Forging

When Alex activated the 7 day training card, he found himself in an old room with charred walls and a furnace centered in the room. A powerful old man stood in front of Alex. The old man looked human, but still looked different. His muscles were extraordinarily bulging and his eyes were actually white without any pupils at all.

The old man had purple veins flowing through his body, that was visible through his skin. He looked at Alex with utmost seriousness.

"Molte, I am giving you one chance to prove yourself as a forger. You will spend the next seven days learning as much as you can. Now pick up the ore and begin purifying them in the flame!"

Alex saw his reflection in a shard of a mirror on the wall and discovered that he was someone else! Even the old man called him Molte. Alex tried to scream in surprise, but realized he couldn't.

He found himself walking towards the forge. Slowly he began picking up the ores and putting them in a mold as he let the fire blaze around the ore.

"Control the flame, you foolish lad!" The old man yelled. Alex was stunned by the voice and began adjusting the flame as the old man instructed him.

However, after an hour of turning the ore molten and adding caustic sand to purify the ore, Alex realized he failed when the ore was cooled.

"What a waste! You wasted the ore and failed to purify the metal! Again!" The old man yelled.

Although the old man only displayed the practical process, Alex realized through this process after a couple of failures, the chemical and physical reasons behind his failures. From controlling the flame to the mold, to the quantity of ore, everything mattered.

Alex kept practicing under the crazy old man without break for an entire day before he was able to purify his first ingot of copper from the ore.

"Molte, you are the most incompetent student I have ever taken! A day! An entire day to finally purify an ingot!" The old man berated Alex, who felt a little indignant. However, the terrifying aura of the angry old man subconsciously made him lower his head in shame.

"Get to work you nincompoop!" The old man screamed.

Alex rushed back to the furnace and continued purifying ores. Over time he began getting better and better and his mistakes became fewer. The quality of the ingots he produced was also improving and slow Alex was able to purify multiple ores at a time.

As the second day passed, the old man finally spoke again. "You've improved a little. You can at least produce a few ingots now. Come, I will teach you how to hammer the metal!"

The old man took an ingot and began hammering it with his gigantic hammer. Smashing the ingot into a pie. However, he didn't stop as he continued to hammer the ingot to make it as flat and thin as possible, forming a large plate.

The old man then stopped and looked at Alex. "I want you to hammer all these ingots into plates! Begin!"

Alex sighed in shock. The power that the old man displayed was terrifying, beyond any human he had ever seen. He began hammering the ingots, but discovered that he wasn't able to turn them flat paste like the old man did. He had to hammer it constantly until he was able to smash down a single ore.

Days passed by in this manner. Alex learned to hammer metal, and how to forge it into shape using heating and cooling and hammering at the same time. He learned hints of how to hammer metal into precision. At the end of the seventh day, Alex was tired to death. He had not rested for seven whole days.

The old man looked at Molte. "These past seven days, I've tried to teach you, but you are too incompetent! Get out of my forge and don't enter my sight again!"

Alex felt the world disappearing and his eyes open up. He felt his entire body was burning with terrifying pain.

[50% Learning Boost has ended]

He was tired, but also puzzled. He had thought that these seven days were a kind of simulation. He expected himself to be mentally tired, but his body was extremely tired as if he himself had been working like a madman at that old man's forge, and not just Molte's body.

Alex stumbled his way to the refrigerator, taking out nutrient packs and swallowing their contents in a desperate fashion.

After consuming two nutrient packs, Alex fell down on the floor, unconscious. When Alex opened his eyes, it was night time. He looked at the watch to see what day it was.

"It's actually only been two days. I went to through a week of hardship, but in reality, only two days have passed." Alex thought to himself.

[Alex Redford]

[Human]

[Constitution : 0.4]

[Intellect: 1.0]

[Insight: 0.2]

[Ordinary human being with subpar stats.]

"My stats haven't changed at all." Alex thought. He considered the this system. He got this training card's benefits and knowledge because of the beginner's pack. How was he supposed to redeem more?

He saw that knowledge all costs points and even found the store, where he could redeem training cards, but once again, it required points. Alex didn't know how to obtain points. However, he soon saw a tasks column.

[Purify an ingot - (Points based on material)]

[Forge a rank 1 item - 1000 points]

[Forge 10 rank 1 items - 5000 points]

When Alex saw this he started to get some hope. "This isn't too bad. As long as I complete these tasks, I can gain points to expand my knowledge."

Alex saw that he could now potentially learn knowledge related to forging.

"How do I do these without burning all my money? I have no forge of any kind." Alex thought before his eyes lit up. He laughed as he considered his plan and went back to sleep.