Chapter 214 - Time Flies (Part 2-Last)
Magical forging was part of blacksmithing, but the process was different. Bai Zemin had received this knowledge when his pa.s.sive skill Blacksmithing reached level 5, otherwise he would not have been able to forge magical weapons.
During the process of magical forging, he needed to focus his mind while controlling the Mana inside his body to with his Magic gradually begin to connect the energy inside the Soul Stone with the lower part, in this case a blue bone of a First Order beast, which would form part of the magical tool.
It was similar to what the magical flame of the Blazing Ring wanted to do when surrounding the Soul Stones. The process was slow and tedious because if too much pressure was applied the Soul Stone would be immediately destroyed and the energy inside would be absorbed by the world instantly. Therefore, Bai Zemin had to be especially careful not to destroy the Soul Stones. Still, as it was his first time doing this kind of special forging, it was natural to fail several times; something that happened to him more than he expected.
It was only after many trials that he finally found a close approximation of the trick needed to connect the Soul Stone with the blue bone, thus forming the magic staff. But worst of all, during the process he also had to imagine the type of weapon he wanted to forge!
For example:
If a Soul Stone was of the element fire, water, earth, or another element, then there was no need to imagine since the magic scepter or staff would automatically be of that type of element so it wasn"t a problem.
But since the Soul Stones that Bai Zemin used were neutral Soul Stones without a specific element, he had to go through the process of imagination during the magical forging. This had its advantages and disadvantages because although he could roughly attribute special characteristics, the chances of success were much lower and the difficulty was incredibly high.
Fortunately, after so much effort, he managed to craft two magical weapons. Although not perfect, they were not bad either.
The Walker Freeze Staff would be for Wu Yijun, because even though the probability of its special characteristic activating was low, it would help her more in battle.
As for the Magic Boost Staff, it would naturally go to Kang Lan. With that 5% power boost in her magic, her Lesser Healing skill would also receive a boost and improve its effect by a notch. Not to mention that all of her magic skills would enjoy such a benefit.
Except for this, the rest of the three girls" equipment were easy for the current Bai Zemin to forge. It hardly took around six or seven hours to finish everything and most of his time was consumed by the two magic staffs.
A difference between magic weapons and physical weapons, at least with the staffs, was that while only one hand was needed to lift the staff, a second weapon could not actually be used. Bai Zemin tried to cast magic spells while wielding his Xuanyuan Sword but it was not possible. As for the reason, neither he nor Lilith knew.
During the fourth day, Bai Zemin forged equipment for Chen He and Luo Ning. Two weapons, two lower armors of leather and two upper armors of the same material, four shoulder pads, four gloves.
Here, Bai Zemin again had another headache. Although not as big as on the previous day, a headache was a headache no matter what.
Luo Ning"s equipment was simple and normal.The weapon he chose for her was a sword since she herself currently used a normal treasure sword called Sharktooth Sword. Apparently, she also wanted to walk the path of a combat mage just like Shangguan Bing Xue and Bai Zemin himself.
But the problem came when it came to forging Chen He"s weapon.
A bow. More specifically, a crossbow.
If they were normal materials, then Bai Zemin should not have suffered as much as he did. Unfortunately, what he was using were mutated and evolved animal materials and the fire he relied on was a wild magic flame and not normal fire.
For the body of the crossbow, Bai Zemin took part of the skull of the First Order Platinum Ape and part of the spine of a Bright Scaled Rhinoceros. Making use of both parts, he removed with his blacksmithing tools the unnecessary and worked for more than one hour to shape the body of the weapon and build the firing mechanism. So far everything was simple.
The problem came when he started working on the string.... String that was made from the tendons of the First Order Platinum Ape itself. After all, a normal string would not be able to shoot powerful arrows and the speed at which the arrows would fly would be only average if not pitiful since a normal string could not be stretched too tight or it would break.
In order to make the tendons acquire a more rubbery and elastic property, Bai Zemin needed to heat them in the magic flame and then start hammering furiously to gradually and progressively soften the tendon. However, this was not as easy to do as it might seem.
If the amount of temperature of the flame was low, then the tendon would not heat up to the necessary point, and if the temperature was too high then the tendon would turn into coals. In addition, if Bai Zemin swung the hammer too hard, then the tendon would be destroyed and crushed so he needed to be very careful.
