, sorting it out, and each ping that appeared in his system awareness came with a slight lessening of the burden on his mind.
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His breathing grew heavy as the work got harder and harder. He pushed through it, focused on his task, until the world went black and he collapsed to the ground.
***
Caleb woke to an uncomfortably hot yet not scalding tongue licking his face.
âStop that,â he said, weakly pushing Bogâs head away. âWhat happened?â he asked, looking around the forge.
Bog gave the dragon equivalent of a shrug, sending his uncertainty to Caleb through the bond.
Once on his feet, Caleb took in his surroundings and saw the cooled, half-formed helmet sitting on the anvil where heâd left it.
âOhâ¦â he said, the memory coming back to him. âI probably shouldnât have gotten rid of all the parts of the air I needed to breathe.â
Despite the potentially fatal error, Caleb grew excited. It worked. Heâd been able to separate the rust-causing aspect of the air, the proof being that he had run out of it himself.
Caleb relit the forge and went right back to his practice. His stomach rumbled and he ignored it. Bog watched him work for only a short time before he realized that he was only playing with the air and not forging steel. The dragonling occupied himself by eating the last of the cloaker theyâd stored in a pile of ice just outside their room.
This time Caleb focused his efforts more, spinning the wind around him only up to the height of the anvil. He spun the air, and slowly, once more, the disparate parts began to separate under the force of his will, the corrosive and life-giving portion moving to the outside.
As the air spun, the forge heated, the wind stoking the flames to great heat, greatly shortening the time it took for the coals to catch. At first the flames of the forge were pushed away under the force of the wind, but as Caleb workedâunnoticed by him in his focusâthe flames began to flare bright and white, reaching out for the spinning air.
WOOSH BOOM!
Suddenly the world around Caleb lit into flames as the outer ring of air spinning around him erupted.
The heat was intense, and the shock of it sent Caleb to the ground. Bog ran over to him, checking that he was okay.
âIâm okay,â Caleb said to Bog, but he remained on the ground.
His face had been scorched badly, but thankfully his hair hadnât caught fire.
What was that? he asked himself puzzling it out. The part of the air that we breathe causes scale to firm, and apparently is highly explosive when concentrated.
That seemed very valuable information to have.
He went to the small mirror heâd found amongst the miscellaneous items in the cave, and checked his face. It wasnât as bad as heâd feared, though a week ago heâd have been worried about infection and scars, but his recent experience with the healing relieved most of his concerns.
Caleb tied a cloth around his face to keep the inevitable sweat from his eyes as he got back to work, vowing to properly take care of the wound when heâd finished his task.
The wind spun around Caleb as he focused on keeping the vortex tight around himself. In contrast with his Imperium Metallorum, his ability to control the wind was less affected by distance. The difficulty came in nuance. Slowing the wind and forming a tight rotation were much harder than sending a powerful blast of air away from him. While the former was harder, it took less mana. The complexity of the mana-shaping techniques required to control was detached from the mana cost itself. He could use all his mana to create a simple yet powerful blast of wind, while the efforts to separate the wind took hardly any.
The notifications kept coming as Caleb worked. Soon he was able to create a tight ring of air devoid of the scaling aspect, and this allowed him to work at the anvil without causing explosions at the forge. The forge still burned bright at his wind, the flames licking up the explosive outer region of his vortex occasionally, but no massive explosion occurred again. Happy heâd succeeded, he started to move back to his forging, almost having forgotten the purpose of his task.
âCraters,â he cried over the roar of wind.
He couldnât walk to the forge without igniting the air, and the forge took some time and effort to get going. Instead, he reached out with his Imperium Metallorum. Just the day before, heâd have been completely unable to use both abilities at the same time. Now it was a struggle, but he was able toâif he closed his eyes and shut out all other stimuliâslowly draw the helmet out of the forge, guiding it through the swirling wind to his anvil.
Once it was there, he grabbed it with tongs, forgoing all his newly learned Imperium Metallorum-enhanced smithing techniques to keep his focus on the wind. He worked at it tirelessly, cutting, pinching, hammering, heating, all the while keeping the vortex up around him. His metal sense told him it was working, and his welds were joining free of flaws. After the helmet had been forged into the right shapeâa simple barbute with a T-shaped face openingâhe relinquished his control of the wind, and went back to hammering the mana out of the metal and replacing it with the enchantment strands of the hammer.
The mana work went faster due to his unread skill increases, and the skill of experience that couldnât be quantified by the systemâor so Caleb believed.
The final strike of the hammer was rather anticlimactic after all heâd gone through, and the ring of the hammer echoed in the silence of the cavern. Bog perked up at the cessation of Calebâs frenzy, moving in to inspect the work.
Journeyman Cold Steel Barbute of Strength (+3) (uncommon)
Armor type: Helmet
Material: Steel
Aspect: Cold (minor)
Effects: Slightly increase resistance to cold-aspected attacks.
Strength (+3)
Caleb looked at the stats, disappointed at first before chastising himself.
Heâd expected to better his +3 to strength on only his second time.
âMaybe I do have a big head,â he said, thinking of something Kelia had often said to him when he spoke of his smithing.
A line of the stat screen caught his attention, and he did a double take despite the fact the screen moved with his vision and moving his head wasnât necessary.
âCold resistance?â
He sent his senses into the helm, and found the cold aspect, pure and unmuddied by any other. Free of the mess of ambient mana that had been inadvertently hammered into the pot by its maker, the aspect resonated with the steel, granting it power.
âWhy is this cold-aspected?â he asked, looking at Bog.
To the dragonâs credit, he touched the helmet with his nose. Then he licked his lips. Caleb sensed his strong desire to eat the magical helm, and pulled it away with a stern look.
Bogâs eyes turned to the hammer on Calebâs belt with slightly less avarice.
âStop that,â he told Bog playfully. âIâll make you some enchanted billets to eat later, but for now I need this to not die.â
Caleb reached for the hammer, and realized why this helmet had been different from the spear. The hammer was forged of cold-aspected steel as well, meaning that his blows hadnât corrupted the helm.
âThatâs a discovery for later,â Caleb noted.
He had a barrel of melted ice and a load of system messages waiting for him, and then he needed to go hunt for more food.
As he opened his notifications, he had a feeling this time would go much smoother.
Mana Manipulation has increased to level 14.
â¦
Mana Manipulation has increased to level 19.
Imperium Ventorum has increased to level 7.
â¦
Imperium Ventorum has increased to level 10.
Magical Perception has increased to level 4.
â¦
Magical Perception has increased to level 6.
Imperium Metallorum has increased to level 10.