“... my Lord. Could you share a moment?” Wilma came to me and asked that after my breakfast.
Today was … just another day. Nothing super special planned for today. Sure I could visit Lady Janina’s real body, but she is also willing to wait for her Factory tour, so I’m not rushing with it.
I did have a meeting tomorrow, with Duke Burch, regarding the illegal slaves of the Blanken Company. The ones we would return home were still under Duke Burch’s care, as he was doing things by the book. Basically, he wanted to avoid an international problem.
And why would I meet up with him? Well, I did promise to use my airships, aka. B.E.S. monsters, to give the ex slaves a ride home.
Well, back to Wilma.
“Sure. I can share a moment. What do you need?”
“... could we speak in your office?” Wilma then asked.
“Oh. Is this about what I discussed with you earlier?” I asked to confirm.
“... yes. I would like to… do it.” Wilma said.
“Alright.” I agreed. “Follow me.” I told her, as I turned and walked towards my office.
As I got into my office, I told my monsters to leave. There was always at least one of them in the room, as the room did hold the Citadel core. Usually it was just Endy, but now that more avatar dolls were moving around HomeBase, some of them would also be here.
Spoiler [collapse]Oh, speaking of avatar dolls. I still hadn’t made any sort of automatic charging station for them, or anything like that. It was part of my evening duties to remove the cards from the avatar dolls, attach a magic charging cable to them, and put new cards into other avatar dolls. This way, my monsters would get 24 hours to live in an avatar doll, before I return them to the Factory. Laura and Fantasia were the ones making the rotation on who would be coming into an avatar doll next, so I didn’t have to worry about that part. Unless I wanted a specific monster available, but I usually didn’t.
After Endy and Skilled White Magician, who was in an avatar doll for today, exited the room, I sat down on my seat.
Spoiler [collapse]“Alright Wilma. Whenever you are ready. Your status.” I told her.
“... status open.” Wilma said quietly.
| Name: Wilhelmina |
| Race: Dwarf |
| Level: 39 |
| HP: 1166 |
| Mana: 1244 |
| Strength: 768 |
| Defense: 690 |
| Magic: 432 |
| Skills: |
| Item Box LV.3 (extra) |
| Appraisal (extra) |
| Blacksmithing LV.4 |
| Crafting LV.3 |
| Hammer Technique LV.2 |
| Shield Technique LV.4 |
| Strength Boost LV.2 |
| Mana Control LV.3 |
| Enchanting LV.4 |
| Earth Magic LV.2 |
| Fire Resistance LV.2 |
She really did show it to me. I made sure to memorize her entire status, well Laura and Tahlia might have helped with that, before I told her that she could close her status.
“Thank you, Wilma. For trusting me with your information.” I thanked the dwarf.
Wilma was honestly quite impressive. Sure she might not compare to any of us, but for someone who had to grow on their own, with no Level Up or installs, she was quite impressive. She didn’t have a racial skill though. Do dwarves even have a racial skill? I mean, humans don’t have one, until they evolve, so maybe dwarves don’t have one either.
Wilma does also have Earth Magic. Sure it is only LV.2, but that does show that she has affinity towards Earth. There is also Hammer Technique. It is an ‘evolved’ or specialized form of Blunt Weapon Technique, not something related to Blacksmithing, which happens to be a skill Wilma has. She also has Shield Technique like I do, but hers is higher level than mine.
And then there are the two extra skills. Yes, I knew of both of them, but I didn’t know that Appraisal doesn’t have a level. I just assumed that it would, but apparently it doesn’t.
Blacksmithing is… well, exactly that. A skill that helps when you are forming hot metal with a hammer. While Crafting is for again, crafting. So a lot of the things Wilma does likely fall under Crafting, not Blacksmithing. Though that being considered, I find it interesting that Wilma’s Blacksmithing is higher in level than her Crafting. Maybe it is because of her time in training or something?
“... My Lord. May I now ask about the… helping me improve?” Wilma asked meekly.
“Of course. That was a part of the deal, right? You show me your status, and I help you accomplish your dream. And it starts with this.” I took a card out of my collection. Before explaining anything to Wilma, I activated it. “I want to increase Wilma’s Crafting skill level, Level Up.” I said to activate the card. I decided to target her Crafting skill, as it is lower in level than her Blacksmithing, and it is something she would need to accomplish her dream. If her dream still is making a legendary weapon.
