System Architect - Ch 121

And getting better is what I did. Though progress was slow, it was steady. After a year of practice, I was comfortable making knives and other blades out of steel. I was able to make them the easy way—using bars and cutting them into a rough shape first—as well as the more labor intensive method of forming the weapons from billets of steel with only a hammer and the forge.

In that time, the money I’d been dumping into pushing the idea of mana and monster forefront of human culture was working. While not fully successful, the ideas I wanted to strengthen were known to the nerdy types and just beginning to infiltrate the wider zeitgeist. With the remaining time left, I was hopeful that it would become more widely known. Between that and the tutorial I’d cooked up, I figured humanity was in as good of a position as I could reasonably get it.

I had become fairly proficient with the spear. Gregory had begun to teach me how to fight against different kinds of weapons. Everything from swords to more exotic kinds. It revolved around exploiting the strengths of the spear and the weaknesses of whatever I was fighting against. As always, the fights were fast. With all the extra experience—and the boost in stats I had when compared to him—I was able to come out on top more often than not.

I wanted to create a few weapons for myself, my family, and the people who had helped me along the way. Unless someone preferred a particular weapon—like Gregory did with his sword—I planned to make everyone else a spear. All of the practice blacksmithing left me with a surplus of knives to test new enchantments on. The earliest ones were of such poor quality that I hardly considered them more than sharpened bits of trash. They would—however—be perfect for testing out what enchantments were the best given my level of skill.

The only thing standing in my way was figuring out which skills I wanted to use as the baseline for the enchantments. There were a few options when thinking about it from an effect-centric point of view. The first was a way to keep the blades sharp by resisting damage to them. I tossed that idea out because it suffered from the same issue as the enchantments for armor in that I didn’t have a good way of keeping it powered. Something used when attacking was preferable as it wouldn’t waste the mana of the wielder.

The next option—in my mind—was a way to make the edge sharper. This could come from a debuff effect the triggered on contact, making the damage more. Or it could come from adding something to the edge like a blade of wind that would inflict extra damage. Either of those would work, and they were the options I was leaning towards.

The final ideas that came to me were more varied. The weapon could contain a buff for the user. I dismissed it for the same reason as the armor and the unbreaking enchantments. Or maybe the weapon could shoot a projectile when swung—or pointed—at the enemy. This could take the form of anything from a beam of focused light or a fireball to a blade of water that shot from the edge of the weapon. While interesting—and oh so much fun—I decided that a simpler enchantment was the way to go.

Now I only had to decide which of the skills to learn. The wind blade idea was stuck in my mind for a while. Eventually, I decided that the debuff was actually the better option. The wind blade would struggle against opponents with very thick skin or armor. The debuff—on the other hand—would not. Given the multitude of debuffs available, I went with one that made the most sense for what I was after.

Skill Purchased: Brittle Skin
Current Exp: 25,821,186,019,188

The skill caused the skin to become weak. This meant any slashing or piercing attack would have an easier time causing damage. The effect would be muted against armor, but not too much. There was a version for blunt attacks called Fragile Bones which I did not pick up. If I were making a cudgel or a mace, then it would have been my go to for those.

Getting the skill to work as an enchantment was tricky. The spell itself was ranged. It shot a ball of energy that applied the effect to whatever it hit. The enchantment would need to keep that on the edge of the blade rather than launching it so that it would apply right as the attack did for the greatest chance of dealing damage.

To get the enchantment into the form it had to be, I borrowed bits from other fractals I knew. The process was tedious. Through trial and error—mostly error—I managed to put together an enchantment that coated the weapon in the debuff. As I had to do the positioning manually, each weapon type had to be modified to work correctly. The last thing I wanted was to accidentally debuff myself just by holding it!

Perfecting the enchantment left me with a bunch of enchanted knives that were effectively worthless. I ended up reforging them into other items—like the spear tips I wanted. I had a bunch left over even after making the spear tips. The next challenge on my plate was the sword for Gregory.

Everything I’d made so far had been small. I knew how to make a sword in theory, but I hadn’t attempted one yet. I knew it would be much more involved than the knives were. At the same time, all the practice making knives gave me confidence that I could do a decent job given my skills. Sebastian would be there to help me if I needed it. With that in mind, I grabbed the rest of the failed knives and fired up the forge.

“You’ve worked with billets before,” he said. “This time, you’ll have to make a large one out of the knives.”

