[Voidknight Ascension] Chapter 168 – Bronze Age

With another level in his Voidknight Legend secured, Sam’s HP had shot up again.

There was something immensely pleasing about his HP suddenly improving by leaps and bounds instead of a couple of points, as it once had.

Hard to imagine that I used to have less than a hundred HP.

[Status]

Name: Samuel Hunter

Race: Human

Legend: [Voidknight (Lv.22 - Copper)]

Job: [Swordsman (Lv.31 - Copper)]

Profession: [Blacksmith (Lv.5 - Unranked)]

Path: [Void (Lv.30 - Copper)]

Health(HP): [4,445/8,327]

Mana(MP): [1,991/2,377]

Attunements

[Void Mana] (F-Class Apocalypse Gate) (★★★★ Legendary V)

Affinities

[Fire Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon I)

[Metal Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon)

[Void Mana] (F-Class) (★☆ Uncommon II)

Physical Stats

Strength(STR): 376 (+27)

Dexterity(DEX): 174 (+8)

Agility(AGI): 147 (+3)

Vigor(VIG): 374 (+23)

Awareness(AWR): 70 (+18)

Magical Stats

Arcane(ARC): 71 (+12)

Control(CTL): 49

Resonance(RSN): 51

Mind(MND): 118 (+12)

Insight(INS): 90 (+17)

Sam shook his head in wonder and amazement.

His HP had gone up slowly as his body naturally healed over time, but as he kept getting levels and raising his maximum HP, his current HP percentage kept dropping.

He didn’t feel any worse off, for which he was grateful.

It was almost comical that by getting a level in Blacksmith, he was effectively reducing how “hurt” he was, even though that wasn’t precisely the way of it.

Sam would have thought that by having higher Vigor he would recover HP faster. It stood to reason that you would generally recover more HP if you had more of it, right?

Not quite.

It was a hard lesson to learn, and one that made Sam even more determined to get proper healing potions stocked up and a well-made suit of armor that was appropriate not only for his level, but for the monsters he would be facing off against.

Up to a point, your HP recovery would improve, but after you reached that point, the improvement couldn’t keep up with the additional HP you gained.

As Volquist had explained to him, eventually your body becomes so dense and so difficult to damage that it also becomes difficult to heal. Great Experience for healer-type Jobs, but kind of annoying for the person with tens of thousands of HP.

The alternative wasn’t any better, according to Sam. Not having high HP just because it was harder to heal and took longer—and more potions—to recover wasn’t a good reason not to have it.

With his 8,327 HP, Sam could probably jump off his Skyshard and drop onto another and survive. Hell, he might actually be able to walk away.

Damage done to a person wasn’t something that was percentage based. Things that would have broken Sam’s bones before now barely gave him a bruise. His HP hardly budged for things like falling from a crashing dinosaur—just to name a random example that could happen to anybody.

Sam made room for his dullahan helper and motioned to the coins. “D’you see that pile there? If you could sort out the bronze from the iron coins—and any other types that you find—I would appreciate it.”

There was a brief pause as the dullahan seemed to digest what he was saying, then gave an awkward sort of half-bow and began using his one arm to sort with a surprising amount of efficiency.

You would never have guessed that fingers thicker than a sausage—and made out of metal at that—would be able to pick up tiny coins with ease, but the dullahan made it seem effortless.

While it didn’t speed things up—it actually took a little longer—Sam was glad to have the dullahan’s help. Here was somebody that he could talk to, explaining what he was doing even as he was figuring it out.

In a weird way, it helped Sam to piece together what he was doing and what he should be doing. The dullahan was a great sounding board, though he felt a little bad that the poor thing effectively had a speech impediment because it only had one arm to sign with.

During the next few hours of sweat-drenched working, Sam learned more of the dullahan’s odd sign language than he had in the entire time he knew them.

With the aid of the dullahan’s superlative listening skills, Sam figured out better ways of using [Smelt] on the coins, and though the [Bronze Ingots] made from the coins weren’t exceptional in any way, he was getting better and faster at making them.

He’d even managed an Uncommon rarity [Bronze Ingot +1], netting him his sixth Blacksmith level.

Craft Success!

You create a [Bronze Ingot +1].

You gain greater Blacksmith Experience for creating a high-quality result.

[Bronze Ingot +1]

(Tier 2 Material) (F-Class)

(★☆Uncommon)

A smelted and molded ingot of bronze with an uncommonly high purity rating. Great care and effort went into this ingot’s production, the balance of copper to tin is at its peak allowing for higher quality products to be more easily created from this metal.

Your [Blacksmith] Profession has reached Level 6.

+5 Strength | +5 Vigor | +5 Dexterity

+2 Awareness

Sam picked up the [Bronze Ingot +1] and held it up to the light. Like all the other ingots he had made so far, it was a slightly tapered bar and stamped with his name. However, unlike the others, which took on a rough, almost pebbly texture, this bar of bronze was smooth and glossy like it had already been polished.

There was little for Sam to take pride in back on Earth, but here he took great pride in his smithing.

As Sam set aside the ingot, he started plotting out what he would work towards next.

He needed to repair the dullahan, but their condition was much worse than when he last tended to them. And since then, they had ranked up to Copper too. Their materials were slightly different now.

