What to prepare? The gift for Kevin's apprenticeship ceremony, of course.
Aldric had never been an apprentice before he transmigrated, but that didn't stop him from having seen the ceremony on TV.
The apprentice serves tea and kowtows; the master presents a gift. That was the basic flow.
Now that he had agreed to help defend Stoneyard Village, Kevin would inevitably have to join the fight. Preparing a suitable set of gear for him was both a requirement of the ceremony and a practical necessity.
When he had first entered the village, Aldric had noticed a small blacksmith shop on the outskirts.
Perhaps he could find some suitable equipment for Kevin there. If not, he could personally forge a couple of pieces for him in the next two days.
More importantly, he had long wanted a chance to test if the blacksmithing knowledge stored in his brain was actually usable.
The next morning, after breakfast, Aldric and his soon-to-be apprentice Kevin took the spoils of war they had taken from the pirates and went to the blacksmith shop. There, they saw a stocky man bent over a large wooden table, cutting leather.
Aldric stood by quietly and waited. Only when the man had precisely cut the piece of leather in half did he speak. "Friend, do you have any weapons for sale?"
The shop owner wiped his hands and looked up. "I don't have any weapons here, just farm tools... Ah! Ser Aldric..."
Seeing that the man seemed to know him, Aldric took a closer look and finally recognized him as the young man who had tried to smash his head with a hammer yesterday, but had missed by a hair. A smile crept onto his face. "Oh, it's you."
He turned and looked at the large hammer next to the anvil, picked it up, and weighed it in his hand. "Yo, this is pretty heavy. Is this what you used to hit my head yesterday?"
The blacksmith wasn't wearing his horned helmet today. Beneath his messy curly hair was a youthful face covered in fine stubble. His thick muscles were covered in a layer of soft fat, making him look a bit round.
He stammered, "S-sorry, Ser. I was just too hasty yesterday. I didn't mean it. Everyone knows, I, Hanwei... I can tell right from wrong..."
"So, you're not going to compensate me?"
Hanwei wrung a ragged cloth in his hands, nervously glancing around the shop's furnishings. "I don't have anything valuable... How about, if you have any armor or weapons that need maintenance, I'll do it for you once, for free."
Maintenance... Aldric's weapons and armor were top-tier items from the latest raid dungeons in Azeroth. And before the final wipe that led to his transmigration, he had specifically summoned a repair bot to fix them. Their durability should still be at eighty or ninety percent. The little blacksmith's maintenance service held little appeal for him.
But he was just teasing the young man and didn't really want anything. He waved his hand. "Forget it. I'm here to get a weapon for my squire, Kevin. We'll be staying in your village for a few days to help with the defense. You know about that, right?"
"Yes, Elder William told everyone yesterday."
"Good. But Kevin's equipment isn't suitable. I plan to get him a couple of new pieces. I saw your shop and came to ask. Isn't this a blacksmith shop? How can you not have any weapons? Good or bad, just bring them out for me to see."
"Weapons..."
Hanwei frowned and thought for a moment, then went into the back of the shop. When he reappeared, he was holding two sheathed short swords and a mace.
He placed the three items on the table. "I mostly make farm tools, rarely weapons. I made these three when I was practicing. If you don't mind, choose one as my gift."
Weapons weren't cheap in any era. Hanwei's generosity touched Aldric. I receive this heartfelt sincerity!
He picked up the nearest sword, gripped the hilt, and drew it from its sheath. A quick look told him why no one had wanted it the two edges were irregularly wavy, one side was thicker than the other, and the blade was slightly bent.
Taking this sword into battle would save the enemy a lot of trouble.
Aldric suppressed a smile and, with a straight face, drew the other sword.
This one was just as bad. The tip wasn't even triangular, but oval. Is this the legendary sword of benevolence that doesn't hurt people?
Aldric glanced up and met Hanwei's expectant gaze. He quickly looked away, coughed, and said, "Ahem, here's the thing, Hanwei. Your craftsmanship is... quite good. But we can't afford it, and we don't want to take advantage of you."
