Chapter 107: Basic Sword Forging Part 1

Elder Marth felt as though he had no purpose after he worked hard to increase his strength and earn money in order to provide his family with a better life. He felt empty and as though after everything he had been through and accomplished in order to please others, he had forgotten about pleasing himself.

However that all changed after seeing a blacksmith in action for the first time.

He fell in love with the process of Weapon Forging, that used all his talents and gave him a new purpose.

Since then, Elder Marth had been practising and learning more about weapon forgery and after 17 years, even though his cultivation level hadn't improved by much, he had become very famous and valuable to Akegria Academy.

His sharp senses, control and perceptivity matched with his freakish strength and high External Cultivation made him the perfect blacksmith and he was made an elder of the academy and was given his own large building to forge weapons, and the resources that he needed to do so.

In return, he would give the academy weapons to sell in the Trading Hall and it was a win-win for him and the academy. He would provide the academy weapons and strengthening their students, while he was also given the space and resources needed to experiment, practise and do the thing that he loved.

"Time to see what you're capable of," said Elder Marth as he walked into the back of his building where the weapon forge was.

At the front of his building, there were a few weapon racks and a small open area with a chair and table, and was where he could sit and sell weapons when he wanted to.

The back of the building was where all his materials and resources were along with the furnace and everything else he used to forge the weapons.

The second floor of the building given to him by the academy was his living quarters and it was a large building that was designed and built exactly to his liking.

Damian followed behind Elder Marth and was shocked by what he was seeing and all the different materials and resources that he was seeing around the large hall-like room that Elder Marth used for weapon forgery.

Damian could tell that, just like his mother's profession and all the other cultivation professions, weapon forgery was expensive and required a lot of time and effort to become skilled in.

However once one became skilled in one of the cultivation professions, they would become extremely wealthy and would be sought out by all organisations, families and anybody else that was inevitably looking for somebody to provide them with equipment, enhancements or medicine to help and assist them during cultivation and combat.

"First things first, I need to test how capable you are when it comes to Weapon Forging and how powerful your body is. For Alchemy you must have a Fire Soul Spirit, for Rune Scribing you need very dense Internal Energy, while for weapon forging, it requires a strong body. It is the only cultivation profession that External Cultivators excel in and is just as difficult as the others are" said Elder Marth as he took him to an anvil that was suited to Damian's height.

"Here is a manual on how to forge a basic sword and you have an hour to do so, if what you produce after the time is satisfactory, I will accept your deal. If not, I will decide what will happen next," said Elder Marth as he threw him a small book and left.

Damian caught the small book and sat down on the ground as he began reading through it.

Damian read that there were quite a few basic steps to weapon forging and all of them required great focus and exerted the body heavily.

However, he wasn't afraid or intimidated by the hard work that was needed in order to forge a weapon, and if he could learn a new profession from it and acquire a bow, he was more than willing to give it his all.

Elder Marth returned with a chair and placed the chair in the corner of the room, quite far away from Damian, as he watched his actions from a distance.

Damian knew he only had an hour, so he quickly read through the short and brief manual on how to forge a basic sword, then after 10 minutes began the process.

He first needed to choose a metal that would match the weapon that he was making and he needed to make sure that it had suitable strength, balance, flexibility, weight and hardness.

The manual was most suitable for an ordinary iron blade and Damian knew from the manual, that the quality of the blade was based more on the forging of the blade and not the material used in the forging, so he didn't choose a material that he wouldn't be able to use.

He then needed to heat up the forge that he was using and Damian wasn't sure how it worked, but he could see that it used some sort of heating rune that relied on beast cores or energy cores for energy that would be used to carry out its function.

A powerful Internal Cultivator could sustain the flame with their Internal Energy, and Damian could use his Maxwell Fire Soul Spirit for the forging process, but he was too weak to do so.

His cultivation was too low to form a flame that was hot enough for the forging process and he didn't have enough Internal Energy to sustain the flame for long enough.

Damian had only been given an hour and he knew that, although it was quite a long time, for somebody who had never forged a blade before, he would need much more time.

Knowing that, he turned up the heat of the forge to a level that was slightly higher than that of which the manual recommended for a beginner.

He knew it was a risky strategy, but without risks, there weren't rewards, and he wanted to show his worth to Elder Marth and if he learnt weapon forgery, he could use it to forge a bow of his own without needing to rely on others.

Damian only had 3 days to spend with Elder Marth, as after that he had to complete his mission and continue his training for the Inner Academy Entrance Exam, so he wanted to make the most of it.