Michael stepped into the forge as the hall brightened. The forge welcomed its master by providing more light and heat to the hall. Without a doubt, the place looked ancient. Everything in the forge was covered in thick ash, and some of the little tools were rusted to the point there was no chance of restoring them. Michael looked for something that might give him a clue or two about the forge's origins. While looking around the room, a large anvil drew his attention to the center of the forge. As a 5-Star Blacksmith, he could tell a gorgeous anvil when he saw one. He ran his fingers through the anvil, wiping off the dust on its surface. Excitement coursed through his veins as he saw the vise, a beautifully crafted piece of contraption used to hold objects securely while they were worked on. It was made of a darkish metal and seemed it could
hold large and heavy objects as its jaws had a grip that could exert considerable pressure. This forge was a blacksmith's dream come true. Finally, Michael turned his gaze toward the heart of any forge, the furnace. Whoever built the forge chose to build the furnace in the wall and let the smoke go straight to the mountain's top. No one would be able to tell the difference between volcanic fumes and the smoke coming from the forge. Although the forge had many intricate gears and small contraptions inside to make it more efficient, Michael could only see the rectangle hole into which the metal ores or the iron works should be put. On the side, Michael saw a lever and a rotating button built into the wall.
"Pull the lever and see what happens," said Ayag. Her eyes glistened with curiosity, just like Sarba's. Michael already had a pretty good guess of what it would do. But he pulled the lever to confirm his assumption. The lever was considerably harder to pull. It took a bit of force to pull down. A normal person had no chance of pulling down the lever since even Michael had to use his strength. After he pulled down the level, nothing happened for a while. Then, the forge trembled slightly. The temperature in the air rose by several degrees. A gust of wind shot out of the furnace, pushing out the ash. The furnace suddenly lit up as gooey lava oozed into it from above. It was like hot chocolate except hotter and brighter, like liquid gold. Michael immediately felt the intense heat from the lava. On the other hand, the rotating button had an arrow pointing up. He rotated the button anticlockwise, expecting it would somehow reduce the heat. An oven, that was what this furnace reminded him of. After rotating the button, a strong gust of wind mixed with cold air sprayed onto the lava. Gradually the lava lost its heat and became bearable.
'I wonder where that cold air is coming from," Cain frowned. Michale had the same question until he used his thermal vision and found the source of the cold air. His X-ray vision vaguely showed something familiar to Michael, an ancient ice core.
"Makes sense," Michael mumbled under his breath.
"What is?" asked Sarba.
"You asked how the cold air is produced. It's coming from the ancient ice core built within the furnace," said Michael.
[Congratulations to the host for finding three out of five requirements to forge the Dark Swords]
The system's notification inside a golden tab blocked his vision. He was confused for a moment but after looking around the forge, he realized the meaning of the system's words.
"So the three requirements were anvil, vise, and this furnace?" Michael asked the system.
The system didn't answer. But its silence spoke volumes. Now that he had a forge, he only needed the ore and the hilt to forge the dark swords.
[The dark ore and the hilt will cost the host one million badass points]
[The host is four hundred thousand badass points short of one million. The system suggests the host get a loan for six hundred thousand badass points]
pAn,Da-n0v e1,c
"How much do I have to pay you back after the loan?" asked Michael.
[Seven hundred thousand badass points]
As much as Michael hated loans, he had to take one from the system. Having a pair of swords that could withstand the dark flames would give him an overwhelming advantage in any battle. His excitement overshadowed his hesitation about taking a loan.
"I agree," said Michael as the system immediately gave him an additional six hundred thousand badass points. For a moment, he had one million and three hundred thousand badass points. This amount was short-lived as the system took one million points for the ore and the hilt. A second later, two bars of dark metal materialized on the table before Michael.
[The hilt will be given to the host at the last steps of forging the dark swords] said the system.
