Chapter 11

The next day Falk woke Ben up and they went over their training plan before opening the store.“Alright brat, here's how things are going to work. You clearly don’t have any experience at a forge and I doubt you have any practice at alchemy either. Each day get here an hour before the store opens and I’ll give you a bit of a rundown on how to use the forge and how to brew potions. Since I doubt you’ll be able to find a way to gather all the metals and alchemic components you’ll need by yourself I’ll sell them to you at cost for now, and If I judge the quality of your products to be good enough you can sell them in the shop, though since they're being sold in my business and I’m taking my time to teach you I’ll be taking a reasonable cut. Any questions?”

“Sounds good to me, but why alchemy? I didn’t think I saw any potions in here before?”

“Probably because you didn’t come in here to buy anything. I keep a few by the front desk at the register. Besides that you gotta learn at least a little alchemy if you want to use any monster parts in your weapons and armor. Which also means you can’t skip out on hunting, once you have potion-making down and start applying alchemy to your blacksmithing I expect you to go gather monster parts yourself.”

“Wait but I still don’t get why it’s used with blacksmithing?”

"Damn it all you really don't know anything do you? If you want to keep some of the monster's effects, be it affinities, resistances, or if you're particularly lucky a monster's properties that can enhance a given enchantment you need alchemy to preserve them. Potion making preserves and concentrates a plant's healing effects, it's the same idea. It can also make sure your products can hold their enchantments longer. Take the wooden spikes you were telling me about. If you had enchanted them a day before using them without putting any more mana into it then they were probably only half as effective. With the right materials the mana loss could be significantly slower, some materials could even manage to hold mana without any loss or slowly absorb mana from the environment. How effective you use your skills will determine how good the final product is. And…" he paused, giving a wicked grin. "How much you can sell them for."

“Alright! What are we starting with then?”

Flak pulled out his card and directed it at Ben. “We're starting with you paying for a week's worth of supplies. After that I’ll get you working on the backup forge in the back.”

Ben tapped his own card against Falks, transferring the money over to him and then went out to a back room and got to work. He was first shown how to start the forge and from there Falk gave him a basic explanation of what he would be doing.

“For today I’ll loan you some tools, but you’re going to be using them to make your own, so make sure you do your best so you can use them for a long time. Since these will be for your own use you won’t be able to sell them, but it's an important step in learning to really appreciate the materials you work with. Now quiz time, what is the most important tool for a blacksmith?”

“Would it be a hammer?” That seemed to be what he would always see them wielding in shows and movies, so it felt like a safe bet.

“That's what most people would guess, but no. What's most important, and what you’ll be making first, is a set of tongs.”

“Why tongs?” They certainly didn’t seem super important compared to what you would use to shape your items.

“Do you want to be grabbing some red hot metal with your bare hand's brat? Sure shaping your metal is important, but if you can’t move it the way you need to efficiently the metal will cool and you’ll lose too much time having to constantly reheat it. Now watch how I do it and repeat as I do afterwards.”

Falk immediately got to work as Ben watched on, entranced by the work of the smith. In a process of grabbing two long metal rods, heating and shaping them, punching a pin into them, and cutting them to the proper size, Falk had a pair of tongs done in no more than fifteen minutes.

“There we go, I tried to keep it slower for you but you should have the idea of how to make these.”

“You call that slow? Even if they’re just tongs I can’t believe you made them so quick!”

“It’s what happens when you get smithing to a high enough level, the metal works the way you need it to. You’ll be a fair bit longer but if you need anything come grab me from the shop, I’ll be working up front and watching the counter.” He started to walk away before stopping with one last thought. “Also don’t try and apply any enchantments to your items while you're making them. Since your crafting level is low, focus on improving that and if you want you can work on enchanting after you're done for the day.”

Ben gave him a nod and went over to the forge to get to work. He grabbed his first metal bar and heated it up until it glowed a nice red colour. Once it looked ready he took it over to the anvil, and using one of the smaller hammers Falk had available, started shaping it in a way to make his tongs. With each strike he paid attention to how much the metal warped, how the shape changed to meet the image he had in his mind of what his tongs should look like. It didn’t have to be perfect but he wanted it to at least look decent if he was going to be using them from now on.

Once the first was done he grabbed a second bar and shaped it to match, at least as best he could. There was a little unevenness at the front of it that took longer to correct than he would like to admit, but given it was his first time at the forge he was willing to cut himself some slack.

Once both sides of the tongs were ready he grabbed a punch and a pin to act as a pivot and started to set it. He took a second to collect himself and focus. He needed to make sure that when he punched both halves of his soon-to-be tool he got it in the same spot, it would do no good to have them lopsided, and went to it. It wasn’t actually too hard, but given that if he messed up he would have to buy more metal from Falk he really didn’t want to have to put any more strain on his wallet. With both holes punched he placed and secured his pin, then hammered a wedge into the ends until they were the proper length for him to use. With that done he went in to show Falk.

“...and here’s the staff, hopefully this one lasts a bit longer than the last one. I’ll see you in a few days then.” It looked like he was just finishing with a customer. As he waved them off Ben went up and showed him his end product.

“Not bad. I was expecting you to mess up the first time but I guess this wasn’t too hard. With this done we can start on the next step then, making you a hammer. Come and watch carefully, I’m only showing you this once.”

He was brought over to the forge in the front and watched Falk skillfully take a lump of metal and shape it into a tool, with the front end being flat and the back end being a wedge. He punched a hole into the center and fitted it with a wooden handle, and it was all done even faster than his tongs from before.

Once again Ben couldn’t help but be impressed by the quick and precise work Falk managed, and he was excited to try it for himself. He ran back to the small work area he had been given and got to it, taking a bar of iron and tossed it in the forge.

Using his newly made tongs he grabbed it from the forge and started striking it, feeling each blow changing its shape, the rhythmic clanging filling his mind. Again he was slower than his teacher, but he didn't mind. Now that he was making things himself, finally putting his crafting to use, he could see it was about the journey, not the destination.

He finished forging the hammer's head and secured it to a strong wooden bar to use as the handle, then took it to Falk to get his seal of approval.

"Feels like it may be a bit small, but it will do for now. I guess you're a bit small yourself anyway."

"I'm plenty tall for my race, you're just huge."

“Brat I’m the runt of my family, your race is just too small.”

Well that was a terrifying thought, but with his teachers' approval for his tools Ben was given the task of making J hooks for the rest of the day to work on some of the different techniques he had learned so far.

“If I remember right your strength was only at 90 right? You also have focus?” Falk had come to check on Ben as the day was ending and prepared to send him home when he saw the small mountain of J hooks beside him.

“That's right, why?”

“No reason. Anyway I’ve got a few books for you to borrow, just some on alchemy and enchanting. I’m giving you tomorrow off so stay home and read them.”

“Sure sounds good, see you in a couple then.”

“Good luck.”

Ben wasn’t really sure what he meant by that but he grabbed the books and left the shop. Since it had been a long one he decided to turn in early and get to reading the next day.

As he slowly woke up he realised why Falk asked him those questions yesterday.

The books he needed to read were left on the other side of the room. It was going to be a long day.