An Adventure With an Immortal Mosquito

Chapter 64: Magic Forging

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Sidi wipes the sweat from his forehead as he's holding onto a hammer, his eyes looking at the red-hot metal on the anvil in front of him.

"Now, this is where it starts. Look closely, Ichor."

He doesn't look to his side to see the man in question nodding to him, his dull orange eyes also focused on the metal. But the former seems to get it as he starts to take the next step to forging this metal.

Holding his hammer up high, Sidi pours his mana out and covers the red-hot metal, forming a mist that covers the entire thing. Once the mana is concentrated enough, he moves his hammer downward, seemingly hitting the mist as if it's a solid and causing the mana at the impact area to be pushed into the metal itself.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Looking at the glowing lines that appear on the metal surface with each hammer strike, Ichor puts his Skills to work as he activates both <Mana Vision> and <Rapid Mind> to capture it in greater detail.

'So this is 'Magic Forging'. This is a lot simpler than I thought.'

Based on blacksmithing standards, Common and Uncommon ranks are generally the limits that you can reach using normal materials like ironwood, steel, or materials with barely any mana inside of them. It doesn't mean that you can't go beyond that with these materials, as some have done it before, but you would need some godly level of skill and talent to do it.

But generally, if you want to break that limit and push through to the Uncommon rank, then you would have to add mana into the equation and fuse the mana into the equipment during its creation, granting it the ability to manipulate the type of mana put into it. The mana used in the fusing process comes from either the forger themself or from the materials with a magical property to them. 

Due to the difference between the normal forging technique and this one, it is considered its own separate technique, which is now called 'Magic Forging'. The one that Sidi is doing right now is basically a beginner version of the technique, since you pretty much brute force through the entire thing. But even then, learning this is the prerequisite for one to achieve the Master tier in blacksmithing.

As for how the equipment ranking would be differentiated, Rare rank would mean the equipment can manipulate the compatible type of mana that is put into it to form an aura, Epic rank will extend that into the surroundings to create something akin to a domain around itself, and Legendary rank will now dominate the element itself instead of mana or have a unique Skill for itself like [Thaumiel]'s <Echo Transfer> or [Smartphone]'s <Data Scan>.

Naturally, there are a few items out there whose capabilities surpass their confirmed ranking, seemingly touching the ceiling of the higher rank, but those can be categorized as '80% creator's talents, 10% blessed by someone, 9% degraded and deranked, and 1% others'.

'Now that I'm looking at it, these three ranks seem to take inspiration from the warrior's ranking, don't they? Aura, Domain, and Dominion are pretty much the same between the both of them in functionality.'

Entertaining that thought for a bit, he eventually put it away as Sidi stopped moving his hammer, revealing the now lines-covered metal on the anvil.

"Phew... Here it is, Magic-Infused Metal. Try to understand it first before doing anything else."

Activating <Data Scan> on top of the other Skills toward the metal, Ichor takes note of everything about it before giving it back to Sidi.

"I think I got everything I can from it, all from the veins connections to pressures and flows of all of them."

"You are doing better at this than I thought... Alright then, I'll first show you how you can create this for today. Tomorrow, You will be the one to do this under my supervision."