Extra's Path To Demon King-Chapter 104: Forging Process

After going inside, the forging of Gareth, the buff man, started explaining things to him in detail, many of the things which he already knew about, but still listened anyway. After that was done, Gareth started showing him the procedure practically,

"First, you have to make a mixture of multiple types of metal in various ratios depending on what type of tool you are making, Sometimes, if the tool is complex enough, you might need to forge each part of it separately, each with a different composition of metals or materials."

"But let’s not get into the complicated ones from the start, and what type of weapons do you use, or what would you make the most?"

"A longsword that could be used with either one hand, depending on the situation," replied Axel.

"And what are your aspects again?" asked Gareth.

"Runic Berserker." stated Axel.

Gareth raised an eyebrow and looked at him questioningly, He asked, "What?"

"Berserker I understand but Runecaster? How unexpected.." stated Gareth.

Gareth thought for a moment and then shook his head dismissively,

"Never mind, in that case, let me forge just that for you. Watch closely."

Then, with no more words needed, Gareth started the procedure. He first boiled multiple types of Archon tier 1 metals together, mixed them thoroughly, and poured them into a crude sword-shaping structure.

The container itself was not shaped in a way that the most perfectly shaped sword would come out of it; he wanted to ask about it, but chose not to; he was pretty sure Gareth wouldn’t like being disturbed amid the process of it. So, he simply watched the process attentively.

Gareth did not remain idle after putting the liquid hot metal into the shaper; he picked it up and started slowly tinkering with it, something which Axel did not understand. By tinkering, he was slowly and gently, for some reason, hitting the outer side of the container. Very adeptly.

After a certain amount of time, he was done, slowly hitting the outer side of the container. He put the whole thing into another large container at the farthest corner from the heating furnace, which seemed to contain a cooling mechanism. By now, the liquid metal was moderately cooled down.

With that left there to be cooled for a while, Gareth said, "Go ahead, ask."

Axel, hearing that, fired out the questions he had in his mind, which Gareth answered all calmly. But till now it was the easy part, by his word that is, but Axel knew that all those smooth and minute movements were the results of countless years of experience, honed over time into something extremely hard to achieve and maybe inconceivable through normal eyes.

He had an understanding look on his face after Gareth explained everything to him in very detail.

With that done, Gareth brought out the container from the cooler, bringing out the now cooled-down raw sword. He handed it over to Axel and asked him,

"Tell me, what do you think?"

Axel held the sword, of course, but it was just the middle and sharp part of the sword for now, so it didn’t have a handle that gives you the comfort of holding the sword itself. But considering the millions of swords he engraved in the trial. Axel knew his way around swords, perhaps more so than anyone else, at least in the engraving part of the process.

But when you handle one part of the weapon making, some of the other parts also comes to you eventually when you have engraved millions of goddamn swords.

Running his fingers over it, ticking it a bit, and moving it around, feeling its weight and balance. Then, gently striking any hard surface with it, Axel showed an impressed expression and turned towards his former exam instructor, he praised sincerely,

"I must say, material composition-wise, it’s pretty good."

"Oh, usually I would be insulted for something of my creation to be labeled as merely ’pretty good’ by an amateur like you, yet why does it feel like you actually know your way around the sword pretty well?" freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Axel chuckled, hearing that, he answered, "Well, let’s just say, I had dealt with engraving lots of swords in the trial."

Gareth smiled, hearing that, "Well, if you already know your way around swords, that makes it easier for me, and I presume you used to just engrave already forged swords, and you didn’t have to go into the forging procedure yourself."

Axel nodded, that was indeed the case, then Gareth started the next process, for now it was just a roughly shaped sword, it now needs fine tuning and lots and lots of hammering and beating to make it into the a compact and impeccable sharp weapon, capable of severing through almost anything within Archon grade.

After that, Gareth simply started hammering, Axel put his powerful memory and mind to its full use, and looked at every minute change on the sword because of each hammering, and why, at which angle he was doing the hammering.

Of course, he didn’t really have to actively think about all these details. But simply take in all the details of it, most of the thinking on his part was happening in his subconscious. But a large part of him did not understand the complete procedure. Yes, in short, it was just hammering constantly to make it into a tough and sharp sword, with high durability factored into it.

But in actuality, it was a lot different from what we would imagine as hammering a sword. It was a much more sophisticated and controlled hammering than what would be seen in the games, and such like the constant repetitive hammering of a stupid NPC?

Yeah, it’s nothing like that. The amount of precision and control needed in each strike is insane, which only left him awestruck at the expertise of the man. He initially thought just looking at the procedure once would be enough for him to give it a try, a part of him thought, it might not even be all that necessary, considering how well he understood things from the books.

He could only curse his own luck; no wonder Gareth asked him to come here and watch him make equipment for the rest of the days of the week. It seems he would need to do just that. Because of the sheer difference in process between engraving and forging, it was hard for him to grasp the core concepts behind it. Something that can only be solved with lots of time and effort spent on it.

Things were for that day, after Gareth was done hammering, actually that was only the first day of hammering, more would follow for that very weapon on the next day, and the day after that as well. The extremely well forged weapon was far different from something made in one day of hammering. It’s these extremely small details on the sword, making it through fine tuning, that make it a valuable piece more worthy than its counterparts.

And Gareth was disgusted by the very idea of making such cheap weapons. For a moment, Axel frowned, thinking about something, in this case on the trial. All those raw weapons on which he engraved, actually, they were all faulty from the start, weren’t they?

Another wave of anger threatened to overtake him, something which he had no idea how to vent. He shook his head in frustration while going back to his lodging for the day. How long of a time would it take him to properly get the hang of the forging procedure itself?

Then he could have made an uncountable number of engravings again, not to mention that he still didn’t know what his challenge would be in his primary aspect chamber. His challenge in the secondary aspect chamber was already tough enough; how could he hope to beat his demonic reflection the moment he enters the place and loses his mind because of that shitty scarlet radiance?

Did he have to learn fighting while closing his eyes? A Seeker can indeed view the world from his supernatural sense, but that was a very rudimentary thing. That wasn’t nearly enough to be able to fight using that sense of sight instead of your eyesight, which you relied on from the very birth.

Then, for the rest of the days same routine was followed after he was done with the classes. He would go to the forging facility and observe Gareth making the weapons attentively. But one thing changed midway through it. He told Heinz about it, since the guy was a bit bitter with him, that he was spending less time with him. Heinz thought that something must have happened, or Axel was purposefully keeping his distance, which naturally wasn’t the case.

Heinz readily wanted to come with him, to which Axel agreed, that was the reason he told Heinz about it after all. Heinz would also need to learn forging to make his own weapons eventually. Gareth was surprised that he suddenly brought someone else.

But once he told the master forger about the fact that Heinz was actually ranked 2nd, he begrudgingly agreed to let him watch, but refused to elaborate from the beginning and explain things like he did for him at the start. Gareth delegated that task to Axel himself.