Chapter 68: Triple casting.

[STEP 2: Annealing: This process is done by heating the sword – until it loses all magnetic attraction – and allowing it to cool very slowly.

Heating it is up is a fairly simple process, but cooling it down slowly and evenly can get more complex. You can wrap up the sword in an insulating material, as this will slow down the cooling. Or you can take the sword and bury it in the sand.]

[STEP 3: Grinding: This part involves a lot of work. Now you have achieved a uniform thickness across the length of the blade. It is at this point; you create the edge and point of the sword. You should start with big power tools. Use the 6" belt sander, start with it as it will do most of the work for you. Afterwards, you can use a 1" belt sander to file.]

The whole process was meant to take around 3-7 hours, depending on the size of your sword, but because of the enchantments on the sander, it took close to an hour.

The forge had a special cooling system because of the heat that was generated by the furnaces, but it wasn't enough because Blake was literally sweating buckets.

The heat and the highly tasking physical actions like hammering were factors, but he couldn't care less because his full attention was on the grinding process in order to give it a plain level with equal angle across the surface of the sword.

[STEP 4: Hardening: At this point, the sword is still very soft and needs to be hardened. The hardening process can be unique for the type of steel you are using, but you can employ a more general method.

So, you can proceed by heating the sword to the point of austenitization. As soon as the blade is removed from the forge, you must immediately place it into a quench tank allowing the blade to cool evenly and quickly.] At this point, Blake soon noticed that the system was giving him much more information than what was in the textbook, but remembering the All-Father was once a great forge master he felt glad.

[STEP 5: Tempering: This step is important because, after the hardening process, the steel is very brittle and can shatter or crack if used to strike an object, at this point, therefore it needs to be given some flexibility. Tempering will bring about the much-desired flexibility to your sword. This process involves heating and monitoring the color of steel.

You want the edges to be a wheat color (not too soft) and a plum color for the centerline of the sword (soft enough for soft flexibility and durability). Quench afterward and then clean with a coarse Emory paper to give it a smooth and shiny surface.] The system explained in detail.

After tempering the sword, Blake had reached the final process, which was to do more grinding that will add the final touches to the sword to make it durable, classy, visually appealing.

This step gave the sword a nice and polished look. He wanted it even shinier, so he continued with finer grinds and used a polishing wheel.

When it was polished to his heart's content, he added a handle and other designs marking the end of the process.

'Mehn! That was tiring.' Blake said as he wiped off the sweat on his face.

When he was done, he looked around to see how far others had gone, but that was when he saw professor Tacitus who had been standing by his side for over an hour.

"What?! Professor, I am done." Blake was startled but soon composed himself before someone would say 'A good forge master should always be aware of his surroundings, minus 200 points!' because he was afraid of getting his points deducted for no good reason.

'With the way, he was working with so much control and finesse, I would have mistaken him for a Blacksmith with over 50 years' experience If the school didn't have a maximum age for those admitted.' Professor Tacitus only nodded before heading to other work stations.

He had seen everything Blake had done, the heating of the metal and repeated hammering was what shocked him, it was as if Blake had a heat indicator for a pair of eyes, but he had no idea it was the workings of the system.

He wanted to ask a few questions and also inspect the sword, but he had to make sure some numbskulls didn't burn down his forge.

After 30 more minutes, professor Tacitus walked to the center of the forge and announced the end of the exercise.

"For all those complaining about insufficient time, if you take a look at Blake Wilson you would notice he was done with he's thirty minutes ago. By the way, making a sword takes a week with normal tools, but you were given enchanted tools which would drastically reduce the effort and time taken for the process, so you can only blame your incompetence for not finishing on time." Professor Tacitus snorted.

"Now, remain at your work station and I shall move round to grade your works. Remember what I said about making a mess and getting your points deducted, I wasn't joking." Professor Tacitus's evil grin sent chills down their spine.

Professor Tacitus moved around, picking up some swords and waving them in the air before assigning points, while some swords, he didn't pick them up or take a second look at them before deducting points.

"A claymore, nice thrust, and superb cutting ability. The guarding capacity great, speed is standard for a double-handed sword…" The professor said while waving Blake's sword.

He hadn't commented when he checked the work of others and from his enthusiastic tone, it was sure that he liked the sword.

"I must confess, this is a masterpiece! 400 points for making the best sword." Professor Tacitus announced.

[Although he is a monster in human skin, he is quite generous with points.] Blake couldn't help but mind nod at the system's words.

"I will be keeping this." The professor placed the good swords including that of Blake into his dimensional amulet, before saying. "Now for those who made trash in the name of a sword that wouldn't be able to slice a loaf of bread, you can keep it as a reminder of your incompetence. Class dismissed!"

'I take back your words, he is just a monster.' Blake felt a sting in his chest when the sword he had worked on for hours was taken away just like that.

'On the bright side, I got a weeks' worth of worth of work in a day.' Blake thought as he ignored the killing intent being emitted by some of the students glaring at him.

Although some of those in the class were out for his head and title as the rank 1, some didn't have a grudge against him and wanted to approach him to know how he did things, but his solo and stern personality scared them all away.

The door to the forge was finally opened and they were free to go. When those who had failed in the forging exercise saw the students outside, they stopped complaining, because they had lost nothing more than 200 points.

…

After having a long nap due to the stress that accompanied a physically tasking process like forging, Blake immediately headed to the concealed space to cultivate.

He had started off with his sword training, then the Raiju breathing technique before practicing triple casting.

He had tripled cast when he fought against the knox, but that was because his life was on the line. He tried casting lightning reinforcement, flame bursts, and injecting space mana into his sword while maintaining his breathing rhythm for the effects of the Raiju breathing technique.

It was a mammoth task that was mentally draining, causing him to fail multiple times, but that didn't mean it was impossible. Although he couldn't achieve it in one day, he didn't plan on giving up.

After training his different techniques and casting abilities, he began cultivating with the beast cores. 

By the time he was done cultivating for the day, he had filled up the 6th star and was closing in on the half mark of the 7th star. The good thing was that he had only used 2 out of the 7 beast cores and he still had an elite grade beast core in his inventory.

…

The next day was the advanced combat class and the boring history class.

What instructor Zirrack had said in the introductory class about working on their bodies, he meant it. He made them undergo hellish body workouts that made them beg for mercy, but it was not much to Blake who had to undergo 2 fusion processes.

Those who ended up fainting during the exercises had their points deducted and Blake who seamlessly performed the exercises was award 100 points boosting his total points to a little above 1000 points.