Cooling (2)
Cooling (2)
- Fwoosh!
The furnace was already preheated.
The shielding screen rattled, shaken by the flames beneath.
For an instant the workshop interior flared orange, shadows stretching wildly, then settled back into a heavy dimness.
'Coal, finely crushed magic stone powder... and reagents?'
I examined the furnace interior.
Beneath the grating lay a thick glowing bed of coal. Finely crushed magic stone powder and reagents had been evenly mixed into it, steering the fire's properties.
Since it was already preheated, this seemed to be the default setup.
'Alright then.'
I sat down in a nearby chair and opened the screen.
- Whoosh!
The moment the screen lifted, scorching wind rushed out. My hair and the hem of my clothes flared wildly, and hot air slipped in through my collar.
I didn't feel the heat. I had the Calamity Flame activated, after all—mere flames like that couldn't make me feel hot.
At most my skin warmed a little and a few beads of sweat formed. Even that was just a basic physiological response.
'And Baek A-rin...'
As the workshop blazed orange and grew sweltering, I turned my perception toward Baek A-rin.
She'd said she'd be fine, but I wanted to make sure she wasn't affected—and found her sitting with her legs crossed, perfectly composed.
Even as the workshop heated up, she didn't shed a single drop of sweat. Inspecting more closely, I sensed the cold energy brimming inside her body. She was generating more mana than usual to block out the heat.
'No need to worry after all.'
Relieved, I finally checked the state of the Calamity Flame.
Earlier its output had felt oddly different, but once I began to control it, the flame returned to normal.
Even upon precise observation, there was nothing unusual. Its energy was more restless than usual, but the Calamity Flame had always been a temperamental ability anyway.
I reached toward the furnace. The flickering flames swallowed my hand.
An ordinary person would recoil in alarm and fling themselves backward at such a sight, but I paid it no mind and let the fire wash over my skin.
- Fwoosh!
The Calamity Flame blazing from my right arm transferred into the furnace. It consumed the coal, the magic stone, the reagents, and even the existing fire as fuel, swelling massively in size.
'Suppress the emotions, focus...'
Considering the Calamity Flame's output, it could incinerate not just this furnace but the entire workshop in an instant. I had to harmonize it carefully—keep it from burning the furnace, and hold it down firmly so it wouldn't lash out at anything else.
Keep my head on straight too.
I suppressed the gradually intensifying emotions, the impulse to shed patience and restraint and give in to recklessness.
The most heavily emphasized training in the Calamity Flame Family is emotional control.
I'd crammed nearly two hundred years' worth of their know-how through intensive short courses. It wasn't hard.
The Calamity Flame, its ferocity quelled, slowly settled over the furnace.
Maintaining control, I pulled my hand back. For a while, I monitored the Calamity Flame through my senses. The fire rose tamely, like a dog lying down with drooping ears. No sign of it about to devour the furnace.
'Good.'
Preparations complete. I nodded and grabbed the Black Iron ingot I'd set out earlier.
I pushed the hand holding the Black Iron ingot straight into the furnace.
It was my own Calamity Flame anyway, and I could withstand most ordinary fire with my bare body.
Fwoosh... The Calamity Flame clinging to the furnace writhed.
Flickering tongues of flame lapped at the Black Iron ingot.
The pitch-black metal gradually heated up.
I adjusted the output so the Calamity Flame wouldn't melt the Black Iron to nothing and burn it away.
Just as the ingot started to soften, I pulled my hand out.
The ingot glowed white-hot, gleaming. I placed it on the anvil and raised the hammer.
- Clang!
The hammer struck the ingot. A clear note rang out, and sparks scattered.
- Claang!
I hammered again without pause, shaping the ingot, repeatedly striking the softened metal to straighten it.
Deliberately I sat before the furnace, gripping the hammer myself.
Through the Great Cataclysm and the Chaos Period, many technologies were rendered obsolete.
Inventions embodying those techniques were destroyed, and the talented people who developed them died off. The records they left behind were lost as well.
Even now, in a world where such gaps were filled by magic and the Towers, mechanical devices naturally still exist.
- Clang!
Right beside me, beyond basic tools like the anvil and hammer, there were all sorts of other implements.
A pneumatic hammer that automatically strikes once you fix the metal in place, a grinder that polishes the surface for you... there are plenty of auxiliary devices powered by mana.
'Most mass-produced armaments are factory-made, anyway.'
Mass-produced armaments on the market generally fall into two categories.
One is handmade gear from unskilled novice smiths trying to recoup at least some of their material costs.
The other is factory armaments, churned out uniformly by mana-driven machines.
