Spirit Taming

Chapter 757: Earning Respect

"I don't have much of a say in that." The master blacksmith did not say anything more. The forge spirit had already moved out of the forge. While its form was that of fire right now, Clark and Ralph could tell that what Clark offered had been enough.

"Then we have a deal. We are trying to make a proper spiritual sword that our friend can use." The forge spirit moved around the still hot metal and reached out to it. In a moment, it had inhabited the glowing anvil. "Ralph, let's start."

This had been the sign that the forge spirit was on board with everything. Ralph pulled out one of the forging things before the master blacksmith snatched it from his hand.

"Don't use something like that. Use something with proper form." The master blacksmith knew that his tools were well above what the humans had. Even Ralph's hammer had been made with him in mind by General Green, and that was still not good enough.

Having someone try to use an improper tool in his forge was nothing that he wanted to be part of. This was not an insult to the tools but an insult to his forge as a whole. The best could be used here and nothing less. He had spent many years to be able to have the proper forge so that he could have the best tools and the best materials used.

When Ralph lifted the hammer, he felt the change in the way that energies flowed through the hammer from his body. He was able to feel just how great something like this was. It was years of techniques. Years of purifying. The knowledge required just to make this hammer were above what he had learned by a longshot.

When he slammed it down, he sensed that the metal and the hammer had reacted much better. He had managed to change the shape of the ten fold steel by half as much more than what he would have been able to with his usual hammer.

This spurred on his partners. The dragon welp took a slight breath and breathed a wisp of dragon fire out so that Ralph should keep the temperature higher. The metal itself was being manipulated by the forge spirit slightly. It knew the shape of a high quality sword, one that could be influenced by spiritual energy more easily.

This wasn't because it was just a forge spirit. This was due to the fact that its tamer had managed to make many spiritual weapons in his lifetime. Many of the blacksmiths had fire and spirit type beasts. That was simply because they were the best to help forge something.

Channeling the fire energy and the spiritual energy allowed for other energies to be introduced at different stages within the forging process.

This only takes the right techniques and the right knowledge. Especially when it came to the years of training that a proper blacksmith would go through. That was how the master blacksmith was able to tell that Ralph was still somehow injured. He saw the odd changes in how the beasts he had connected to him pushed energy for him.

How the molten boar provided more metal energy for him so that he could overcome the lack of proper flow due to healing injuries.

The same from the dragon welp. But where things were clearer were when Ralph would start to apply force to carve out the proper spiritual energy flow. He had to rely on the forge spirit to help because it had a method of controlling spiritual energy. Yet, this was not the end. Where the master blacksmith thought that Ralph would begin to fail, he saw why Clark and Grace were with him.

"Grace, start to cool where I am shaping the metal. This edge and the opposite." Ralph mentioned this without even looking up. His full focus was on the metal that he had to shape. Because of this, he was making a better base for the dual edges that would be the blade with a lot more shaping.

The reason that he had asked Grace to cool it was simple, this would temper the edge slowly but surely. Causing the edge to be tougher than what it would be. The thinness of the metal could be overheated and cause damage to the metal itself. With a little cooling, it was kept from heating too high.

"You need to put more metal energy in to the core of the sword. Right now you are forcing some of it out every time you use the hammer to lengthen the metal." Clark was using the analysis skill repeatedly.

While some people would look at the words and get bored or annoyed, Clark had a different reason for doing so repeatedly. He was looking for those slight changes that would stick out. Because he had been using the system skills like analysis for so long, he had the ability to catch the small details.

Sometimes the system gave him so much information that it was hard to even grasp. Especially when it went in to historical information or large sets of details that would describe a potion formula process or a growing technique process. Here though, he could see the details of the unfinished sword.

He could see the section of the analysis that said, '" if the metal energy is not increased, there will be bubbles of unbalance energy that will cause the sword to fracture'"

That way, he was able to warn Ralph who managed to sense what Clark was talking about. "You doubted them a bit, huh?" Maria had taken a moment to look over for the first time. She realized that the forge had gotten much hotter and she could take a moment to think about what else was going on. Not that she did so for long, she had to record what she could learn.

"All humans like them nowadays? Thought that they were greedy and foolish."

"Still have the greedy ones. Still have the stupid ones. We just have a few good ones now that are kicking the others out of our homes." Maria laughed a little since she was thinking about all the corrupt families that were now being ousted from Aphelion City. from the Universal Alliance in its entirety.

When Maria went back to looking through the dwarven alchemy books, she didn't have any reason to lose focus again. She started to copy them as fast as possible so that she could help Ella rewrite them in a better format for her to study and learn more in depth.

The time to shape the metal was only drifting in to an hour before the master blacksmith pushed over different barrels on wheels. These all helped different oils for quenching. He was still testing them. Clark saw this clearly.

"Don't use the first two. One is oils from the blitz berry herb bush. They are more water affinity then spiritual and that will cause the metal to cool too fast. Then the other is from the haggard tree, the oils from that are toxic and will leave a poison in the blade. Reese can't use that energy at all."

"So that leaves the basic black oil which is from mined pools in the earth and the other is… is this series spirit oil? It only forms in pools nearby to a forest where spiritual beasts gather. It takes over seven years to just get half this much. What's in here would take closer to twenty years to get."

It made a lot of sense for Ralph to recognize something like this that he had seen in books alone. But he moved to use it nonetheless. The cooling princess was very specific for this sword. He had used the form of a sword he could see within the forge, one that was clearly a successful format.

Therefore, Ralph knew that replicating the format was ideal. It was just the spiritual energy and metal energy that would be different. However, he had the help to do that. With the forge spirit controlling more metal energy and spiritual energy in balance, all he needed to worry about were the temperatures and forms.

Over the course for three hours, the sword was slowly decreased in temperature. It was not a short process but a long one to ensure that the metal was not going to be brittle or damaged.

When Ralph set it down with the intent to sharpen it, the master blacksmith picked it up and slammed it down on the ground. Ralph didn't flinch though. He looked confident, cocky even.

This final test showed that the sword was not brittle. That it was not bending. That it had indeed been created with a clear and powerful base. "Watch me carve spiritual and metal runes on it before I seal them in with a spirit oil to soak it." The master blacksmith didn't say much else, but he didn't need to. He showed his feelings with actions.

He was surprised so he offered to help rather than to belittle. He had respect for those willing to do what they needed to do to reach this level.