Blacksmith vs. the System

Having a trusted man in Terry to teach the others about the ascension and keep an eye on the process was a big relief. I was still near them, so I could respond if there was a problem, while simultaneously providing protection for any possible ambush.

It turned out to be a good thing. Terry's ascension took just a touch more than ten hours, which had been a significant time commitment. I had too many critical tasks on me, split across multiple categories.

As a blacksmith, I needed to reforge the critical equipment for the elites while also testing the limits of my new variant skill. As a king, I needed to go through the critical decisions, and occasionally be seen on the walls to remind everyone that I was still there, defending them. As a warrior, I still needed to defend the town at the surface, and escort my other students to the dungeon against the boss monsters; as they were yet to reach a hundred.

Yet, from my perspective, none of those tasks were as critical as my job as a researcher.

Interestingly, thanks to the rapid growth of the city, I didn't need to work on the technology aspect anymore, especially the mechanical aspects. We had enough people with experience as factory workers, mechanics, and farmers, the memories of their past more than enough for them to design similar machines; especially if they chose to develop class variants with Wisdom and Intelligence to assist their process.

But, solving the steam-based energy dependency was not something I could leave to the others. Not if I wanted it to be solved shortly to have a practical impact.

With all of them combined, it made it impossible to keep a watch over Logan. A good thing, as his ascension process had already reached its second day, with no indication of when it would end.

It looked like my guess about Terry's Mythic skill making things easier was even more relevant than I expected. Well, either that, or being a caster helped. We would have a better idea once things had reached the next step.

With Terry guarding Logan, I prioritized forging the personal equipment of the most critical personnel, not just the fighters like Jessica and Harold, but also production team members like Liam and Rebecca.

At the same time, I did some brainstorming about various methods, wondering if trying to develop a direct-mana engine was a better choice, or should I focus on developing a gunpowder variant — one that didn't risk going off prematurely the moment it was exposed to environmental mana — to give our weapon systems freedom.

But, before I could come to a decision, I was interrupted by a guest.

"Finally awake, sleepyhead," I teased Maria. I appreciated her sacrifice of pushing herself while I upgraded my skill to the next stage, but that wouldn't save her from my teasing.

"Shut up," Maria replied. "Don't talk to me about sleep. I'm still exhausted."

"Sorry about that," I responded.

She waved it off. "You have suffered far worse for me. Don't even mention it," she replied. "Let's focus on something more important. Did you finally get your class upgraded?"

"Yes. And I finally have Intelligence," I responded.

"Perfect. Now I can finally feel proud when I defeat you in a game. C4!" she declared.

I chuckled. "Are you sure you want to do that, in an even game?" I replied.

The way she puffed her cheeks put a big smile on my face. Her next move, raising her hand to throw a fireball at me, was even more amusing. It would have splashed against my skin harmlessly, but I still ducked down. "You're talking pretty arrogant for a guy who had never won against me, even with handicaps," she goaded.

I smirked. "Well, it's your funeral."

What followed was a long, torturous chess game where I locked in defensively, forcing her to play the most frustrating game of chess, each attempt hitting another wall, one that ended up in her defeat when she had wasted her pieces in three useless gambits after her frustration hit the limit. Not the usual way I preferred to play, but after months of being tortured by her in chess, she deserved a payback.

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Her frustrated silence once I made a move that would force her to mate in nine was amusing, especially since I continued to forge in the process.

I expected her to change the topic. "Again," she asked. This time, I played faster, earning my victory after thirty moves. I had to admit, using Intelligence to play chess was weird. It was like I was using a powerful but buggy chess engine to get most of the recommendations. Still, it functioned amazingly on a tactical level as long as I kept the larger strategic picture in mind.

I expected Maria to get bored after losing a few times, but the more she lost, the more heated her moves became. "Again," she declared.

"So, are we playing best of fifteen?" I teased her.

