The next tool that Eisen was making was something that may be used more often than the pickaxe, an axe. For this, Eisen shaped the hot steel ingot into a flat square shape, and created a thin edge at one of the ends while thickening the end opposite to the edge to give enough space for the handle to pass through. Now that this was done as well, Eisen set the axe head down next to the pickaxe head, and then threw the next ingot into the forge for the next tool.
He would also need to make the dagger for that Crafting Guild request he picked up before, but that wouldn't take all that long either, so it was fine to do it after he finished his tools.
Once the steel ingot in the forge was glowing a bright yellow, Eisen grabbed it out of the forge again, right when he remembered a new part of his dwarven racial skill. Slowly, Eisen moved his fingers toward the glowing steel until his skin was pressed against it, and Eisen didn't feel any pain or lose any HP through this action. He would still move it around with a tong while crafting, though, since they would take up the least amount of space on the metal to let Eisen work more easily with it, but at least it was good to know that he could even handle something as hot as this with his bare hands now.
But while Eisen was quite happy to see this, the owner of the smithy was nothing but confused. "Erm, are- are you a Dwarf, by chance?" He asked, already feeling quite silly to ask this man that was nearly double the height of what any dwarf should be, but to his surprise, this old man simply laughed as he began to work on the metal in front of him.
"Haha, yeah, I'm a half Dwarf. My other half is a giant." Eisen explained while flattening the steel, and the owner of the smithy nodded slowly.
"A Half-Giant? Well, that explains your height at the very least… Anyway, don't let me disturb you any more than, was just surprised to see you touching the hot steel with your hands."
Eisen chuckled and nodded his head as he continued flattening the steel down quite a lot, until it was less than a centimeter thin and shaped it to have a rough 'U' outline, just that it was completely filled out, and was slightly pointed at the round end. Because what Eisen was making right now was a shovel.
As these were all quite simple tools, making any of the parts really didn't take that long, and Eisen managed to finish this within a little more than an hour, including the time it took to grind each edge down to be sharp enough.
Now, after asking if this was alright, Eisen stacked some bricks on top of each other to make a small box, placed a few bricks onto the ground in the box to make sure that the steel parts wouldn't touch the burning coals that Eisen added in next, right before he placed the steel parts on top of them and closed the box off.
It seemed like the owner was kind of confused at what Eisen was doing, but just let him do his thing anyway. So next, it was time to make the dagger for the guild request.
Eisen threw another small steel ingot into the forge and waited until it was glowing in a bright yellow like always before grabbing it and placing it on the anvil. He quickly thinned it out and slightly lenghtened it as well, before creating the edges of the dagger that lead all the way around the blade part, and then reshaped the part of steel where the handle would be attached later.
Since it couldn't hurt to temper this small blade as well, Eisen placed it into the tempering box next to the tool parts and then stepped over to the group that watched him work.
"Alright then, now we only need to wait for a bit. The parts will finish tempering soon, and then I can finish everything in the carriage." He explained while deactivating his skills and packed away his hammer, changing back out of the leather apron into his regular shirt before turning to the owner of the smithy.
"Thanks for letting me use this space for a short while." Eisen smiled and the owner quickly nodded in response.
"Yeah, of course! It was quite interesting to see someone with a 'Master' occupation at work. And as expected, you managed to finish all of these things incredibly quickly!" He said with a smile, clenching his fist tightly in excitement. "Seems like I'm getting kind of pumped up to forge again myself."
"Haha, then I'm glad I could help a youngster such as yourself." Eisen chuckled while moving his fingers through his beard before paying the Owner of the smithy for the materials that he used.
Suddenly, Eisen noticed some notifications in the corner of his eye that seemed to have popped up while he was working.
[Flame of the Earth Magic reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]
[State of element in can now be changed independently of other active areas]
[Due to Ranking-up your Flame of the Earth Magic Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
[Tool Connection reached Level 100 in Rank 1, upgrading to Rank 2]
[Connectivity will now increase bonus effect on tools further]
[Due to Ranking-up your Tool Connection Skill, you gained +1 INT and +1 WIS]
"Huh, interesting. I don't quite understand what it's trying to tell me for my element, though.." Eisen muttered out in a low voice, that only Bree seemed to have picked up.
"Hm? Something wrong?" She asked with her head tilted to the side, and Eisen shook his head. "No, no, it's fine. But my magic element ranked up just now, and it says that it's state can be changed independently of other active areas, and I don't know what it means." Eisen laughed softly, so Bree immediately began to explain.
