Forging

In front of Zayden was the skeleton of the snake, which consisted of a long spine connected to a skull. It had the width of a grown man's calf and a slight glowing aura around it. Next to the skeleton were black scales that were stacked up at around two feet, numbering up to thirty.

It seemed like even though the egg didn't take everything, it took a whole lot of it. Finally was the Darkness power shard and the weird orb. Zayden already had a plan for the darkness power shard, so he set that aside for now and held the orb in his hand.

The orb was transparent with a slightly glowing purple mass swirling inside. Out of all the materials here, the orb was the most out-of-place item. For one, the system had no information on this orb, and it wasn't something that the snake would be able to produce on its own.

'Why does it feel familiar?' Zayden thought

The swirling mass of purple inside the orb gave Zayden a familiar feeling, like he had seen something like this somewhere.

Well, there was no place to get answers right now, so he could only set it aside for now.

He brought out the shard of the cocoon he used after evolving. And even at this moment, they were giving off a strong pulse of energy, along with it was the orb that contained his spirit flame, and finally, one last orb.

This orb was the reward he got from completing his quest in the gym. It was a mobile forge. It was connected to Zayden, so anytime he needed it, all he had to do was channel a little bit of his energy into it, and it would appear.

Zayden did just that, and with a flash of golden light, the mobile forge appeared. It was exactly how one would think of a forge in the medieval state. It had a dark sheen on it and seemed to be made with metals that the Earth at this point in the apocalypse wouldn't even have hope of generating.

Along with it was his anvil, a hammer, and a weapon-cast along with an area where his spirit flame was to be slotted.

He took out his Five Hundred Weapons Codex and flipped it to the page of the weapon that he wanted to forge today.

Well, according to the codex, he needs to have a design for said weapon that he wanted to forge, as well as plan the forging process.

First of all, he needed to have a purpose for forging the weapon. It could be a combat weapon, a ceremonial weapon, or even a decorative weapon. This part was not hard because they were in an apocalypse, so of course, the weapon was for combat.

With the weapon's purpose in mind, he needed to make a design for the weapon. He took out a piece of paper and started drawing. His weapon wasn't going to be anything special, just a sword he could use for this point in the apocalypse. So all he needed to design was the blade and hilt of the sword.

It didn't take long, following the steps that the codex provided, he already had a simple design for a sword. And looking at his rough design, a smile broke out on Zayden's face as he was pleased.

Since the first part was done, it was time to continue. The next stage was forging the blade. At this point, Zayden slotted the earth spirit flame into its position as the forge started heating up.

He picked out his material, which was just his cocoon shards and the scales from the Umbra serpent. He was supposed to select the steel, but unfortunately, he had no steel to use, so he could only use the shards of his cocoon.

Of course, he knew that this was a waste of material, but there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't have time to get the materials he needed, and he was pretty sure that the Earth didn't have some of the metal he needed yet.

Now, there were two ways of forging the blade of a sword. The first way was through shaping and edge beveling. This was basically heating a metal to red hot, but not hot enough for it to melt, but hot enough for it to be malleable, then hammering it into the shape that is wanted.

Edge beveling was the same thing, but it's sharpening the edge of the blade to create a sharp double-edged profile.

The second way was smelting and casting. This was the easier of the two; it was melting the material until it becomes liquid and pouring it into the cast, to give it the shape of the desired blades as it hardens.

Zayden decided to go with the first method for a few reasons. For one, he wasn't sure that the earth spirit flame was strong enough to melt the shard of his cocoon. And if he used the smelting and casting method, what he planned for his weapon wouldn't work.

There were about twelve shards of his cocoon. He set aside three for his main weapon, and the rest would be used for trial and error. Just like he did for the cocoon, he would use some scale for trial and error, while a set of six scales, along with the reverse scale, would be used for the main sword he wanted to forge, the unique swords.

At this point, the oven was very hot as the spirit flame was doing its work. Zayden picked up one of the large shards of his cocoon with his tongs and put it into the oven. Right in front of him, the temperature of the shard was increasing until a system message appeared in front of him.

[Detecting Intent to Forge]

[Activating Forge Assistance Function]

[Forge Assistance Activated]

Zayden could suddenly see his system screen overlapping with the shard, and the whole forge, even the earth spirit flame, wasn't spared. The system started pointing out what he should do while the shard was in the oven.

There was not much he could do at this point other than control the heat of the earth spirit flame. This was a very important part of forging. If the flame was too high, the material could be destroyed. He might not be able to see it at this point, but once he tried shaping it, the material might just shatter like glass, since the temperature of the flame wasn't enough for it to become malleable.

Thankfully, his system already had a plan for that. With its help, he was able to control the flame to the right temperature, down to the decimal. Within about an hour and half, the shard was red hot.

This was mainly because the spirit flame wasn't strong enough, so it needed more time for the shard to be hot enough. The shard, being a premium material, could contribute to it.

Very quickly, he placed the hot shard on the anvil and started hammering away. The clangs from his hammer connecting with the shard and the shard connecting with the anvil echoing in the surroundings.

Before long, the blade of the sword was already taking shape. A white long blade with what looked like three veins of black running down the middle and a width of about three fingers rested on the anvil, but Zayden hadn't stopped hammering.

One might think it was a mistake, but it most definitely wasn't. At some point, Zayden picked up a tool that looked like a file and started filing down the edges of the blade to give the blade that sharp edge. An additional hour had already gone by, but Zayden wasn't the least bit tired.

A few minutes later, Zayden held up the still-hot silver blade and raised it in the air, admiring his work. With a smile on his face, he dipped the blade into a tank filled with oil, releasing a sizzling sound into the air.

He set the blade aside and went on to the next part of forging the sword, forging the hilt of the sword. For the hilt of the sword, one would use wood or something strong enough to give you a firm grip and comfortable in the palm.

Unfortunately, Zayden had none of that, so his only option was to melt the scale of the Umbra serpent and cast it into the desired shape, hoping for it to come out well.

The spirit flame was still way stronger than any other flame on the planet, and it would have no problem melting the scales of the snake. Zayden placed three scales into some kind of metal cup before placing it in the oven.

It took a little over an hour for the scale to be melted to liquid, and in that time, he made the sheath of the sword out of two more scales of the snake and s little bit of the shards remaining.

A darkish red hot liquid was pulled out of the oven. Zayden quickly poured it into the cast for the hilt and waited for it to cool a little. It was still very hot, but Zayden opened up the case. He covered his hand with oblivion flux and held onto what looked like a piece of sandpaper.

Th sanded the hilt down a little to give it a smooth texture, but also one that could be gripped firmly. And just like before, he placed the hilt into a tub of oil before leaving it to cool a little.

Once cool enough, Zayden began the assembly.

He slid the hilt onto the tang, which was the blunt edge sticking out of the blade. Using his oblivion flux as a medium, he made sure that the hilt and the blade fitted perfectly.

The blade glowed a darkish white color, testament to all the effort put into it. With a smile on his face, Zayden slid the sword into the sheath. Immediately, a system message appeared in front of him.

[Evaluating Forged Weapon]

[Evaluation Complete]

[Name: None]

[Grade: Rare]

[Description: A sword made from the determination and sweat of a young forger at the beginning of his journey.]

'That much was expected,' Zayden thought, his attention brought to the name section of the sword.

"I'll name it Kindle," Zayden scrutinized the sword "since this is the lighting of a flame that is going to surprise the world."

[Name: Kindle]

[Grade: Rare]

[Description: A sword made from the determination and sweat of a young forger at the beginning of his journey.]

Zayden kept the sword in his dimension ring and continued. After all, he needed to forge five rare weapons.