Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 10 Tools

Eisen looked down into his hands at the hammer he was holding. It took a few hours to create, most of which was the tempering process, but the final item was something Eisen was truly happy with.

[High-Quality Cross-Peen Hammer]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 2]

[Description]An extremely high-Quality Hammer created by the Blacksmith Eisen. Due to the quality and hardness, even high-tier metals can be forged without issues.

[Effect]+4 STR, +4 END

It truly wasn’t very hard to create the hammer, and it went significantly faster than the knife the day before. In the beginning, he had the cylindrical ingot and first punched a hole through it so that it would be easier to handle during the rest of the forging and so that he could insert the wooden handle easily as well.

After the hole went completely through the ingot, Eisen inserted a square metal staff and set the ingot down on the anvil, so that the staff would basically be parallel to the anvil’s surface, and began flatting the center area of the top and bottom surfaces.

Following this, he thinned out the area between the center area and the two end. He punched two parts off one of the ends and formed it into a wedge shape.

Eisen then proceeded by cooling the hot steel in a tub of water, followed by tempering it in the same brick-box as he built yesterday While he was then heading to the workshop to start working on the handle, he was thinking about whether or not it would be a good idea to advise Denmir to get some kind of oven specifically meant for tempering. As far as he noticed, none of them did anything like Eisen and didn’t attempt tempering at all.

Why the developers chose to leave it out of general blacksmithing practices of NPCs was unknown to him, but Eisen guessed that they wanted to somehow give players that do the effort to learn about actual blacksmithing an advantage. He would need to find out if that was the case for other crafts as well, although they aren’t necessarily as complicated and include as many techniques as blacksmithing does, so he really wasn’t sure.

He made the handle for the hammer out of the same material as for the knife, to kind of get a theme going.

Eisen looked at the hammer in his hands and felt its weight. Compared to the hammer he was using before, this one seemed to be absolutely perfect for him, as his hand fit perfectly around the handle and even without using Tool Connection, it felt like the hammer was part of his body.

Exactly because of that, Eisen felt like Tool Connection would have a great effect. He concentrated and closed his eyes, feeling this foreign energy, Mana, spread from inside his body into the Hammer.

When he felt that the skill activated, he opened the item information and looked at the line displayed at the end.

[Connection] Rank 1 (4%)

He was surprised and happy about the connection ranking at the same time. Until now, the immediate connection was always only in the rank 0 territory, and apparently, his skill level also increased by 5 levels at once.

"Ah, old-timer. Ye made a hammer for yerself, eh? At least ye didn’t lose your Dwarf’s spirit when ye lost yer memories, hahaha!" While Eisen was looking down at his tool, Denmir walked up behind him and eyed the hammer with curiosity.

However, since he had work to do himself, the dwarf decided to walk off to his own forge on the other side of the room, but before he managed to walk more than two or three steps, Eisen stopped him.

"What do you mean? I just made this for convenience. The hammers you have here feel slightly... off."

Denmir crossed his arms and nodded his head, "Of course they do! The tools I let ya and my apprentices use are all made by me. Whenever someone creates a tool of any kind, no matter the quality or how much it actually fits to ’em, that item will feel more perfect than anything someone else can give them. And what I meant... It’s a tradition for Dwarves to make their own tools when they stop bein’ an apprentice. Many simply stopped doin’ that, but here at the Dwarf’s Delight, I still have my apprentices do it. And ye obviously earned the right for it, old-timer!" The Dwarf explained with a happy grin on his face, and then turned and left to get to his work.

Glad that he found out a little bit of history behind Dwarves, Eisen brought back the hammer he had been using until now and leaned against the wall to think about his next step.

There weren’t that many basic tools he would need that he could think of. Leatherworking and tailoring mainly needed two tools. A thin, sharp knife to cut the material as well as needles. He could use the knife he made the day before, but he decided he should make a new one for two reasons. First, cutting materials like leather or fabric tend to dull knives quickly. Second, Eisen felt like using an item for one purpose had some kind of effect.

And not only in the game but in real life as well. Even if he wasn’t working in a smithy for months at a time when traveling around the world, the moment he picked up his hammer, it felt like not even a second passed since the last time, and it seemed as if all he ever did during every second of his life was swing his hammer. But then he could pick up the Knife he would use for cooking every night, and it seemed like he never did anything else.

To Eisen, having a tool for everything gave them a purpose, a reason to be there. And who doesn’t want that?

So even if it would end up being an exact duplicate of the Knife he created yesterday, he decided to make a new one.

And besides Leatherwork and Tailoring, Eisen decided to make some other tools as well. Since he was the Original of the Mechanical Arts, he would need to be capable in seven categories. Tailoring, Agriculture, Masonry, Hunting, Trade, Cooking and Blacksmithing. Thus, he still needed tools for Agriculture and Hunting, since Masonry and Trade didn’t really require any specific tools.

