Abe the Wizard

Abel couldn’t hammer the base as perfectly as he did wit his Horadric Malus, but his sick muscles guaranteed that every hit was successful.

He wasn’t even listening to the cheering around him. He was all focused on hitting the base with his hammer. His left hand was locked on the thong that was clamping the base, and it was searching for the right position to make the next hit.

It was all happening in an instance. His second strike came immediately after the first one. Black sparks started shooting out. The base didn’t even fly out of the thong. It just stayed there as the 700-pound hammer kept on hitting it.

“It’s been two hits now,” Master Morry murmured.

When what was considered “unusual” became the norm, all the surprise and shock would be turned into a sense of numbness. Everyone was cheering for Abel at the start, but the more they saw how his hammer was hitting on the base, the more silent they became as they kept on watching

After one hundred strikes, Abel stopped his hands and placed the base back into the inferno flame. The audience became dead silent. All that could be heard was the sound of the inferno flame. Abel picked up the base again. He was going for a second round of hammering

As insane as this 700-pound hammer was, it was nowhere as good as the Horadric Malus. Abel had to make a successful strike out of every two hits. He wasn’t too satisfied with that, but it was already too good for the other masters.

After the base was turned into 150 skills, he could only raise its level once out of every three or four hits. When the base was taken out of the inferno flame for a fifth time, he was only a little bit away from creating a fine iron piece.

He started dropping his hammer around this time.

“I’m so sorry, guys,” Abel said in disappointment, “I didn’t make it. This craft was a failure.”

“Wait, what are you talking about, Master Abel?” Master Morry asked. As far as he could see, the base was almost the same as a pure fine iron piece.

Abel said after letting out a sigh, “Well, I thought that I could make a fine iron piece right here, but I guess I’ve overestimated myself.”

That statement really triggered Master Morry. He was over 500 years old right now, and he could barely make a base with 120 skills. This young man standing in front of him was only a teenager. Not only was he lifting a 700-pound hammer like it was nothing, but he was also, what, disappointed that he couldn’t create a fine iron piece with his bare hands?

In admiration, Master Morry spoke loudly to Abel, “You should be a grandmaster now, Master Abel! Even the greatest man in our history can only make a 150 skilled base! You are already breaking all the records in history!”

“Yeah, no no,” Abel shook his head, “I’m still just a beginner, Master Morry. I’m nowhere near qualified to be whatever status you said I should be in.”

Abel wasn’t trying to be humble. Even now, most of his equipment was made from the Horadric Cube. It was still a long way before he could make the gears that he wanted with his own skills.

Master Morry pleaded Abel as he was about to go back to his seat, “Well, you can at least let me fulfill my promise, Master Abel. Please, take the hammer with you. It’s nothing but decoration if I keep it, but you! You have the arms to make it alive!”

Instead of turning down the offer, Abel placed the hammer into his portal bag. These dwarves were known to be stubborn. If you didn’t accept their offers, they might actually think that you’re disrespecting them.

Master Morry said as he picked up the base with his thong, “Please, everyone, go back to your seat. We’re moving onto the next activity after I’ve cleaned this up.”

“Well, why don’t we talk about who gets to keep this base first, Master Morry?” Hoover suddenly spoke. He had been silent the entire time.

Master Morry threw a stare at him, “This base is the property of the Blacksmith Union! We are definitely keeping it!”

Master Hoover instantly spoke back, “Well, Master Abel comes from the Duchy of Carmel! I think it’s only fair that the Duchy of Carmel gets to keep what he makes.”

Master Robin stood up as well, “No, no, you got it all wrong! Master Abel learned his stuff from our school. I should keep the stuff that he’s making!”

Before Master Morry started to speak again, all the other masters started asking for the base to be distributed across the room. Abel didn’t expect them to be so rowdy over his failed creation. The base was almost turned into a fine iron piece, but it was still not there yet.

Well, he was too tired to make a fuss about it. The craft was taking a lot of his energy, so he decided to walk to a seat and start resting. Luckily, blacksmiths weren’t famous for their fighting skills. There was Hoover the knight’s head commander, but even he wasn’t so savage as to start a fight to take away the base.

At the end of the day, Master Morry made a proposal that everyone would take turns to keep Master Abel’s metal base. The order would be decided by straw drawing, and everyone would have a month to keep the base to themselves. If this wasn’t arranged, the master blacksmiths would still fight amongst themselves for the next few days.

Eventually, the master blacksmiths went back to their own seats. They all did something at the same time, and that was to show their gratitude at Abel when they walked past him. It was him who showed them that there was a higher playfield in the art of forging, after all.

When Abel walked back to his seat, he was explicitly giving up on the ownership of the base. If he really wanted it for himself, as the one who made it, he could have just said so and no one could stop him.

As though unaffected by what happened just then, Master Morry continued his announcements.

“We’ll now display the new works of each one of our masters! Let us do this in the same order as last time.”

Again, Abel was the only one that did not know what to do. When he looked around, he could see that the underlings of all the other masters were taking out the finished works.

When the first gear was put up on stage, the one who made it began to comment on what he thought its strengths and weaknesses were. After that, two of the elven master blacksmiths would comment on how aesthetically pleasing it was or could be.

After that, it was the armors, weapons, bows, and elven rings. Everybody took their turn to examine the pieces. This was when Abel discovered what he was lacking.

Again, what he lacked the most was experience. Every time a master blacksmith was handed over a piece, he could almost immediately tell what it was made of and what it was capable of. It was also a given that he should know what spells were indicated by the rune patterns. Obviously, the assistance of a tool was still required to examine the effects of the spell.

Whenever Abel was examining a piece, all he did was to throw it inside his Horadric Cube. As convenient as that was, it was also the exact reason that he skipped a lot of the studying he should be doing

It was a shame, really. Come to think of it, many years ago, when Lord Marshall first told him to learn the skills of a blacksmith, he did it because he wanted Abel to learn how to analyze a sword. Yet, as Abel walked further down this path, he started to forget about the fundamentals and focused more on efficiencies and stats.