As if that wasn"t enough, Bai Zemin also had to take Chen He"s Strength into consideration. Wouldn"t it be a joke if at the end of the day the archer could not pull the string of his own weapon because his Strength stat was too low? Therefore, Chen He spent the entire forging process in the workshop while helping Bai Zemin create his weapon.
After about five or six hours of trials and failures, the crossbow was finally finished along with more than a hundred bone arrows.
[Three Mouthed Bone Crossbow -
[Two-handed weapon]
[Rank: 1]
[Physical Attack Power: 650]
[Can shoot up to 3 arrows or bolts at the same time.]
[Durability: 3000/3000]
[Description: A simple but extremely effective weapon for ranged attacks.]
[Bone Arrow -
[Special Item]
[Rank: 0]
[Physical Attack Power: 90]
[Durability: 1000/1000]
[Description: An arrow created from the bones of an Uncla.s.sified beast. After some quick and simple modifications it was turned into a special item.]
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Each arrow was extremely easy to make, only five minutes each. But Bai Zemin naturally wasn"t going to waste time with that so he took the trouble to teach Chen He how to work on the bones so that he could forge his own arrows and thus increase the damage he could deal to his enemies.
In this way, the young archer in love obtained the Uncla.s.sified pa.s.sive skill Blacksmithing level 1. As to whether or not this skill would go up, Bai Zemin had his doubts about it but that was not his concern.
It should be noted that at this point, Bai Zemin had already recovered 100%. There were no more wounds on his face and every splintered bone in his body or any pain had completely disappeared.
During the fifth, sixth, and seventh day, Bai Zemin stayed in his workshop working on building more and more equipment.
This equipment was destined to fall into the hands of his soldiers. He wanted to arm his troops properly, prevent deaths that could easily be avoided, and give everyone more courage to fight when they saw the defensive effectiveness of the leather armor.
After three days of effort, Bai Zemin had forged over two hundred Uncla.s.sified leather armors, exhausting surprisingly quickly the amount of Uncla.s.sified leather at his disposal. In fact, if not for the fact that survivors were constantly sending uncla.s.sified leather to his workshop, he might not have had enough to work with and would definitely not be willing to use First Order leather on weak and normal survivors unless one deserved it.
Aside from the two hundred or so leather armors, Bai Zemin had also forged the same amount of swords. Since swords were the simplest weapons to handle, he decided to forge only swords for now.
As for shoulder pads and gloves, he did not bother to make them for the moment. He wanted to arm those willing to fight first and depending on the performance of each survivor they might receive better items in the future.
* * *
"What time is it and what day is it?" Bai Zemin asked as he stretched his body.
At this moment, the magic flame burning in the furnace could no longer be seen anywhere and the place was silent. The tools that practically did not rest for so long were finally laid down on the work table.
"It"s three in the morning and today is Tuesday." Lilith answered kindly as her soft eyes stared at him. "It"s been seven days and approximately ten hours since you started working in this workshop."
Bai Zemin nodded calmly and while staring up at the starry night sky through the gla.s.s, he replied with a satisfied smile, "I see... So it"s already been a week. Time really flies, don"t you think?"
Lilith chuckled and said with a smile, "I don"t know about you, but for me, these seven days were quite entertaining."
He merely smiled in return. But they both knew what that smile meant.
During the previous week, except for occasional visits to see how everything was or how the work was progressing and except for the times when he went to take a shower or get something to eat, the only living being he saw, lived with, and talked to, was the female succubus at close range.
Even Bai Zemin might not have endured so much stressful work had it not been for Lilith"s company and amusing teasing. He was immensely grateful even if he didn"t say it out loud, and hoped one day to repay all these favors, if possible, with interest.
"What will you do now?" She asked curiously.
"Now?" Bai Zemin looked at the ground with a strange look and although a moment ago he was filled with energy, his eyelids began to feel heavy. He mumbled in between yawns, "Well, I guess I"ve earned a good night"s sleep..."
Saying that, he directly lay down on the floor and exactly five seconds later, faint snores echoed in the silent room.
"This guy..." Lilith didn"t know whether to laugh or cry and forced a wry smile as her red eyes glittered amidst the darkness, completely focused on the human two meters ahead.
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