Eisen decided that he would first create something for tailoring. He would need something that he can either easily make in large batches or something that wouldn’t dull easily. However, since the hardest and resilient material he had access to was steel, the first option was the better of the two until he can use higher-tier metals.

After thinking for a while, he decided to create an exacto knife with exchangeable blades. Although this would create the problem of needing to manually make blades that would have to be practically identical to each other. Before he started worrying about that too much, though, he simply got to work.

He chose to give the knife a wooden base with steel blades, as well as a small wooden container to properly store the blades if he needed them in the future since he couldn’t have them lying loosely in his pocket.

Eisen retrieved a few small pieces of steel from the storage and placed them inside one of the foundries.

While the steel was melting down, he grabbed a cast made specifically to create thin sheets of metal.

After pouring the molten steel into the cast, and waiting for it to cool down a little bit, Eisen began punching small triangles not bigger than his distal phalanx, the part of his finger furthest from his palm, out of the sheet with the help of a thin chisel. He got as many as he could out of the small sheet, which ended up amounting to 50, a number that should last him a while.

Once the blades were shaped, he quickly placed them into water to cool them all, and placed them away to temper, although for only one hour instead of two.

When the blades were tempering, Eisen once more got to carving the handle. He simply made a thin stick that would lay in his hand comfortable, shaped so that he had a good grip on it no matter what he wanted to do. In the front, he added a thin slit for the blades to slide into and took some time to create a small ’lock’ that would keep the blade in place.

Since he still had time left before the tempering would be over, Eisen grabbed two small blocks of wood, one just a few centimeters wider into each dimension than the other. He cut off a thin sheet off the bigger of the two blocks and emptied the rest out, making it a hollow cube with one side left open, so that the smaller could fit perfectly inside.

He then cut the smaller block into five three-centimeter thick sheets, carving small fittings the size and shape of the blades into each one so that he could place about ten of them into each sheet.

Then, he carved a little ledge into each sheet so that he could pull them out easily.

Before he could finish off the box, he went and grabbed the blades so that they wouldn’t be in there too long, and let them air cool for a short bit.

Eisen just quickly went to one of the finest grinding stones and made sure the blades had as sharp an edge as possible. He got a few completion notifications but waited to read them through until all were finished, and he put the first blade into the handle.

[Small Knife with exchangeable Blade]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1]

[Description]A sharp knife created to cut fabrics and leather. The blade is exchangeable.

[Small Blade]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1]

[Description]A small blade to be inserted into a grip. Doesn’t last long, but cuts sharp.

Eisen looked at the notifications and nodded. He hadn’t expected this item to be a rank 2 as well since these were just blades meant to be thrown away at some point, and he only punched them out of a basic sheet, which didn’t require much effort.

Lastly, Eisen placed his attention back onto the box, and finally put the sheet he cut off the bigger block earlier back onto the box using some rough wooden hinges and another small lock.

Just when he placed the small box down and looked at it, he got a surprising notification.

[You created a Small Storage Box]

[Woodworking Skill learned]

"Oh? But I didn’t get that skill from simply making the handles... Is it because I made them for an item connected to Blacksmithing?" Eisen wondered and grabbed the box, twisting it around a little bit. Sure, it was alright when considering he made it in just about half an hour, but he also didn’t really put any effort into it. He knew he could do better, but at the moment that wasn’t his priority, but he still inspected the item’s description curiously.

[Small Storage Box]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0]

[Description]A small box meant to hold a number of the same item.

[Storable] Small Blade

[Capacity]50

Eisen was greatly satisfied, even though the quality was low since he didn’t even expect this to count as an independent item. He was even happier after thinking about what he could do with his new Woodworking skill.

Slowly, he placed all the blades into the box and then put it into his pocket, so that he can start his next project.

The next thing he would now make are needles he would need for sowing at some point. For whatever reason, Eisen always had the habit of losing his needles or bending them in some unnatural way, so he thought he better make more than one.

Eisen grabbed a small ingot of steel and placed it into the forge. Once it began glowing a bright orange, he took the ingot out and chipped a little piece off of it. Carefully, he slowly formed it into the shape of a needle by giving it many light but precise blows. Lastly, he took a small sharp chisel and created a small hole at one of the ends.

Eisen repeated this until he had 20 needles finished. It wasn’t a hard process, just annoying to go through since it took some time and it was hard to handle the small, hot piece of metal.

Again, Eisen placed the needles into the brick box to temper them and went to the workshop to make something that can hold them while he doesn’t need them.

And after about 30 minutes, the box and the needles were finished.

[Sewing Needle]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 1]

[Description] A simple sewing needle.

[Small Storage Box]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank - 0]

[Description]A small box meant to hold a number of the same item.

[Storable] Sewing Needle

[Capacity] 25