Spoiler [collapse]“Take a look at your status.” I told Wilma, as she seemed a bit confused by what just happened.
She did as I ordered, and as she did, her eyes seemed to widen a bit.
“... My Lord? … did you … cause my skill level to increase?” Wilma asked.
“Yes, I did.” I confirmed. “It is one way I can help you, but I have another.” That was of course referring to installs. “But it is better not to do too much in one day, so we should explore the other way some other day. For now, I will just do this.” As I said that, I took out another copy of Level Up! “I want to increase Wilma’s overall level, Level Up.”
With the second copy activated, Wilma once again looked at her status.
“... how is this… possible?” She asked.
“Well, EXP potions are a thing.” I told her. “The card I activated is something like that. It can give you skill experience, or ‘overall’ experience. This is how I wish to help you. Every day, I will level up one of your skills, as well as your overall level. This will make you stronger and power up your skills. And as your skills improve, what you can make will also increase in quality. Our goal is for you to make a weapon that will give its wielder strength, right? Or do you want to aim for something even better?”
“I … I … yes. I mean no. I …” Wilma struggled to come up with an answer.
“I guess let’s aim for a weapon that can give its wielder strength first. If that is successful, maybe something even better. How about that?” I offered.
“... Yes. That sounds good.” Wilma agreed.
That day, I went to the workshop to watch as Wilma worked. Karl had a rest day, so he wasn’t here. Well, he had been in the morning, but Sheou had told him that he should rest on his rest day, so he had only been here for the morning.
Spoiler [collapse]I had Wilma make me a letter opening knife. It was something simple, so she could make one in just one day, but it also involved both blacksmithing and crafting, so it was perfect. Besides, I’ve been getting more letters, so it would be nice to have a dedicated letter opening knife.
I would eventually also need my own letter seal, but I have to have a house emblem for that. And I haven’t actually designed one yet. I should speak about that with Alice and Lua.
As I was watching Wilma pound a piece of steel to form, I thought that I’d also like to try that. And I mean, in a world where more skills = more stats, having more skills is never a bad thing. And as long as I can get LV.1 of the skill, Level Up will do the rest.
“Wilma, could I try that?” I asked.
“You mean hammering the metal?” Wilma asked, slightly taken back by my question. “... well, if you really wish, I can’t say no, my Lord.”
“Please just call me Brian when not in official situations.” I told her.
“Yes, Lord Brian.”
“And no Lord needed.”
“... as you wish, Brian.” Wilma quickly gave in. Well, this wasn’t the first time, so maybe not so quickly. “Please. If you wish to try, let us do it now. This is still the beginning stage, so if something … goes wrong, it will be easier to fix the problem.”
“I’ll try to not mess up your work.” I told her, as I walked to the anvil. While I did, Wilma placed the piece of steel back into the forge to heat up again.
She then quickly showed me how to hold the forging hammer, how to strike and so on, before using tongs to take the piece of steel out of the fire again. She then placed it on the anvil and picked up her own hammer.
“I will show you first. We are drawing out this piece, so you can hit with quite a bit of force, but not too much so the steel won’t split or develop cracks.” She then hit the metal a few times to show me. “Alright, now try it.”
I readied my hammer and struck the piece of steel. Then lifting up the forging hammer, I saw the mark I left on the metal. It was a bit deeper than the marks left by Wilma’s strikes, probably because I used too much force.
“A bit too hard, but good accuracy.” Wilma said. “Next strike, a bit less force and try to hit here.” She pointed out a spot with her hammer.
I did as ordered and hit the metal again, trying to use even less strength this time. I guess something like this is a situation where having stats over 2000 is actually bad for you. But with a handful of more hits, I learned how hard I was supposed to strike. And because of my super stats, I really didn’t get tired that easily, so I could keep up with Wilma. Also, because of my sword practice, it wasn’t that difficult to hit the place Wilma wanted me to hit, so my accuracy was fine.
“Alright. Now to shape it.” Wilma said. “We will have to be even more careful at this point. One hard hit and we might have to start all over.”