"Well… until now, if you changed the state of your magic, it was probably affecting every single part of the infused mana, right? I think now you can change some parts into one state, and another into a whole different state."
Eisen listened closely and nodded with a loud "Ahh!", and crossed his arms. "So that's how it is, huh?" He laughed, and in the middle of that, stopped abruptly as an idea popped into his head. But he needed a bit more space for that, so he would need to do it once the group was driving again. For now, the only thing that was left to do was wait for the steel parts of the tools and the dagger to be finished.
While they were waiting, they sat around in a circle and talked to the owner of the shop for a while.
But soon enough, the parts of the tools were finally finished, and Eisen grabbed them and waited for them to cool down before placing them into Bree's backpack.
After thanking the owner of the smithy once more, Eisen set Melissa down on his shoulder and grabbed Caria's hand again before the group left to head for the carriage again so that Eisen could continue making the tools.
"Now then, I'll finish the dagger first." Eisen said while cracking his knuckles and sat down at his worktable, grabbing some wood to work with.
Quickly, he grabbed a piece of wood and began carving it into the shape of a wooden handle for the dagger, and then created a small hole at its core. So in order to push the metal part of the handle into this more easily, Eisen heated it up with his magic element and then pushed it into the wood to cause a perfect fit.
Once that was done, Eisen could have probably just handed this in, but he rather felt like adding another important part, leather. This would make it easier to grab the dagger for a long time, so it made a lot of sense to add it.
So, after grabbing his exacto knife, Eisen cut some leather into a long, thin band. Its underside was then covered with some simple glue, and wrapped around the wooden handle. It took a little bit of time for the glue to set properly, but it fit quite well.
[Steel Dagger]
[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 3]
[Description] A simple steel dagger created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen.
[Effect] +5 AGI, +3 STR, +2 END
[For creating an overwhelming quality item, you gain +1 STR ]
"Alright, let's bring this to the guild, then!" Eisen exclaimed loudly, and Komer shot up from leaning against the wall.
"H-Huh? Already? But didn't you just start like half an hour ago?" He asked confused, and was simply met with Eisen's soft chuckle paired with a nod, before the old man left the carriage, only saying one thing.
"You guys wait here, I'll be back in a bit. I'll hurry up so we can leave again soon!" Eisen explained, immediately rushing off out of the stable without giving anyone in the group a chance to react. He really wanted to try out that Idea he got when his Flame of the Earth Magic ranked up again, after all.
---
Not long after Eisen left, he already returned with the rewards from his finished request as well as another new request. While Komer and Bree wanted to sit around and relax for a while, Eisen immediately connected Cabarum to the carriage and began driving it outside, toward the gate in the direction where they needed to go.
"Eisen? Why are you even in such a hurry? Did something happen?" Bree asked concerned, looking at Eisen through the opening at the front of the carriage, and he turned his head with a smile.
"Well, you explained it to me yourself, didn't you? Just wait, you'll see what I'm planning." Eisen laughed and drove the carriage to a spot out of the way of other passing carriages, where he would be undisturbed for this experiment.
He jumped off of the bench at the front of the carriage and was immediately joined by the rest of the group. Eisen stretched his hands out forward and pushed out as much mana as he could, shaping it into something that he stared at for basically hours at a time throughout his whole life.
And although it looked basically just like a large block at first, once Eisen added a few details to it, it really did look like what he wanted it to look like, a forge. Luckily, since he would be making this with magic, it didn't require anything like pumps to heat up the flames, but simply his own magic power as fuel. So, Eisen was able to concentrate on the space itself, where he added a large enough center where a large amount of metal could fit, as well as an opening that would allow easy access to every part of the forge.
It was basically a simple recreation of the forge he had in his own workshop in real life.
Once this mana structure was finished, Eisen pushed out his Flame of the Earth element out of his palm and infused it into his pure mana, immediately changing it as far toward the earth state as he could, and now the whole thing turned into a structure of very rough rock, since his rank-up allowed the element to turn further into each state.
But that wasn't the only thing that changed. Just as Bree explained it to him before, it was now possible to change certain parts of the structure into pure flames while the rest stayed as rock. And as such, large flames shot up inside of the forge. They were already quite a bit hotter than they used to be, so Eisen hoped that this would actually work. And it seemed like the system wanted exactly something like this to happen, since it immediately accepted Eisen's recreation of a forge with his mana.
[Do you want to add the Flame of the Earth Forge Spell to the Spell Library?]