CH.192 Making Blood Iron
“Here we are.” Paulina said as we got out of the carriage. Alice wasn’t with us, so it was just , her, Ria, Kayla (Paulina’s personal maid) and our coachman.
We were close to the easter wall of the city, in the knight barracks area. Specifically, the smithy they have for equipnt repairs. And making so new weapons, even if most new swords are left for the professionals.
The building was a bit smaller than I expected. I don’t know why, but I just thought that smithies were these huge buildings with an enormous furnace at its center. But maybe that only goes for the ones in the mining cities, where they actually turn the ore into the tal or sothing. After all, the one inside my factory where Kotetsu works is actually quite compact.
“Lady Paulina. I’ve been expecting you.” A knight was there waiting for us.
Paulina had told about him a bit on our way here. His na is Bryson and he is a logistics officer, in charge of weapon and armor maintenance.
“Thank you. Did you prepare what I asked you to?”
“Yes. The forge is lit and ready to be used.” He answered. “May I ask what you are planning to use it for?”
“Oh. I’m not the one using it. Brian here will.”
“He? Well, if you say so.”
“Don’t be too rude to him. Brian is a new upcoming noble. While he hasn’t been officially nominated, he is a new dungeon founder and will get his title eventually.”
“Ah. I see. My apologies.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” I casually responded.
“... thank you. This way, please.”
“Sorry to say this, but I must be off.” Paulina interrupted as we were about to enter.
“My lady?” The knight seed to ask.
“Just let Brian do as he wishes. He can also use any materials in the storage. Just help him in any way he asks.” Paulina said before returning to her carriage.
“... well, that happened. So, can we go in?” I asked the knight.
“.. y-Yes, Sir.” He said as he opened the door for .
“... and he is back to being stiff again.” I muttered.
“And here is our storehouse.” Bryson said. He had given us a quick tour of everything and this was the final place. He had gotten a bit more comfortable with speaking with during that ti.
“Thanks. I guess nothing more to it than to call my smith.” I said as I pulled open my collection and got out a monster. “Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu.” I had already warned Bryson, so he didn’t react too much.
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Now with him here as well, I just need the blood.
(Repeat that, please.)
(We will use Mystik Wok to make the blood of Tyrant Dragon into a al. It isn’t that complicated.)
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(... yeah, but how? Since when has that been possible?)
(Always. We just never did that, as humans don’t really drink blood.)
(But we know an entire village of people that do. Not to ntion Ria. Why not use that to get blood for them?)
(And that is a part of why we didn’t do it before hand. You don’t drink blood, Rhianna does. And now that she has Card Summoner, we don’t have to worry about using single use cards.)
(And why do we have to use dragon blood?)
(It has the best qualities of any blood available. It will make the highest quality blood iron. Honestly, I would like to use the blood of Blue-Eyes White Dragons, but I know how you feel about them, so I believe that Tyrant Dragon is a decent alternative.)
(... fine. But next ti, you can tell when you realize these kinds of features.)
(I’ll try my best. But please do realize that your collection holds 1332 unique cards. Even I don’t know everything they can and cannot do.)
Yeah. I guess she wouldn’t.
I left Kotetsu with Bryson to wheel the materials to where we will use them, and went outside with Voivode and Ria.
“Ria, I need you to activate this card.” I said as I handed Ria the two cards.
“Mystik Wok. Make a blood drink with the blood of Tyrant Dragon.” Ria said to activate the card. This specific wording was apparently helpful for the success of the operation. Kind of like a magic chant is helpful for a successful casting of a spell.
The massive body of Tyrant Dragon appeared for a second, before it was cut in a few places by a giant cleaver. Then the parts were positioned in a way where the blood would gush out of the corpse.
Vampire Voivode, for his part, was catching every single drop and guiding them to a magic flask that I had gotten out from my inventory. Thank god I made a few of them when we visited the dungeon.
“... wow. This stuff is so good.” Ria said. She had ‘stolen’ a bit of the blood while we were doing this and had imdiately drank it.
“Well, it is dragon blood, so I guess that is to be expected. I can let you have those cards.”
“Would you? Really?”
“Yeah. It's just two cards. Well, the dragon is a bit much for now, so that might be sothing I take back between uses. Maybe we should go out and have you fight with the monsters and prove that you can control the dragon.”
After the dragon was completely drained of blood, its corpse disappeared into specks of light. I then returned the two grayed out cards into the collection. Sorry Tyrant Dragon, but at least you will be back tomorrow. Or perhaps Laura will just Monster Reborn you. I have enough copies of Monster Reborn where I can waste one on that.
We went back to the forge with the blood and Kotetsu had everything ready to go there.
Voivode walked up to him and said they were ready to start, so the first ingot went into the fire.
“Here. You should put these on.” Bryson offered both and Ria a pair of furry earmuffs. They were made of so kind of monster wool and then enchanted in a way where they would stop most sound, except talking. Quite useful, when you work in loud environnts.
“Thanks.” I said as I received them and put them on. Ria also put hers on.
We watched as my two monsters got to work. Well, Kotetsu was doing most of it, while Voivode just added so of the blood iron into the ingots, as Kotetsu forged them out into longer bars, before folding them over onto themselves. I even ended up summoning another three Kotetsu, just to make the forging go faster. And in case you were wondering about their anvils, need I remind you that my monsters can put their weapons back inside their cards when they don’t need them? Yes. That includes the anvil Kotetsu cos with, so the extra anvils were returned to the cards.