I nodded. The process was the same as: layer the steel into a stack with lots of flux and beat the crap out of it until it was one solid piece. Fold it over a few times—just to be sure—and then draw it out to shape. With a power hammer, I was ready to begin shaping the metal after an hour. The metal was solid and the impurities hammered out of the steel.

I treated the sword like a knife—a really big knife. There were differences in the way the tang was made, but the sword I was making was shaped like a two-foot long knife. The sword was only sharp on one side, with the other thicker to give the sword weight. It wasn’t going to be a fast blade, but it would pack a punch when it hit. There was a tip on it like a Bowie knife in case Gregory needed to stab with it. That didn’t mean it was meant to do any stabbing. It would cut like a cleaver, and that was its job.

When I was happy with the shape, I ground the blade to further refine its design. Then it went through the hardening and tempering process before being sharpened. The last thing I did before putting on the handle was to enchant the sword. The enchantment went on the upper part of the tang where there was enough room to put it. Since I was working with steel, I was able to fill the enchantment with gold before polishing the surface. Finally, I attached the handle—and the pommel to secure it—before wrapping the handle for comfort.

“You did a great job,” Chris told me.

“Yeah,” Sebastian agreed.

“Thanks! I can’t wait to see what he thinks of it.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a sword like that,” Sebastian laughed.

“Maybe later,” Chris said while wiggling his eyebrows.

“Get a room,” I said.

“Oh, we already have one,” Chris answered immediately.

I facepalmed.

“Instead of a sword, I made the both of you a spear. I don’t know what weapon you’ll end up using, but a spear means distance between you and whatever wants you for dinner.”

“Really?” Sebastian asked.

“Really. That’s why I made so many!”

“I thought you were just making them for yourself or for practice.”

“Nope! One for each of you, one for each of my parents, my grandparents, and—of course—one for me.”

“Thanks!” Chris said.

I took the weapons I had made and left with Dad. The next day, I went to see Gregory to learn more and to give him his present. He was in the studio warming up when I got there. I walked in with a box containing the sword like it was nothing. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by making too big a deal of it.

“Good afternoon, Eddy,” he said when he noticed me. “What do you have with you?”

“Oh, it’s something for you,” I said. “Let me know what you think.”

I handed the box to him. He picked it up and looked it over. It was a long, thin cardboard box that fit the sword snuggly inside. After inspecting it, he popped open one end.

“Careful,” I warned him.

He nodded. He tilted the box and the sword slid out slowly. It was wrapped and protected. Slowly and deliberately, Gregory unwrapped the sword. When it lay in his hands, he looked at me with a huge smile on his face.

“So you like it?” I asked.

“Awesome!” he exclaimed. “But why’d you get me this when I have so many weapons already?”

“It’s special,” I told him. “Remember how I said magic was coming?”

“Yeah?”

“That sword is enchanted. When you attack, you can put some mana into it to activate the effect. It will make whatever it hits weaker to being cut by the sword. That means you should expect to do more damage with it than you otherwise would. Also, I made it. So that’s probably important, too!”

“Wow! I don’t know what to say to that. But thanks? I appreciate it. Reminds me a bit of a kreigsmesser—a German war knife-sword thing.”

He took several hacks with it to get a feel for it.

“It’s not balanced in the slightest,” he said. “It feels like it’s a slightly lighter axe with the way it swings. Anything hit by it… well, it’ll kill plenty! Did you make something for yourself?”

“A spear. It’s got the same enchantment on it since it’ll work for both slashing and piercing.”

“That makes sense. No shield?”

“Nah,” I shook my head. “I couldn’t figure out how to make those enchantments work without draining too much mana. I might have a solution in the future, but I don’t for now.”

“Alright. Again, thanks for the sword.”

We sparred using training weapons for the rest of the afternoon. He didn’t want to damage the sword too much, and I didn’t want to deal with any injuries.

On the way home, I thought about how far I’d come. Connecting with people was hard at first—and it still was—but I’d found people I could rely on. I still felt like I had to be the one in control. Fighting that was going against fifty years of life experience where I could only rely on myself.

With the weapons made, I was finally in the home stretch. There were some last-minute things I wanted to do before I committed to the apocalypse starting. Some of it was putting the finishing touches on the system. Some of it was getting equipment and stocks to deal with the fact that there wouldn’t be any supply lines for a while. I wanted food and everything I needed to make enchantments… maybe for weapons and armor as well, though that was a lesser priority. At the very least, I could pick up a bunch of good quality stuff off the internet and begin enchanting it for sale later.