It had been a few years since Sage practiced any Blacksmithing and so he went directly to the task board and chose out the simplest task for a 1 star Blacksmith. Then he went to the material supply and purchased what hed need before renting a smithy. He didnt choose anything high level, just a basic smithy that would allow him to finish the task. Doing this simple job, forging a mortal tier saber, should get him back into practice. There were other tasks that required less forging like making spears, but he wanted to get more practice using a forge again. There were also mass production tasks, but those were usually perford by Apprentice Blacksmiths since they took so much ti and didnt bring much profit.
From what Sage had seen of forging tal back on Earth, at least in the dieval manual style, things werent too much different here. The main change that he could see was that a Blacksmith here would work with more than just a handful of basic tals and could use multiple sources of fla. Controlling temperature and shaping tal were very similar, using hamrs and gauging the colors and reactions of the tal to approximate temperature. There just happened to be thousands of different materials available, the majority of which werent even tal. The other issue was that many of those materials werent heated in normal flas. They would take special sources of fla with unusual elents incorporated in them. Just take the Saber he had to forge now. As a creation for only a 1 star Blacksmith it wasnt too complicated, but it was to be forged out of Violent Green Iguana Scales. In order to forge Violent Green Iguana Scales it required a yellow earth fla. Earth flas were of a higher level of magnitude from normal flas, and they ca from special types of volcanoes or underground magma sources that were inundated with strong forms of Earth natured qi.
Given the level of the task, yellow earth flas were of course quite low level and Sage had worked with them a few tis before. Advancing as a Blacksmith had a few requirents, mainly the level of flas one could properly control as well as their skill with inlaying array symbols. Shaping tal into beautiful shapes was sothing that simply ca with ti and practice. Most Blacksmiths wouldnt want to be ridiculed for creating ugly items, but sothing beautiful was not really a requirent when it ca to enchanting a magic item. There was also no requirent on how many materials a Smith knew how to work with as given the number and rarity of them in the world, nobody would ever increase their star ranking if they put material requirents in place. For the most part a Smith would only need a manual to instruct them on the properties of a new material and they would quickly adapt.
Even though it had been so ti, Sages imnse Spirit Power gave him exquisite control over the fla. He got to so into things that even after his first saber was a success he started to forge another. On the fifth saber he rembered his Divine Breath and put the technique to its true usage. The technique was originally used by Alchemists to control flas, using their lungs as a perfectly controlled bellows. The most orthodox alchemists were all Fire natured and they increased the strength of fla by pumping in more Qi, then used their Spirit Power in special techniques to control the application of heat and shape it for specific concoctions. Blacksmithing on the other hand did not require as precise of fla control, rely heating materials up to certain levels when they beca malleable. Much easier than trying to heat up plants and animals parts to boil and distill dicinal liquids without burning the whole thing into ash.
The Divine Breath technique was a way to let those who werent of the Fire nature beco Alchemists. Using their empowered lungs they could increase fla temperatures to great heights, sothing only fire nature Cultivators previously could do. Of course, that was in ancient tis. In the modern practice there were many techniques and thods that could let those with other innate natures practice Alchemy. Most of them involved using special cauldrons or fla sources to make up for their deficiencies using piles of spirit stones. Having access to Divine Breath was one of the reasons Sage felt so comfortable giving up on Verdant Firebrand. While he wasnt a high ranking Alchemist, he still wanted to keep his options open.
The fifth saber was completely ruined and Sage set aside the lted scales for later, starting a sixth saber and grasping the trick to using Divine Breath to control the fla temperature. A couple days later, Sage had a dozen sabers lined up in front of him and he chuckled at how much easier it was for the last few in comparison to the first few. Not only had Divine Breath drastically reduced his qi consumption it also multiplied his forging speed and with more practice he seed to get the knack of shaping the tal again. The first saber was a rough work, looking like it ca out of a tal stamping machine. The twelfth was quite impressive, with smooth curves, a razor edge and a mirror finish on the green tal blade. The spine of the saber was strong, yet kept the natural and rough look of small lizard scales. The hilt was even sculpted like a small iguana, its head as a poml and its tail extending unnaturally and curling back and forth to form a crossguard.
The task asked for a saber forged of Violent Green Iguana Scale and with an enchantnt for sharpness and speed. Such a formation was incredibly simple for Sage, but it had been soti since he created a formation in such small scale and it was great practice to do it a dozen tis. Sage chose to keep the most beautiful of the sabers while turning in the second to last saber for the task. The others he sold back to the Sect to recover the cost of materials hed wasted. To create the twelve sabers he had used more than twenty sets of materials, experinting in different ways as he kept improving the design and process. Even though he didnt really care so much about his reputation as a smith, Sage still didnt leave his makers mark on any but the last three sabers he had created. No point to putting a signature on practice work after all!
The practice seed to have recovered his skill so Sage was ready to move on to his research. It was ti to start work on an idea he had so ti ago. Bringing the modern anities of Earth to this ancient world. While there were many powerful Cultivators that could shrug off the effects of harsh weather or go without eating for months at a ti, Sage was sure that the basic comforts of Earth would be a welco addition to the world.
Before that though, there were so problems to solve. Primarily of course, figuring out which comforts he could reproduce here with magical items and array formations. Secondly, hed need to figure out ways to create them cheaply. Third, a way to protect his creations from being stolen or copied. Even with his lack of business knowledge, he knew a monopoly was the source of the most profits. Lastly, he needed to figure out the best way to sell it. The last problem was the one he was the most torn over. Should he start businesses that exclusively control all of his inventions and service custors? Hire smiths to produce the inventions on large scale and let rchants sell them around the world? Maybe he should just license the inventions to soone else and let them do all the labor?
Eh, Ill worry about that after I have so devices to show off. Theres gotta be businessn in the Holy Fla Sect, right?
Sage left the Smithy and headed ho, pulling out a fresh mory Sphere and placing it onto his mory Forge. Within he created an office and a big drafting table, complete with paper and writing implents. The first step was to try and create so plans. Hed need to figure out what the best materials were that he could use to do what he wanted and figure out the best arrays to accomplish the effects. There was going to need to be a lot of testing and balancing to determine if he would be making large numbers of weak devices with cheap materials and simple arrays or just a few made of rare materials with complicated arrays. Ti to choose the first device!
Plumbing!
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