《Devour》(52) Chapter 20: Jio De Smith
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Jio learned many things from his parents and from the war as he took a spherical metal. The blacksmith immediately looks at Jio after he feels the coldness coming from him and tries to pinch his arm to ensure he's not dreaming.
"Da... That's a Cold Iron... The purest one I have seen in my life!" The old blacksmith lets out in disbelief and catches it after Jio throws it to him, his eyes shining with greed.
"Maybe it is the purest Cold Iron in the world!" Jio announces and knows that Cold Iron Ore is hard to come by; only a few skillful blacksmiths can do it, and making a smooth sphere is impossible.
"You might be right!" The blacksmith happily let out.
"May I know my Elder's name?" Jio politely asks.
"Oh! Ho, ho, ho, I didn't know you still had some manners. I'm Amir," the blacksmith finally introduces himself.
"Nice to meet you, sir," Jio said and bowed.
Jio takes a Soul Dagger out for Amir to look at to maybe change his opinion of him and support his need to help the village.
Amir immediately tests the weapon's quality, strength, sharpness, and durability.
"I assume you know a Heavenly Blacksmith?" Amir asks as he admires the dagger.
"Yes, and im willing to exchange the villager's weapon for my master's work, if you don't mind," Jio playfully mentions and continues, "It would be nice if you gather it for me, and I want to see the blueprint that the village's Elder mentioned to me."
"Easier said than done; I still don't trust you and my fellow villagers," Amir said hesitantly.
"You can see the weapon's quality; I can leave this village and let the invaders take the village slow and steady but surely. Sia is powerful enough to defend the village alone, but for how long?" Jio asks, mocking Amir's pride and stubbornness.
"..." Amir looks at Jio with his emotion clouding his judgment.
"I can help the village let out its true potential!" Jio confidently declares and gives additional instructions.
In the end, Amir takes his leave to collect all the Soul Weapons and the blueprints as per Jio's request. He walks around the forge, formulating solutions in his mind on how to help the village in the long run.
After Amir collects all Soul Weapons with the owner's fighting style written on a piece of paper, he immediately returns to see Jio's reaction, thinking he doesn't have enough weapons to exchange as promised.
Jio bows to show his appreciation, and when he looks at the blueprints, he tells Amir to go home and rest since he deserves it after a long day protecting the village.
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"Looking at the blueprints, I decided to improve the equipment instead of giving my masters' work," Jio announces as he continues to study the models.
"You said your master's work!" Amir protests and takes the cross-peen hammer out that he uses for blacksmithing.
"Rest now! And see me tomorrow; if my work is unsatisfactory, I'll give my master's work and the step-by-step instruction that my master uses," Jio negotiates and gives the dagger he showed earlier for Amir to study.
"..." Amir can't trust Jio, but the offer is irresistible, and he can learn a great deal from the high-quality and well-balanced dagger.
Now that he's alone in the forged with peace and quiet, Jio reads the note Amir left for him to see before starting.
The note said:
Our village endured many hardships, and we trained since birth with the weapon we preferred that made us warriors. My great-grandfather once told me that he did not fear the man who had practiced 10,000 kicks once but feared the man who had practiced one kick 10,000 times.
*Let's see what Lala is doing* Jio thought and walked outside to look for Lala.
Walking around, Jio reminds him of home and the war. When he sees Lala and Weko playing with Sia and the children, Jio continues walking, looking for the person who used a war fan on him.
As soon as Jio sees the person he's looking for, he introduces himself and requests her to give him a few hours of her time. He plans to teach her the very basics of magic for her to teach and lead the villagers as he forges or modifies their soul weapons.
"Thank you for your participation," Jio expresses and bows to Lyra.
"I'm only doing this because our Elder said so," Lyra declares.
"Understandable," Jio replies and continues, "Magic is everywhere; Lala and I can see and feel magic easily after we eat a Dragon Pear."
"I know the basics. Why not you go straight to the point?" Lyra rudely voiced.
Jio gives Lyra a bag of random Magic Stones for the villagers to use and train. He also explains to her that their weapon is underway and requires them to control magic.
Lyra looks at Jio as he walks away, but he's talking for the Elder and starts sending messages that they will begin training first thing in the morning.
Before Jio entered the forge, he walked inside the storage room next to the building.
When he looked inside, he saw all types of low-level Magic Stones, practice weapons, and metals.
Mithril: It resembles silver but is stronger and lighter than steel.
