Kasi City (2)

I am walking on a narrow street which seemed like a dilapidated slum in a corner of Kasi city while searching for a shop which is going to be one of the best shops in this country and become famous all over the world after E-day.

Not all people are depressed or lost something after E-day, some also gained or achieved what they passionately strived for. One of them is the person I am searching for, named Basara, a blacksmith.

His ancestors made ornamental weapons for cultural rituals and custom-made weapons to various royalty and nobles who visited this prestigious, culturally historical city (very much in olden days but now just a spot for pilgrimage and to pour your ancestral ashes in Ganga river).

Nowadays ritual weapons are only glowing decorations with no sharpness but in olden days, only the best materials are forged by the best blacksmith to create the ornamental weapons to offer in the rituals.

Being a blacksmith,37 years old in his most active age, he is as strong as humanly possible and gained passive 'ancestral inheritance' as his talent after E-day and fulfilled requirements for rare class 'Ancestral Blacksmith' which gave him the skill 'rune crafting' in the earlier days providing many humans with essential weapons to fight against the monsters.

Another advantage he had in the earlier days of E-day was his old, manually operated coal furnace. Why is it an advantage? because electricity became less efficient after E-day, like.....with the electricity used to run a city became only possible to run a medium sized town. Many scientists researched days and nights to finally gave a hypothesis that all elements on earth became stronger after E-day.

We study electricity 'as the free flow of electrons' in our science classes, but it also can be said as the energy to pluck the free electrons from one atom and push it towards the neighboring atom and repetition of this cycle.

After E-day, all things became stronger. For example, soft clay before E-day became as strong as hardened cement. all chemical and molecular bonds became stronger. Hence the energy to move electrons from one atom to another also increased drastically, so all electrical types of equipment are all dwarfed.

Not only that, all the available fuels became less efficient to generate heat including coal but it's still better than operating electrical equipment, then many new fuels started appearing in the form of elemental crystals. Even though Basara's coal furnace became a baggage only after three to four months after E-day due to increase in human levels and material composition, but it still helped in the earlier days both to him and his customers.

When I am still fighting in my middle levels not yet known as one of the strongest of humanity, reached a bottleneck in my sword skills. Then someone suggested me to learn the 'metal' before understanding the 'sword' made of 'metal' which led me to pursue blacksmithing in care of many blacksmiths. While some don't want to reveal their secrets to others, some taught me their skills and Basara is one of them.

While thinking about all this I reached the smithy I am searching for, there saw hulk of a man with a bulky body, just 5 feet tall with vigorous muscles. As he is half a master to me in the future in my past life I wanted my first impression to be as pleasant as possible so, I gave him a wide smile as pleasant as I thought which made him flinch for some reason.

--------- Basara's POV---------

My grandfather used to boast about making weapons and ornaments for kings and queens but all the work I get these days are repairs of second-hand goods and contracts for small farming tools.

I started my day as usual opening the store, heating the furnace and all then came the devil to my shop. Why did I call him the devil? because of his creepy smile on his face like an evil merchant who wants to make a deal with me with my soul as a guarantee, and his next sentence sent a chill out of my spine, "hello! my name is Suman, I came to offer a deal which you can't resist." with the same creepy smile.

--------- Suman's (MC's) POV --------

I don't know what he understood from what I said but it took me a while to relieve his misunderstanding. He started calling me evil merchant the moment I introduced myself. He should meet with Sigrid merchants who will sell you the sand in a desert with premium insurance and retail discount.

My offer to him was to let me forge two 45cm short swords (30 cm blade +15 cm handle) in his smithy with the materials available and I will pay him 3 times the material cost.

At first, he didn't agree with my offer but I know his weakness so, I made a bet with him. I gave him upfront 20 times the cost, which is all the money I have and taunted him that the blades made by me would be better than his, if not he can keep all the money and material.

He is not a normal blacksmith who is to rust away along with time. He is passionate about his craft. Rare class profession didn't choose him because his ancestors are good blacksmiths but the opposite. He even tried to force his only son to be a blacksmith like him but relented afterward knowing that industrialization and automation in this age became insurmountable barriers for an individual's skill and capacity.

After he agreed, no I schemed him into agreeing to our bet, called Razik that I am not coming to room tonight. He asked me with a jealous tone how I am able to pick a girl for a one-night stand in just the 2 hours of our separation, to which I laughed loudly and left him to his imagination.

--------- Basara's POV---------

This young man is surely weird. Aside from his creepy smile, he is a passionate one that, I can see from his eyes. Maybe I am going senile in my earlier years because of always staying in my gloomy passionless smithy to think of him as a devil. But he touched my reverse scale by challenging my craft, does he even know how years I have dedicated to reaching my skill?

While thinking about the days of apprenticeship under my father we started heating metals, arranging tools and all. Haa...those were the days, I used to make small trinkets and sell it in the market for pocket money but my father found it and gave me an earful telling me our craft is not for mere trinkets and to be proud of my craft.

Suman is removing his shirt near the furnace to work with metals. I thought at least he know the basic of working on hot metal but I was taken aback by his sculpted body and rippling muscles. This is not a body a 20+ years old juvenile should have, then I looked at my beer-belly and felt embarrassed. His body at-least tells me he can handle a hammer, now time to see how much he understands the metal.

He selected 6 different metals of different compositions and heated them below recrystallization temperature and started working on them. At first, he started landing one or two hits on the hot metals like saying hello to them, maybe I am really going senile for thinking that but then it started.

From the point he started hammering, I started getting absorbed into his craft. The hammering became a symphony of some kind, his muscle fibers are resonating with his hammer strikes and started guiding the energy in his body in an orderly way like water flowing backward from ocean to rivers, river to canals, canals to smaller lakes and lakes to creeks.

Metal bends to his will, dancing to his tune like he is composing and assembling a grand orchestra. He is melding metals like cake dough, when it hardens a little he reheats them and mixes the dough again and this continued for a long as well as a very short time before materializing two short swords like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

I dedicated my whole life to my craft but I am nowhere near a juvenile and I am still blaming technology for lack of appreciation in individual skill. Only a first ranked in class has a right to complain about favoritism to the teacher. This reignited the slumbering flames in my heart, telling me to improve myself first before finding excuses for my fall from others.

--------- Suman's (MC's) POV --------

I obviously won the bet, but he insisted on not taking even the base price I agreed to give him. But the fire in his eyes is something to look forward to, maybe I already ignited the spark in him before the E-day.

I reached my room by 1:00 am after midnight, but I didn't expect to see Razik glaring at me from my door.

I exhausted myself too much for 8 hrs continuous hammering, if I did it after E-day I would have got a message saying I am eligible for apprentice blacksmith. But my exhausted-self seemed to give him too many devious ideas in that little brain of his.

"Did you kill a girl or something on the bad, " asked Razik with a suspicious face.

"What? who do you think I am? do you think I am dumb to exert all my prowess on to a single girl?" I said with a cheeky smile while flexing my muscles.

That moment his face became beet red shouting, "BEAST" and murmuring 'Shit it's not just one girl' deluding himself into his own imaginations ran to his room.

While thinking how easy it is to manipulate virgins, I fell onto my bed thinking on to my next and last goal before reaching the Himalayas, 'THE ARTIFACT'