Chapter 26：Strengthened Equipment (2)

Inside the grinding tool of the long sword sat a sword's blade without its handle. The sword's blade was covered in a very light green colored thin layer of material that looked like a tree resin. It perfectly wrapped around the entire body of the sword, emitting a light blue brilliance. It also had stars that shone vaguely in the glow.

Sean had removed the hilt and the edge of the Charles' Sword, leaving only its body.

Sean carefully cut an opening on the thin layer of material and slowly poured the Rock Elixir into the opening. Suddenly, the light green layer seemed to have been stirred by something, and bumps appeared all over the thin layer that was stuck to the body of the sword. It was as if the layer was about the burst. If ordinary people had seen the scene, they would have stopped pouring. However, Sean did not stop. On the contrary, he began to pour the liquid in a lot faster.

Sean could see that a spectrum map had appeared on the sword. It was green on the left side and yellow on the right side. There was also a red pointer on the white section in the middle of the spectrum map. If the spectrum map was divided into 10 parts, then the leftmost two parts were green and the rightmost two parts were yellow. The middle 5 parts were white, and the rest of the spectrum map was black. It was symmetrical, other than the fact that the outside stripes were yellow and green.

If the strengthened magic could keep the pointer on the white area in the middle, then it was possible to successfully maintain the strengthened effect. But if the pointer was moved to the far left or the far right, then it meant that the compound failure could only retain one of the effects. If the pointer moved to the black area, then it meant that the strengthened effect had failed.

Therefore, even if the thin layer of material on the body of the sword fluctuated weirdly, Sean did not need to pay any attention to it, as long as the pointer did not deviate.

Sean's hands were very stable. They did not tremble at all. The yellowish liquid that was poured out of the bottle had reached a surprising degree. The liquid became a long light yellow thread. It looked vaguely like a silk thread, delicate and fine. All the liquid had flowed through that opening on the thin material without any splashes. Interestingly, the thread did not become thicker or thinner because of the gradual decrease of the liquid from the bottle.

Sean had been keeping an eye on the changes in the spectrum map. Although he had not forged a piece of equipment in a long time, the basic steps had become instinctual for Sean, and he could act without thinking too much about it. All he had to do was to recall a little bit of what to do and then he could clearly remember everything.

Soon, all the liquid was poured out from the bottle. Not a single drop was left.

Sean glanced at the spectrum map and saw that the pointer was still in the white section. After rubbing his sore right shoulder, he could not help but laugh. Back then in the game, when he tried the Strengthening of Six Elemental Compounds for the first time, it had been a lot more difficult. Additionally, he had never been as nervous as now either.

He shook his head to get rid of the tiredness. Sean knew that the color of his face was very pale without having to look in the mirror. There was no difference between using life skills and combat skills. Of course, as a blacksmith, energy and physical strength was consumed. If a person did not have enough energy and physical strength, then it would be impossible to use all the life skills. In other words, it would have been impossible to see the spectrum map, and it would have even had an impact on other aspects to a certain extent.

Sean glanced at the other side of the furnace. The roaring flame in the iron bucket was not very small. He operated the mechanical arm to move the bucket in front of him. Sean looked and noticed that the ore inside had been melted into liquid iron. However, the effect of the Burning Elixir was still in play. It was not a hindrance to strengthening the weapon, so he took out another bottle of alchemy elixir with a dark blue liquid inside. When he opened the bottle, light fog emerged.

Fire Extinguishing Elixir.

It was a very strange alchemy potion. Its only function was to make the effect of the Burning Elixir disappear. It was not able to even put out ordinary flames.

Originally, after this step, purification could be carried out. The blacksmith shop had the necessary purification tools to carry out that step. However, it was a very physical and time-consuming task. Sean would not do such a thing right now since he was exhausted from before. He took out another elixir that he had already prepared and poured it into a slightly smaller iron bucket. Soon, a layer of clear and transparent liquid formed inside the bucket.

The purification elixir was one of the most commonly used alchemy potions by blacksmiths. It was a bit expensive, so it was often avoided if it was not needed. Normally, such a luxurious thing would not be used when forging a piece of ordinary equipment. It would only be used to speed up the forging process of magical equipment. If Sean was not in a hurry, then he would not have used a purification potion, as it was an expensive potion that had cost one gold coin!

When the flame of the Burning Elixir in the iron bucket was completely extinguished, Sean poured all the liquid iron that was inside the bucket into the smaller iron bucket that was filled with a layer of purification elixir. The color of the originally yellow liquid iron turned lighter the moment it entered the bucket. However, it seemed to have become more solid, and the layer of purification elixir, which was originally very thin, became a few centimeters thicker. Also, many tiny black particles formed, and the colors were now even more mixed.

