Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

I refined and transformed the last two materials into pure blocks as well before taking a break to refill my drained energy reserves. As I waited I wrote down some of my ideas on cursed tools in my notebook that I crafted for this exact purpose. While I trusted myself not to forget important details I felt that it was always a good idea to write stuff down just in case. In a manner of speaking I was writing a tome on cursed energy that used what I knew from my time on earth as well as what I discovered on my own here.-

For example I wrote down my theory that all cursed techniques had an elemental affinity and that it was possible to use those elements. My evidence of this was of course the flames Sukuna was shown to use as well as my own flames. While my technique was called hells forge it didn't actually use flames like a traditional forge would. Despite this my falna clearly labeled my flames as an extension of my technique so my theory was that each technique might also have an elemental affinity.-

Admittedly this was a rather flimsy theory as I certainly didn't have enough information to say for sure. I also had other theories and conjectures in this notebook like my experiments on cursed tool crafting and even my attempt at understanding the black flash phenomenon. To be specifically WHY black flash caused a curse user to experience a state of enlightenment. If it was just a rare event that caused an attack to be way stronger than it had any right then that was one thing. But I couldn't understand how it caused something clearly mental or spiritual to happen with a physical event.-

How a black flash occurred was explained in the manga but the reason it did what it did was not clearly defined or even addressed merely accepted as being the way it was. Anyways once I refilled my energy reserves naturally I grabbed the blocks of material to move onto the next step. First I fused the goliath tooth, deep iron and skull sheep bone materials together into a dull dark yellow-grey material that I shaped into a standard arming swords shape. The crimson coral I then fused into the final shape visible on the blade and handle as a vibrant red swirling pattern.-

For the finer details I carefully added grooves on the handle for grip and a smooth round pommel. The final step was to add a razors edge and fully solidify the weapon. I drank a potion and got to work imbuing the properties chosen into the weapons materials fully. I had secretly included a small cursed stone inside the pommel to empower these properties before leaving my touchmark and calling it done. This entire process took me the rest of the day but I was done before the second day which was faster than I told Ogun.-

I could only shrug since this was the first weapon I had crafted from scratch since I was level one so obviously I was a little off. I had in fact expected it would take me a full day and a half to complete but it only took me a day so at least I knew this now. Still I had extra time and some extra materials as well so I figured I may as well make a sheathe as well. I added [Durability], [Resistant] and [light] to the kobold hide sheathe that I put the sword in. -

When Hroldar and Ogun showed up in the evening of the second day alongside the level four I was waiting in the upper floor of the church writing in my notebook.

"Didn't take you for the sort to go keeping a journal." Hroldar said surprised.

"This is a notebook, not a journal. I use this to keep track of my ideas and discoveries not for personal business." I explained calmly while finishing the sentence I was writing before closing the book.

"Oh? Now that sounds like a valuable thing to possess indeed." Ogun said with an interested look.

"I doubt it since the entire thing is in code and only I have the cypher. Even if you somehow figured out the code I also made sure that I used nonsense words that only I know the meaning of as well in it." I said with a scoff.

"Rather extreme lengths to go to for something without value." Ogun pointed out but I shrugged.

"I value my privacy and this notebook does possess my ideas and discoveries so having it get stolen would suck quite a bit. May as well make stealing it a pointless thing then. Anyways the swords ready, I named it [Red current] by the way." I said reaching next to me and tossed the sword and sheathe to the level four.

He caught it and with a nod from Ogun unsheathed it to be looked over. Hroldar lightly touched the edge with his finger tip before sucking in a breath as he started bleeding without even feeling the cut until it was too late. Ogun curiously ran a finger along the flat of the blade to try and feel any imperfections but obviously there were none. The level four was just marveling how great the blade felt in his hand during this time.-

"Truly remarkable work, even with my lack of experience appraising weapons I can tell that this is a masterwork." Ogun praised.

I shook my head "It is my best piece so far but not a masterwork, my level is far too low to make such a thing unfortunately." I said honestly.

"Theres no need to sell yourself short lad this blades almost as good as my axe and that's a bona fide first grade weapon." Hroldar said seriously.

"I didn't say it wasn't an excellent weapon , just that it was no masterwork. The high quality of my crafts comes from the treatment I give each of the materials and the sturdiness of my creations. But as far as properties go I'm afraid those that I imbue are quite lacking in comparison. Not poor mind you just far more normal for a level two smith. As it stands right now I have much room for improvement in that regard so as I said it's not a masterwork." I said seriously.

"That's a surprisingly well reasoned thought process. Not to say you don't have a decent head on your shoulders but you seem to have a few stones rattling around up top normally." Hroldar said with a chuckle.

"Yeah I get that a lot, wouldn't change it for all the valis in the world though since it lets me think more freely than you normal folk." I joked with a smirk.

"Aye, a bit of madness is a makers mark my Da always said. Never understood it till I became an adventure though." Hroldar said with a toothy grin.

"Well as much as I'd like nothing more than to chat idly for the next few hours we do have some matters to attend to still." Ogun said and calmly and Hroldar dropped off the other half of my payment in another sack before they said their goodbyes.