Mavis"s excited voice rang out through the forge as he called out to Aker who had just walked through the door "Hahahahaha...It"s finally here."Aker instantly knew what Mavis was referencing as he had been impatiently asking every day for weeks when the Midnight Metal would show up. Every time Aker would ask, the irritation on Mavis"s face would betray his thoughts "It"ll get here when it gets here" was the only response Mavis would have for Aker.
Every day Mavis had to listen to that annoying bra...disciple hound him about his Midnight Metal. Aker had perfected his mold for the armor a few weeks ago and was impatiently waiting for the Midnight Metal to show up. Aker couldn"t help it as his excitement and antic.i.p.ation was growing with each pa.s.sing day. He had been working on and planning this armor for a year and the days were crawling as he was getting closer and closer to actually being able to create it.
Outside of the desire to create his own armor there was no driving force behind it as the armor that Mavis had created for Aker was standing the test of time and was still more than adequate for his needs now, and in the foreseeable future. To Aker that didn"t matter because as he had been working the forge, he was developing a true fascination and love for it. It was the case for all of the skills that Aker was delving into, while they were all so dissimilar, he found them all fascinating. Originally Aker wanted to quite smith training and focus primarily on his medical and cooking skills but thankfully he wasn"t allowed to otherwise he would have missed out on a true pa.s.sion. In the future he would never underestimate or belittle any skill again at least he would give learning all of them a fair shot and approach it with an open mind. Only after truly immersing himself in it would he be able to determine if it was something he wanted to pursue.
"What are we waiting for let"s get started right away. Quick help me check the mold!" Aker couldn"t contain himself hearing Mavis tell him that his Midnight Metal had finally arrived.
Aker had already checked over the mold hundreds of times and had Mavis look it over dozens of times. When Mavis had first seen the mold, he couldn"t contain his pride in the work that Aker had done, but after hearing about it and having to look it over so many times Mavis wanted to destroy the d.a.m.n item. Since the day that Aker had learned how to mold he had been incessantly bothered by him over it. Question after question was thrown at Mavis to the point that Mavis regretted teaching him so early. Mavis had been overly enthusiastic due to Aker"s ability to absorb what he was teaching and he accidentally showed him how to make a simple mold.
With that first simple mold Aker began playing around every day by himself, at first making numerous mistakes daily. Each time he would make a mistake he would be standing in front of Mavis asking what he did wrong. At first Mavis explained in detail how he could solve each problem such as how to shave the mold without breaking it, how to find grain lines and how to build molds with artistic designs inlaid into it. The artistic designs would allow for the mold to include drawings, names and symbols on them.
First Aker began by shaving wood and doing basic designs, he started with his throwing darts as the first mold creation after asking questions to Mavis. At the time Mavis didn"t even understand what Aker was trying to get at as he answered the questions. After Aker completed the wood mold, he learned how to convert the wood mold into a metal mold. After the metal mold was finished, he then figured out that it needed a coating to prevent the molten medal from drying to the mold and ruining both. After some trial and error Aker had created and perfected his throwing dart mold and was able to successfully create them at will. Immediately following that success Aker began on creating a sword mold which is what he used for his two current swords today.
He then used almost a year perfecting his mold, each day carving it and shaping it match himself. When Aker started his mold he was only 138 cm in height but it had already been over a year and now he was already 156 cm which was the same height as the average 13 year old boy. He had grown taller due to his magic fighter level already being at the Body Conditioning Organ level and he had been focused on and was close to breaking through both the Body Conditioning Bones and Blood levels. The nature particles of course had an immense effect on his body, strengthening it as well as causing him to grow faster and stronger than he would have normally.
Due to his quick growth he had to constantly re-mold his armor to account for his height gain. Fortunately, Mavis had already accounted for Aker"s growth when he made his temporary armor and had built it with the capability to add "panels" so it could grow with him, this was the ma.s.sive difference between a Novice Blacksmith and someone at Mavis"s level. Mavis would teach Aker how to create armor in this manner, however Aker"s skills were still far short of being able to accomplish it.
Both Aker and Mavis looked over the metal mold they had just finished two days ago and examined it"s every detail. Aker had carved in the image of Tiger on one side of the armor. Many months ago, Aker had heard the roar of a Tiger before his sudden breakthrough or enlightenment in his thinking. Aker had fought plenty of different types magical tiger beast over the two years he had been in The Pit so despite not being able to see what roared he was confident that what he heard was a tiger"s roar. It turned out it was his imagination due to his mental strain and fatigue, but it was that moment that allowed him to question why he was fighting and completely changed his perception of battle and himself. He wanted to pay homage to the moment and the tiger that shook his soul.
After confirming that the mold was perfect Aker was now ready to melt down the Midnight Metal "It looks great Master, let"s get the metal in the fire right away."
Mavis seeing the joy and antic.i.p.ation exuding from Aker couldn"t hold himself back any longer and let out a laugh that came from deep in his belly. While Aker"s antics could cause Mavis to shake his head in frustration from time to time, he truly enjoyed Aker"s drive. Even now Aker was bouncing around unable to contain himself, his eyes sparkling and filled with expectation.
Mavis tossed the metal into the flame and as soon as the flame met the metal Aker could hear the singe as the molecules collided. Like smelling gra.s.s early in the morning Aker had come to enjoy the singe of metal and fire meeting for the first time. Each flame had become its own life and each chunk of metal its own ent.i.ty and Aker looked forward to the flame wearing down the metal, taking it to its most fluid and weakest state before he had the chance to build it back up stronger and more capable than it ever was.
