Chapter 375: Smithing PHD
The mesh existed, and for the moment, that mattered more than its size. Right now, he had something he can use and work with, and right now Kael could stretch his knowledge more about smiting.
Kael moved on to testing.
He began with Frost, allowing cold to flow through his hand and into the Malachor Jade. The material responded almost immediately as its conductivity improved. Kael introduced a small amount of internal energy and watched it spread.
Some sections carried the energy smoothly, while others resisted it. The flow traveled along one strand, spread across the weave, and suddenly concentrated around a single intersection. One part of the mesh tightened, another loosened, and a third began vibrating until a strand snapped.
Kael stopped and examined the damage. "That should not have happened. The weave looks correct."
Andre said nothing from several steps away, so Kael repaired the strand using Brokk's Hammer and tried again. Another section failed. After he adjusted that one, a different problem appeared elsewhere. One group of strands contracted inward while another pulled away, making the energy move through the mesh as though every part disagreed about where it should go.
Kael sat staring at the result. "That is extremely bad."
Andre continued working upon the gauntlets. Most of their physical structure had been completed by then, and Kael could see them resting beneath the forge light. Dark jade metal surrounded black whorls, redesigned joints, and new sockets.
They looked incredible, so Kael deliberately avoided inspecting them. His mesh was pissing him off, and he refused to let something more interesting distract him.
He tested Fire next and discovered that heat produced an even worse reaction. Some sections strengthened exactly as Malachor was supposed to, while another tightened at an angle. A third warped enough to pull against the surrounding weave until a strand snapped.
Kael stared at the broken wire and nearly asked Andre what he had done wrong. The question reached the back of his throat before he stopped himself.
He still had his pride as an apprentice and didn't want to give up early and ask before he could try everything himself.
Andre would probably know the answer, which was precisely why Kael remained silent. If he asked for a solution every time something failed, he would learn only how to follow instructions. He wanted to understand the failure for himself.
Kael dismantled the mesh and studied every damaged section. He recorded which strand had failed first, the direction the energy traveled, where the weave contracted, and which areas remained stable.
He created another test piece using a different pattern and encountered the same problem. The next used altered tension and showed some improvement, though not enough. Kael changed how the strands crossed in another version, allowing Frost to travel farther before instability appeared. Then three wires snapped simultaneously.
Kael swore and started again.
Days passed while the tests, failures, and reading continued. Andre finished the gauntlets during that time and placed both upon a cloth beside the forge without saying anything.
Kael noticed them and refused to look. Andre noticed his deliberate avoidance, and a faint smile appeared beneath the dwarf's beard.
Kael kept studying until the smith who had written the coat's section became his newest enemy. The bastard clearly understood what Kael was doing wrong but refused to explain it plainly.
Instead, the section offered lines such as Metal remembers the direction from which it was persuaded and The fool weaves form. The smith weaves intent.
Kael's personal favorite came later: If your strands quarrel after assembly, perhaps you should have taught them agreement before introducing them.
He stared at that sentence until his irritation finally escaped. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
Andre coughed suspiciously from across the workshop.
Kael looked over. "You're laughing at me."
"I tried not to, but only managed for a few seconds."
"Your ancestor was an asshole. He wrote this as though anyone reading it should already know the answer."
Andre made no attempt to disagree. "He probably expected that."
"Then why bother writing it?"
"To insult the ones who didn't know."
Kael looked back at the page. "Mission fucking accomplished."
He continued with more tests, failures, and rereading. Eventually, he stopped restricting himself to the section about the coat. If page 225 refused to explain the problem clearly, perhaps another masterpiece would.
Kael studied a flexible sword designed to bend nearly in half without retaining any deformation. He read about layered boots that redirected the impact of a fall, a dwarven shield constructed from seven metals forged along different orientations, and a spear whose entire shaft guided mana through a single directional flow.
The equipment, materials, and intended uses differed, but several ideas repeated throughout their construction.
Heat. Working direction. Grain. Stress. Memory.
Kael slowed and returned several pages until he found a section in which one of Andre's ancestors described what happened inside metal during repeated heating and hammering.
The passage concerned structure rather than magic. A solid piece of metal was not truly identical from one edge to the other. The way it was heated mattered, as did the rate at which it cooled and the direction in which it had been hammered.
Working the metal altered its internal structure. Proper refinement aligned it and created preferred paths through which force and energy could travel.
Kael went completely still before looking toward his failed mesh. "Oh. That's what the bastard meant."
Andre continued polishing the edge of one gauntlet, though Kael no longer noticed what the dwarf was doing. He picked up one of the failed wires and thought about every shortcut he had taken.
Brokk's Hammer had done exactly what Kael asked. He wanted the rods to become thinner, so the legendary tool made them thin with perfect obedience.
The problem was that Kael had bypassed nearly the entire forging process that should have come before the final shape. He had treated the Malachor Jade as though its appearance were the only part that mattered.
The original rods had never been worked properly, leaving their internal structures misaligned for the task Kael wanted them to perform. He had then taken hundreds of poorly prepared wires and woven them together.
Every strand carried stress differently and conducted energy along a slightly different path. Some contracted, some pulled, and others resisted. When Fire or Frost entered the mesh, those tiny inconsistencies amplified one another until the weave tore itself apart.
Kael slowly stood. "This son of a bitch really did exactly what I wanted..."
Andre glanced over. "Are ya talking to me?"
"No. No, the damn hammer, I didn't expect it to do literally wat I want it."
"I told ya, it does stupid perfectly."
Kael grabbed the failed mesh and threw it into the forge. Andre stopped working as the entire piece began to glow.
Days of work vanished into the heat, followed by the failed wires, unused fragments, and every mistake Kael had made. He no longer cared about preserving any of it.
Kael waited until the Malachor reached its proper working state. This time, he did not settle for making it warm enough for Brokk's Hammer to change its shape. He heated it properly, removed it from the forge, and placed it upon the anvil.
He reached for an ordinary smiting hammer.
The first strike rang through the workshop. Kael turned the material, struck again, and returned it to the heat. When he removed it, he resumed hammering with deliberate attention to the direction of every blow.
He stretched the material lengthwise, folded it where appropriate, reheated it, and worked it again. For the first time, he stopped thinking solely about the shape the Malachor needed to assume.
The material had to become suitable for that shape before its appearance mattered.
Heat altered it. Hammering created direction. Repeated working changed the structure, and cooling preserved what each cycle had accomplished.
Only then did Kael summon Brokk's Hammer.
He used the legendary tool to refine the process instead of replacing it. The impact rang through the forge, and Andre put down the finished gauntlet he had been holding.
Kael did not notice the dwarf approaching. His attention remained fixed upon the glowing rod as the Malachor resisted his next strike.
Instead of hitting harder, Kael adjusted the angle.
The hammer descended, and the metal lengthened. He rotated it before striking again, beginning to understand what he had missed.
Every blow created a direction. Every heating cycle allowed the material to change, while every cooling cycle preserved something from what came before.
Brokk's Hammer was never meant to command an ignorant lump of metal to become perfect. Its true value lay in helping Kael preserve the perfection he had already built through understanding.
He struck again.
Andre stopped beside him and studied the heated rod, the abandoned drawplate, and the notes Kael had scattered across three tables during the previous days.
Kael finally noticed him. "What? Did I find another way to ruin it?"
Andre folded his arms, and satisfaction crept into his thick dwarven accent.
"Quite the opposite. Now yer actually bein' a smith."