Age of Gods - A VRMMO Story

While Thomas was working with the Ancient Lead, Snowlily had found a nice spot as far from him as she could physically get. The acrid, acidic scent of the alchemical mixture might have been bad for him but for her, it was tens of times worse. She even went as far as to lay on the ground and cover her nose with her paws. The only saving grace for her is that when he wasn't actively bathing pieces of Ancient Lead, he stored the container inside of his inventory and gave both of their noses a break. Though every time he retrieved the container it was like a fresh new hell for her nose.

Thomas was kind enough to open the two windows in the forge and use the blower to circulate the air in the room. He did so by aiming the blower out one of the windows. This simple action sucked the air out of the forge and blew it outside of one window while fresh air flowed into the room from the other window. It wasn't perfect but it offered some relief for the two of them. It didn't completely end until Thomas had finished smelting and bathing every last piece of Ancient Lead inside of his inventory. At first, he only planned to do enough to work with but he changed his mind. He didn't want to have to deal with the nasty bath ever again.

Despite his best efforts, it still took several hours for him to smelt and bathe all the pieces of Ancient Lead that he had collected. Looking at the amount he had, he estimated that it was his second-largest haul of raw ore from the pirate caves. It was only beaten by the amount of Icebound Platinum he had. As for Mana-Touched True Silver and Sunshine Gold, he didn't have much of either. He wished he could get more, especially of the Sunshine Gold but he didn't see anything close to it when he was shopping.

Once the lead was all prepped, he stored the alchemical bath inside of his inventory where it could no longer harm anyone's nose. With all the lead taken care of, Thomas checked the time. He had about an hour left of his six-hour rental and nightfall. It was time for him to begin making his new set of tools. The first thing he intended to make was a short-handled sledgehammer. Something that could move a lot of material with each blow. From there he would make smaller hammers for more detailed work.

He retrieved his cross peen hammer from his inventory and smiled. This was the first hammer he'd made so long ago and he'd barely been able to use it. After he made his new set of tools, he would never use it again. Still, he planned to keep it for posterity. He spun the hammer in his right hand while retrieving a piece of Ancient Lead from his inventory. He could, very easily, Transmute the lead into the shape he wanted. However, he wanted to experience working with the Ancient Lead the old fashioned way before he took any shortcuts with it.

After setting down the Ancient Lead ore, he grabbed a pair of tongs and finally put hammer to metal. The delightful sound of his hammer hitting the cold lead rang through the room. Snowlily perked up at the sound and watched Thomas as he worked. Deep inside she wished she could take on her human form and help her companion as his assistant. She didn't know anything about Blacksmithing when she was born but in her time watching Thomas she had at least learned a little bit. Maybe she couldn't make anything but she could at least use the tongs to hold the metal in place for him or run the blower to the forge. Something, anything, that would let her work side-by-side with him.

Each blow of the flat-faced cross peen hammer moved the lead and slowly reshaped it. He wasn't making anything overly complicated. Essentially, he was turning the chunk of ore into a lead brick. This would be the core of the hammer and give it the weight it needed to do a proper job. Mithril by itself was simply too light and would require too much of a change in his usual swinging patterns to compensate for the lightness. That would lead to a decline in the quality of his work and that was unacceptable.

Thanks to the treatment from the Alchemical mixture, the Ancient Lead was as soft as normal lead at the moment. It would remain that way until it was placed inside of the forge and heated back up once more. Making a brick out of the lead didn't take a whole lot of effort and was soon completed. Of course, it wasn't perfectly rectangular, but it was close enough. With the feeling of working the lead, he felt he could finish it the easy way. Mana flowed through his hands and wrapped around the mostly completed lead brick. Quickly the edges became perfectly flat and the corners became sharp. At the same time, a hole opened up in the center of the brick that would accommodate the handle later.

Once he finished refining the shape of the lead brick, he set it inside of the forge and increased the temperature by feeding mana into the blower. From what he understood, it was actually impossible to melt the Ancient Lead using plain coal. The same applied to more materials that he would work with in the future. There was a solution though. Mana infused coal. It wasn't as easily found as common coal and cost quite a bit more but it was able to reach much higher temperatures. He'd probably never use it though. Once he could design his own U.L.T.R.A. he would build a more modernized forge that could reach higher temperatures.

After a few minutes, he plucked the hot Ancient Lead hammer core out of the forge and set it on the smallest anvil in the room to cool. While it was cooling down he pulled out one of his purified Mithril ingots and looked it over. His next step was to simply layer the Mithril over the Ancient Lead to complete the hammer's head. He set the Mithril down and pulled something much larger out of his inventory. Thanks to being able to feed mana into it himself, his Inventory had been increasing constantly. It didn't have specific dimensions just a specific amount of volume to store things inside of. Thanks to that he was able to pull out a three-meter long log of wood.

The log of wood didn't look all that impressive. Similar to a nice quality piece of oak. In fact, that's the price he paid for it and the other two similar logs inside of his inventory. However, appearances could be extremely deceiving. His eyes flashed blue as he examined the log once again.

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