As soon as the metal was heated to the point of liquification Aker wanted to bring it out of the fire but his instincts were telling him to wait. As he listened to the flame and metal, he didn"t hear the sound of perfect fluid as he would have expected, it felt as if there was still a hint of resistance to perfect fluidity.
"Put just a touch more heat on this fire Master!" Aker called out after a seconds thought, he couldn"t pinpoint it but he sensed it needed just a tad more heat.
Hearing Aker call out Mavis hesitated for a split moment before pumping the bellow slightly harder and faster than he had previously. To the untrained eye the fire had no change but to both Mavis and Aker the fire"s heat had certainly gone up enough to ruin the metal if they weren"t careful. After roughly thirty seconds Aker could sense the resistance melt away and the metal was gliding and sliding perfectly with no remanence of its solid state.
"Alright I"m ready to pour to the mold, stand clear!" Aker called out for everyone to stand clear as he was bringing out the scolding hot liquefied metal and would be pouring it into his mold. If you were to be touched by either the container holding the liquefied metal or the liquefied metal the damages would be severe.
Mavis stepped back and away to give Aker room and Kara was already over in her normal location at the work bench studying. Today she wasn"t reading as she was solely focused on Aker and his task at hand. She had been with Aker for a long time and she knew how much time, effort, sweat, and hopes went into this moment and she didn"t want to miss any of it. For a normal blacksmith this might just be a piece of armor but for Aker it represented years of trials, experimenting, hard work and his life. This would be the armor that he would wear into battle and if it had a defect, broke or had some other issue he could lose his life.
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Aker slowly poured the liquefied Midnight Metal into the mold and as he poured it, he focused on ensuring he evenly distributed it. When he hammered it out later, he would fix the areas that were too thick or to thin but if he did it right now he could save himself work later.
Aker first poured the front side of his body armor and then poured the new arm and leg guards. Once he had completed pouring the front side of his body armor, he proceeded to pour for his backside armor cover. The armor that Aker designed had a front and back side that would be connected together using straps at the shoulder and around his waist.
After he finished pouring, he still had a small amount of the Midnight Metal left over so he began pouring more throwing darts. He had been wanting jet black throwing darts but never had a reason to make them until now. Seeing the last drop of the Midnight Metal pour out Aker let out a large huff and put a brilliant smile on his face.
"Now we just wait until it cools, how about we get setup for the next stage?" Aker who just finished pouring the last bit of Midnight Metal didn"t want to sit and wait idly while the metal cooled so he began gathering his tools for hammering out the metal. He found his favorite hammer which was now over 18 kilograms in weight as well as his tongues to hold down the metal. He practiced swinging around his hammer a few times making sure his swing was working right and without any further waiting opened the front body armor mold and pulled the armor out.
Using his tongues, he laid out his front body armor on the anvil and began pounding away at it. Quickly moving through he smoothed out the rough edges so it wouldn"t dig into his skin and he even put a small curl into it for comfort. He had found an area that was slightly thicker than it should be, so he hammered it down spreading it out. He was very careful not to hammer anywhere near the tiger he had carved in for fear that he might destroy it.
In a matter of less than a couple of minutes he was done with the front side and pulled out the back-side body armor and repeated the process. He had to move extremely quick as he needed to get to the metal before it completely cooled down otherwise, he wouldn"t be able to hammer out the problem areas. They would keep waiting metal hot by submerging it in a low fire that wouldn"t be enough to melt it but would be enough to keep it from cooling completely, but it couldn"t stay in this stay for too long a period.
Within an hour of pouring the metal he had completed every piece of his new armor and now just needed to polish it and temper it. Tempering the metal was the process of polishing the metal up into a beautiful and blinding shine then reheating it over and over again. Where it is polished and reheated, it will become stronger and stronger which is exactly what Aker requires of his armor.
Aker took the now slightly oxidized Midnight Metal and began polishing it, putting all of his muscle and strength into putting a mirror shine on it. As soon as he had polished it to the point that even with its black surface he could see his reflection he put it in the heat. Again and again Aker repeated this process making sure to temper every millimeter of his new armor as it couldn"t have any weakness at all.
After almost eight hours of work Aker had finally finished his new armor and as he stood back and stared, he couldn"t help but beam at his creation.
The armor would cover his entire torso providing a full area of protection by using straps to hook the front and back pieces together. The tiger on the front of his armor looked vicious as it stood amazingly on the armor and stared down at its future prey, its tail wrapped around onto the back piece of body armor. The armor went up and over the trapezius between Akers shoulder and neck. He duplicated the arm guards that Mavis had made except he added small spikes on them so that he could use them to attack if he needed to. The shin guards covered from the ankle to the knee and wouldn"t interfere with his movements. All in all, Aker was extremely pleased with his armor that was a dark and deep black. He had polished it up to temper it but now that he was done, he had specifically applied a substance called Midolious that would dull it down and kill all reflection to it. Midolious was popular with a.s.sa.s.sins as their lives depended on not being noticed and if you wanted to dull all reflections then Midolious was the best answer.
"It looks really impressive Big Brother; I watched every bit of its creation and that was a lot of work." Kara finally called out to Aker seeing that he was done.
"Mmmm....it was a lot of work, but I have the feeling this will save my life someday." Aker said while being pleased with himself. If he really had to put his life at the mercy of his armor, looking at it he felt that would be fine.