Chapter 673 Rise to the Greatest Forgemaster

Once Marcus returned home, he spent a couple of days simply relaxing with Lilia before getting nose deep into work.

The number of requests for powerful weapons and armor had increased by over four hundred percent, and when he showed up to help Thabon out the old dwarf practically cried in relief.

‘I guess what just happened really gave people a scare. Old families and even some merchants have busted out their hordes of adamantine and are asking for new weapons.’

Hammering away Marcus was currently making an adamantine glaive and a full set of plate armor for the strongest knight in service of one of the kingdom’s counts.

When he finished that order he started on a mass commission from the royal family in which they wanted armor made from adamantine and extra plating from the thunder behemoth Boreas had given to him.

‘I can still remember Thabon’s stunned expression when I pulled the beast out of my item box.’ Marcus thought while laughing just a bit.

His old master’s mouth nearly hit the floor, and when he recovered, he was so ecstatic to be able to work with such quantity of high-quality materials for the first time.

Over two weeks went by in this manner where Marcus worked nonstop, only taking fairly short breaks to let his mana recover.

He was pressed for time as he was going to be training Alaric soon, but there was something that he absolutely had to get done before then.

Then after a long day of work it finally happened..

‘My forge skill has hit level eight.’

Clenching his first and jumping up in joy Marcus felt elated for hitting his goal of getting his forge skill up to level eight which was just as high as Thabon’s.

However, he did not stop there.

‘And there goes a good chunk of my skill points, but now I have level nine.’

Seeing the number in his status Marcus could not help but having the biggest grin on his face.

He now had the highest forge skill level in the kingdom and maybe even the entire continent, when he himself was only level sixty-two.

Of course, this would have been completely impossible for most people. Marcus had a blessing which boosted his proficiency greatly, and his ability to work practically indefinitely allowed him to get more experience in a short amount of time than most. Though his biggest advantage was definitely his ability to assign his skill points and boost the skill beyond what would be normally obtainable.

‘Now let me see what the difference is.’

With the first stroke of his hammer Marcus could already feel the profound difference in his skill level which had rapidly jumped up.

He had made sure to create a few things while his skill level was still eight, and the difference between eight and seven was immense, but from eight to nine was like a completely different world.

Now it was as if he was nearly perfectly Intune with his hammer and the metal he was working on.

‘I should finish the rest of the order I was assigned before moving on. I need more practice at my new level before making what I want.’

Spending the next three days working in the forge without break, Marcus completed a half dozen adamantine weapons and three more sets of armor which completed the order by the royal family.

‘Whew that was some hard work. But it was well worth the while.’ Marcus thought as he stretched out and wiped the soot of his forehead.

‘Still the kingdom must be running pretty low on adamantine after all this. I just hope the prices do not go up too much.’

Having finished up all he wanted and needed to do at the Blazegram Forge, Marcus quickly went into his ghost form to let all the grime on him fall off and changed into a new set of clothes.

Then when he walked out of the private room he had holed himself up in for weeks, everyone was shocked to see that he looked clean and refreshed.

“Finally taking a break Irene. I have to admit that some of us were starting to get worried.” Gurrom said when he saw Marcus.

He and a number of the other forgmasters had been working in the main and largest forge on a new mobile fortress that was many times stronger than the normal model.

‘Wow they really used a load of mithril, and the most important areas are reinforced with adamantine of the armor from that thunder behemoth. I cannot imagine the amount of money this thing must have cost the kingdom to commission.’ Marcus thought seeing the impressive weapon of war.

However, he knew that this was a necessary expense that the king was practically force to take in order to quell the nobles.

They wanted assurances that Borealia would be strong enough to defend against future attacks of similar natures, so the royal family spent pretty much all of their surplus gold into having new weapons and defenses created.

Every forge in the kingdom capable of working with mithril and adamantine were going at full steam to keep up with the demand.

‘Well, it has certainly stimulated the economy with the flood of gold. Not to mention that a good amount of it has come my way.’

While thinking about the literal mountain of gold he had earned, Marcus got distracted until Gurrom called him back to reality.

“Irene you there? I wanted to know how much more of that massive order you had left to do, and if you needed any help?”

“Thanks for the offer but I have already finished the order. I am actually on my way to show Thabon and store everything in the secure warehouse.” Marcus said with a shrug.

He then moved to go to where Thabon was, but Gurrom stopped him.

“Wait, you mean to tell me you finished all of those weapons and sets of armor already!?”

Nodding his head Marcus told Gurrom that he had been working without sleep or rest for weeks and even showed him a few of the completed pieces.

“Your talent and skills never cease to amaze me. I suppose I should not have even thought that common sense applied to you.” Gurrom said in utter shock.

At this point it was not just that Marcus was talented, he was pretty much abnormal in his abilities.

After his brief encounter with Gurrom, Marcus went to find Thabon and dropped off all of the new adamantine weapons and armor ordered by the kingdom.

“You certainly work fast as ever Irene. But that is no surprise to me now. You made forty new sets of armor and eighty new weapons in such a short amount of time. And this is only what you did for the kingdom.” Thabon said as he looked at everything Marcus had made.

He went through and examined each piece and soon made quite the discovery that perplexed him.

“Irene the quality of work seems to go up towards the end. The last dozen or so are better than the ones that came before them, and the last few are even a notch above that.” Thabon said, noticing the slight differences in Marcus’ work from when his skill levels went up.

“Oh, I managed to get my forge skill to go up from level seven to eight around here, and at the end I pushed it up to nine. I guess it made more of a difference than I thought it would.”

Thabon hearing this slowly turned his head and looked at Marcus with an overwhelmed expression.

“How is this possible? A level eight skill should be at the very cusp of your abilities, but level nine should be out of the bounds of possibility!”

Naturally Thabon was having a difficult time believing Marcus since it was generally accepted that even someone with a talent for a skill could only have it get to certain level depending on what their total level was.

For someone at around level fifty-five this meant that the best they could have was a level seven skill, and only if they had a real talent for it and had put in an extreme amount of effort.

Marcus maybe could have somehow gotten to level eight, but nine certainly should have been beyond him.

“Remember how I told you a while back about my being from another world. Well, I used my unique skill Personal Status to pump the saved skill points I have into my forge skill so that I could make the best amethros weapon possible.” Marcus said while rubbing the back of his head.

Now that he was getting grilled by Thabon he felt that he may have cheated a bit since he boosted his level in a way that few others could.

Luckily Thabon did not show any jealousy towards Marcus or try to put down his achievements, and instead wore the happiest smile Marcus had ever seen.

“That is great Irene. You have truly surpassed me now. It should always be a master’s dream to watch those he trained get better than them. I know I have not taught you anything new for some time now, but I am proud to have been the one to help you on your path.”

Thabon then opened his item box and pulled out a large cask of what was obviously very fine alcohol.

“No let us celebrate your achievement. I have been saving this liquor for a special occasion and I believe that now is the time.”