No matter how superhuman, no one can churn out armaments nonstop without rest.
But armaments produced around the clock in factories are supplied relatively cheaply and in large quantities.
In short, budget products.
Superhumans with little funding or support rely heavily on these affordable factory-made goods.
They're not the kind that break after one or two uses, and most armaments are consumables to begin with.
If you go with products from a major brand, the price and quality are decent, so even if they break, you can replace them without too much burden.
That's why the mass-produced armament market is mostly factory-made.
- Claang! Claang!
But conversely, nearly all high-grade goods are handmade.
Not just because people overvalue the significance of something being made by human hands, but because handmade items perform vastly better.
- Clang!
I swung the hammer.
- Clang!
The mana wrapped around the hammer's surface struck the ingot. Mana seeped into the gradually reshaping ingot.
One finished, I picked up a new ingot. Dropped it into the catalyst bath to soak it, then thrust it into the furnace and breathed in Calamity Flame.
I lifted the heated ingot onto the anvil, trickled reagent over it, and continued hammering.
- Clang! Clang! Clang!
Mana infused the ingot. Calamity Flame seeped in. Catalysts and reagents were added.
And then...
Clang! I infused the influence of my own innate talent into every hammer strike.
'Honestly...'
In this world, that thing called innate talent is incredibly, incredibly important.
Even if just one among countless, diverse innate talents properly stands out, you can gain a supernatural ability that defies common sense.
Something crafted by a being with such an innate talent—made with their own hands and effort—carries a special quality.
It's like that saying: get famous first, and people will applaud whatever you do.
It was similar.
Setting aside the presence or absence of technique, the results produced by an ordinary person and by someone innately unique are wholly different.
That's common sense in this world.
- Clang...
I stopped hammering. I briefly flexed my stiff fingers.
Some time had passed.
Before I knew it, a jet-black sword rested atop the anvil.
The design was crude, without a single distinguishing feature. A sword forged entirely from a solid piece of Black Iron, from hilt to tip.
I examined the work, born from several ingots and a generous helping of reagents and catalysts.
'Hmm...'
I let out an odd expression.
I had no complaint about the quality. I could do better, but it cleared the minimum threshold. It was usable—I could store it in subspace and take it out whenever I needed it.
But, though I hadn't particularly intended it, the design was almost identical to the sword the 2nd Iteration had wielded.
'...No, that's only natural.'
I felt a bit unsettled for a moment, but thinking it over, it wasn't strange at all.
The design was crude to begin with, so there weren't many points of commonality to point to, and I'd hammered it out aiming to recreate exactly the sword the 2nd Iteration had used. It was only natural the shape ended up similar.
"Ooh..."
Just as I was thinking that, a presence abruptly approached.
"Wow, what in the world? How did you make something like this in such a short time?"
It was Baek A-rin, who'd been sitting behind me.
She walked over softly and knelt beside me.
Her glimmering blue eyes took in the freshly forged Black Iron sword.
[Heh-heh.]
At her reaction, I imperceptibly straightened my shoulders.
A swell of pride rose—I'd made something decent in its own right. With the Emotional Heightening from the Calamity Flame added in, I was feeling rather buoyant.
And then...
"With quality like this, it's technique-category... As expected, Ha-yul, you're not just technique-category, you're an all-rounder—"
Baek A-rin's cool breath touched my ear, already burning hot from hammering fiercely right in front of the furnace.
[Hagheuhegaeeheeaack...!]
"Heck—hurk! Cough! Kaff!"
"Ha-yul?!"
A dizzying sensation shot through my limbs, my body convulsed, and I sprang like a coiled spring.
.
.
.
I hammered Black Iron ingots to my heart's content and churned out a whole pile of armaments.
I cranked out bladed weapons of every type, plus spears, staves, shields, hammers, blunt weapons, axes... and beyond those, I also produced a few unusual weapons that the 2nd Iteration had used, like meteor hammers and rope darts.
I'd worried making a single armament might take a long time, but it was easier than I'd thought and I could churn them out quickly.
Armaments: done.
'Next is...'
"Ha-yul~ I'm sorry, please stop sulking~"
Just as I was about to move on to the next process, a sly voice came from behind me, and I felt my lips purse in a pout.
Baek A-rin's voice was thoroughly mischievous as she kept poking my shoulder.
[I'm not sulking.]
"I didn't think you'd be that startled. I figured since you said you keep your detection ability on, you'd definitely notice me. That was my carelessness. I'll apologize."
[No.]
[It was my mistake, so there's nothing for you to apologize for.]
[And I said I'm not sulking.]
