Chapter 49 – Calm before the storm.

Roland was looking at a piece of steel that had a round shape. This was the old pommel that he had removed from the previously created sword.

He was planning to replace this section of the sword. There were a few other places he could push the gem into but they would be troublesome. The blade had already gone through the process of hardening so heating it up again to insert a grove might ruin it.

He could also try filing a fitting hole into the hardened blade in the hilt or slightly above it. But only filing a fitting hole wouldn’t really work that well, he actually needed the gem to be held in place. He didn’t have any magical techniques or materials on him that would hold it in place while allowing the mana to flow through.

Having something he could just weld the thing on would probably be a good idea. For now, he chose to use one of the techniques jewelers used. The technique he would be using was called a bezel setting. This was a setting method that would hold the stone in place. It would use a raised surrounding for the stone with a lip encircling and overlapping the edges of the stone, thus holding it in place.

He would craft a new pommel with a hole for the stone and some of those raised ‘lips’. After the stone was in place he would need to push that thinner part of the metal down against the stone. This would wedge the mana crystal into the socket and keep it in there.

This was one of the easiest ways for him to do this with his current skill set. Thanks to his high dexterity stat he was quite good with his hands. Later he would have to research if there were other ways to keep those magic stones steady. He could even make the hilt wider at the end and punch a fitting hole, then hammer it shut.

This would keep the gem fully on the inside but could damage it as well. There was also the problem with the mana stone being fully encased in metal. This in theory would lower its mana gathering properties by how much he would need to test it.

Roland really wanted to make power tools now that would help him craft things. Due to his increased strength and endurance, he didn’t really need a power hammer. He could use something like a drill to make more precise holes. With it, he could just make a screw-on pommel instead of wedging it in then hammering the part that was poking out at the end.

He could really use tools like a belt grinder to help him with things like stock removal, profiling, polishing to a mirror finish. An angle grinder to cut metal would also save him a lot of time. The problem was always that such tools needed him to use up mana. This was valuable energy that he needed for runecrafting though and couldn’t be wasted.

Now on the other hand there was light outside the tunnel. With the help of these mana stones, he could probably lower the mana usage significantly, maybe even so much that his mana regeneration and the mana usage on the tools canceled themselves out.

First, he needed to make his first item though. Luckily the pommel was large enough to house this mana stone that he received from that hobgoblin he killed. After removing the old one he would need to make it a bit smaller than the original. As he wanted some stock to be poking out at the end to hammer it in place.

He got to work right in the morning. He was someone that was consumed by his job, there was almost no day that he spent not crafting something. He wasn’t such a productive person back in his old world, this was probably due to many things a person could do to procrastinate back there. Movies, games, books, and the internet, there were just so many activities that were more fun.

This wasn’t true in this world. When he stopped working and relaxed he found himself just sitting there with nothing to do. Roland had no friends or family to talk to, there was also no internet to surf around and spend his time. He was just left with himself and his own thoughts, thus he found himself thinking about new runes or new items he could make instead.

It was time to get it done, he picked out a piece of steel that was closest in size. He would create a pommel from it. It would be similar to the previous one and in the middle, it would have a groove and a flange.

This flange was just a somewhat projecting lip that would then be bent inwards to hold the mana stone in place. The mana stone would be placed into the groove and maybe polished down slightly. Though it would be better to not alter the mana stone as with a decrease in size it would lose some of its mana filtering and storing properties.

The workshop soon filled with sounds of metal colliding against one another and the sound of a fast-moving grindstone. This process took some time but in the end, he had something workable.

Roland needed to fit the stone into the groove of this socket. He started placing it inside and filing it further down to get the correct shape. This was probably the most annoying process as he didn’t want to make the opening too large.

After finally getting it into the correct shape the time to insert the runic components came. This would be another grueling process to get through. This was a smaller piece of metal than the sword’s blade and he couldn’t just hammer it with force. If he did that he could break it. He would need to use the harder process of forcefully inserting this by hand.

There was one thing he could do to hasten the process slightly. For this, he took out a simple engraving tool made from steel. It had a wooden handle and more or less looked like a pointy nail or smaller chisel.

He would engrave some of the larger runic structures into the metal on the hardened steel structure. He just had to be careful not to remove too much of the metal. If he did it correctly he would save mana and time as otherwise, his runerfacting skill that used up MP would have to construct all the pathways and components forcefully. With a thin enough engraving the technique would not have that much steel to push against.

What he was left with were precise inscriptions that almost looked like finished runes. A normal person would even think this was the finished product. Only a Runesmith or someone with specialized skill would notice the missing traces.

Now while concentrating with all his might the runecrafting process started. It was a lot harder to do this on a non-heated up piece of metal but within a day’s time, he was finished.

This wasn’t quite over yet, now the mana stone needed to be inserted into the pommel’s socket. He had done a good job while making this groove so the gem fit in nicely.

He didn’t own any bezel setting tools yet, so he had to make do with some of his regular smithing tools. The bending process wasn’t hard as he did have enhanced strength by now.

Soon the new Pommel made its way back onto the sword hilt. Thanks to his ethereal pathway skill he was now able to connect separate item parts with each other. This type of pathway was more similar to something like a wireless router.

It was like a point in the rune circuit that would just connect to another similar one in it. One just acted as a receiver while the other was sending out the signal, so you had to plan it out in the right way as they wouldn’t work otherwise.

After some final touches, the new sword was complete.

Roland took it into his hand and started examining it with the help of his identification skill, a little smirk appeared on his face.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Steel Arming Sword of Mana [ Mana Slash Rune, Mana Thrust Rune] [ Slot: Common Mana Stone(+3 Strength ) ]

He looked at the additional static that the mana stone was giving. Each slotted mana stone had some kind of bonus to it. This one came from a hobgoblin berserker and as it was a physical type of monster it added to strength. It did also add the mana reducing properties to it but apparently, his identification skill wasn’t high enough to see just by how much.

He wanted to test it out so he walked outside. This new workshop had a bit of land around it that was walled off. He had a large thick tree log out in his back yard that would probably be good as target practice.

Roland grasped his newly produced sword with one hand and did a few practice swings with it. His skill had improved since a couple of years ago. This took him back as he remembered the times that he sparred with his half gnome assistant in this backyard. She was quite nimble and good at evading. This increased his skills and accuracy of blows.

After looking back to old times he took on a thrusting stance. This sword wasn’t as long as a longsword which mostly ranged from 100 cm up to 130 cm. It was about 90 cm long, hilt included and was considered a one-handed sword. It was something between a longsword and a shortsword.

Before activating the skill he was sure to look at his current mana. He knew how much MP the mana thrust required so with some math it would be easy to tell how much energy he saved.

He plunged his sword forward with one hand while injecting the minimal amount of mana. He could feel his energies flowing into the hilt and activating the runic structure inside. It felt slightly different than when he used weapons without a mana stone in them. The infused mana started getting sucked into the embedded gem. It glowed with a bright light before the whole skill activated.

The whole blade glowed in a deep blue light. The energies moved towards the tip and it looked as if a current of water was traveling to the sword point. The sword tip shone brighter before a bolt of energy shot forward.

This attack looked similar to a mage’s mana bolt spell but it was a bit more concentrated. It had the same blue hue. The power of it depended not only on the user’s intelligence but also on their sword skills.

The moment it connected with the large piece of wood Roland could see it shatter into many smaller pieces. The stump just exploded as the mana thrust technique punched right through it. On the other end it collided with the ground and left a small hole in it while kicking up some dust.