Blacksmithing Makes Me Happy (Please Support and Vote)

Lin Yun had only given a small demonstration before and had not intended to deliver the goods so quickly. After all, he knew very well that his performance was highly unstable.

But after obtaining the Forging Master Gloves in the Goblin nest, Lin Yun suddenly became confident. While the others thought he was merely being silent along the way, he had actually been rapidly analyzing the feasibility of this matter.

Naturally, the Dwarf Blacksmith would definitely be suspicious of him, but the Forging Master Gloves gave Lin Yun a little more confidence.

Besides, how was he supposed to make money if he did not display his abilities? The little bit of money from the Goblin extermination quest was nowhere near enough. Lin Yun still did not know how the currency in this world was calculated against the money in the Shop within the Dungeons & Dragons space, but he guessed it could not be that easy. There had to be some restrictions, or would that not cause inflation?

No matter what, he should earn some money first, get himself some good equipment here, and improve his chances of survival.

At the very least, Lin Yun had succeeded so far. All that remained was the forging.

"Hm? These are... Forging Master Gloves? I see. I was wondering how someone so young had become a Clan Craftsman. So it was with the help of the Forging Master Gloves." Lin Yun had removed his cloak, scale armor, and helmet. He had even taken off his clothes, leaving only an apron on, while keeping the gloves on his hands. The Dwarf Blacksmith had not noticed them at first, but he saw them now.

"You know these things?" Lin Yun asked curiously.

"More or less. I know a little, seeing as I'm one of the long-lived races." The Dwarf Blacksmith smiled proudly.

"Alright, that's about enough. Let's get to work." Through that sensation of his body seemingly being controlled while still actually under his control, Lin Yun felt that the temperature was about right. He turned around, picked up a mold that the Dwarf Blacksmith had prepared earlier, and placed it atop the forge. The inside of the mold was also divided into separate sections.

A breastplate could not be completed in a single step. It was actually divided into two parts: the front breastplate and the backplate. Only after their shapes had been formed could they be forged properly.

In games, simply hammering iron was not enough to make equipment. In theory, if one wanted custom armor, the first thing to make should be the mold, followed by the actual forging.

But first, Lin Yun was not someone with an especially unusual build, so he did not need a special mold. Second, Lin Yun knew that on a battlefield, in combat, the person wearing the most conspicuous armor would always be attacked first. So he did not need overly complicated grooves or patterns. Simple and unadorned would do.

Most importantly, the armor needed to be thick... Though because he could only wear medium armor, he could only make limited adjustments.

That was why Lin Yun could simply use an existing mold. Honestly, designing and making molds was already complicated. Lin Yun could do it with the abilities on his character sheet, but it was too troublesome and wasted too much time.

He placed around seven black iron ingots on the front breastplate section and around five black iron ingots on the rear backplate section. Then, using something like a funnel, he sprinkled the Lava Heart, which resembled furnace ash, over the black iron ingots to speed up the melting.

Then Lin Yun began pumping the bellows, while the Dwarf Blacksmith cooperatively used a magical item to ignite the flames inside the forge. Fierce flames instantly burst forth. Judging by their nearly white color, the temperature was terrifyingly high.

What was remarkable was that despite standing right beside it, Lin Yun still felt he could endure it. This was probably the effect of the magic array within the forge.

The black iron ingots inside rapidly melted into liquid. Under the extreme heat, bubbles began to emerge within the molten metal before being expelled.

Under normal circumstances, the melting process alone would have been enough to give someone a headache. Taking several days would not have been strange at all, considering the forging techniques of the Middle Ages. But this was a world of magic, and the forge itself could be considered a magical item. That changed everything.

In less than half an hour, before the moon had fully risen, the black iron ingots had almost completely melted. Seeing that almost no bubbles remained on the surface, Lin Yun placed the second layer of the mold on top—the section that would press the armor plate into shape. Without it, how could the mold be pressed into form?

As Lin Yun worked, his die began to roll as well.

D20+2+5+5=32, Critical Success.

Lin Yun's eyes widened in that instant, nearly popping out of their sockets, his breathing growing heavy. What kind of heavenly number was that? Unfortunately, forging required Intelligence, and Lin Yun's Intelligence... Well, well, well. Otherwise, if he had reached 35, it would surely have been even more terrifying.

Before Lin Yun could think further, a flood of knowledge erupted in his mind, and his body began moving on its own, as though beyond his control.

After locking the mold in place, Lin Yun picked up a forging hammer and began striking it.

That should not have been right. Was forging not supposed to begin after the mold had cooled?

But that was the thinking of an ordinary blacksmith. For Lin Yun, the forging had already begun earlier. Especially now, he seemed possessed by the god of forging—like a spirit possession state, except absolutely explosive.

The Dwarf Blacksmith stared dumbfoundedly as Lin Yun picked up the forging hammer and began moving. Yet his head unconsciously started nodding. He seemed to understand something.

The melting process was also a purification process. Through hammering, the molten metal could be shaken apart and made more uniform, while the already scarce air within it could be driven out completely. This was something ordinary people did not know.

Under Lin Yun's storm-like barrage of blows, his stamina was rapidly draining away. In a place Lin Yun could not see, the metal inside the mold below was continuously vibrating and becoming smoother. More importantly, it could not be allowed to stick to the mold.

D20+4+2=18, Success.

