Chapter 17 - Craftknight

After bringing out all the materials he needed he started out with making a fire in the furnace where the steel will be forged in fire on. Gloves made of Salamander wool and was enhanced with enchantments on, he is now ready to start.

With the use of his fire magic, which is helpful for a blacksmith to have magic connected to forging, he started a fire in the furnace and threw some charcoals inside. When the fire is now big enough, he placed the ore in the fire to heat it until it is ready to be hammered.

Once it does, he pulled it out using tongs and hammered it. He made it flat but not to think nor thick, just enough while it slowly cools down.

And when it cooled down, he smashed them to pieces the size, at least, of a thumb.

Then, he pulled out a metal with paddle-like at the end where he placed and sorting the pieces of tamahagane by their carbon content as the breaking earlier was because it has high carbon content. This was a traditional forging technique of a country known as Japan.

He started stacking them on the paddle-like metal stick made of tamahagane itself. After stacking, he wrapped them in wet paper and ashes to hold them together to prevent it from falling apart and coated with clay which also helps in keeping the structure together as well as get converted into flux under very high heat.

The charcoals in the furnace are burning lightly but you can still see the fire still burns. The ashes on nearby it where the cause of the burning from when he started flattening the tamahagane.

He placed the head where the steel are right in the middle where there are still some charcoals that are still burning. After he lay it down, he placed more charcoals on top of the structure, the pieces of tamahagane put together.

It is easy to control the heat and fire if you have fire magic since a good weapon also depends on the heat controlling technique of the smith.

When the steel is ready, Silver picked it up by using hands instead as his gloves are resistant heat that was flowing through the metal stick from the hot metal at the tip after he raised the temperature at a specific height.

He first hammered it down until was enough. He started the cutting part where he will cut slightly more than halfway to the middle of the still burning hot steel and then fold it. He repeated this process until he's satisfied with how much layers it will have.

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"Where's the boy who wants to join, Hephaestus-sama?" A black haired woman with red eyes, big brėȧst with bandages wrapped around not because she's hurt, but because she's a half-dwarf with the human part being a far easterner.

"He's in the hidden forge. It's just been an hour or so since he started, Tsubaki." Hephaestus told her Captain Familia.

"Really? Did he use high quality metals like mithril?" Tsubaki asked as she knew that being able to work on a rare metals takes a lot of skills and time to craft one unless you are an Adventurer.

"He's using a Tamahagane. But the ore seems to have more impurities than normal, and he might not be able to forge a good weapon with it and will break easily." Hephaestus said with her stoic face while doing her paperworks.

"And you didn't lend him a better material to use?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I can see a potential in him." Hephaestus said with a noticable small smile.

"Hm?" Tsubaki saw that smile and she herself smiled as well, "I see..."

Forging an Iron Sword as Level 1 might take more than 16 hours of continuous forging without stopping. But if you managed to level up to Level 2, it will lessen by a lot on the same thing to forge and might roughly take 12 hours. It also depends on the smith if he's skilled or not. It's also faster if they have apprentices or partners in forging, but they might also end up crafting a weak weapon or armor if two or more Smith's forging together can't agree or can't go in sync with each other. A reasonable backfire.

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After a work full of hammering, it is now time to for the tip of the blade after the preform. Then, he started bevelling.

After a handful of hammering later, he started preparing the blade's surface for the heat treating. Then, he started placing a thin layer of clay with ground stone dust on it, then a thicker layer of clay on the spine.

After that, he started heat treating it and heated it in the forge. When it is hot enough, at the necessary heat, he quenched it in the water carefully and watch it until its form is finished as he quench it.

Then, he started polishing the blade using a whetstone that he mostly uses when he was training, when he was just an apprentice. This whetstone was not that of high quality, but it did accompany him for a few years in training.

Usually, polishing takes at least a month. But that might be because the one who polishes it is quite busy and was polishing other blades as well as they themselves deliver the polished blade or their apprentices. But for Silver, it will only take a few hours or so, give or take.

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A few hours later...

"Mou~ It's so boring waiting~!" Complained by a half-dwarf.

"Sigh~ then why wait? Surely, you have something to do." Hephaestus told Tsubaki, whose head was lying on her table, "Also, you're in the way of my paperworks."

"Fine! I'm gonna get some drinks or whatever!"

Tsubaki stood up and left the office and dressed up properly before exiting the Babel Tower to go and buy some drinks.

He started working on the habaki, a part that absorbs the shock and reduces the stress on the blade, making it tougher than western swords as the soft metal eats up the stress took by the blade.

As he hammered the small copper ingot, he also heated it and quenched it in water as, instead of getting harder like iron, it softens instead.

With the polished blade covered in paper, he started to size up the habaki so he could perfectly fit it in. He also added a machigane to make it much more fit and soldered it properly using a sterling silver as a solder. Well? Ain't that a pun?

A few hours later, Silver was now fitting in the koiguchi, or the mouth of the saya or scabbard as well as to make the size of the koiguchi and saya the same.

He already have the menuki, the ornament under the wrapping of the handle, ready. The pair of menuki were hammers. He also finished making the tsuba, or the guard, that has no holes or something but has a design on both side of the tsuba, a halo flame with a dragon head.

