Chapter 108: Smithing
Hugo had made sure to do two things before he started crafting.
One was to go back to the waking world and use [Nothing]'s storage enchantment to bring back as much machinery as he could.
He had brought communicators, PCs and even a whole PTV with him.
Hugo had also brought two books with him, called:
"Awakened Guide to Smithing"
"How to Handle Metal" — both written by Valor artificer, Master Snow.
He had no money to buy any of this but thankfully, Nephis had no problem lending him her credit card.
'Truly having rich friends is the best!'
Technology did not work in the Dream Realm but that did not matter. That was only the case for human technology, not Galvanic one and he only used the human tech to craft the galvan tech.
The second thing Hugo had made sure to do was simple. It was to wait for his Omnitrix to fully recharge while he devoured a bunch of snacks. Making sure he rested was important so that he would be able to function at his maximum potential.
After that was done, Hugo exhaled, got up and went to an empty room of the Ivory Tower, one that was specifically meant for him.
He emptied it out of the useless things, and transformed into Diamondhead.
Using the crystalline alien, Hugo created a forge made of crystal, shaping its size perfectly.
The crystal was incredible sturdy as a material, and thanks to diamondhead fine control over it, Hugo had no trouble in creating the forge.
He proceeded to create various smithing tools such as hammers, an anvil, a workbench, and tongs. He also made anvil tools, hardies for cutting and bending, swages for shaping grooves and curves, and fullers for smoothing. For hand tools, he crafted chisels, punches, and drifts to cut metal, create holes, and drive shapes.
Hugo then used [Fusion] partially to transform his arm into that of heatblast and filled the forge with fire.
After that, Hugo transformed into Brainstorm and did two more things:
He read the books he had brought quickly, understanding metal work and writing simplified notes of complex smithing techniques.
'This Master Snow is a true prodigy at smithing—but his geniuse lies in his ability to express his craft so simply. Brilliant, though not quite at my level, of course.'
Hugo utilized his bioelectricity to spread the parts of the technology he had brought from the waking world, dividing their motherboards and various other parts aside and storing them for later use.
Hugo made sure to write as many notes as he could using Brainstorm, simplifying the process and writing steps that he could use later in other forms. He even made the designs for the items he was intending to craft for the cohort.
They were four simple Galvanic items meant for Nephis, Cassie, Kai and Effie.
Sunny wouldn't be getting anything considering Hugo had already given him a few things in the past.
For Kai, he designed a Galvanic bow. When inactive, it folded into a compact, bracelet-like form. When activated, it unfolded into a full-sized bow. The bow had a battery built into its frame and when the user drew the string, the battery would manifest an arrow of pure energy. To recharge the battery, one simply had to pour soul essence into it.
For Effie, he designed a pair of boots and gloves. They had two states. In their dormant state, they appeared as simple, reinforced gear. Their batteries could be recharged with soul essence as well. In their active state, the boots and gloves unfolded into a partial exoskeleton that covered her limbs, offering protection but not only that, as the stored soul essence would be converted into kinetic energy, reinforcing her strikes and allowing her to use that kinetic energy in her weapons.
For Cassie, it was something a little more unique this time around. A small leg bracelet that had one simple function. When Cassie stomped ground with her leg, the bracelet would send sound waves through the floor and at the same time, Cassie would be able to sense those waves when they come back to her, granting her the ability to detect creatures and discern their appearance.
This of course needed recharging, as it had a battery as well.
For Nephis, hers was both simple and complicated. It was an advanced technological hilt, when activated, the soul essence inside the battery materialized into a plasma blade made of pure essence, capable of cutting through the toughest materials due to its heat. Nephis could even increase its power by manipulating its heat through her awakened ability.
This also had a battery.
The inclusion of a battery was both a positive feature and a flaw. All things needed a flaw in this world, but this one had a deeper purpose.
Hugo could have made each artifact use direct soul essence from the user, but ascendeds did not have large reserves of soul essence like Transcendents, and thus couldn't use much of the item at all if that was the case.
A rechargeable battery, on the other hand, was good because a smart person would recharge it beforehand for safe use.
After the items were thought of, Brainstorm's advanced calculation started working, perfectly calculating how many and which runes were needed in each item.
For every single part, there would be need to be a complex phrase describing the role this part played in the item and each part needed to be connected to be connected to the battery.
His pincers moved like lightning, writing the runes on papers to memorize them for later, while at the same time, he made a sketch about the interior of each item, while also creating the exterior.
'how troublesome...'
The enchanting was bound to be the most difficult part, but for now, he only needed to worry about the smithing part.
Hugo gently clicked on his Omnitrix, changing forms once again.
This time, he had used one of his newly gained aliens: Lodestar.
Lodestar has a magnetically floating metal head surrounded by a glowing white aura and levitates in an arch between his shoulders. He has crab-like claws for hands similar to Brainstorm and his body is mainly brownish-black with yellow feet, hands, shoulders, and chest. His body is also made of living alien metal.
The alien possessed abilities and attributes of magnetism, electromagnetism and Force Field Generation.
Hugo had picked this alien specifically because he wanted to use the chains that once imprisoned Hope in crafting his items. They were called the Heavenly Chains, which was a much more dramatic name in Hugo's opinion.
The gigantic chains were too big for the items he wanted to make, so he only needed small parts.
Using magnetism, Hugo moved his arms around, separating a small part of the chains from the other and taking it back to his forge, he made sure to grab a few fangs from Sevirax bones while he was at it.
