It had been a few years since Sage practiced any Blacksmithing and so he went directly to the task board and chose out the simplest task for a 1 star Blacksmith. Then he went to the material supply and purchased what he’d need before renting a smithy. He didn’t choose anything high level, just a basic smithy that would allow him to finish the task. Doing this simple job, forging a mortal tier saber, should get him back into practice. There were other tasks that required less forging like making spears, but he wanted to get more practice using a forge again. There were also mass production tasks, but those were usually performed by Apprentice Blacksmith’s since they took so much time and didn’t bring much profit.

From what Sage had seen of forging metal back on Earth, at least in the medieval manual style, things weren’t too much different here. The main change that he could see was that a Blacksmith here would work with more than just a handful of basic metals and could use multiple sources of flame. Controlling temperature and shaping metal were very similar, using hammers and gauging the colors and reactions of the metal to approximate temperature. There just happened to be thousands of different materials available, the majority of which weren’t even metal. The other issue was that many of those materials weren’t heated in normal flames. They would take special sources of flame with unusual elements incorporated in them. Just take the Saber he had to forge now. As a creation for only a 1 star Blacksmith it wasn’t too complicated, but it was to be forged out of Violent Green Iguana Scales. In order to forge Violent Green Iguana Scales it required a yellow earth flame. Earth flames were of a higher level of magnitude from normal flames, and they came from special types of volcanoes or underground magma sources that were inundated with strong forms of Earth natured qi.

Given the level of the task, yellow earth flames were of course quite low level and Sage had worked with them a few times before. Advancing as a Blacksmith had a few requirements, mainly the level of flames one could properly control as well as their skill with inlaying array symbols. Shaping metal into beautiful shapes was something that simply came with time and practice. Most Blacksmith’s wouldn’t want to be ridiculed for creating ugly items, but something beautiful was not really a requirement when it came to enchanting a magic item. There was also no requirement on how many materials a Smith knew how to work with as given the number and rarity of them in the world, nobody would ever increase their star ranking if they put material requirements in place. For the most part a Smith would only need a manual to instruct them on the properties of a new material and they would quickly adapt.

Even though it had been some time, Sage’s immense Spirit Power gave him exquisite control over the flame. He got to so into things that even after his first saber was a success he started to forge another. On the fifth saber he remembered his Divine Breath and put the technique to its true usage. The technique was originally used by Alchemists to control flames, using their lungs as a perfectly controlled bellows. The most orthodox alchemists were all Fire natured and they increased the strength of flame by pumping in more Qi, then used their Spirit Power in special techniques to control the application of heat and shape it for specific concoctions. Blacksmithing on the other hand did not require as precise of flame control, merely heating materials up to certain levels when they became malleable. Much easier than trying to heat up plants and animals parts to boil and distill medicinal liquids without burning the whole thing into ash.

The Divine Breath technique was a way to let those who weren’t of the Fire nature become Alchemists. Using their empowered lungs they could increase flame temperatures to great heights, something only fire nature Cultivators previously could do. Of course, that was in ancient times. In the modern practice there were many techniques and methods that could let those with other innate natures practice Alchemy. Most of them involved using special cauldrons or flame sources to make up for their deficiencies using piles of spirit stones. Having access to Divine Breath was one of the reasons Sage felt so comfortable giving up on Verdant Firebrand. While he wasn’t a high ranking Alchemist, he still wanted to keep his options open.

The fifth saber was completely ruined and Sage set aside the melted scales for later, starting a sixth saber and grasping the trick to using Divine Breath to control the flame temperature. A couple days later, Sage had a dozen sabers lined up in front of him and he chuckled at how much easier it was for the last few in comparison to the first few. Not only had Divine Breath drastically reduced his qi consumption it also multiplied his forging speed and with more practice he seemed to get the knack of shaping the metal again. The first saber was a rough work, looking like it came out of a metal stamping machine. The twelfth was quite impressive, with smooth curves, a razor edge and a mirror finish on the green metal blade. The spine of the saber was strong, yet kept the natural and rough look of small lizard scales. The hilt was even sculpted like a small iguana, its head as a pommel and its tail extending unnaturally and curling back and forth to form a crossguard.

The task asked for a saber forged of Violent Green Iguana Scale and with an enchantment for sharpness and speed. Such a formation was incredibly simple for Sage, but it had been sometime since he created a formation in such small scale and it was great practice to do it a dozen times. Sage chose to keep the most beautiful of the sabers while turning in the second to last saber for the task. The others he sold back to the Sect to recover the cost of materials he’d wasted. To create the twelve sabers he had used more than twenty sets of materials, experimenting in different ways as he kept improving the design and process. Even though he didn’t really care so much about his reputation as a smith, Sage still didn’t leave his maker’s mark on any but the last three sabers he had created. No point to putting a signature on practice work after all!

The practice seemed to have recovered his skill so Sage was ready to move on to his research. It was time to start work on an idea he had some time ago. Bringing the modern amenities of Earth to this ancient world. While there were many powerful Cultivators that could shrug off the effects of harsh weather or go without eating for months at a time, Sage was sure that the basic comforts of Earth would be a welcome addition to the world.

Before that though, there were some problems to solve. Primarily of course, figuring out which comforts he could reproduce here with magical items and array formations. Secondly, he’d need to figure out ways to create them cheaply. Third, a way to protect his creations from being stolen or copied. Even with his lack of business knowledge, he knew a monopoly was the source of the most profits. Lastly, he needed to figure out the best way to sell it. The last problem was the one he was the most torn over. Should he start businesses that exclusively control all of his inventions and service customers? Hire smiths to produce the inventions on large scale and let merchants sell them around the world? Maybe he should just license the inventions to someone else and let them do all the labor?

Eh, I’ll worry about that after I have some devices to show off. There’s gotta be businessmen in the Holy Flame Sect, right?

Sage left the Smithy and headed home, pulling out a fresh Memory Sphere and placing it onto his Memory Forge. Within he created an office and a big drafting table, complete with paper and writing implements. The first step was to try and create some plans. He’d need to figure out what the best materials were that he could use to do what he wanted and figure out the best arrays to accomplish the effects. There was going to need to be a lot of testing and balancing to determine if he would be making large numbers of weak devices with cheap materials and simple arrays or just a few made of rare materials with complicated arrays. Time to choose the first device!

Plumbing!