The rise of the pervert primordial - Chapter 763 - 763: The third day of the development trial (part 16)

The lynx was honestly surprised as she saw the “fired up” gaze in the little wyrm eyes since blacksmithing is not a subject in which a spirit beast would take interest normally, at least not before attaining human form.

To begin with, it’s obvious that Guardian found the connection between Aster and Espi amazing, she still remembers that at the fist sign of “hostility” she showed back when they met for the first time, when she narrowed her eyes at Aster just a bit, the little wyrm directly surrounded Aster with her body in a protective stance.

It was already interesting that the other humans prepared their weapons when she showed hostility to the one who she judged was leading them, without an ounce of hesitation, since in her memory there were always a few who instead looked for a way to escape.

But she didn’t find that weird, it simply meant that the group of humans which she met had a strong warrior leading them, that or they were underestimating her, but she quickly discarded the second option since she couldn’t find an easy opening to break through the enemy group’s defensive formation.

Either way, what really caught her attention was seeing that young strange white snake using her own body to protect the human in question, and that was without being let alone ordered but even hinted to do so and it was an instant instinct driven response, it was that scene what made the lynx agree to cooperate with Aster.

It’s not because Aster is a spirit tamer and Espi is his tamed sprit beast, Guardian has been observing not only the interactions between the black-haired youth and the little wyrm, but basically between everyone and Aster and she reached the conclusion that he was unlike any of the other “alpha” humans she has seen in her life.

Even then, she originally remained firm in maintaining a strictly cooperative relation with the humans, until she experienced the honesty of the group of humans which she had met this time.

After all the lynx got to experience, cooked food, playing time with Kana, bath time and even sleeping under a roof, still as positive as the light in which Guardian saw Aster and the others, her wariness regarding the “beings” living in the sky as she called the ones supervising this place like the blue flaming board, made her need further confirmation that joining them for the good was the right choice.

It’s not like Guardian is a coward, nor is she afraid of losing her life it’s just that just like there have been “warnings” passed down by the snakes and other races since the time of their ancestors, she remembers one from her family out of which she is the last member by the way, so she is especially careful when it comes to this.

Anyway, the point is that seeing the little wyrm putting in so much effort as she wanted to help Aster, which ultimately materialized in the form of a nearly completed steel billet the more Espi hammered the processed iron on the anvil, made the lynx softly smile to herself, in fact she nearly laughed when she saw the little wyrm’s hiss as if cursing out loud for having screwed things up.

“Hissss!”, what happened is that due to the sudden “hype”, the little wyrm had hammered to hard and ended up extending the steel too much, like previously stated Espi’s strength is no joke and unlike Aster she is not used to control it so precisely.

To be honest the piece of steel in which she was working could be rescued, she could heat it on the forge, bend it and then hammer it to weld it together again, but of course the little wyrm wasn’t adept enough in blacksmithing to attempt that, she didn’t lack the confidence to try, but the result could have a lot of troubles underneath its surface, so she directly discarded her first try and started all over again.

This time, Espi kept that same enthusiasm but didn’t forget to control her strength, properly, without realizing she got absorbed in the process just like a real blacksmith would.

“Clang!”, with a last swing of her tail, the little wyrm finished hammering the steel on her anvil to then look at the result, it was a slightly rough but still decently billet-shaped piece of steel.

While recovering her breath to a stable pace, since having to apply such precise control over her body was actually more tiring than just letting her strong physique running wild, a slight smile appeared on the corner of the little wyrm’s mouth.

Her effort was rewarded by message from the flaming board which she had been waiting to appear, ever since Kana and the filly Ember triggered one which of course Aster could also see as he is the recognized leader of the group.

[The conditions for a special mission have been met, the respective tasks will become available for those that meet the requirements from now and onwards]

Let’s not forget that the little wyrm and Kana while being the best of the friends, are also rivals, as for Ember, as a fellow spirit beast she had made a new occupation type manual to appear and then she also made a special mission appear, so she contributed to the group quite a bit not too long after having joined.

Since they were far from the monolith, Espi couldn’t see the specifics of the mission though, she only knew that it had been triggered, so without thinking twice the little wyrm turned around to leave towards the monolith.

