Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The next day Falk woke Ben up and they went over their training plan before opening the store.

“Alright brat, here's how things are going to work. You clearly don’t have any experience at a forge and I doubt you have any practice at alchemy either. Each day get here an hour before the store opens and I’ll give you a bit of a rundown on how to use the forge and how to brew potions. Since I doubt you’ll be able to find a way to gather all the metals and alchemic components you’ll need by yourself I’ll sell them to you at cost for now, and If I judge the quality of your products to be good enough you can sell them in the shop, though since they're being sold in my business and I’m taking my time to teach you I’ll be taking a reasonable cut. Any questions?”

“Sounds good to me, but why alchemy? I didn’t think I saw any potions in here before?”

“Probably because you didn’t come in here to buy anything. I keep a few by the front desk at the register. Besides that you gotta learn at least a little alchemy if you want to use any monster parts in your weapons and armor. Which also means you can’t skip out on hunting, once you have potion-making down and start applying alchemy to your blacksmithing I expect you to go gather monster parts yourself.”

“Wait but I still don’t get why it’s used with blacksmithing?”

"Damn it all you really don't know anything do you? If you want to keep some of the monster's effects, be it affinities, resistances, or if you're particularly lucky a monster's properties that can enhance a given enchantment you need alchemy to preserve them. Potion making preserves and concentrates a plant's healing effects, it's the same idea. It can also make sure your products can hold their enchantments longer. Take the wooden spikes you were telling me about. If you had enchanted them a day before using them without putting any more mana into it then they were probably only half as effective. With the right materials the mana loss could be significantly slower, some materials could even manage to hold mana without any loss or slowly absorb mana from the environment. How effective you use your skills will determine how good the final product is. And..." he paused, giving a wicked grin. "How much you can sell them for."

“Alright! What are we starting with then?”

Flak pulled out his card and directed it at Ben. “We're starting with you paying for a week's worth of supplies. After that I’ll get you working on the backup forge in the back.”

Ben tapped his own card against Falks, transferring the money over to him and then went out to a back room and got to work. He was first shown how to start the forge and from there Falk gave him a basic explanation of what he would be doing.

“For today I’ll loan you some tools, but you’re going to be using them to make your own, so make sure you do your best so you can use them for a long time. Since these will be for your own use you won’t be able to sell them, but it's an important step in learning to really appreciate the materials you work with. Now quiz time, what is the most important tool for a blacksmith?”

“Would it be a hammer?” That seemed to be what he would always see them wielding in shows and movies, so it felt like a safe bet.

“That's what most people would guess, but no. What's most important, and what you’ll be making first, is a set of tongs.”

“Why tongs?” They certainly didn’t seem super important compared to what you would use to shape your items.

"Feels like it may be a bit small, but it will do for now. I guess you're a bit small yourself anyway."

"I'm plenty tall for my race, you're just huge."

“Brat I’m the runt of my family, your race is just too small.”

Well that was a terrifying thought, but with his teachers' approval for his tools Ben was given the task of making J hooks for the rest of the day to work on some of the different techniques he had learned so far.

“If I remember right your strength was only at 90 right? You also have focus?” Falk had come to check on Ben as the day was ending and prepared to send him home when he saw the small mountain of J hooks beside him.

“That's right, why?”

“No reason. Anyway I’ve got a few books for you to borrow, just some on alchemy and enchanting. I’m giving you tomorrow off so stay home and read them.”

“Sure sounds good, see you in a couple then.”

“Good luck.”

Ben wasn’t really sure what he meant by that but he grabbed the books and left the shop. Since it had been a long one he decided to turn in early and get to reading the next day.

As he slowly woke up he realised why Falk asked him those questions yesterday.

Oh god, everything hurts.

Not you Myriad. Wait actually can you do anything about this? I don’t think I can move my arms. Actually pretty sure I can’t move anything.

Uhg. The books he needed to read were left on the other side of the room. It was going to be a long day.