"How about this? A few days ago, I confiscated some scrap metal from the pirates that I have no use for. I want to use them as raw materials to personally forge some equipment for my student. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to borrow your forge and tools."
Aldric thought for a moment and added, "Also, can you work with leather armor? I have a few pieces of leather armor. Help me alter them to fit Kevin's size. We'll settle all the costs at the end."
You don't even ask the price, how do you know you can't afford it?
Hanwei dejectedly put away his creations, took the pile of junk from Kevin, and spread it on the floor. He crouched down and sifted through it. "The material of these leather pieces is decent, but the workmanship is too rough. I can take them apart and remake them into a breastplate and a pair of bracers. There won't be enough leftover scraps for a helmet, but I can add some of my own material. That'll be fifteen silver moons. As for the forge, use it as you like. I can afford a few pieces of charcoal..."
Fifteen silver moons... how much is that?
The money Aldric had was from Azeroth. It was solid, but the currency system was probably different. Could he even use it here?
He took out his coin purse and shook out a silver coin, handing it to Hanwei. "Do you accept this kind of money?"
Hanwei took the silver coin, weighed it in his hand, and bit it lightly. "Yes. I've never seen this kind of coin before, but its quality is very good. If it's this kind of silver coin, ten will be enough."
Aldric wasn't one to haggle over money, so he agreed.
After settling the price, Hanwei left Aldric alone in the shop and took Kevin to the backyard to take his measurements.
Aldric shook his head and began to take stock of the tools on the workbench. Besides the large hammer he had just picked up, there was a smaller hammer and various sizes of tongs and pliers. Neatly stacked charcoal was piled in a corner of the opposite wall.
In the center of the shop was a furnace, about thirty centimeters wide, with a large crucible inside. The furnace was currently unlit, containing only a pile of ash.
On the side of the furnace was a small hole connected by a clay brick channel to a leather bag.
The bag was fixed between two boards. The bottom board was nailed to the workbench. Aldric grabbed the handle on the top board and lifted it. Air entered through a small hole in the bag, filling it as it expanded.
To push it down, one hand had to pinch the air inlet while the other pushed the board down. With this up-and-down motion, air flowed through the channel into the furnace, fanning the flames to raise the temperature and melt the iron this was the most primitive form of bellows.
Aldric gave it a couple of pulls and found the wind speed and force to be far too weak. It would be difficult to raise the furnace to the temperature he needed.
So, when the blacksmith returned to the large wooden table after measuring Kevin, he asked, "Hanwei, what is this thing called?"
"This?" Hanwei glanced in the direction Aldric was pointing. "Oh, that's a bellows. Squeeze the handle, and wind will be sent from that mouth into the furnace, and the fire will get hotter. Do you really know how to blacksmith?"
You don't even know what a bellows is, and you want to blacksmith? Hanwei's silent doubt was palpable.
Aldric didn't explain. He took a dagger from his waist and tossed it on the table in front of Hanwei. "Take a look. I made it myself."
Hanwei picked up the dagger skeptically and examined it. His expression gradually became serious. When he easily sliced through a scrap of leather with the dagger, he held it with both hands and handed it back to Aldric. "I've never seen such a sharp knife, nor could I make one."
Aldric nodded, not planning to tell him that this dagger was also from a raid dungeon. "This bellows is too weak for my needs. I'm going to make a piston bellows. If you have the materials here, let me use them. We'll settle the cost at the end."
The piston bellows was a simple construction and easy to make.
The main components were the chamber, the piston, the piston handle, and the intake valve.
The smith would push and pull the handle to send a continuous and stable stream of air, a powerful tool for any pre-industrial revolution blacksmith shop.
Making the chamber was simple. Just join a few wooden boards into a box, fix them with iron nails, and seal any leaks with wet clay.
Aldric drew the shape of the wooden boards on the ground and sent Hanwei and Kevin to process them. He himself went to prepare the other materials the piston head and the handle.
By the time the parts were ready, he looked at the shadow on the ground and realized it was already noon.