“Hisssss~”, happily hissing as she slid away from the isolated training area, the little wyrm soon disappeared from sight, Aster who was focused in his own task stole a gaze her way and slightly laughed, he could actually see the contents of the special mission triggered by Espi, since as the group leader the “coverture” of his connection with the monoliths was larger than others, but he didn’t wasn’t to ruin the little wyrm’s fun.

After second Aster tossed aside his fourteen try to finish the ten wood swords at the same time, he had advanced all the way to the eighth sword without a problem, and now Guardian’s attention was back on his side.

‘I can’t let down our hardly earned new teammate “prospect”, especially not now when that little girl had bought me enough time’, thought Aster as he put hands to work.

Under the lynx’s interested gaze, Aster smoothly worked in the ten wood swords at the same time and before she noticed, the smiling little wyrm peeked out of the woods as she was back, just in time to see Aster using the sandpaper to give the last details to the swords.

“Done”, with a single word, Aster put the last of the ten swords on the working table to then inwardly look at the imaginary timer he had set in his mind, not only did Aster flawlessly completed the mission, he actually finished the ten swords in exactly twenty minutes.

“Phew, it took way more than what I expected but I also cut a third of the given time for it, it’s not bad if you ask me”, said Aster to the lynx and the little wyrm who were approaching him, to then grab a wood sword with each of his hands before smacking them onto the boulder.

“Crack!”, naturally the sword broke on the spot, not without leaving behind a small crack on the boulder, the ten swords which took Aster around three hours to finish were gone in a matter of seconds.

“Luckily, we got up quite early, otherwise there would be no hope of having lunch with Kana and the others, right?”, asked Aster to the little wyrm who jumped towards him, landing her upper body on Aster’s shoulder to then happily hiss at him.

“Hisssss~”, that little girl was of course bragging about the result of her efforts to Aster.

“Hoh, that’s quite a fitting reward for someone with the “companion” profession, I’ll have to ask you to assist me in the forge from time to time now”, said Aster as he petted the little wyrm who happily rubbed her face against Aster’s right cheek in response.

Aster wasn’t giving empty compliments to Espi, her reward was actually quite something, basically if she assisted in any of the steps of working with metals, the total processing time of said step will be reduced by 20%, additionally her presence alone will help “non-companions” reduce the processing time of their metal working in 5% as a whole.

They still have to test how much effort does “assist” account to for the benefit to be triggered, but let’s say Espi helps Aster with the step of forging that is giving him a headache not due to its difficulty but for the time needed to complete it, which is tempering as it’s total processing time can’t be realistically reduced without formations, amounting to a total of two hours divided in two sessions, Espi could reduce the waiting time to sharpen and finish the work by almost twenty minutes.

Which might not sound as “much” but Aster can do a lot of things in twenty minutes, as he has proved by finishing the ten wood swords in said amount of time, after all the most precious resource for the development trial is time, the more the group advances this week, the better of a head start they will have over others.

As a bonus, just by hanging around them, Espi will make the life of the disciples from the blacksmith peak who are going to be hell busy, a bit easier, she truly deserved the tittle of “companion” of the best mortal blacksmith in the group, in other words Aster.

“Hissss”, and apparently that wasn’t all, according to the little wyrm, she got a continuation of her mission after obtaining the reward, she could attain similar effects for other materials besides metallic ones, next she had to work with plant-based stuff, but she was sure there would be other steps for her mission, which made Aster raise an eyebrow.

‘Not “wood” in specific, but plant-based materials, does that mean that it’s craftmanship as a whole and not just creation of “tools”, is it because I had taken lessons for other things besides spirit blacksmithing?’, thought Aster.

With metals there were limitations, since it’s not like they have access to that many different ores, so basically, they can only forge weapons and other tools with them, but plant-based materials are different, they are everywhere and thanks to Mylene and Vivian the range of uses for them is incredibly wide as well, so the little wyrm was in the way of turning the “MVP” of the group.

In case you think that the reward Espi got sounds like too much since it completely surpasses mortal limits as unlike what a master blacksmith would do to achieve a similar result which would be actively guiding other less experienced blacksmiths to help them reduce their finishing times, that’s because the process to attain it was that hard from the little wyrm’s point of view.

