Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Forge or Die (1)
I didn’t pick my front door.
I picked a utility hatch under the tram where no one goes unless something is already on fire. Concrete sweated. The bridge thrummed like a sleeping animal dreaming of traffic. A dead camera watched nothing. The hatch wore a rusted padlock like a necklace it couldn’t afford.
Weird choice? Sure. But so was waking up in Mara’s bed a week and a half ago with a system glued to my eyeballs. Since then: nearly died in Lot C, stabbed an A-rank Guardian until it stopped existing, ran errands in the Fog-Mire where another "totally C-rank" dungeon turned into another "oh look, surprise A-rank," and got watched by a milf-shaped surveillance angel who probably thinks I’m either chosen or horny. (Both. She’d be right.)
One week with this cheat sheet and my calendar already looks like a bad life montage: near-death, pancakes, boobs, murder, repeat.
The Initiation Key sat warm in my palm. Plain brass, no teeth. It shouldn’t have fit the lock. It didn’t. I touched it to the latch anyway.
Reality clicked.
[Anchor Accepted.]
[Instance: Initiation — Personal.]
[Rules applied. Seal in 10... 9...]
"Wait—" I didn’t.
No food. No potions. Fun.
I took one last look at the under-bridge world: cold water smell, algae green, a sticker on the pillar that said GOD IS BROKE in flaking pink letters.
"Be boring," I told the hatch. "Five minutes from now."
I turned the key.
The lock didn’t open. The door changed. The dented metal went flat, old paint smoothed out, and the handle grew into a bar I’d never seen before.
Seal hit zero.
The hatch swung inward onto a room that didn’t belong under a tram.
Heat breathed without flame. Stone floor, circular, clean in the way nothing human ever is. Anvils stood at even intervals around the ring like chairs at a meeting I wasn’t invited to—different shapes, different ages, all facing inward. Above them, along the wall, twelve statues watched—hooded, hands folded over long hammers. Their faces were blank. Or maybe the blank part was my brain.
The door behind me shut. The city vanished like a trick.
[Welcome, Candidate.]
[You will craft one weapon. A-Rank or higher.]
[Time: 3 Heats × 10m. Breaks between. Do not drop the billet.][Absolute Regeneration: OFF during Heats.]
[Inventory filter: MATERIALS & TOOLS only.]
A square of light opened on the floor. A tool rack rose out of it—tongs, hammers (cross, rounding, dog-head), a hardy, a punch, brushes. Clean. Sized for my hands. That felt targeted and I tried not to think about it.
Another panel flashed.
[Blueprint Required.]
Select a baseline form factor.
— Short blade (single edge): fast, pairing-friendly, demanding tolerances.
— Utility long knife: balanced, generalist, wider success window.
— Heavy chisel-blade: brutal, forgiving, low ceiling.
"Right," I said. "We’re judging my life choices on steel shapes now."
I looked at Fangpiercer and Gloamthorn—both on the stone beside the rack. I hadn’t put them there. The instance had opinions about me keeping them.
Pairing-friendly won.
"long knife." I said.
The statues shifted in the corner of my eye. Or the heat did.
[Baseline locked.]
Material plan preview suggested:
— Spine: Guardian Basalt Plate (A)
— Matrix: Mana-Veined Ore (Rare)
— Trace: Mist-Etched Rib (Rare)Trait channel reserved: Fog Tyrant Core (A)
"Of course you want the dangerous one," I told the UI. "We match."
A line traced itself in the air—blade silhouette, tang proportions, fuller suggestion. Smelt Sight flickered over it for a second, like the room wanted to show me what I’d messed up before I could.
[Skill Unlocked: Smelt Sight (C-Rank, Passive)]
Effect: Overlay reveals impurities, stress lines, fusion seams during forging.Notes: Linked to Hidden Path.
I squinted through the overlay. "Great—x-ray specs for metal. Now if you’ve got a version for dumb hands, we’re unstoppable."
"Heat 1," the system said, and the floor under the primary anvil glowed—not like fire. Like pressure turned into light.
The clock snapped into existence above the ring: 10:00.
I set the tools in easy reach, laid the ore and basalt on the staging plate, and tried to breathe like a person who wasn’t about to fail arts and crafts for his life.
