Blacksmith vs. the System

"I hope I got to keep my perks," I said while I summoned my status screen, examining the line despite the pain that was still radiating through my entire body. Even the prospect of receiving more relevant perks wasn't tempting, not with the number of critical ways I depended on the existence of Observe.

[Reformation of Quintessence (Legendary) - 1

"Good," I sighed in relief and dismissed the screen to sit down, breathing hard to process the pain. Experimentation could wait now that I had confirmed that my Perk was still in place.

Just because I didn't use my skills didn't mean I wasted time. I started thinking about why the skill upgrade had violated some of the rules I had identified, the biggest being the proficiency score.

Maybe it was about the name change. Unlike the other transformations where the main skill name persisted — including my Mythic Meditation upgrade — Repair was gone, replaced by Reformation.

"That's a complicated name," I muttered, thinking of the implications. Reformation alone was a promising word, one that suggested that it was not about just fixing the mistakes, but actually elevating whatever it affected. Maybe I was wrong, but I didn't think so.

Quintessence was a more loaded word. From the top of my mind, I could remember two different definitions that might be relevant. The first definition was that Quintessence referred to the theoretical existence of ether, the supposed mysterious fifth element of existence, following the four of the material plane; air, fire, earth, and water.

The second referred to the perfect embodiment of an object or substance.

I was more inclined to take the second definition as the basis, as it fit what I had observed about Wisdom better. However, I didn't make any early judgment.

Overly relying on the definitions of the words could be dangerously misleading, as I had no idea where the language of came from. Was it some kind of aggregate understanding of humanity, or did it take some kind of dictionary as a basis?

Or, maybe, it infused the meaning behind the words to us, and the translation was done by our mind.

Whether that translation was suspect or not wasn't a problem when the words I had been dealing with were either simple, common words; or concepts like Mana that were so abstract that it implied nothing, but words like Decay or Quintessence were making it more of a priority.

"One thing I was missing was having to do linguistic research," I growled in frustration while resting, adapting to my new skill.

When the pain finally faded, I spent a moment checking the dungeon entrance remotely, only to see that Harold and the Farmers were working steadily, while Terry and the team were installing a multitude of steam cannons … and other machines that looked like steam-powered ballistas.

Good initiative.

Most importantly, they were not showing any sign of hurry, which meant the beast wave was still not moving, meaning I had time to work on other things.

Despite the temptation to start testing my skill immediately, I waited until the pain faded before I stood up and grabbed a dagger from the pile. It was one of the ordinary daggers that I had forged with the shells while reversing their effect, turning the corrosion into an offensive effect.

It seemed like a good subject to test my new skills on.

First, I used my trusty Observe on the dagger, only for my eyes to widen at the result. I could still feel the structural aspects of what I had been using, like I was examining it through an amazing microscope, but it wasn't the only thing I got.

I could also feel … for lack of a better word, conceptual cracks, where the aura of the dagger or corrosion broke. But, it was not the same as a physical crack, nor was it a localized problem. Its effects were everywhere, yet nowhere.

"I should have paid more attention to philosophy classes," I groaned in frustration, trying to contextualize what I was getting. But, just like how using ordinary Repair on a weapon didn't provide me with the theory of alloy crystallization and material analysis, the new variant didn't suddenly enlighten me.

Not that I was complaining. Confusing and automatic it might be, the skill still offered me a way to repair the dagger.

Well, it would, hopefully. The restriction of material seemed to apply to it still, and there was no direct feedback on how to repair it.

Luckily, all I needed was to pick some copper from my material storage and create a dagger, then, repair it. Each blow did … something. I could feel Wisdom getting engaged, but the details, I couldn't even begin to understand.

If my earlier attempts of using it were a simple physical push, the way the skill was engaging it was a complicated acrobatic display that would have won the gold medal at the Olympics. Or would a masterpiece of painting be a better analogue?

"In the end, it doesn't matter," I said as I looked at the simple copper dagger in hand. Calling it repaired would have been the understatement of the century.

The application of the skill was rough and clunky, which was an inevitable side effect of having it at merely one point of proficiency. Yet, clumsy didn't mean useless or ineffective. The dagger was not just 'repaired' but completely transformed.

The results were impressive. Not only it had been brought back to a physically perfect shape, but also its conceptual presence. Not just the corrosion, but also its nature as a dagger, both aspects shining far stronger than I had ever achieved.

It was fascinating how effective one-hundred-and-fifty-nine points of Wisdom could be when creating a relevant weapon, particularly when combined with a Legendary skill.

The only negative aspect was that I hadn't experienced any proficiency gain, suggesting to me that improving it would be a challenge, but I ignored it. Instead, I swung the dagger, and despite the lack of relevant skill, the mana attack destroyed the tree I had targeted with ease.

Fascinating. I tried to use the skill on it again, but there was no recursive improvement, which I didn't expect to be the case.

I turned my attention back to the dense-mana sword I had created, wishing that I could apply the same method to it, but it was temporarily out of the question. Instead, I chose to fall into a predictable rhythm, repeatedly forging, 'repairing', and destroying the same dagger.

It felt comforting.

It was likely about the ordinary nature of the dagger, but more than a hundred repetitions of the cycle didn't even give me one point of progress. Not that I cared, as improving the skill was not my first objective.

Understanding how to employ Wisdom more accurately was, and repeatedly using the same skill was certainly helpful. I might not understand how to apply the mental effect of Wisdom in such a complicated pattern, but just knowing what kind of achievement was possible would have helped immensely.

However, I was deliberately using the same cycle hundreds of times rather than creating different weapons and applying them the same way.

If I had been restricted to learning how to punch from watching a world-class boxer, I much rather prefer to watch him punch the same sandbag hundreds of times with a straight punch rather than watching a professional match.

People underestimated the value of constant repetition — admittedly, I should have been counted in those ranks without my own recent experiences; otherwise, I would have used the three-year period since Cataclysm far more efficiently.

And, what I had been doing was far more involved than just watching someone from a distance. The skill made my body and my mana move automatically, but it did nothing to deaden my senses, the repeats giving me a better sense of what was going on.

I only stopped after forging, reforming, and destroying the dagger a full thousand times. Luckily, thanks to my stats, that repetition cycle lasted three hours, as opposed to the months it should have taken.

"Now, let's see if it was a waste of time in such a critical time or a smart investment," I said as I raised my sword, which was the most reasonable tool to test. I moved to the fifth floor before I tested it.

The moment I arrived, the multitude of gargantuan bosses that had spawned all around the dungeon rushed toward me, their presence bright. I raised my sword, took a deep breath, and swung the blade, doing my best to apply everything I had learned through repetition.

I found it easier than I had expected. Ultimately, weapon skills weren't too complicated, and finally understanding how to employ Wisdom to redefine some aspects of the attack selectively rather than blindly pushing it, I was able to modify the ranged attack.

Adding both stability and a sense of destruction, all still wrapped in the idea of a sword.

[-2650 Mana]

A dark blade of mana parted the bog of the fifth floor, disappearing in the distance. A second later, one of the presence of the boss monsters faded.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Success," I muttered as I moved there, my Epic skill making that job easy. Since I had arrived, there was no harm in absorbing the crystals to further reinforce my connection with the dungeon.

As I hunted the remaining boss monsters, my mind was already on how to best leverage my newest improvements against the upcoming enemy.