Sulking? Me? That's a strange thing to say. What reason would I have to get huffy?
Granted, Baek A-rin had startled me so badly I'd jumped, let out a shriek, and even experienced the Curse of Silence for the first time in a while... but I wasn't sulking.
Why did she keep making me out to be some petty person who'd sulk over just that?
"Hmm..."
When I denied it repeatedly, Baek A-rin let out an odd hum.
What's with that unsettling reaction?
"Then how about we do this?"
[...Do what?]
"Since we both did something wrong, let's offset our wrongs and pretend nothing happened."
[?]
Offset our wrongs?
I tilted my head warily, and Baek A-rin let out a soft laugh, then pointed at her own body.
Specifically, at her chest, wrapped in a windbreaker.
"Back when Ha-yul showed up with horns on your forehead—you started fiddling with my chest and—"
[Gyaaaaagh!]
The Confession Necklace screeched harshly.
A memory I desperately never wanted to recall surfaced.
I shot up as if I'd slam into the ceiling and lunged at Baek A-rin.
[Fine! Fine!]
[I was wrong...!]
[So stop!]
"Sure, sure, accepted. Let's forgive each other~"
...I finally received forgiveness from the very person I'd caused trouble for last time.
.
.
.
"You're going to make magic tools too?"
[Ye-eah...]
After receiving some Azure Sea care from Baek A-rin, I answered with slumped shoulders.
After the Black Iron armaments came accessories... in other words, magic tools.
Simply put, a magic tool is an implement inscribed with a spell formula.
To speak loosely, if you inscribe a Shock Wave formula onto a rock, that rock technically becomes a magic tool—though obviously that's not a proper one.
The duller and more fragile the body, the harder it is to inscribe a spell formula to begin with. And even if you manage to inscribe one with difficulty, the body will shatter after just a few uses.
So the body needs to be made of material that can properly withstand and channel the spell formula... in short, something expensive and sturdy.
Of course, even that isn't permanent.
No matter how sturdy the body, the spell formula wears down with use.
And since it's nothing more than a formula forcibly inscribed where none existed before, external impacts easily destroy it.
That's why armaments are mostly not inscribed with spell formulas. Inscribing one takes care, time, and money, but the formula flies off after just a few impacts.
Even if you make a magic tool, continuous maintenance is essential to keep using it, and no matter how carefully you maintain it, its lifespan eventually runs out.
'That's why artifacts are treated as precious.'
Artifacts are permanent.
Rather than a spell formula forcibly inscribed, what they have is the object's own inherent innate talent.
The effect doesn't disappear after a few impacts, and even if it breaks, there's still a possibility of restoration.
'Artificial artifacts... I do have mana affinity, so could I make one eventually?'
I didn't think I could make one right now.
But the possibility was high. Now that I'd finished all the Black Iron armaments I'd initially planned, I figured I'd practice with the leftover time.
'For the spell formula... should I go with a basic protective barrier?'
Normally, making a magic tool involves separately creating the body and branding the spell formula.
But this time, I planned to do both simultaneously.
Shrrrk! The Sky Wing Feather split apart.
Like a peacock spreading its feathers, the countless split ends of the Sky Wing Feather sharpened into needle-like points.
I drew mana and channeled it to the Sky Wing Feather. Mana gathered at the sharp tips.
...It looked a bit like some tentacle monster, but this was efficient.
"That artifact really is more amazing the more I look at it. You said it was called the Sky Wing Feather? I heard it's registered as mid-to-high-grade... but right now it looks easily top-grade."
[It's highly compatible with me.]
I gave a short reply to Baek A-rin, who was marveling beside me, then refocused.
Earlier, the side effects of the Calamity Flame had thrown me off a bit, but thanks to the Azure Sea's help, I'd calmed down considerably.
Still, quite a bit of time had passed, so I'd make a few and then head back.
With that thought, I picked up a silver ingot to use as the body.
I had gold ingots too, but I didn't want to waste those on practice, so I chose the cheaper silver ingot.
'Starting with a ring...'
I roused the Calamity Flame starting from my right arm.
- Fwoooosh!
The dim expanse of my perception was dyed red.
Suddenly, my mind sank.
.
.
.
An incomprehensible scene registered.
- You piece of shit, what now?! Are you seriously insane? Why the hell are you acting up again?!
Lee Ji-yeon, pounding her chest in frustration at whatever had her so furious.
And...
- Didn't you know I have bipolar disorder when you followed me here? If you're pissed, just go home.
A man with a delinquent expression, shooing her away with a wave of his hand... bearing features similar to mine.