"Good morning class. Follow me into the shop so I can show you the place where you will spend most of your time throughout this course. I will also show you how to make a simple kitchen knife for starters. No one is to fool around inside the shop or I will send you to the army course for some punishments."
Finally, I can see a forging process live. This is what I will do after graduating so I need to familiarize myself as soon as possible. It really does look like there won't be recruiters after yesterday. This morning I met the union member of the recruiter I knocked out. They were dragging him this morning since he was still asleep on the hallway along with the alchemist. I'm assuming the sleep potion is on the inferior side of the alchemist inventory, since he won't willingly give me the good stuff, but the effect sure is great. It was only supposed to knock them out for a few hours but they spent the whole night asleep. I did use a dirty rag so it might also have to do with that.
The school really does provide all the things you need, except food, for your course. At the start of class a tool belt along with different kinds of tools are on top of our tables. I wonder if we have to return it after we graduate? However, from the look and feel of these tools. All of them are the normal one's. No enchant, no special material, just plain old hammer and tools. I'm assuming they are going to make us do some simple ordinary normal things to get us familiar with forging and do the magical stuff in the later years, it's either that or they cheap out on the equipment. They should have some spare enchanted tools but maybe they only prepared one such thing per class, does that mean we take turns using it?
"Alright, stop dawdling and follow me quickly. Once I closed the workshop door, It won't open until I finish class. I won't accept late comers. On that note, use the washroom before since there isn't a washroom inside the shop. If you dare make a mess inside there, I'll make you lick it clean."
Harsh, I wonder how long class will last. I need to regulate on how much I drink when we have shop class. If worst comes to worst, I would use [Butler Storage] as a portable toilet. However, at worst class would last until lunch so I think I can hold it in that much. The problem is if we have it after lunch, after getting loaded with food and drinks going inside the closed shop would be a heavy waiting game with a stinky bomb waiting for you if you lose. I have my storage but if my classmates messed up, the shop would stink especially with how hot a forge can be. I wonder if he would release us early when that happens, or just let it smell and continue teaching? Please be merciful.
Looks like our workshop is on the left side of the school. Well, left side if you face the front of the school but in terms of school layout, this should be the right wing of the school?
Amazing,,,,, the inside of the workshop is actually like a warehouse supermarket but the different sections are walled off, there is no roof or rather the walls isn't connected all the way to the roof, is that so they can collect all the smoke of the forge for different sections while still having privacy to teach different classes? You can even see some walkways above near the ceiling. There are a lot of vents with glowing opening though, I wonder if it's enchanted with some kind of suction effect to get all the smoke?
"Stop gawking there and follow me!! You first years are in workshop 1. Follow me quickly!"
Loud! I already here some people pounding metal but his voice still stands out. I guess you need to be this loud so the whole class can hear you even if all of them is hammering steel.
"Alright, settle on a forge, light it up and look at me. Don't forget to wear your aprons and gloves. If you become unable to use your limbs then I'm kicking you out of the blacksmith course. Come back when you find a way to forge with one hand. I'm not saying this to warn you, I'm saying this so you won't give up no matter what. I have a student who had his arm crushed from fighting a coppercorn goat but managed to rig a foot pedaled tong to support his forging. However, It is still best not to get injured. Unless you can withstand temperature enough to soften metals then pay attention and never let your guard down."
I have to say, this workshop is really orderly. I imagined that a dwarfs forge is messy and jumbled up pieces of metal everywhere with only the blacksmith themselves know where anything is. There should be others like that too, or maybe it's only like that here since this is a school? The aprons are lined up near the door on a long rack along with the gloves that are in the front pocket of the apron. Shockingly, all of them look new. This is a huge blessing, I don't want to wear some smelly old clothes that who knows who used. My nose is still sensitive to different odour so I don't want to break it yet. I destroyed my sense of smell when I was a human test dummy before since we basically lived inside a washroom, we do our business just a couple of feet where we sleep and eat, communally.
"Did you get your forge aflame yet? Ok, watch me. This is a piece of metal that can be hardened. If you want to know which can or can't be hardened then either test it or look it up at the metal compendium at the library. Now then, First put it in the forge to be heated while using firebricks to block the heat leaking outside."