We had actually gotten quite a good rhythm going. Wilma was still the one in charge, but instead of holding a hammer, she was now holding different kinds of tools for shaping metal. They were great, but you needed two people to use them. One would hold the piece you are working on, as well as the shaping tool, the other would strike the back of the tool with a sledge hammer or a forging hammer, depending on how much force you needed.
So yeah. Wilma was basically using me as a power hammer, or something like that. But it was in itself actually quite fun. Kind of like just repeated sword strikes against nothing in particular.
“Now, we heat treat the piece.” Wilma said, after we had the letter opening blade fully shaped. “This part is very important, but it is also different depending on the metal used. With steel it is …”
Wilma went on quite a long and technical speech about what heat treatment was. Though she only spoke about steel specifically. Basically, it was something to make the steel harder. You would do it by heating the steel to a high temperature and then quenching it in water, brine or oil. There were also secret fluids some would use, but Wilma didn’t go into detail about those. The one HomeBase used was a special heat treatment oil I found in the Chaos God Dungeon catalog. Unlike normal oils, the heat treatment oil wouldn’t catch on fire even if you put a flame above it. 1Real life fact. Oil is not flammable, but oil vapor is. So dropping a lit match into a barrel of cold temperature oil won’t actually light the oil on fire, and the match will actually go out. But don’t try that at home, as any vapors will still light on fire.
After Wilma pulled the knife out of the oil, I was quite excited. My first collaboration tool. I wanted to hold it, but Wilma stopped me.
“We need to temper it first. If used like this, it will break, as it is quite brittle because of its hardness.” Wilma explained.
“Oh yeah. I forgot.” I did actually know this stuff, mostly from Youtube videos, but I guess I just was being an excited child and temporarily forgot that fact.
As Wilma put the blade into our magic tempering tank, again something I found in the HomeBase catalog, she explained what tempering is to me. Basically, after you quench steel, it is very hard, but also very brittle. Aka. if you hit it with blunt force, it will likely break. But by tempering, the hardness is reduced a bit, while the toughness of the blade increases a ton. This makes a balance of hard and tough. A weapon that will both hold its edge and not break when it comes into contact with another one.
Like the quench, the tempering can be done in different ways, like just having the blade in a heated oven, or it could even be tempered over a fire. But we had a magic tempering tank, so we could use tempering oil. It had some advantages and disadvantages, but Wilma and Karl haven’t asked for a different tempering oven, so I feel like they like this one.
While the blade was being tempered, a process that could take a few hours, Wilma got to work on the handle, as well as a basic sheath. A letter knife doesn’t really need one, but it will also be good to have one, so the blade won’t just sit uncovered on my desk.
I didn’t really help with this part, other than offering my hand as a sizing tool for the handle of the knife. I probably could have attempted to do something, but I think I’ll just leave it to the professional.
By the time the blade came out of temper, we had the handle quite close to finished. We, well Wilma really, would only have to make the inside of the handle match the tang of the blade. Then she used some sort of glue to … well, glue the handle to the blade.
Then it was time for the final treatment. Final sharpening on the blade, polishing and treating the handle, and finishing the sheath.
“Here you are, Brian. I hope you like it.” Wilma said, as she presented the letter opening knife to me.
“Yes. It is amazing. Thank you, Wilma. You did a great job, as always.”
“T-thanks. It was fun working together.” Wilma said. “... i-if you en-enjoyed, I would like it if you… worked with me again.”
“Sure. I’d love to.” I answered honestly.
“Would you really?” Wilma asked in excitement.
“Yeah. I really would like that.” I again told her. This was great, and next time, we can make something quite a bit more … combat focused than a letter knife. Maybe we can make a full sword and I can install one of my sword cards into it to make a super sword and…
Yeah. Let’s think about that later.
“Yes. I’ll be looking forward to it, Brian.” Wilma said.
“Yeah. Me as well.”
As I was leaving the room, a System notification popped up.
| Mission: Good Master |
| Worker Wilhelmina sees you as a good employer. |
| Reward: Laundry Dragonmaid |
Thank you, Wilma. I really do like having you working for me as well.
nro_8
A few notes here in the end. One, if I was wrong on any part of the forging process,(I probably was) sorry. I’m not an expert.
Two. Most people wouldn’t actually heat-treat and temper a letter opening knife, as it won’t see any use where it would be necessary. I just had Wilma do it, because she wanted to show Brian how it is done.