Just think about it, she a spirit beast first had to surpass the limitations of the heavenly law to get interested in a subject in which she should only start focusing after obtaining a human form, then she had to make do by imitating what she has only seen someone else do a few times and lastly, she had to adapt to her obviously not created for such activities, limbs, in this case her tail which replaced the arms and hands of a blacksmith, she totally deserved the reward she got.

Leaving aside the head pats and all, Aster put Espi on the ground and left her this work table, since she now was going to be using the wood for her mission, and he had to change to the next material, namely the bones of beasts.

Aster had started from wood which though he knew was going to take him some time, shouldn’t be that time-consuming, in total he used three hours and since they started the day early it was around 8:00 am as of current.

He did so because he wanted to have more time for training with the most annoying material of the bunch, in other words he left working with metal to the end because he was the most confident in it.

In case you wonder what about his reward, his profession-oriented mission unlike Espi’s, was a single one divided in three steps, he knew the materials he’ll need because there was a symbol above each step, but not the specifics as they were revealed only after completing the previous step.

“Ah, I can already tell that this is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with…”, said Aster with a sigh as he looked at the bones and other similar materials piled in perfect order near the next working table.

Aster was already feeling a headache coming his way as he selected the sole bones which could realistically be used to create the number of swords he needed in the given time.

‘Three bone swords in an hour, sounds way easier when compared to the previous, but it’s actually quite the opposite’, thought Aster.

To begin with, the only bones that were of the length and weight which could be worked into swords in that amount of time, were the femurs of boars, out of which he actually has a relatively decent amount.

But there is a catch, the ones from the female boars which are the vast majority he had, are not large enough to make even the shortest type of sword which comes to his mind, namely a gladius.

Thanks to the trade he made with the snakes, there were a few male boar femurs which by all means fit the standards to become swords, but there are only six of them, in other words there is only one trial round where he could commit mistakes before the real thing.

“I can practice with the female boar femurs since the composition is not that different, but I’ll have to calculate the difference in time due to size and weight for the real thing…”, mumbled Aster as he tested the integrity of the sole six male boar femurs he had, which luckily sounded and felt in perfect conditions to be worked with.

‘Ah damn, if the task was just making weapons with them or if the given time was longer, it would be so much easier, there are moose and even horse femurs there’, cursed Aster to his insides.

Those two bones were not only quite large but also heavy, as in weighting a few kilograms instead of a few hundred grams like the femurs of boars, unfortunately while that made them actually decent materials it also made it so that the required time to work with them increased, since Aster would have to waste time cutting them with a hacksaw to reduce the total length, not to mention that the higher density would made it so that he has to put more effort when giving it the shape he needed.

“To begin with, a sword made out of bones is not an efficient weapon, whoever made this mission deserves a beating”, said Aster.

Bone weapons are not useless in fact in a situation where metal is lacking, they are a decent alternative, despite Aster being a “blacksmith” he does recognize that the origin of weapon crafting goes all the way back to using stone and bones to cover up for what wood can’t do, which is increasing piercing and cutting power.

However, he wouldn’t make swords out of bones, since as a material they are better either for piercing, which makes them perfect to be used for arrows and spears or for blunt weapons, like clubs for example.

Not only do bones not hold a sharp edge well, they might be strong for their weight but they fracture “easily” under high impact, so weapons made out of them have low durability and the required time to make them is not that shorter when compared to metal ones, unlike with wood which is why Aster didn’t bother to mount bone spearheads on shafts to make primitive but decent spears, but directly went to obtain iron ore instead.

Of course, that was also because even in a forest he knew he could find it, and he also caught a glimpse of a proper rocky area past said forest where he was sure the materials he wanted would exist in abundance, otherwise he would have totally gone for bone working during the first day at least.

While Aster was preparing the tools he needed, namely a coping saw and a hacksaw as well as rasps, files and short knives which could be used for different purposes why don’t we take a look at a real live example of the previous mentioned problem.

…

At the other side of the wall that marked the limit of the area assigned to the Myriad Occupation sect, for a change, things were looking more decent for Wade’s group.

Thanks to the bone weapons created by that old veteran mercenary, the people of the group gained some confidence in dealing with the animals which had escaped from the slaughter they had unleashed in the very first day, to roam around the border of the forest, thus preventing them from gathering the resources they desperately needed.