That is simple enough. This should be easy. I would have liked if he told us what type of metal is best for what type of use.
*Bonk*
"I SAID WATCH ME!!!! Do you even know what to do next!?!? We already checked your backgrounds and abilities when you enrolled so all of you don't know a thing about blacksmithing! If you know the slightest thing about it then you shouldn't be in this class! Do you want to burn your metal! HUH!?!? Listen up everyone! If I say something then follow it! When I say WATCH then WATCH!"
Oooohh! that is going to left a mark. He is a teacher yet he strongly threw a piece of wood on that guys head. Now that I look at him clearly, he seems to be the punch guy from before. I won't blame him too much for this, he just might be overeager.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch, Teacher you didn't have to throw it that hard. Isn't blacksmithing just basically heating metal and shaping it to look pretty. I have done that already. Look, look, these are my work."
Hmm? Based on what the teacher said, this school divides the students based on what they know but is it possible for someone who is already learned to be in the same class as us newbs?
"If you have experience before then you wouldn't be here. Give me that. hmm, A kitchen knife, huh. This steel is from an iron fence. It's crooked, the handle is made from two layers of wrapped yarn, and worst of all. *Thwack* *Clink* you never even heat treated the blade. Now remove your metal from the fire before it turns into fireworks and shut up!"
"Hi-hiii! Yes, sorry teacher!"
Good thing my forge is quite far from him. He even threw the broken knife, the punch guy made, and threw it back to him shattering it in front of him. I see a couple of fragments grazing the students near him.
"Alright, now see the glowing colour of this piece of steel, this is the ideal colour before you start hammering........ When it gets to this stage, grab it firmly with the tongs and position it at the anvil...... Next, hammer it until it gets flat......Usually before all this, you plan what the design is for your knife and work along that. For example, right here I'm making a 14 inch chef's knife so I first shafe the blade until it's flat and thick enough for what I want to achieve. I then use the rest to form the tang. Also pay attention here, as you hammer your metal, it will gradually lose heat and when you reach this shade of colour, you put it back to heat it up again.......... Never hammer on cold steel unless you want to shatter it like what happened to that idiots knife."
Seems simple enough, His voice is loud enough to out 'sound' the hammering and the explanation is easy to follow but I feel he is not used to explaining. There are times when he stops talking and just hammer away. Is he the type of teacher that goes 'do this and that and you get this'? It doesn't matter, as long as I follow what he did then I should get a feel for it somehow. I found out that dwarfs live for about 150-200 years so I have a lot of time. I found it in the library when I research about dwarfs, need to know what my specialties are after all. It said something about being close to the earth gives us more life, like a blessing of the mother of life. There were a bunch about gods but I saw that the only god is a noob gamer. I didn't see others when I first got transported too, so it might just be the belief they have here.
"Do this,......... do that........, wait for a bit.........., heat it up......, cool it down......., do that a couple of times.........., quench it....., and finally temper it. Since we have this tempering machine that our enchanters and rune masters made we don't have to worry much at this stage. Set it up like this and you can leave it until the next day. Now, I want to see you do that or you won't be getting a lunch break."
Eh? what? What happened to the awkward yet easy explanation from before? Is it a script? is it a new student script to help us get started? If it's a script I would appreciate if you can make one to cover the whole process before giving up. I watched the whole thing so I can somehow make it but that was still a bad way to show us. Are you trying weed out those not suited for this profession this early?
Alright let's just do this and get lunch. So I first put my thing in here until it gets hot. I pound away until it gets nice and lean. I keep going at it alternating between cooling down or heating up and finally submerged it into,,,? Is this oil? Wouldn't this light up if I put a glowing piece of metal inside it? Ah, whatever, the teacher did the exact same thing so it should be fine. Let's hope that blacksmith fire resistance can take this.
*Plunge*
Hmm? No flame? Good, now how long do I need to do this? I can see the blade is still glowing inside the oil so maybe a bit more until it dies down a bit.............Now
*Flame*
Whoaa!?! The oil didn't blaze when I put it in the oil but when I took it out. Hot, hot, hot, what ever happened to the fire resistance? Oh, wait. I haven't actually acquired the blacksmith job yet.
Blob Neutral