บท 16: Magic metals

"I can answer that." Vivian stepped forward as Boran crouched down and observed the anvil and divine mithril piece.

"Celestial metals are called so since the first cases of their discovery were from meteorites. Later on, they were also found in normal ore veins, but the name stayed."

"Basically, all metals have a celestial variant of the same type. For example, celestial iron is a variant of iron. It is also known as black steel after being processed. The difference between normal iron and celestial iron is the fact that the celestial iron can conduct mana."

"This in essence means that the metal does not hinder the flow of mana, thus, magic can be effectively used with the weapon. So, in the case where you try to use a magic skill with a normal sword made of iron, the mana would cause it to aggressively vibrate as it courses through it. Normally if the weapon is of poor quality it would just burst into pieces due to this."

"But celestial iron blades, or more often called black steel swords, would not experience this adverse effect."

"I recognized that you said it would not hinder the flow. Would materials then enhance the flow instead?" Eldrian asked.

"Yes, basically when you use a skill, it is the same as using a spell. The difference is that with spells you don't use a medium to transport it. Celestial metals are the most basic of magic metals and thus they would absorb some of the mana you sent through it. But the higher tier magic metals would instead enhance this the flow of mana by absorbing surrounding mana."

"This is why, even though mages don't need to use anything to cast spells, many prefer to use a staff or wand."

"The wand is then an enhancer right?"

"Exactly. It would enhance their spells' strength by either providing more mana to the spell or allowing better control for the mage."

'This is a lot like electricity, with mana being the thing moving through the metals instead of charge. So then the purer the metal is to a certain ideal magic metal, the easier it would flow. And after a certain stage it will even be strengthened.' Eldrian thought as he tried to let it make sense according to his knowledge base.

"How big is the advantage of using higher tier metals then."

"I don't really know. But in a sense, you can imagine it like this. If you use a steel sword and send 10 units of mana through the blade for a skill, only about 2 would exit the blade to form the skill."

"But if the blade is made from black steel, then around 7 mana points would form the skill. And if you have an even better metal, like mithril. Then instead it might give the skill a boost, resulting in 11 or so mana points to form the skill."

"The opposite effect would happen to the weapons durability, due to the poor mana conduction. So the steel blade would lose almost double the amount of durability, as the black steel. While the mithril blade would lose no extra durability for casting a skill through it. This is why most people avoid using weapon-related skills in battle if they do not have a good weapon."

'Such an in-depth system. Most players probably don't know this or wouldn't learn this for a while,' Eldrian thought to himself as he realized how lucky he is to have found Vivian and her dad, who was teaching him so much.

"Dang Haru, you really stuck it in here!" Suddenly they were interrupted as Boran screamed this. Looking at him they saw him laying down with his legs pushing the anvil away, trying to free the piece of metal from the anvil. Both Eldrian and Vivian laughed.

Seeing Boran's face turn red from the effort just made them laugh even more.

"Serves you right," Vivian said as she pulled a face at the struggling Boran.

A few seconds later a grating sound was heard as Eldrian and Vivian saw Boran successfully pull the piece out.

This caused Eldrian's mouth to hang open. He just saw someone pull a piece of metal so hard it literally tore out of the anvil.

"Few! Finally!" Boran said as he stood up with the piece in hand, it was still in the exact same shape it was since the start.

Eldrian quickly walked to the anvil and was left flabbergasted. Boran had literally torn it out of the anvil.

'Just how strong is he. It was so snugly fit in there that the outwards pull caused the iron to deform.' Eldrian asked himself as he shivered. Deforming solid iron by just pulling on a piece of metal certainly blew Eldrian's mind.

'How did he not cut his hands.' Was the next thing which popped into Eldrian's head.

"Well now that that's done, let's get back to business. Haru, follow me." Boran said as he placed the divine mithril piece, with its friends on the ground.

Eldrian followed as Boran he was led to his huge forge where Boran gave him a normal iron rod.

"Okay, no tricks this time, turn the rod into a rectangle. You have an hour." Boran said as he gave Eldrian a new hammer.

[Player quest has been updated.]

[Quest name: Basic blacksmithing.]

[Quest giver: Boran]

[Quest Description: Player must blacksmith an iron rod into a rectangular form.]

[Quest Progress: 0/1]

[Quest rank: SS -> E]

[Quest Time limit: 2 hours, 1 hour 5 minutes left]

[Quest Reward: 600 XP, condition to becomes Boran's apprentice, Unknown]

Seeing the new quest rank Eldrian was a bit sad. This certainly meant that the reward was going to be lesser. Not even to mention the XP reward which was not even a tenth of the previous one.

He shook his head to get rid of this unnecessary negative thought and started hammering the rod when he believed it was at a good temperature.

30 minutes later Eldrian had succeeded in turning three-quarters of the rod into a square shape.

As he turned it around to heat the other end, he saw Boran walking to him.

"Haru, seems like you do have a talent for this. When you hammer you seem to do it in the correct manner without having been taught. Let me give you some other tips to help you improve on this instinct of yours." Boran said, as he lightly slapped Eldrian's shoulder in a brotherly manner.

…

Eight minutes later Eldrian finished forming the rod into a square.

"It's done," Eldrian said feeling quite relieved.

Boran walked over and took a look at the finished product. It was mostly flat on the sides, with just a few bumpy areas from uneven hammering.

"Mmmh, well done. While not perfect, for a first-timer it is really good. I can even see a clear improvement from before to after I gave you some tips. This is why I love to give beginners a forming test. You can see from the one end to the other how they improved while getting used to it." Boran said proudly as he looked over the rod.

"See here, from here you obviously discovered something, and from here was when I gave you those tips. The improvement is so clear. Well done." Boran said after he had looked over it for a few seconds more.

[Quest completed]

[Rewards: 600 XP]

[Can become Boran's apprentice]

[Weapon Choice]

"I certainly won't mind training you in blacksmithing. Also, come pick a weapon as your reward for doing such an excellent job." Boran said, patting Eldrian's shoulder again before going through the only door in the room again.

Exhilarated Eldrian followed after Boran. Being able to choose a weapon of choice, from a quest, was definitely a great reward. Eldrian believed that this was due to the previous rank of SS.

He was sure that if he could have completed the SS, he would have gotten a magic weapon, now he felt that most likely he will just get a normal tiered weapon. Still, for the current poor him this was a great opportunity since he felt good weapons would be far out of his league.

He thought this because of what he saw on the forums. Most players had bought armor and weapons, resulting in them getting really poor quality equipment. But even those who had only chosen to buy one thing had found that it was on the lower end of the items available to them.

As soon as they entered the shop Boran took a turn left to go into a different room.

"The weapons on display are only for normal customers. The second floor only for nobles, and the third for military captains and above. But I am taking you to my failed prototypes. Normally I don't sell these weapons as they are too poor quality for nobles for the price, and far too expensive for normal soldiers. So, since you proved yourself you can take your pick." Boran said

This greatly surprised Vivian. She knew what Boran was talking about. While is failed experiments might not meet the requirements of nobles and were too expensive due to the materials used, it didn't mean they were bad.

Rather just that the thing he tried to achieve didn't work. Thus making it too expensive due to the use of magical materials in its production, with no magical effect because of the failure.

As far as she knew only close friends of Boran were allowed to take these weapons. He never sold them keeping them for when he wanted to give someone a gift or when a friend was in a pinch.

They were the perfect gifts. To expensive to sell normally, too valuable to throw away.

Of course, this is only true when you give it to aspiring soldiers or adventurers. Since Elite soldiers and adventurers and the more professional people would be able to afford the better weapons.