It was to the point that there was now a proper fence surrounding Wade’s camp and there were even a few tents which were replaced with small log cabins, which sounded good if you don’t take into account that it was a waste of the safe space of the camp.

But that wasn’t the problem that was making Wade and the representatives of other forces, suffer a headache.

“We have properly compensated the Marius’s family group for the provided bone weapons, so why the hell are they either changing the things needed for trading or outright refusing to make more of them for us?”, asked the elder from the Marsh Domain with an incensed voice, to which the elder from the Marius family answered with a calm tone.

“It takes quite a bit of time for a proper bone weapon to be created, to begin with the mercenary isn’t a master in craftmanship, bone working was more of a hobby for him, so I can’t just order him to pump out bunch of bone weapon all the time, he has his own missions to deal with as well”.

“Besides that, originally we accepted to trade in things like fruit and wood because they weren’t easily obtained and required equal effort as the one put in making the bone weapons, however now that we have cleaned a decent area of the border of the forest that is no longer the case, so it’s only normal that we change the products we accept in exchange”.

“Nonsense, if that’s the case how about we forbid you from entering the cleared area of the border if you don’t provide us with the bone weapons!”, said the elder from the Bayer family.

“Our group also helped with clearing said area, everyone did so, so no one has the right to forbid the other from gathering resources there, besides it’s not like we are asking you to for anything impossible, we accept fish, or processed byproducts from animals which are not that hard to obtain from those whose focus is battle”, said the elder from the Marius family as he gazed at the Redheart, Bayer and of course the Fey family representatives to then add.

“As for those who have other skills, we also accept processed or raw herbs with medical properties, different kinds of edible vegetation and even items exchanged with merits, what else do you want from us?”.

The answer to the previous is simple, the other representatives didn’t want to lower the quality of their life to pay for the bone weapons, nor did they want to spend too much of their day time to exchange for them, so basically, they didn’t want to pay with anything else but the easily found wood and fruit which was no longer needed by the Marius family group, or stuff that required them to put effort to process like properly bled and butchered meat ready to be cooked, cleaned bones or skins of animals.

“The problem is that the durability of the weapons is low, they don’t last even half a day, so the required number of them keeps increasing”, said the representative from the Aquamarine family.

“Certainly, the old mercenary mentioned that the bone weapons aren’t made to last long, however you are missing the actual problem which is the fact that wild animals keep running towards the secured area in the border of the forest, as if they are being sent our way, of course the weapons don’t last since we are fighting too many of them in a daily basis”, concluded the elder from the Telles family, in paper he is allied with the Marius family group so he had to step in whether he liked it or not.

Listening to the complains and accusations that the representatives were throwing at each other, Wade raised his voice to give his verdict.

“Enough, we’ll advance into the next area of the forest tomorrow, the Marius family will provide all the bone weapons they can produce today and the ones they have in storage, in exchange they’ll be allowed to select a proper amount of the new resources that will come our way thanks to the exploration, and also the other groups will accept the required needed items to exchange, that’s all”, he said which of course made quite a few people feel unhappy.

However, they didn’t dare to complain and just left the tent, since they had to put their subordinates to work if they wanted to secure more bone weapons to be safe during tomorrow’s exploration.

“How is the process going, has that Otto guy learned how to craft bone weapons in secret as he was told, when is he going to teach it to others?”, asked the Ocean Aquamarine representative to Wade who shook his head in response.

“He has only learned how to sharpen then, which is still useful, however he sucks at teaching and we can’t reprimand him because he has been contributing a lot to defend the cleared area of the border at Fawn’s request”, he said.

“Damn it, every time we solve one problem five more come our way, first we had no animals to eat and now there are too many of them, not to mention that they charge at us every single time”, cursed the Ocean Aquamarine elder.

‘If we are struggling with a relatively small number of people, I would love to see how bad things are for those bastards, I can’t wait for the development trial week to end, though there is no guarantee we’ll be facing them first’, thought Wade as a cold light flashed through his eyes, not aware that not being put against the group of the Myriad Occupation sect would not be a bad thing, but a bless for his side.