Chapter 247 - Forging
The design of Ravenous Black had been inspected enough times for Leon to understand the ins and outs of Ravenous Black like it was the back of his hand.
A normal person would have had to dismantle the Ravenous Black to understand its complete design, but thanks to his divine sense, such trouble and risk were avoided.
Ravenous Black was the only Scribing Pen in his possession. If the functions stopped working as a result of his dismantling, he might just go neck himself.
The importance of a Scribing Pen was its functions, or in other words, the runes enchanted into it. The materials used to forge it was not all that important unless the designer intending for the Scribing Pen to also be used as a weapon.
Nevertheless, the materials should be decent since he was gifting the final product to his future in-laws. He needed to show some sincerity.
Heading over to the Duke's personal forge, he found the spare forging material at the side in a storage box of processed ingots. Leon found and selected Magisteel and Star Meteorite Iron or Star Meteorite for short.
Magisteel had had good conductivity with energy and was good for the engraving of his runic lines and circles, while Star Meteorite was the same as Black Iron in color appeal, except it was a grade higher in terms of toughness and was suitable outer shell of the Scribing Pen to give it that nice black sheen.
Maybe he was giving too much favoritism to blackness, but he felt black was good with almost anything.
"Father-in-law, I'm going to need your help with fire control." Leon requested after he selected the materials and tossed them in the smoking hot furnace.
"Hm?" The Duke became startled with an appalled expression upon realization. "Your cultivation… what happened?"
"Some stuff happened, and it can't be used currently, but it should be back to normal soon," Leon said wryly. The Duke's reaction was within his expectation.
The Duke was suspicious, but seeing Leon's nonchalance in such a sensitive topic, he decided to give the boy the benefit of the doubt. If the boy does not care about it, then it shouldn't be a big deal.
"Alright, what do you want to have me do, boy?"
"I need help speeding up the heating process. I will handle the rest." Leon said as he began familiarizing himself with the layout of the forge and location of all the tools.
"Hmm, alright."
The Duke didn't say much. He was intrigued by Leon's calmness as he was already preparing for the hammering process with a familiarity that did not seem to have been faked.
Within a few instances, the Duke has already begun to view Leon as someone with some experience in blacksmithing and not a complete amateur who was just looking to pick up blacksmithing for fun.
However, he held back on his complete evaluation until he sees for himself, how Leon was going to hold the hammer and temper the metal.
Many things can be determined by observing the precision, strength, and form of a person's hammering such as gauging the person's blacksmithing skill. It was also possible to predict the quality of the final product if one's insights were keen enough.
With the Duke's assistance, the metal ingots in the furnace quickly reached the perfect state for tempering within mere moments.
Leon immediately fished the ready-hot Magisteel and Star Meteorite ingots out of the furnace with large tongs and settled them on the anvil.
At the side, the Duke straightened his back and was ready to observe and offer pointers to Leon like a veteran blacksmith when mistakes are spotted.
However, when Leon picked up the hammer, his aura changed so abruptly that the Duke was completely flabbergasted. Duke Ignis had the illusion that what he was looking at was not a boy new to blacksmithing but an old veteran blacksmith with decades of experience.
This change in aura was brought by the memories of Leon receiving the inheritance in the time chamber dreamscape as he got serious upon holding the hammer.
Twanggg!
The first strike landed on the red-hot Magisteel!
Duke Ignis immediately snapped out of his stupor and sighed with relief as the illusory image was shattered with the first hammer strike.
He thought it was fortunate that Leon was not as monstrous as he had imagined. It was not good for his heart.
A few mistakes were spotted in the first strike of tempering, no matter how minor it was. the boy's form was good but there was some awkwardness in the execution that caused a drop in precision and failing to perfectly channel all the force in the metal. The strength used was also slightly higher than necessary.
A smile crept on Duke Ignis's face as he thought this was his time to shine. Offer a few pointers and gain the boy's respect as a peak expert in the field.
However, when he was about to point out Leon's mistake, he saw the latter frowned and the following scene made him froze.
Twangg! Twang! Twang!
Consecutive blows struck the hot Magisteel with growing improvement. Each blow was better than the last! By the strike, there were no more mistakes!
There was no hint of awkwardness in the execution, an appropriate level of strength was used, and no force was wasted as it was all absorbed. It was a perfect tempering strike!
With Leon's perceptiveness, he had noticed the discrepancy between memory and body. The skill might be ingrained in the mind, but the body had yet to be attuned.
However, with a few strikes, the problem was fixed.
The Duke was left with his finger awkwardly hanging.
Twang! Twang! Twang!
Each consecutive strike after was filled with perfection and was like a blow to his heart. He almost had a mental breakdown with flowing tears.
It had taken him five years of hard training before he achieved such a level of mastery in tempering metal, while this son-in-law was able to master it in a few strikes after disappearing for two weeks. There was no justice in the world.
"Hm? Is something wrong, father-in-law?"
"N-No..."
Leon continued onwards with the process of forging all the parts of the Scribing Pen.
…
"So, this is the Capital of the Crawford Kingdom…"
In the skies, not far from the Capital, an airship was quickly approaching with speed incomparable to ordinary airships.
On the deck of the airship, the Supreme Elder and Princess Faelyn were gazing down from the front deck, while being accompanied by the general marquis and his son on a wheelchair, who held onto the side rails to prevent himself from rolling to the back.
The two envoys weren't necessarily impressed by the capital city itself, but the place was thriving, and they intrigued by the difference in human architecture.
"En, we will soon be docking at Lancaster Workshop Tower. Do the esteemed envoys wish to tour the workshop, or quickly continue onwards to meet our king?" General Marquis Hendrick inquired out of courtesy.
Princess Faelyn's interest was immediately piqued as a person who was curious toward anything new. She glimpsed at the Supreme Elder before she responded.
"Can we? Since we will be stopping there anyway, it won't hurt to take a quick look."
"Erm, this general will make the request upon docking. The workshop has been in quite a busy period so there might be a chance of it being rejected."
Hendrick did not think elves would be interested in seeing smoking hot metal and puffing steam as he smiled wryly. Erm, the current human understanding of elves in picture books seems to be incorrect.
His face was quite big, but they most likely are restricted only a few levels to tour as other places might be too confidential for foreigners to access.
…
"It's done."
Leon said excitedly as he wiped his sweat after drawing the last runic line on each individual piece he had forged in the last two hours.
The Duke was quite curious when Leon had taken the Ravenous Black out to engrave the runes. When Leon explained it was what they needed to bring runes to life, the Duke wasn't able to close his gaping mouth in surprise for a long time.
In front of them, on the metal bench, two sets of Scribing Pen parts were laid out.
After Leon was done with engraving the runic lines with the purple liquified energy that oozed out of Ravenous Black, he began to assemble the pieces together to form the two complete Scribing Pens.
With the Duke's finishing touches, the two Scribing Pens were perfectly welded and would not fall apart into separate parts again.
The two Scribing Pen shared similar appearance to Ravenous Black, except a different colored-jewel was embedded on each one.
After rubbing the runic circles on the nib, the runes came to life and they only needed to be left in the sun for the improved energy conversion function to start gathering and transforming solar energy in improved-artificial-spirit energy, before being condensed and stored in the hollow jewels.
Since the products were completed, Leon immediately gifted them to the Duke. "Father-in-law, these are for you and Mother-in-law."
The Duke accepted them with glee and wonder since he already been explained of their functions, but he still doubted whether these so-called Scribing Pens would actually allow them to finally succeed in recreating a working levitation stone.