“Sir, may I ask a question?” Bryson asked as we were looking over them.
“That already is a question, but I’ll assu you ant another one besides that. Go for it.” That is probably my new go to response when soone asks for my permission to ask questions. You can always ask, but you might not get an answer.
“What kind of summoning magic allows for one to call upon a smith and a vampire?”
“... the one I use, I guess. What kind of summoning magic allows soone to call upon spirit tigers or heavenly dragons?” I asked back, referring to two categories of monsters I’ve heard you can summon with this world’s summoning magic.
“I … I guess so. I’ve just never heard of humanoid summons like that.”
“Well, first ti for everything.”
“What are they even making? They seem to just be folding that piece over and over. What is their goal?”
“To make blood iron.” I answered.
“Blood iron? Really? They can do that?”
“You know of it?”
“Of course I do. It is said to be on par with high quality steel. I’ve heard of smiths that are willing to sacrifice their safety and live in a dhampir village for the chance to make so.”
“... that’s sothing. I guess if they get the skill Agatha has…”
Now I just wonder, is blood iron really that worthwhile? For a human, I an. Or a dwarf. For a dhampir, sure. But a dhampir could theoretically make it themself, as long as said dhampir knows how to forge steel.
“Ria. Co over here. We shall now turn this blood iron into gauntlets for you.” Vampire Voivode called on Ria.
I was actually the one wondering why a tal that can be controlled with magic has to be ford, so I asked about it. And the answer that I got was.
“Blood iron has what is called a ‘default state’. This state is made during the forging process and the tal wants to return to it, while not actively under blood magic control. It is better for us to make sothing that can be used as is, without having to control it with blood magic.” Voivode explained.
I guess that makes sense. So if you make a dagger, it wants to be a dagger, but you can temporarily alter it into a whip. But after you let it be, it will go back to being a dagger.
With Ria next to the anvil, the quartet of smiths got to work, forming the two ingots they had into gauntlets for Ria. I was a bit worried about how they were going to size the things, but Voivode used the blood we had as an insulator when they tried the gauntlets for size, so Ria didn’t get burned. It still looks wrong, but if it works, it works.
When the gauntlets were in a form that the smiths, the overseer vampire and the client Ria all approved of, they heated it on last ti, before Voivode covered them in a thicker coating of blood to set the final form of the blood iron.
As we had a bit more ti, and materials, the smiths and Voivode got back to work, making another ingot. This ti, they were actually using scrapped pieces of old swords and armor. Not because it was better, but well it kind of was. The ingots were mostly iron or low quality steel, but so of the scrapped pieces were high quality steel. And they would need high quality steel as a base if they attempted to make vampiric steel.
So my smiths broke the pieces into even smaller pieces, stacked them up in a way where they would stay together, using so sort of magic to ‘weld’ the pieces together a bit. Then into the fire the bundle went.
They spent a good ti carefully trying to bring the pieces together and when the quartet was satisfied, they once again began the process of folding the steel and adding blood in between the folds.
“Here you go, Master.” Voivode handed the finished ingot. It wasn’t a ready to go blade or anything, as we had ran out of ti, but we could just keep it as an ingot till we had a use for it. “I’m sorry to say, but it isn’t quite up to the quality we'd like to get.”
“No. This is fine. Even if it is lower quality, you managed to make so vampiric steel and that is impressive.” I complinted.
Yes. They had in fact managed to make a vampiric steel ingot. Sure they say it is low quality, but at the sa ti, it's vampiric steel. A tal more or less on the level of mithril. And they made so, with a production cost of basically zero, as they just used so scrapped pieces of steel and so blood I got for free.
“So, how much do I owe for usage fee and the materials?” I asked Bryson.
“There is no usage fee. The material cost is two gold per ingot, so four gold in total.”
“What about the scraps we used?”
“They are just that, scraps. You don’t have to pay for them. Normally, we would send them to Yuva, where they are remade into ingots, so you actually saved us the trouble.”
“Well, if you say so.” I said as I paid the four gold for the ingots.
“So Ria, what do you think? Do you like them?”
“Yes. I do want to test them out in an actual battle though.” She responded. She hadn’t taken off her gauntlets since they were ready. I guess she was like a little kid with a new toy.
They weren’t your classic knight gauntlets, which cover your entire hand and are designed to protect the wearer, but more like brass knuckles which only cover the outside of your fist and so of your forearm. It had quite well refined knuckles, so you could punch things hard. And, of course, Ria could, once she learned how to, transform it into sothing else as well. Maybe I should tell her about Wolverine’s claws.
“Well, we are heading to the village again tomorrow, so I can summon you sothing there. Or we can go out and find a natural monster, if you prefer that.”
“Either will be fine.”
We took it sowhat easy for the rest of the day. Well, so magic practice was in for both of us again, but other than that, yeah.
For Ria, it was practicing using her new gauntlets. Not like punching with them, but controlling them with blood magic. I summoned Vampire Scarlet Scourge to be her teacher for that. Maybe I should give a few vampires for Ria as well. Maybe Scarlet Scourge and Grimson.
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