Chapter 259: Armed

Tristan returned to Caerleon City and went through the streets, making his way to the newly made workshop to check on it. Passing the dozens of stalls and stores offering their goods vigorously to the pedestrians, he eventually arrived at his destination.

The workshop was built and located on the corner of the town, in a newly structured complex situated near the market.

He could see the workshop about the size of an inn, with a dozen people already working hard on making ordered weapons and armor for the orcs.

Inquiring about their progress, Tristan found out that they had been making the weapons and armors since the workshop was completely built, which was last week. And so far, these dozen human blacksmiths had managed to make 300 sets of complete armor and weapons to go along with it.

Even so, Tristan was still concerned about the situation. Not only was the speed of production very slow, the quality of the end product was also not satisfactory in which they barely passed the standard of tier 1 equipment.

He knew and had first hand experience on how important quality is, based on the fact he could easily wreak havoc on a whole squadron of barbarian warriors who were wearing equipment with such level of quality.

As much as he wanted the orcs to be ready as soon as possible, he also didn't want them to die a foolish death because of their lack of equipment.

Therefore, this was definitely a problem that needed to be taken care of immediately.

With time at the essence and him not having other things to do for the next two weeks, Tristan decided to join and help out the workshop. The moment they heard what he planned to do, the few blacksmiths on the scene were very surprised and dumbfounded to see the mayor himself, an elf, join in such a messy kind of work.

Tristan swiftly took off his outer wear and summoned all the dozen blacksmiths before him. Moments later, he began managing the production as efficiently as possible and with the highest possible quality on the end product.

The 12 blacksmiths were used to do the work one set at a time as they mostly got paid per set. The process of successfully making a set of equipment was a whole strenuous and tedious work, from the steel heating to the tempering until the pounding that shaped the metal. 

Most of them could only make 3 sets a day, while the experienced ones could make 4 sets, which meant about 40 sets of equipment produced per day.

Fortunately, or unfortunately for this bunch of blacksmiths, Tristan had gone through and experienced directly forced and extended labor in his 4 years special study. These people would soon bore a witness to it, after he divided the work tasks he needed them to do.

Tristan decided he would completely take over the heating and tempering process, so that only left the blacksmiths with the pounding and shaping process. Not only would this make the process much quicker, he was also confident that the quality of the metal would increase because of his technique.

With this in mind, Tristan immediately threw the steel ingots into the forge and used his [Heat Touch] to significantly amplify the furnace flames. Next with Katra, he kept his attention to the ingots and it would allow him to know when they were already at their most optimal form to be tempered.

The moment the ingots hit that apex, Tristan immediately took them out and started the tempering process by pounding the ingots with controlled strength and interval. He watched as the ingots bent and compressed under the pressure applied by the hammer in his hand before being cooled down.

In the end, the scorching blocks of ingot turned into high-quality steel sheets.

He then gave these sheets to the dozen blacksmiths, allowing them to start shaping them into the armor and weapon. With this kind of method, not only did Tristan manage to speed up the work by twice its normal speed, all the end product also managed to reach the standard of high grade tier 1 equipment.

Even though his result was extraordinary in the eyes of the blacksmiths, Tristan was still unsatisfied. He stubbornly wrecked his brain in the endeavor of finding a more efficient method, and by a stroke of chance, he thought of a creative approach.

[Blood Synthesis]

Tristan created a detailed, high-quality mold with [Blood Synthesis] in order to make these blacksmiths easier to follow the shape for each of the equipment. He created the molds for all the parts: helmet, breastplate, gloves, boots, blade, and so on.

He even decided to have some fun and made the mold of a weapon he thought of, a flat blade with a hook which looked like a bottle opener at its end. With this kind of configuration, the blade could slash and pierce its target at the same time.

With Tristan's ready-made molds, production began to double their previous pace again, which should have allowed them to produce 160 sets of equipment in a day. With this number, they could certainly fill the target of 3000 sets after 2 weeks. Therefore, Tristan worked really hard on this.

One day passed, two days, and then three days.

The news of Caerleon City's mayor working on the blacksmith workshop gradually circulated around the streets until it became known to all of its residents. As a result, the area outside the workshop began to be filled with spectators who wanted to see the mayor firsthand.

Once again, the citizens of Caerleon saw another different side of their mayor. He wasn't just a ruler, he was also a hard worker just like them. A diligent one at that.

Oblivious to all of this, Tristan who was busy with his work didn't know that his popularity among the population increased drastically as he spent time on the workshop.

"Do you see how different our current mayor is compared to the last one?"

"Yeah! This one is definitely multi-talented!"

"He is! Not only is he capable, he's also very hardworking!"

"That's right! Do you all know that he worked this hard to clean up the orc threat once and for all?"

"Really? Is that even possible?"

"What?! You mean the mayor is doing this for the city, no, for us?"

"Our mayor is so great!"

"I totally agree with you. He's so handsome too. Did you see those sweats falling from his body? Those muscles…"

…

On the fourth day, more blacksmiths came to join the workshop, and as a result, the production speed of the equipment increased again. This evidently a joyous matter as it allowed Tristan's plan to go smoothly.

In the meantime, Tristan was drawn into the art. From the heating, sensing the ingots, and pounding them into steel sheets. Without realizing, he and the blacksmiths managed to finish the target of 3000 complete sets of equipment on the tenth day.

On the tenth day, it wasn't just the blacksmiths who were cheering. Many citizens of Caerleon came to the workshop to congratulate them on the success.

Uriel and Serene, who were on the scene, couldn't believe their eyes on what was happening.

They couldn't believe the fact that the morale of the town had become so much different than when they first came. It had gone into a seemingly brighter direction.

On the other hand, Tristan who had been working nonstop finally felt a little tired. It seemed the exhaustion had caught up to him when the target was achieved. Therefore, after nodding to the citizens for their congratulations. he immediately went to his room in the City Hall to rest.

As his body landed on the bed, Narra the dragon swooped down next to him and said, 'Congratulations, master. It seems the work you just did has helped strengthen your soul."

Upon hearing this, Tristan who wanted to rest decided to sit and concentrate his mind, entering the Heart of Monarch domain.

Moments later, he found himself arriving at the familiar blood lake. He quickly entered the building and checked on the stairs that were sealed by chains. 

As soon as his finger touched the chains, Tristan immediately saw a message came into his mind.

[Soul Force 2/10]

Seeing this number, Tristan grinned widely. He thought he could only increase his soul by absorbing high-rank magicians, just like what he did to Janus. But from this, it was apparent that the soul force worked the same as his Katra.

Currently, Tristan has reached the 4th stage of Katra. From this, he could deduce that he only needed 8 additional points to reach stage 5 and be able to break the next seal of the next memory fragment.

It looked like his future endeavors would be filled with blacksmithing. He really should visit those dwarf mountains for this. Well, maybe he would after he was done with the orcs,