Vedora was surprised by the sudden appearance of dark metal bars. They quickly landed beside the metal bars and studied the two bars. These bars were as dark as midnight. They were smooth and heavier than they looked. Vedora couldn't even move the bars an inch.
"This is heavy," Ayag growled, trying to move the bar with her head. Michael grabbed one bar and lifted it up.
"You are right," Michael agreed with Ayag. The metal bar was damn heavy as it made his biceps bulge up. Although the metal bar was the size of a standard smartphone, it weighed at least two hundred kilograms. Michael couldn't help wondering how heavy his swords would be. He hoped they wouldn't be as heavy as the metal bars. With the metal bar in his hand, Michael looked around. He noticed a cauldron near the furnace. Vedora flew to the cauldron and carried it to Michael in their claws.
"Let's begin," Michael removed his black arm cut and threw it to the side. It restricted his movements. Then, Michael placed the two metal bars into the cauldron. After he placed the two metal bars into the cauldron, it became too heavy for Vedora to carry. Hence, Michael carried the cauldron to the furnace and hung it above the hot lava. When he hung the cauldron, he noticed a pipe hanging directly above the cauldron. He followed the pipe to the table in the center. Strange enough, there was another pipe hanging with its end open.
"Hey Ghost, look. There's a symbol engraved in here," Sarba raised his voice, hovering beside the dark metal pipe. Michael came to take a closer look at the pipe. As Sarba said, there was a tiny symbol engraved in the pipe. He could make out a shape like 'D' and flames.
"Dark Flames?" Michael questioned himself as he conjured the dark flames. The temperature in the forge rose by several degrees as soon as the dark flames appeared. Michael pushed the dark flames into the metal pipe. To his surprise, the metal pipe hanging above the cauldron released a purple flame into the cauldron. Somehow, the ancient ice core tempered the dark flames and released purplish flames on the other end. This purple flame wasn't as hot and violent as the dark flames, but it still had the characteristics of the dark flames. The purple flames heated the cauldron in a blink of an eye. Soon, the cauldron turned dim orange on the edges. But when Michael stopped sending dark flames into the pipe, the purple flames stopped at the other end. Michael didn't think he would need to send dark flames to melt all the metals. The hot lava was hot enough to achieve that feat. However, the dark metal required dark flames. Having no other option, Michael sent a stream of dark flames into the metal pipes. Several runes in the metal pipe lit up, protecting them from melting down under the dark flame's intense heat.
'
Several hours passed by in a blink of an eye. When Vedora flew closer to the cauldron, they saw the dark metal bars finally melting down. Surprisingly, tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around the cauldron. They formed from gooey dark metal. Everything around the cauldron darkened as the forge trembled. Michael ignored the tremor and continued to send dark flames into the pipe. As a Blacksmith, he knew when to stop sending the dark flames and let the metal cool off for a while. The forging of dark swords was very different from typical sword forging. Almost an hour later, Michael moved away from the metal pipe. Then, he searched for a metal block and found one buried deep under all the rusted tools and metal works.
He carried the block of metal on his shoulder and put it on the table with a loud thud. Due to the forge's heat, Michael was sweating bullets. But he enjoyed himself working as a blacksmith. The metal block was a long rectangle with three meters long and a meter wide. In addition, it was at least ten inches thick. Under Vedora's curious gaze, Michael fired dark beams out of his eyes and created a sword shape hollow in the metal block. The shape was neither too long nor too short. After the metal bars melted, he would have to pour the liquid metal into the shape and harden the metal. Since he was about to forge two swords, Michael found another metal block and repeated the process, except the second sword was just a few inches longer than the first.
As Michael was preparing everything to forge his new swords, the braziers around him flickered. Michael put down the tongs and looked around the place. For some reason, the flames above the braziers dimmed out. Then, Michael felt everything go dead silent. To Michael's surprise, a holographic image of himself appeared right above the table he was working on.
"Welcome to our forge," said the Dark Lord.
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