Intense labor required a certain level of ability, and Lin Yun's ample Constitution modifier clearly made things easier for him.

Holding the forging hammer, Lin Yun sweated before the forge. After hammering for nearly an hour, he moved the thing aside to cool naturally so he could remove the main piece. It was not that he could not cool it immediately, but cooling it directly with other liquids could easily make the metal brittle. Natural cooling was better.

At a time like this, even a fan could not be used, because it could easily make the molten metal fluctuate—though in this world, there were only bellows and hand fans anyway.

Of course, quenching afterward was different.

The Forging Master Gloves were truly amazing. Even though he stood beside the forge and felt as though his body was about to be roasted alive... Oh, he had even lost 3 hit points. That was really impressive. Yet he could still clearly feel that his hands remained at a stable temperature and stayed extremely nimble.

After waiting for about another hour, when it seemed ready, Lin Yun and the Dwarf Blacksmith worked together to open the mold, revealing the black iron plate within. Well, what lay inside the mold could only be called a black iron plate for now.

Although it already had a rough shape, at most one could barely tell that it was the prototype of a suit of armor.

Lin Yun picked it up directly with his gloves. It was a little warm, but not overly hot. He put the black iron plate back into the forge and heated it again. This time, it did not need to melt; it only needed to soften slightly.

He placed the black iron plate on the anvil and began forging in the true sense of the word. With the forging hammer in hand, Lin Yun once again began hammering like a raging storm, starting from the center and beating the black iron plate into Lin Yun's shape. Ahem, ahem, ahem.

Every strike was a refinement. The dense, even hammering gradually shaped the black iron plate. The chest portion of the front plate bulged outward, the abdominal section below drew inward, and the areas over both shoulders were curved into shape.

With Lin Yun's hammering, countless cracks shattered. Like shedding skin, flakes continuously fell from the armor, and sparks occasionally scattered everywhere.

The sections on both sides of the neck and waist slowly curved backward. With Lin Yun and the Dwarf Blacksmith working together, progress was extremely fast—especially with Lin Yun's explosive stamina.

D20+4+2=26, Critical Success.

Today had to be Lin Yun's lucky day. Once the real forging began, his stamina actually reached its peak. As Lin Yun wildly vented his strength, the already accelerated pace became even faster.

Even the Dwarf Blacksmith, who should theoretically have had a Constitution bonus, felt somewhat unable to keep up with Lin Yun's pace. It was simply terrifying.

And those shining eyes—by now, the Dwarf Blacksmith completely believed that Lin Yun truly was a Clan Craftsman. Whether it was his astonishing stamina or his storm-like forging, both were undeniable.

As the armor was repeatedly heated in the flames and then naturally cooled, its shape gradually became one familiar to people.

Finally came the part most people knew: quenching. Due to the repeated tempering, the armor had become somewhat lacking in hardness. But this was precisely what made it easier to shape. Quenching was the final setting process, restoring the armor's original hardness and even making it tougher.

The Dwarf Blacksmith had naturally prepared the quenching material long ago. With a blacksmithing knowledge check of "D20+2=19, Success," Lin Yun roughly knew that this was a special quenching agent used by Dwarf clans. All he knew was that it was made from animal fat and was extremely precious.

This quenching method was also called oil quenching. Lin Yun heated the armor in the forge for a while—it already looked much like a normal Flexible Breastplate, though it was still rough. Once it felt about right, he placed it into the oil. The intense heat immediately caused the armor to burst into flames, but it greatly increased the armor's hardness.

When it seemed ready, Lin Yun took the Flexible Breastplate out again and placed it back into the forge. Although quenching was considered the final step, quenching alone increased hardness while also making the metal more brittle, somewhat like the difference between diamond and carbon. So it still needed tempering, after which it was placed into another type of cooling oil. Only then was it finished.

And now, it was already close to midnight.

Lin Yun wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked at the remaining black iron plate. That was the backplate section. Even if he simply left it there and continued tomorrow when he had time, it would have been fine, but... as a hardcore grinder with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, Lin Yun decided to do it.

Repeating roughly the same method he had used for the breastplate earlier, Lin Yun forged the backplate as well.

It was nearly three in the morning by the time he barely finished. The polishing and grinding could only be left to the Dwarf Blacksmith. Lin Yun truly could not take any more and wanted to sleep. After all, he had gone through such an intense battle today, then spent all this time blacksmithing.

Although the insane Constitution checks had allowed Lin Yun to force himself onward, and even left him in a state of exceptional wisdom and courage, from a certain perspective, it was rather mysterious. Yeah, it was a bit like getting so absorbed in playing that, by the time you came back to your senses—oh, it was already morning...

(This is already the most detailed process I could possibly write. As someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies, I didn't want to just gloss over it, but I also wanted to show how impressive Lin Yun was. As a result, I spent two whole hours researching forging, and now my eyes are glazing over. There are very few people who genuinely forge armor these days. Even when there are, it's mostly COPYPLAY stuff, while most of the material I found was about forging weapons. So I could only add some of my own imagination. I hope any forging Big Shots won't tear me apart. Also, today's rolls really weren't staged, and I didn't rig the dice. I was dumbfounded when two natural 20s came up in a row. You could say part of why I wanted to write the forging process in such detail was because of those natural 20s. Otherwise, it would have felt like I was disrespecting them too much.)