Sean reached out and took out the layer of spotted liquid. He then threw it into the furnace to burn. He did not want to leave any evidence in the room. Afterward, he reached out once again to smooth the cracks on the body of the sword. Its appearance was no longer visible within the light green thin layer of material, as only something light yellow was visible. Using the mechanical arm, Sean repeated his actions when he poured the Rock Elixir by cautiously and carefully pouring all the purified liquid iron into the grinding tool of the sword's body so that the liquid iron and the thin layer of material could be completely integrated.

The spectrum map that appeared in front of Sean was no longer green and yellow. It was still shaped like a ruler but the ends were blue and the middle was red. The originally white area in the middle became green. There was no fourth color. Currently, the pointer on the spectrum map was floating in the red area, and getting closer to the middle. Whenever the pointer was about to reach the middle of the red area, Sean stopped working and waited until the pointer went back down a little bit before continuing to pour the liquid iron into the grinding tool.

Within the spectrum map, red represented high temperature, blue represented low temperature, and green represented perfection. When the liquid iron was poured out, there would be a countdown. That step could be omitted and ignored when forging casting weapons. However, that was not the case when forging magical equipment. The pointer had to be lowered to the green area before the countdown ended. Otherwise, two possible situations could arise from having the pointer in the wrong area.

If the pointer stopped in the red area, it would affect the performance of the weapon. In the game, some players had forged strengthened silver weapons with attributes that were worse than a bronze weapon of medium effect. If the cooling period went too far and the pointer ended up in the blue area, then the durability and quality of the weapon would be greatly reduced. That would result in the weapon becoming more fragile. It was even possible for the weapon to break if it encountered weapons of better quality.

Although those failures were the ones that occurred in the game, Sean did not want to test what the result would be in the real world.

Sean glanced at the countdown, and then gently took out the Cooling Spray Elixir he had prepared a long time ago and began to spray at the liquid iron inside the grinding tool. Using this spray required a lot of skill. Over time, the pointer on the spectrum map would gradually drop. If the Cooling Spray Elixir was used too early, then once the countdown ended, the pointer would fall near the blue area. It would have an impact on the equipment, though Sean was not sure what it would be specifically.

That step was the second of the two risks that had to be faced when forging a piece of magical equipment. The more advanced the magical equipment was, the smaller the green area would be. The green area of gold-level magical equipment with a special effect was a small line of less than one millimeter across. That meant that forging fancy equipment required an extremely accurate judgment and mastery before it was possible to achieve a degree of perfection. When Sean was in the game, he had forged a few pieces of gold-level magical equipment with special effects. However, only one of them had reached the standard of perfection.

Of course, if it had only been that step, then it would not have been difficult for Sean, as he could have easily judged where the pointer would have fallen and used the Cooling Spray Elixir to let it stay within the green area.

The two most dangerous stages for many people were nothing to Sean. At the very least, nothing would trouble Sean before unless the weapon was at a gold level.

He turned the grinding tool over, poured out the long sword inside, then clamped it with the pliers. He picked up a medium-sized hammer and brought it down hard against the body of the sword.

Ding!

The hammer fell at the top of the sword's body. A light green halo was emitted from the place the hammer fell. A rich wind-based and earth-based force instantly spread in the air. The place where the hammer fell was a lot flatter, as was expected.

After that, there was a series of hammering sounds. Sean had used the medium-sized hammer to hit the entire body of the sword. He hammered exactly 18 times, exactly in the 18 green spots marked by the spectrum map. Every hit turned the green spots red. After 18 hits, the spectrum map on the sword had completely turned red. There were no other colors.

After that step, the strengthening of the Charles' Sword was pretty much completed. Sean clamped the sword's body with pliers and placed it in the water trough. A layer of white fog suddenly spewed out. Then, the elemental force that was in the air began to crazily pour into the sword's body, as if it had been attracted by something. After a few seconds, the elemental force that once remained in the room had disappeared without a trace.

Because the purification elixir was used, the sword no longer had to be repetitively hammered and hardened to remove the impurities. It could be regarded as having been forged in one session. After that step was completed, Sean reinserted the hilt and the edge back onto the sword. The long sword once again emitted a blue brilliance, but this time, it was more dazzling. It even had a bit of green and yellow within the brilliance.

[Charles' Sword (sealed), magical with weak effect (bronze). Hardness? Sharpness? Impale?]

[Material Description: This is the sword given to General Charles by King Erdos III of the Serian Kingdom on the eve of the Northern Battle. The sword has followed General Charles his entire life and was once regarded as a symbol of honor for General Charles' family. However, it was later lost because of an internal fight between General Charles' family members over who had the right to inherit this sword. Now, even if you are lucky to have this sword, it no longer had the same reputation as before, as it had lost a lot of its magical powers.]

"Now, I just have to sharpen its edges and the data will be displayed." Sean held the sword in his hand. It seemed to have gained a little bit of weight. Sean was suddenly looking forward to seeing the data because it was his first attempt at forging since he had arrived in that world. From the results thus far, it seemed to have worked out well.

With that in mind, Sean walked to the only sharpening tool in the smelting room. He could not wait to see how the attributes of the weapon would turn out.