He had Kevin bring lunch from the tavern, and after a few hasty bites, Aldric took the wooden boards Hanwei had prepared and began to assemble them. He put the piston head inside and tried to push it, but it got stuck after just a little way.
He reached into the chamber and felt around. "The inner walls need to be sanded down more," he told Hanwei. "This piece of wood needs to be able to move in and out freely while standing upright, and it must fit tightly without any gaps."
A while later, Hanwei had sanded the inner walls of the chamber smooth and flat as Aldric had requested. After Aldric inspected it, he drilled a small, two-finger-wide hole in the side of the chamber and attached the leather air tube he had removed from the old bellows.
Next, he installed the piston and attached valve flaps to both ends of the chamber. Two small holes in one of the flaps were already filled by the piston rod.
Aldric test-fitted all the parts, made some minor adjustments based on the actual fit, and then assembled everything, nailing it securely.
Finally, after sealing all potential air leaks with yellow clay, he patted the finished bellows and said to Hanwei, "Come, try it."
The little blacksmith wiped his hands on the hem of his tunic, mimicked Aldric's grip on the piston handle, and pushed and pulled it twice. When he saw the air tube continuously bulge from the rushing airflow, his jaw dropped in amazement.
After Hanwei let go, Kevin eagerly grabbed the handle and tried it a few times. He found that the bellows produced wind whether he pushed or pulled, and he could operate it with one hand.
If he didn't know what to do with his other hand, he could use both for even greater force and speed.
Kevin's shock at this moment far surpassed Hanwei's.
Hanwei just thought it was some advanced technique from the south, from the Fingers. But Kevin knew very well that not only this bellows, but Aldric himself, seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
The blacksmith in his village of Splitwater still used a fan to fan the flames.
Advanced technology, powerful martial arts, noble demeanor, and an approachable attitude. Ser Aldric, who on earth are you?
Normally, once the bellows were working, he could begin smelting ore to extract the metal and forge it into tools.
Of course, Aldric could skip this step.
After defeating the pirates, Aldric had found several crudely made battle axes and small knives in their simple camp.
His original plan was to let Kevin choose a suitable weapon from among them to use for the time being, and then get him a new one when they reached a large city.
But after inspecting them, Aldric found that these weapons were all made of cast iron hard and brittle, with no toughness. They had many nicks and weren't sharp. Besides being harder than bone, they were useless.
By his standards, this junk wasn't even as good as the lowest-grade gray equipment in Azeroth.
Moreover, Kevin was still young, and his body hadn't fully developed. Using a chopping weapon like an axe, he couldn't unleash its full power. And because it was a short-range weapon, he would be easily injured in battle.
Rounding down, they were completely unusable.
So his final decision was to melt down all the old axes as material and re-forge a spearhead of about thirty centimeters for Kevin. Attached to a shaft, it would be a long spear; detached, it would be a dagger.
He would also forge a short sword to be used with a wooden shield. With that, Kevin's survival rate on the battlefield should be guaranteed.
While Hanwei was lighting the fire, Aldric took the mining hammer and, with a few loud bangs, broke the scrap metal into small pieces. The effortless motion made Hanwei's eyelids twitch.
The rash little blacksmith secretly rejoiced that the hammer blow he had delivered yesterday hadn't actually landed on the man's head. Otherwise, it would have been his own skull that shattered.
He picked up the scattered pieces from the floor and put them in the crucible, but found it was too small, only holding about sixty percent of the fragments. Aldric didn't force it, picking out some of the smaller, easier-to-melt pieces to put in.
The remaining fragments, of course, would not be wasted. Aldric gathered them and set them aside for later use.
The new bellows worked exceptionally well. To ensure a continuous and stable airflow, Aldric took over himself. After more than an hour of pushing and pulling, all the fragments in the crucible had melted into a glowing, white-hot molten iron.
Hanwei reminded him, "Ser, you can pour the molten iron to shape it now. Have you made your sword mold?"
Aldric frowned at his words. "Sword mold? What for?"