Inspired by the Hinokami Kagura's Solar Halo Dragon Dance.

He had yet to place a ray skin on the tsuba nor the wrapping. He knows that what he did wasn't exactly the right sequence, but that makes him of what he is and his style of forging.

After placing the habaki, seppa, tsuba, and fuchi, he next place the tsuka, the handle. After he placed the tsuka, he placed mekugi on the holes in there. The hole on the tsuka and the tang are aligned properly and fitted it in.

Then, he started adding the ray skin of a stingray that he hunted down when Kane brought him near the ocean.

He then placed in the kashira he made earlier and tied the wrapping on the kashira.

After he finished, he pulled the lever on the wall which opens the hidden door back inside Hephaestus' office. When he stepped out, his eyes met a shocked stare from a redhead and a half-dwarf. Though, the latter was happy with a teasing smirk.

"I didn't know that you're hiding such a hot young man in your hidden forge, Hephaestus-sama!" The half-dwarf told her now blushing goddess.

"W-what? No!" Hephaestus denied.

Silver spoke, "Well, I'm sure that being inside a forge will surely make you hot."

Tsubaki saw the weapon in his right hand. He is ambidextrous person, but he mostly uses his left hand more and uses his right hand mostly for chore or hammering in forging.

"Is that your weapon?" Tsubaki asked.

"No." Silver replied as he placed the katana in front of him, "This is just a newly forged katana. Its materials are made of that from cheap materials, but I don't know about the quality."

Tsubaki was about to inspect the weapon, but Hephaestus beat her to it and took the weapon to examine it.

On the spine of the blade, between the middle of the katana and the first few inches away from the habaki, there is an engraved named on it on both sides.

"Kagira?" Tsubaki was the one who read that out loud.

"..." Silver didn't spoke and just waited.

"That means... Limited...right? Though, I don't know why you spelled it like that, but who am I to interfere with others naming their forged weapons?"

"..."

"Oh? Erm..." Hephaestus noticed that Silver seems to be waiting for something and was now focused at hand.

"Ehem! You are accepted to be a part of my Familia." Hephaestus said with a little tinge of blush on her cheeks.

"Thank you, Hephaestus-sama!" Silver bowed and left the office to take some refreshments. "I'll be back after I drink some tea.

'How could I forget that he was trying to join my Familia? It's a good thing he didn't say anything. Either he is too shy to speak, or he's smart to not speak until I did...' her mind wandered to what he said earlier, 'he's a tea lover, huh?'

Silver walked around through the southwest main street, going to Cafe Wishe. But on his way, there were some idiots who bumped into him going by the name Hyakinthos Clio, Lissos, Luan Espel, and full of weak insects.

His eyes calculated their strength.

Hyakinthos Clio: 404

Lissos: 213

Luan: 101

The rest are below 100 as they seems to be all level 1.

He bumped into Hyakinthos but Silver made Hyakinthos fall on his rear. Hyakinthos stood up with an enraged visage and tried to kill Silver, only to have his sword get deflected back as if it hit a tough and immovable object. He also saw that he didn't even scratched him with his sword.

Silver stopped and turned around with a wicked smile that is equal or even much more scary than Accelerator's smile.

"Oi... Be careful which tree you bark, or you'll get swarmed by quick and powerful wasps." Silver then left after leaving a foreshadow.

Wasps and bees are known to fly while leaving buzzing sounds that seems to be coming from different direction which is a foreshadowing of Lily who will disguise as someone from their Familia while the tree is the Hestia Familia.

"Honestly, I don't like that Melon Jiggles at all. She clearly didn't trust Bell as she hid his skills as to why he grew so fast. If ever Bell finds out that they hid it to him, he might change Familia. Well, I can take care of that once I am strong enough in the AU of Nasuverse." He mumbled to himself.

After he drank some tea in Cafe Wishe, he also attracted some admirers from teens around 15 to those who are older around 30s or so. He used his precious technique, Misdirection, to get out of their sight or anyone's. As an Assassin of the Brotherhood, he needed to learn Misdirection at a certain level.

When he finally got back in Babel Tower at Hephaestus' office, he was met with a Tsubaki and Hephaestus dropping a paper on top of Kagira's blade. The paper was cleanly cut into two.

Silver pulled out a paper from his person and threw it at a wall nearby Tsubaki which the paper sliced the wall and was now stucked in there.

""What?"" Both Hephaestus and Tsubaki saw that show of power and we're astonished.

"Anything can be a weapon." Silver closed his eyes for a moment before opening his left eye as he said, "Anyway, Is should get converted."

"Who are you? No, wrong question. WHAT are you?" Hephaestus asked.

"I'm a Craftknight. A warrior and a smith who makes weapon while also trains their body to use the weapons they forges or sell them. It depends on circumstances. Earlier, it only took me about 8 hours, 21 minutes, and 43 seconds to finish Kagira." Silver said with no lies.

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[Vault of Information]

Silver has affinity for Time, thus he can exactly calculate of how much it took for something to finish or some sort of cooldown without needing to count in his head.