As Sam worked, he began to formulate a plan. Part of it was from talking to the dullahan, and the other was something he had thought about from the first time he began smithing.

There were all sorts of things you could make out of an ingot, so he thought to make all of the ingots that he could out of the materials provided to him, then turn those ingots into further refined ingredients.

He had a theory that there were multiple factors at play in how difficult a recipe was, and therefore how much Experience it would give him.

Like fighting monsters, the more difficult they were, the more EXP they granted. While it wasn’t always that simple, it was at the very least a good guideline.

And one of the inclinations Sam had was that the higher the material tier, the higher the difficulty. If ores were material tier 1 and ingots—which were nothing more than smelted and refined ore—were tier 2, then tier 3 would be something made with that ingot.

Sam took out his [Simple Hammer] and took the very first [Bronze Ingot] he had ever made and brought it over to the [Simple Anvil].

Without being asked, the dutiful dullahan pinched the ingot between its fingers and acted like a clamp, holding it down while keeping out of Sam’s way.

With a sign of thanks, Sam gave the dullahan a half-bow. He then swung the hammer, infusing it with all of his Strength.

There was a bright flash of light, an actinic spark that made him wince and pause. When Sam’s vision cleared, the [Bronze Ingot] was covered in a thin sheen of white light and it looked far flatter and more deformed than it should have from a single strike.

Sam wasn’t trying to use an Artisan Orb here, and yet the magic that was in everything on the Shardrune understood his intent and helped him to shape the metal without all the cumbersome tools and extra steps.

With a grin, Sam hammered away again and again, always checking and double-checking, adjusting where he hit the piece, turning it over, and in general making sure he was doing everything in his power to make a flattened piece of bronze that could be used for patching up say, a broken dullahan breastplate.

The hammer strokes became easier and easier. Instead of speeding up, Sam actually slowed down enough that he could get a glance at the material in between one hammer fall and the next.

His eyes adjusted to the bright flashes of light, and he found himself falling into a rhythmic beat as his [Simple Hammer] pounded the [Bronze Ingot].

Unknown to his conscious mind, Sam was constantly threading in Fire mana from the forge to keep the metal ductile without deforming it too much.

He was rewarded with the product of his curiosity a few moments later.

Craft Success!

You create a [Bronze Plate].

You gain additional Blacksmith Experience for attempting a crafting recipe above your level.

You gain substantial Blacksmith Experience for creating a new crafting recipe for the first time.

Your [Blacksmith] Profession has reached Level 7.

+5 Strength | +5 Vigor | +5 Dexterity

+2 Awareness

A glance at the [Bronze Plate’s] description confirmed that it was considered a tier 3 material. Though it was made from a [Bronze Ingot]—which was lower than Sam’s current Blacksmith level—it also confirmed that the higher material tiers were also higher level recipes.

With a roguish grin, Sam looked at the dullahan and said, “Fetch another ingot, please.”

As the hours passed, the rhythmic pounding of the hammer on the anvil was a steady background noise in the settlement. People came and went, dropping off supplies or gathering their own little piles for progressing their own Professions.

Little by little the area around Sam was cleared and then added to. Each person gaining their own little crafting station. None of them were beautiful, but a little ingenuity went a long way.

Rough benches and tables of ironwood gave a rustic aesthetic to the whole affair. If only they had a roof over their heads, they could call it a proper workshop.

Before Sam continued on his third piece of bronze, he turned to the ores he had gathered.

This should be easy to do.

His first attempt ended in failure. The Artisan Orb shattered, and he saw motes of the [Copper Ore] vanish.

Sam stared. I… lose some of the items from a failed craft attempt!?

After a moment or two, he calmed down and figured that wasn’t so bad after all. Nobody got hurt, nothing exploded.

But it did confirm one more thing that he had suspected. Simply smelting down was easy, alloying was not.

When he tried to use [Smelt] to create the alloy of bronze, he struggled with nearly everything. It was entirely unlike anything he experienced with the coins.

I’ve been Blacksmithing with training wheels on.

Gathering up more ore, Sam shoved them into the Artisan Orb and got to work again, giving the new recipe and skill his all. Fire mana carefully balanced just so, enough heat to melt and meld the different melting points together without taking too many impurities.

Mana to push and force them together into a cohesive mass, while at the same time using another thread of mana to pull out the impurities—and there were a lot.

It was like trying to pat your head and rub your belly at the same time while also riding a unicycle across a tightrope in a hurricane.

But the rewards were worth it.

Craft Success!

You create a [Bronze Ingot].

You gain additional Blacksmith Experience for attempting a crafting recipe above your level.

You gain substantial Blacksmith Experience for creating a new crafting recipe for the first time.

Your [Blacksmith] Profession has reached Level 8.

+5 Strength | +5 Vigor | +5 Dexterity

+2 Awareness

Level Up!

Your [Voidknight] Legend has reached Level 23.

+2 to all Stats

+1 to all Talents

While Sam had created [Bronze Ingots] before, he didn’t do it with ore. Apparently, that was enough to be considered an entirely different recipe and net him some more bonus Experience.

Sam wasn’t about to complain. He pushed the ingot aside to be taken by his assistant and gathered up more ore.

It was going to be a long night.