"Shut up. It's just a fluke," she replied. From anyone else, that would have annoyed me, but it felt strangely amusing instead.

"As much as I want to play more, we have other things to talk about," I said.

"Fine, but don't think you can escape. You owe me a great deal for my sacrifice," she said.

I smirked. "I thought it wasn't a big deal, and you owed me."

"Shut up," she mumbled. "Don't be stingy. Just a few games."

"Fine, I promise," I replied. It wasn't like spending time with her was a chore. She was a part of a very small list that actually treated me as an equal in private, and even in public, it was more about protecting my authority than submission.

One of three, actually, as while Terry and others didn't treat me as a king in private, I was still their teacher rather than their friend, which put an inevitable distance. It wasn't just about their power. It was difficult to switch from teacher-student to peer.

I waved my hand, activating the protections around the room, the ones I etched.

"Wow. Eleven different isolation spells, it must be an important topic," she said, quick to recognize the effects. "That's your new skill?" she commented as she looked around. "It's good that you can enchant now —" she added, then froze as her gaze fell on the wall. "That's not an enchantment," she gasped. I passed her a dagger silently so she could examine it. "It's enchantment … but directly etched into metal."

"The skill is called Runic Forge," I said. "The simplified version is just as you say. The enchantment is not just etched into the metal. It's imbued directly during the forging."

"Like concepts from Wisdom, but with an actual spell structure," she assessed.

"Exactly."

"It's strong," she said. "Each individual rune is strong, conceptually empowered by Wisdom," she said. "I have seen similar sharpness enchantments, but they had hundreds of runes buried in the enchantment. Here, you only have six runes."

"That's where the difference comes," I said. "Conceptually empowered runes are fragile in the air, even while casting…"

"But, by affixing it to high-quality mana alloy, you don't have to worry about inherent imbalance, because the metal holds the connection," she added. "Genius." She passed for a moment. "But, why only so few runes? Wouldn't it make sense to add more runes to fully utilize your computational advantage?"

"A few reasons," I said. "For one, etching runes on metal is far more difficult. The spell matrix needs to be etched before I even begin the tempering process, which I need to reinforce whenever I fold the metal. That's challenging enough, but the runes actually interact differently with hot metal and cold one, which needs small but critical adjustments. Ideally, I need to use cold forging, but that would take even more time."

"Sounds difficult," she commented.

"It's not easy," I admitted. "Especially since I need to first temper the metal to an absurd degree, both in terms of even mana infusion, and pure material quality. In the current state of my skill, I could probably forge a sword with fifty or so runes, with interlocking enchantments, but it would take at least two days.

"Sounds wasteful," she said.

"Yes, but once again, it gets kind of complicated due to my weird situation," I admitted. "I'm trying to quickly arm an actual army alone, and abusing my mana access and my Creative Forging and Mana Manipulation perks very aggressively. If I forged in a more normal fashion, I could forge a weapon better in every category by a decent margin, probably spending only a tenth of mana in the process."

She chuckled. "Well, when you put it like that, it does sound wasteful," she said. Then, she looked around. "However, does it really require adding so many layers of an isolation spell? Were you just showing off?"

I sighed. "I wish," I admitted. "During the class upgrade, I have chosen a class called Master of the Runic Forge."

"That's amazing," she said. "A class strong enough to get a title is not something…" she started, but her voice faded halfway when she read my expression. "It's not the whole story, is it?"

"Well, no. I had a dream, where I vaguely watched everyone in the town, received a notification from the system about a domain… and my class changed."

"Just tell me," she said, her tone exasperated. "With everything you have done, I'm immune to your surprises."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, I couldn't help but smirk. "Let's see if that's the case. The changed class is King of Runic Forge, and it gave me two thousand points of Charisma." Just to highlight my point, I flexed my Charisma. Not for long, just to prove I was not lying.

She froze, slack-jawed.

"It looks like I can still surprise you, milady," I said, kneeling in front of her mockingly to drive the point home.

Silver linings.