Luckily, the Smith spotted the problem imdiately and prevented further damage.
During his attempt to activate all of the enchantnts at once, and only managing to activate eight of the heating strips, they all activated at full force. And one property of tal that every smith knows is that tal expands when heated. And one property of enchantnts that every enchanter knows is that when the substrate of a material is altered, it damages the enchantnt. Basically, the regular iron heating strips were capable of getting hot enough to lt themselves and destroy their own enchantnt.
[Appraisal]: Heating Strip, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 2/2, Enchantnt: Heated Blade (6)
On a full sword, or even a knife with higher durability, this likely wouldn't be a problem. But for a thin strip of tal designed just for outputting heat, it was a problem.
Jas sighed, then pounded a fist into his thigh angrily. What a mistake! He could have used red iron instead! He had plenty! Red iron got hot fine and had a crazy high lting temperature, it would have been perfect! He just hadn't thought of it!
And he only had four small fire magic crystals left.
Rembering the last several tis he had shouted in the Dungeon, Jas held his tongue, but the words he wanted to say would have earned him the whooping of a lifeti if his mother had heard them.
He allowed himself to wallow in frustration for the space of five deep breaths.
After that, he put his frustration and regrets about the past behind him. He turned his mind to the future.
The heating strips worked. The entire system seed feasible, if he could just control it.
He was the weakest link here.
It was the first ti the Smith had ever produced a craft he was incapable of using to its full extent. Even his [Reflect] enchanted shield, probably his best and strongest creation to date, wasn't so strong that he couldn't fully use the enchantnt. Probably. Not that he ever wanted to test it in real combat. But he also knew that, as a Smith, and of course as an Enchanter as well, that he would eventually produce items that were beyond his own ability to use. That was, sort of, the point. To produce items, not to use them. That was the business of custors, to actually use his products. Even his skill, [Product Testing], wasn't really for using items, it was to test them. In fact, it was probably as close as he could get with his Classes to actual capacity to use items the way they were ant to be used. And he had never heard of such a skill from Jared, his smithing ntor, nor from ridox. In fact, it was possible that, like his [Mining] skill, it was a highly unusual skill for a crafter to acquire, likely driven by his unusual circumstances. Even an adventurer with a Smith class would also have a combat class, which would be more likely to have applicable skills rather than the Smith class acquiring a skill like [Product Testing].
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Author's note: the [Product Testing] skill is more common today, but in the Legendary Smith's ti it was nearly unheard of, and only a select few master Smiths were known to possess the skill.
Editor's note: At the ti of publication, several hundred years after Andrew the Chronicler's ti, [Product Testing] is intentionally taught to apprentice crafters, as it has been found to have beneficial effects on the production quality of crafters that compound over ti. Research is currently ongoing into the skill at various institutions.
Jas considered his situation. He had, roughly, two options: try to re-design the heating system such that he could use it, or try to develop the ability to use the system as it was.
After so consideration of his resources, he decided on the second option. If he had unlimited fire magic crystals, obviously he would just redesign the system: he could make longer heating strips of red iron such that there were only two distinct enchantnts to control.
But he simply didn't have that many fire magic crystals. Such a system would require redesigning the enchantnt significantly, and much more magic crystal dust to fill in the etchings for the enchantnts.
And he felt like his chances of growing to match his crafted items were pretty good.
Particularly, because of his [Enchantnt Activation], [Mana Manipulation], and [Enchantnt Testing] skills.
[Enchantnt Activation] made the process of activating enchantnts much, much easier. Even when activating two, let alone a full eight enchantnts, trying to do it manually by channeling his mana into them, the way he did with the wards and how he had originally done with his shield, was way more ntally taxing than just relying on the skill, which made the entire process as simple and instinctual as moving his hand.
[Mana Manipulation] also massively simplified the process of adjusting the heat output of the enchantnts, while also making it much easier to use his mana in the first place. Unless he was actively using it, it tended to sort of solidify inside of himself, until he ward it up and softened it through ntal effort so that it could be forced to flow around and be used. With the skill, his mana flowed much more easily and was much easier to direct while flowing.
Finally, [Enchantnt Testing], the skill in his Enchanter class that seed to be linked to the Synergy skill [Product Testing], gave him feedback on both the enchantnt itself and on his own ability to use it. It wouldn't enable him to use more enchantnts at once by improving it, but it would let him know if he was improving at all.
The final issue was that Jas couldn't practice his skills on the heating strips he had created. They were far too fragile and irreplaceable. So, the next day, he spent all his ti forging more iron strips, roughly the sa number and sizes as his heating strips, but with a different enchantnt, with much more abundant magic crystals: [Glow].
[Appraisal]: Glow Strip, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 2/2, Enchantnt: Glow (8)
He tested one of the strips, finding that it was even easier than the heating strips to adjust the output of the enchantnt. He could dim or brighten the glowing light as he pleased, and even causing the strip to glow at maximum brightness for almost an hour did nothing to damage the enchantnt nor the strip itself. But just like with the heating strips, he found he could only activate up to eight at once, at maximum brightness, and that if he wanted to adjust the output of the enchantnts, he could only activate four at once. He also found that if he adjusted the output, all the enchantnts would adjust the sa, unless he went all the way down to only two simultaneous enchantnts. With just two, he could adjust the brightness of their glowing independently of each other.
His ultimate goal was to control twenty-six different enchantnts independently of each other.
He had a long way to go.
First, with three glow strips, he activated two of them with his skills and then manually activated the third, without the aid of his skill. His mana felt incredibly strange in that mont, both soft and warm, but stiff and cold at the sa ti.
His concentration broke instantly and all the glow strips deactivated.
Jas sighed, took a deep breath, and ntally reset himself.
He had a long way to go.
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