Blacksmith vs. the System

"This is —" Terry muttered as he looked around.

"My workshop," I said as I pointed. Not just the forge, but countless shelves that could be seen from an open door, each keeping the record of a certain experiment.

"It's … not what I imagined," Rebecca commented.

"It's too mundane, right?" I said, to which she nodded, albeit not entirely convinced. It was hard to blame them, not with the way I had been developing. They expected something fancier.

However, in practice, the skills were already handling the most complicated steps in my experiments. Or, it was more accurate to say that I had been forced to direct my experiments in a direction that would be supported by my skills.

An inevitable situation. Up until now, I was alone in my research other than the brief collaboration with Maria and Eleanor, which made the research direction inevitably linked, depriving me of the real direction I wanted to explore.

In the end, I still wanted to understand how the System is shaping our society, and how it could be directed … an idea that only got more critical once Rosie revealed the true nature of Horizon Institute.

The idea of Cataclysm as a natural disaster had been horrible enough, but the fact that it was being subverted by a shadowy group as a giant social engineering project that would have made even the most determined totalitarian cry in despair was something else.

There were even worse possibilities about Horizon and the Cataclysm, but I chose not to follow that line of thought.

At least, for the moment.

"Can we walk around," Jennifer asked.@@novelbin@@

"Go ahead," I said. After all, once I had brought thousands of people to the third floor, I had prepared for anyone to snoop around, and removed anything secret. As for personal items … Well, it had been a long while since I carried along anything that wasn't utilitarian in nature.

While they wandered around, shuffling between the shelves and experiment notes, I prepared the forge once more, ready to create the tools for the experiment I had in mind.

Their debate might have been more argumentative than I would have liked, but from the nuggets I had heard, I could feel that both had their own useful perspective. All that was needed was for them to have a chance to gain several skill points at once to transform their skills, which would confirm the validity of their processes.

Especially with me there to assist them with mana control. After all, both mine and Eleanor's success had been possible with Maria's assistance.

I let them wander around while I prepared the materials, even going to the first floor to pick some boss monster material.

"Gather around," I called once everything was in place. "Spencer, let's start with your method. Explain to me exactly how your approach works."

"It's based on the core geometric shapes you have given us," he said, pointing at the direction of the shelves holding the results of the exact same method. "I have experimented with several plants, and it's possible to control the growth of the plants that would carry those shapes naturally, which allows them to interact with free mana more naturally," he said.

"Show me," I said.

He quickly grew a small plant, its structure robust and ordered, filled with geometrical patterns, more like a statue than an actual plant. The others didn't look impressed with the plant. "This approach isn't just scribbling lines," he muttered, his voice lacking his earlier determination. "It's designed to systematically channel mana through mathematical ratios. The angles and arcs correspond to structure and your notes, designed to channel mana."

Once I radiated some mana through the roots, the plant acted like a pump, confirming his hypothesis. "Interesting. It works as designed," I said, focusing on the feeling. "However, you need to come up with a design that not only channels it, but actively uses some itself, or it might not work." Read new chapters at My Virtual Library Empire

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That made Spencer frown. "Good point, professor," he admitted. "But maybe we can still try."

"As you wish, but make sure to stop if you improve your skill by ten points at once, yet it still doesn't transform," I said. Then, I forged a small gardening knife for him, designed to assist him in infusing mana, with a hold in its handle to slowly release it.

He shifted his weight uncomfortably as he touched the gardening knife, realizing the quality. 'Thank you, sir," he said.

I turned to Terry. "What's your method," I asked.

"It's more aligned with what you have done with the dungeon plants," Terry replied. "Actually, it was your method that allowed me to find the answer to what I had been searching for."

"Go on," I said.

"What I have in mind is to trust the inherent nature of the plant, but adding some reinforcing concepts behind it. Concepts that require utilizing mana actively. That way, my skill only has to guide the growth from the side while interacting with the concepts. It's similar to how Basic Meditation works."

"Show me on a small scale," I said.

He grabbed a sapling, and focused on it. The sapling didn't grow much, just an inch … but touching it, I could sense the concepts of two dungeons mixing together, almost like a spiral. I had a feeling that it would repel the mist from both dungeons.

"I see your point. Interesting concept —" I started, only for the small sapling to interrupt me by catching free.

"It needs some practice, but I believe that—" Terry responded in panic, trying to convince me.

"Calm down, this already counts as a successful experiment. Do you have any idea how many explosions I had caused trying to discover a way to stabilize the first iteration of anti-fire metal? I can already sense the stability of two concepts, and it's interesting."

Too interesting, even, which could potentially be helpful for my forging. Up until now, I had been trying to perfect only one type of concept in my forging. Trying to embed both decay and fire might have interesting potential.

Well, probably not decay and fire in a practical sense, as it was hard to imagine two of them actually being useful together. Maybe as an experiment, until I could find something more efficient.

"Let me see if I can create a better ratio," I said as I started forging. A few exploding knives later, I managed to actually find an interesting balance thanks to the guidance of my Shaper skill. Instead of two equal concepts trying to maintain balance, it kept the corrosion concept as a source of resistance, while it turned the fire concept offensive in a diminished way, like a satellite.

Resulting in a weapon that would resist the corrosion while doing extra damage to all targets, and not just the dungeon insects.

It was not particularly useful in practical terms, but the validity of the concept was more important. I explained the weapon to them. "Now, all we need to find is a way to transfer those concepts to Nurture," I said.

It triggered a surprisingly effective discussion, and soon, we were looking at several small plants, the most successful one actually stable enough to not catch fire or spontaneously rot for almost three minutes, which also triggered a surprisingly upbeat mood.

They were too lost in excitement to notice Spencer's sudden sadness, but I caught it. Since he seemed not to want to talk about it, I just nodded at him, and he stayed in the background, acting like he was still experimenting.

It wasn't that I couldn't understand where he was coming from. Failing an experiment was never fun, especially while watching a friendly rival succeeding at the same time.

"Ready?" I asked Terry once I fashioned a similar gardening knife for him to channel his skill.

He nodded, and turned his attention to the sapling in front of him. He activated his nurture while the knife provided the mana passively. The sapling started to grow in front of him, its body showing a green rot while its leaves smoldering with fire.

"Come on, come on," Rebecca whispered excitedly, her fingers crossed.

"It's going to catch fire —" Ryan muttered, only to be interrupted by his brother poking.

"It'll work," Jessica commented, while Spencer and Jason stayed silent. Spencer was still depressed by his failure, while Jason was showing his usual stoicism.

Terry only stopped once the tree surpassed my height, finally stopping, a shocked expression on his face.

"Tell me, did it work," Jessica growled in frustration.

"Yes," Terry gasped in shock, excited. "I … I have a magic skill. Incredible." He turned to me. "I'm ready for a class upgrade, sir," he said.

"Are you sure," I asked. "We could actually try to push it to the next level before doing that to give you a better class upgrade."

"Do you think it'll work without my own essence to help me?"

"For a Legendary skill? No, probably not," I replied. Even with all the tricks to assist such a process, I wasn't sure I could push a Legendary skill to its limit easily.

"Then, I'll go through with it, professor," he said. "I have only two options, Farmer, and Tender of the Land. And Nurture had changed into Mana Tend. It's Legendary."

"Fine," I said. I wasn't particularly incentivized to encourage him either way.

Facilitating his class upgrade was easy. With the dungeon filled with monsters, helping him reach level twenty-five took less than ten minutes. A steady supply of mana and ten minutes later, he walked out of the container.

I didn't need him to say anything, not when he crushed a nearby shell, and absorbed its mana.

Success.