"Start," I said.
The anvil sang—a note you feel in your teeth.
I fed the Mana-Ore to the light. The edges softened wrong, then right. Smelt Sight switched on for real: hair-thin lines of impurity and stress overlaying the metal like a second truth. The basalt went in after—slow, mean, reluctant—and the overlay changed again, showing where it was wrong.
I grabbed resin with a brush and painted the seam. It hissed and bled green that wasn’t a color metal should bleed.
Hammer. Cross-peen. Rhythm.
One. Two. Three. Set. Draw. Set. The sound was almost music—too clean for me. The face fit my swing like it knew my stupid wrist and forgave it.
At 9:12, the room moved.
They weren’t people. Mist shades dragged themselves out from under the anvils like dust deciding to be men. No faces, no hands—just shapes with enough weight to matter.
[Wave 1] the system said, as helpful as a smoke alarm.
"Of course," I said between hits. "Metal shop and dodgeball at the same time. Thanks, curriculum."
Rule said: don’t drop the billet. Another rule I invented said: don’t lose the heat.
I kept my left hand locked on tongs and worked the hammer with my right. A shade slid at my flank. Another shade reached; I brought the billet across hard and the radiant heat burned a line through both of them. The room approved. I laughed.
Smelt Sight kept feeding me truth: slag pockets forming, welding seams that needed love, a bright island of impurity that would kill the blade if I pretended not to see it. I painted resin, struck, struck, struck.
Clock: 7:31.
"Candidate," the room said, and spit a Crystal Fog Vial up through the floor. Tooltip: Temperature buffer.
"Thanks for the pity," I said, and cracked it along the billet’s edge. The seam kissed. The slag line pulled back like it knew shame.
Shades came in twos now. I shuffled my stance, kept the billet over the light, hammered to the same stupid rhythm even as my shoulder started drawing cartoons in my nerves. A shade caught my calf—cold like old swamp water. I corrected with a step.
Clock: 5:02.
"Set." I breathed. "Set, you bastard."
The overlay shifted color—A-potential flagging in the corner like a teacher’s reluctant nod.
"Good metal," I said through my teeth. "Be a knife. Not soup."
At 3:18, the shades stopped like someone cut the rope on their puppets.
The system chimed.
[Heat 1 Complete]
Billet Integrity: 88%
(A-Potential Retained)
Impurity Islands: 2 (Stable)
Stress: Acceptable
[Break: 3 minutes]
[Do not drop the billet.]
I didn’t let go. My left hand was a claw. I rolled my shoulder and wished I’d brought a spare.
The statues above me weren’t looking, except they were. Tiny turns. A shift in the hood. Maybe the heat bent air. Maybe I was making friends I didn’t want.
The break felt like ten seconds because math is a crime.
"Heat 2," the room said.
Light swelled. The billet woke up. I set the tang, drew the shoulder, and started the trait channel down the spine where the Fog Core would sit.
The shades didn’t wait this time. They arrived with reed plates clattering on their shoulders like the swamp remembered how to wear armor. Their cleavers were the wrong size to be seen in a classroom.
"Anvilspace," I said on instinct I didn’t own.
A bubble snapped into being around the anvil—thin, shivering glass that pushed the mist back and made the heat stay. Tooltip in the corner:
[Skill Unlocked: Anvilspace (B-Rank, Active)]
Effect: Creates a localized barrier around forge/anvil. Duration: 60s. Cooldown: 180s.Notes: Stability scales with billet integrity.
"Thanks, tutorial fairy. Please don’t bill me later," I muttered, and cut the channel cleaner, two millimeters either side of true.
A shade swung for my knuckles. I moved the tongs a hair and let it hit the bubble. The shock ran through the space instead of through me. The anvil sang again and the statues adjusted, four degrees, like they were listening.
Clock: 9:01.
I kept one hand on metal and worked with the other. Hammer, turn, draw, cut. Resin, brush, kiss heat. The channel took shape—a thin dark vein waiting for a heart.
"Okay," I said. "You get your turn next."
The Fog Tyrant Core hummed in my inventory like it heard me and thought that was cute.
I didn’t drop the billet.
I didn’t look at the door.
I didn’t breathe until the room told me to.