Adamantium- strong as mithril but rather heavy compared to mithril's supernatural lightness.
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Space Rock/Meteoric iron- Jet black, stronger than mithril and adamantium only when impurities are removed.
Cold Iron- Literally cold and can only be mined in the depths of the sea or the mountaintop, snowing all year out.
Plutonium- The only metal that repels magic.
Uup- Metal that gains weight based on magic flowing through the metal.
Based on the weapon blueprints, Jio realizes that Maleficia is an excellent excuse to attack the village and steal all valuable blueprints, and other families or Sect won't suspect a thing.
Fish Village weapons' blueprints are hidden weapon designs that surprise the enemies since its unpredictable. The blueprints are never complete, and after the invader gets a hand in one of the designs, they want it all for themselves, but the Elder can see through their plans and scheme, thus starting the invasion.
Since Jio promises a better weapon to Amir in the morning, he starts to work and thinks of the best components for Amir's war hammer. Jon wraps the war hammer taking out all impurities. Doing all this causes the Soul Weapon to tremble like it has its own feeling, and if Jio is not careful, it will break, leaving only the tainted metal with the owner's blood which requires a special technique to remove the impurities.
Jio is not afraid to break it since he can use Jon, which can be considered a cheat.
Adding Uup and Black Stone to Amir's hammer, Jio smiles and uses Jon's ability called "Muncher" to combine the weapon, metal, and the Black Stone into one.
Muncher- A hidden skill that Jio discovered after devouring many space rocks, beasts, and monsters without digesting and making its own ability or skill.
Thanks to the blueprints and notes to complete the design, Amir's Soul War Hammer now has two parts; first, the two meters handle can turn into chains like wheat-chain that extend up to four meters long, and the second part is the head that looks like a pickaxe, one blunt hammer and the other is pointed.
*Amazing! Without Jon's ability, a real blacksmith would take at least a week or two, and other designs would take a month to finish* Jio thought as he put Amir's weapon on the table in the forge's waiting room with a note saying that he doesn't want to be disturb.
In the morning, Amir tries to look for Jio but is not in his room, so he goes straight to the forge.
"He probably can't keep his promise and run away or trying his best. Hahaha," Amir let out laughing and noticed the chimney's cold as he loudly laughed again.
Amir can feel his Soul weapon around and immediately goes inside the forge's waiting room; he trembles when he sees his war hammer.
"Oh, baby... What did that monster do to you?" Amir let out as he reached out for the weapon.
As soon as Amir made contact with his Soul War Hammer, he instantly knew what had changed and couldn't believe its possible without his weapon breaking.
*It feels and looks like a new weapon, but I know it's the same since it still has a complete connection with me. This... It's impossible* Amir thought as he tried to get his head around Jio's work.
Amir reads the note, accepts that he lost, and announces to the whole village not to bother Jio until he says so and to continue training magic as per Jio's instruction.
Jio only knows a piece of small information about blacksmithing, and Cloud mentions it during the war; he remembers him talking gibberish. Now that he's studying the most basic of smithing, Cloud's "gibberish" talk about the forging and hammering, drawing, upsetting, bending and punching, slowly making sense and getting a grasp of the art of blacksmithing.
*Guess it's time* Jio thought and returned to the forge to start working.
Jon wraps Lyra's fan, a piece of cold iron, and a Black Stone as Jio uses the skill "muncher." The war fan now has a beautiful flower pattern lace in the cold iron structure with razor-sharp retractable blades.
Jio is the only person who achieves such fleets since the magic stone is usually an irregular round shape; it is risky to cut it like gemstones. Thanks to Jon's ability, Jio can easily reconstruct any metal and cut Magic Stone.
Jio keeps upgrading the villagers' soul weapons like battle shears and javelins that can split into two; retractable spikes in flail and shield; spears, staff, trident, heavy/light lance, halberd, and lance with one elemental and black stone. He learned a lot about smithing by reading all the blacksmithing books, Cloud's knowledge from a different world, and modifying all the villagers' Soul weapons.
It took Jio three days to finish every weapon, and he called Amir to gather everyone to test the newly improved weapon.
*This... It's impossible— more than a hundred weapons. No one can do it without help! Did he make a deal with a demon?* Amir thought and looked at Jio in disbelief.
"It seems that my work is satisfactory, yes? Can you gather the villagers to test their Soul weapons? I want to see how they utilize the weapon's secret," Jio announces and follows Amir.
To be continued,
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