“... my Lord. Could you share a moment?” Wilma came to me and asked that after my breakfast.
Today was … just another day. Nothing super special planned for today. Sure I could visit Lady Janina’s real body, but she is also willing to wait for her Factory tour, so I’m not rushing with it.
I did have a meeting tomorrow, with Duke Burch, regarding the illegal slaves of the Blanken Company. The ones we would return home were still under Duke Burch’s care, as he was doing things by the book. Basically, he wanted to avoid an international problem.
And why would I meet up with him? Well, I did promise to use my airships, aka. B.E.S. monsters, to give the ex slaves a ride home.
Well, back to Wilma.
“Sure. I can share a moment. What do you need?”
“... could we speak in your office?” Wilma then asked.
“Oh. Is this about what I discussed with you earlier?” I asked to confirm.
“... yes. I would like to… do it.” Wilma said.
“Alright.” I agreed. “Follow me.” I told her, as I turned and walked towards my office.
As I got into my office, I told my monsters to leave. There was always at least one of them in the room, as the room did hold the Citadel core. Usually it was just Endy, but now that more avatar dolls were moving around HomeBase, some of them would also be here.
Spoiler [collapse]Oh, speaking of avatar dolls. I still hadn’t made any sort of automatic charging station for them, or anything like that. It was part of my evening duties to remove the cards from the avatar dolls, attach a magic charging cable to them, and put new cards into other avatar dolls. This way, my monsters would get 24 hours to live in an avatar doll, before I return them to the Factory. Laura and Fantasia were the ones making the rotation on who would be coming into an avatar doll next, so I didn’t have to worry about that part. Unless I wanted a specific monster available, but I usually didn’t.
After Endy and Skilled White Magician, who was in an avatar doll for today, exited the room, I sat down on my seat.
Spoiler [collapse]“Alright Wilma. Whenever you are ready. Your status.” I told her.
“... status open.” Wilma said quietly.
| Name: Wilhelmina |
| Race: Dwarf |
| Level: 39 |
| HP: 1166 |
| Mana: 1244 |
| Strength: 768 |
| Defense: 690 |
| Magic: 432 |
| Skills: |
| Item Box LV.3 (extra) |
| Appraisal (extra) |
| Blacksmithing LV.4 |
| Crafting LV.3 |
| Hammer Technique LV.2 |
| Shield Technique LV.4 |
| Strength Boost LV.2 |
| Mana Control LV.3 |
| Enchanting LV.4 |
| Earth Magic LV.2 |
| Fire Resistance LV.2 |
She really did show it to me. I made sure to memorize her entire status, well Laura and Tahlia might have helped with that, before I told her that she could close her status.
“Thank you, Wilma. For trusting me with your information.” I thanked the dwarf.
Wilma was honestly quite impressive. Sure she might not compare to any of us, but for someone who had to grow on their own, with no Level Up or installs, she was quite impressive. She didn’t have a racial skill though. Do dwarves even have a racial skill? I mean, humans don’t have one, until they evolve, so maybe dwarves don’t have one either.
Wilma does also have Earth Magic. Sure it is only LV.2, but that does show that she has affinity towards Earth. There is also Hammer Technique. It is an ‘evolved’ or specialized form of Blunt Weapon Technique, not something related to Blacksmithing, which happens to be a skill Wilma has. She also has Shield Technique like I do, but hers is higher level than mine.
And then there are the two extra skills. Yes, I knew of both of them, but I didn’t know that Appraisal doesn’t have a level. I just assumed that it would, but apparently it doesn’t.
Blacksmithing is… well, exactly that. A skill that helps when you are forming hot metal with a hammer. While Crafting is for again, crafting. So a lot of the things Wilma does likely fall under Crafting, not Blacksmithing. Though that being considered, I find it interesting that Wilma’s Blacksmithing is higher in level than her Crafting. Maybe it is because of her time in training or something?
“... My Lord. May I now ask about the… helping me improve?” Wilma asked meekly.
“Of course. That was a part of the deal, right? You show me your status, and I help you accomplish your dream. And it starts with this.” I took a card out of my collection. Before explaining anything to Wilma, I activated it. “I want to increase Wilma’s Crafting skill level, Level Up.” I said to activate the card. I decided to target her Crafting skill, as it is lower in level than her Blacksmithing, and it is something she would need to accomplish her dream. If her dream still is making a legendary weapon.
Spoiler [collapse]“Take a look at your status.” I told Wilma, as she seemed a bit confused by what just happened.
She did as I ordered, and as she did, her eyes seemed to widen a bit.
“... My Lord? … did you … cause my skill level to increase?” Wilma asked.
“Yes, I did.” I confirmed. “It is one way I can help you, but I have another.” That was of course referring to installs. “But it is better not to do too much in one day, so we should explore the other way some other day. For now, I will just do this.” As I said that, I took out another copy of Level Up! “I want to increase Wilma’s overall level, Level Up.”
With the second copy activated, Wilma once again looked at her status.
“... how is this… possible?” She asked.
“Well, EXP potions are a thing.” I told her. “The card I activated is something like that. It can give you skill experience, or ‘overall’ experience. This is how I wish to help you. Every day, I will level up one of your skills, as well as your overall level. This will make you stronger and power up your skills. And as your skills improve, what you can make will also increase in quality. Our goal is for you to make a weapon that will give its wielder strength, right? Or do you want to aim for something even better?”
“I … I … yes. I mean no. I …” Wilma struggled to come up with an answer.
“I guess let’s aim for a weapon that can give its wielder strength first. If that is successful, maybe something even better. How about that?” I offered.
“... Yes. That sounds good.” Wilma agreed.
That day, I went to the workshop to watch as Wilma worked. Karl had a rest day, so he wasn’t here. Well, he had been in the morning, but Sheou had told him that he should rest on his rest day, so he had only been here for the morning.
Spoiler [collapse]I had Wilma make me a letter opening knife. It was something simple, so she could make one in just one day, but it also involved both blacksmithing and crafting, so it was perfect. Besides, I’ve been getting more letters, so it would be nice to have a dedicated letter opening knife.
I would eventually also need my own letter seal, but I have to have a house emblem for that. And I haven’t actually designed one yet. I should speak about that with Alice and Lua.
As I was watching Wilma pound a piece of steel to form, I thought that I’d also like to try that. And I mean, in a world where more skills = more stats, having more skills is never a bad thing. And as long as I can get LV.1 of the skill, Level Up will do the rest.
“Wilma, could I try that?” I asked.
“You mean hammering the metal?” Wilma asked, slightly taken back by my question. “... well, if you really wish, I can’t say no, my Lord.”
“Please just call me Brian when not in official situations.” I told her.
“Yes, Lord Brian.”
“And no Lord needed.”
“... as you wish, Brian.” Wilma quickly gave in. Well, this wasn’t the first time, so maybe not so quickly. “Please. If you wish to try, let us do it now. This is still the beginning stage, so if something … goes wrong, it will be easier to fix the problem.”
“I’ll try to not mess up your work.” I told her, as I walked to the anvil. While I did, Wilma placed the piece of steel back into the forge to heat up again.
She then quickly showed me how to hold the forging hammer, how to strike and so on, before using tongs to take the piece of steel out of the fire again. She then placed it on the anvil and picked up her own hammer.
“I will show you first. We are drawing out this piece, so you can hit with quite a bit of force, but not too much so the steel won’t split or develop cracks.” She then hit the metal a few times to show me. “Alright, now try it.”
I readied my hammer and struck the piece of steel. Then lifting up the forging hammer, I saw the mark I left on the metal. It was a bit deeper than the marks left by Wilma’s strikes, probably because I used too much force.
“A bit too hard, but good accuracy.” Wilma said. “Next strike, a bit less force and try to hit here.” She pointed out a spot with her hammer.
I did as ordered and hit the metal again, trying to use even less strength this time. I guess something like this is a situation where having stats over 2000 is actually bad for you. But with a handful of more hits, I learned how hard I was supposed to strike. And because of my super stats, I really didn’t get tired that easily, so I could keep up with Wilma. Also, because of my sword practice, it wasn’t that difficult to hit the place Wilma wanted me to hit, so my accuracy was fine.
“Alright. Now to shape it.” Wilma said. “We will have to be even more careful at this point. One hard hit and we might have to start all over.”
We had actually gotten quite a good rhythm going. Wilma was still the one in charge, but instead of holding a hammer, she was now holding different kinds of tools for shaping metal. They were great, but you needed two people to use them. One would hold the piece you are working on, as well as the shaping tool, the other would strike the back of the tool with a sledge hammer or a forging hammer, depending on how much force you needed.
So yeah. Wilma was basically using me as a power hammer, or something like that. But it was in itself actually quite fun. Kind of like just repeated sword strikes against nothing in particular.
“Now, we heat treat the piece.” Wilma said, after we had the letter opening blade fully shaped. “This part is very important, but it is also different depending on the metal used. With steel it is …”
Wilma went on quite a long and technical speech about what heat treatment was. Though she only spoke about steel specifically. Basically, it was something to make the steel harder. You would do it by heating the steel to a high temperature and then quenching it in water, brine or oil. There were also secret fluids some would use, but Wilma didn’t go into detail about those. The one HomeBase used was a special heat treatment oil I found in the Chaos God Dungeon catalog. Unlike normal oils, the heat treatment oil wouldn’t catch on fire even if you put a flame above it. 1Real life fact. Oil is not flammable, but oil vapor is. So dropping a lit match into a barrel of cold temperature oil won’t actually light the oil on fire, and the match will actually go out. But don’t try that at home, as any vapors will still light on fire.
After Wilma pulled the knife out of the oil, I was quite excited. My first collaboration tool. I wanted to hold it, but Wilma stopped me.
“We need to temper it first. If used like this, it will break, as it is quite brittle because of its hardness.” Wilma explained.
“Oh yeah. I forgot.” I did actually know this stuff, mostly from Youtube videos, but I guess I just was being an excited child and temporarily forgot that fact.
As Wilma put the blade into our magic tempering tank, again something I found in the HomeBase catalog, she explained what tempering is to me. Basically, after you quench steel, it is very hard, but also very brittle. Aka. if you hit it with blunt force, it will likely break. But by tempering, the hardness is reduced a bit, while the toughness of the blade increases a ton. This makes a balance of hard and tough. A weapon that will both hold its edge and not break when it comes into contact with another one.
Like the quench, the tempering can be done in different ways, like just having the blade in a heated oven, or it could even be tempered over a fire. But we had a magic tempering tank, so we could use tempering oil. It had some advantages and disadvantages, but Wilma and Karl haven’t asked for a different tempering oven, so I feel like they like this one.
While the blade was being tempered, a process that could take a few hours, Wilma got to work on the handle, as well as a basic sheath. A letter knife doesn’t really need one, but it will also be good to have one, so the blade won’t just sit uncovered on my desk.
I didn’t really help with this part, other than offering my hand as a sizing tool for the handle of the knife. I probably could have attempted to do something, but I think I’ll just leave it to the professional.
By the time the blade came out of temper, we had the handle quite close to finished. We, well Wilma really, would only have to make the inside of the handle match the tang of the blade. Then she used some sort of glue to … well, glue the handle to the blade.
Then it was time for the final treatment. Final sharpening on the blade, polishing and treating the handle, and finishing the sheath.
“Here you are, Brian. I hope you like it.” Wilma said, as she presented the letter opening knife to me.
“Yes. It is amazing. Thank you, Wilma. You did a great job, as always.”
“T-thanks. It was fun working together.” Wilma said. “... i-if you en-enjoyed, I would like it if you… worked with me again.”
“Sure. I’d love to.” I answered honestly.
“Would you really?” Wilma asked in excitement.
“Yeah. I really would like that.” I again told her. This was great, and next time, we can make something quite a bit more … combat focused than a letter knife. Maybe we can make a full sword and I can install one of my sword cards into it to make a super sword and…
Yeah. Let’s think about that later.
“Yes. I’ll be looking forward to it, Brian.” Wilma said.
“Yeah. Me as well.”
As I was leaving the room, a System notification popped up.
| Mission: Good Master |
| Worker Wilhelmina sees you as a good employer. |
| Reward: Laundry Dragonmaid |
Thank you, Wilma. I really do like having you working for me as well.
nro_8
A few notes here in the end. One, if I was wrong on any part of the forging process,(I probably was) sorry. I’m not an expert.
Two. Most people wouldn’t actually heat-treat and temper a letter opening knife, as it won’t see any use where it would be necessary. I just had Wilma do it, because she wanted to show Brian how it is done.