Hugo was sure the ancient Transcendant wouldn't mind.
He divided the chain into multiple parts needed in the smithing process, following the guide he had written when he was Grey Matter and Brainstorm.
Each part had a specific role to serve during the forging process with the chains basically being the pillars of the items..
With that done, Hugo shifted into Four Arms, and grabbed his hammers and tools.
The purpose of smithing in this project was simple, it was to create the exterior for the artifacts.
Hygo simply needed to create a bow that was capable of being folded, boots and gloves, a leg bracelet and finally a sword hilt
Each of them should have a study exterior and an interior spacious enough to hold the needed parts for the galvan items.
One of the books he had read on smithing said that smithing was simply bringing out the true potential of the materials used.
That phrase was not that deep as its meaning was simple. However, it was an important foundation for any aspiring smith.
Of course, Hugo himself did not want to dedicate his life to being a smith but he wanted to at least become adept at the craft.
Hugo saw the liquid metal of the chains pour into the shape he wanted and waited for it to cool down.
Lodestar could not truly control metal but instead possessed magnetism which was similar but also different as the noble creature was capable of manipulating the forces that influenced metal and not the metal itself, so doing the metal work manually was Hugo's only option.
After cooling down the metal, Hugo used two of his arms to hammer the hot metal, using two hammers at the same time.
The metal that came from the Heavenly Chains of Hope was abnormal, to say the least. It was not quite divine, but instead, it possessed a will of some sort. A will that was both an enchantment and the spiritual manifestation of Sun God's spirit.
That enchantment was simple "Chain Hope". That was it, no more and no less.
As Brainstorm and Grey Matter, Hugo tried his best to understand how it worked and if replicating it was possible but he simply couldn't. He couldn't even understand it, despite the great intellect those two aliens possessed.
It was as if Sun God looked at the chains and said "Chain Hope" and the chain abided by his command.
Perhaps that was exactly what the Lord of Light did, in the ancient past.
Which made Hugo think that there was a type of sorcery that only higher ranked beings could use by simply using their will.
Thanks to this, Hugo did not have much trouble melting the chains and using their metal to create the things he wanted.
He felt sweat spread through his crimson body, as Hugo increased his strength and augmented himself with soul essence to continue the harsh task of hammering the metal while resisting the heat.
Shaping the metal, letting it flow and hammering it into the shape he had wanted was a beautiful art, one that required delicacy, care and gentleness.
A Smith had t be honest with his tools and open his heart to his hands, making sure they expressed his will perfectly.
'I wonder if I could see the Spellsmiths of Valor one day...'
Perhaps if he joined the great clan, he would be able to meet their legendary spellsmiths directly, understanding their techniques and their advanced sorcery and perhaps replicating it himself.
But for now, he had to make do with what he knew.
Nephis's hilt and Cassie's bracelet were the easiest to make, as they were relatively small and not too complicated.
Kai's compound bow took a bit of work, but it was Effie's item that was the most problematic.
The boots and gloves were not only hard to shape but also had to be thick enough for the interior to be able to store the suit.
To make the interior wide, he had to expand the exterior, however if he did, the construct would become too fragile and less dense due to the expansion, losing its layers.
One would ask, why not make a full suit instead? That was a horrible idea, because that would be too much to carry around. Hugo was not capable of creating memories, unfortunately.
This is where Sevirax's bones came into play—the Transcendent material was much more dense so that even a single layer of it had the durability of the Transcendent rank.
Melting them was perhaps the most difficult process Hugo had done so far, as Heatblast's fire simply did not do the job,.no matter how hot he made them go.
Sweating, Hugo touched his Omnitrix and switched to NRG.
"NRG!"
He was not familiar with using the alien so this was a good time to practice.
It was bizarre, considering the exterior suit seemed to be created by the Omnitrix, while the real alien was inside, made of pure magma.
But even NRG wasn't enough, as the magma simply could not melt the Transcendent bones... It seemed that the bones were even enhanced by the Sun lineage, even after their owner had long perished.
"What to do..."
[Omni-Enhanced] wasn't cutting it as well and it drained his energy too fast.
'Maybe I could ask Nephis for her flames?'
No, they likely wouldn't be able to melt the bones. For that to work, she would need to be a saint.
So, Hugo turned his attention to his ascended ability and called upon the third stage of [Fusion].
He fused the DNA of NRG with the DNA of Heatblast, to create the ultimate fiery abomination.
The exterior suit of NRG had fused into the rocky flesh of Heatblast, and the flames making Heatblast had fully transformed into the magmatic flesh of NRG... With his rocky face turning into a devious grin by default.
He now truly looked like an abomination that escaped from hell...
Not wasting any time, Hugo used the full intensity of his seven Omni-Cores, unleashing his Titanic power. That was something he had not done ever since getting to the waking world due to how dangerous and draining it was...
Being a Titan was not simple, the power he received during that state was much more overwhelming then the powers of all the previous classes combined. Added with their deep connection to the world, Hugo was at risk of not only loosing control but possibly even falling to corruption due to the dream realm nature.
So, he made it a rule to always use his Titan state for short periods of time.
Now, there was one thing to note about [fusion]. When two opposite aliens fuse together, the fusion will have a weaker version of each ability they inherit, granting it versatility.
However, if the two fused aliens shared the same source element, then the fusion born from them would simply inherit a stronger fused version of their abilities.
Using the new magmatic flames, Hugo melted down the bones, finally making them usable.
He exhaled, detransforming.
Hugo had exhausted much of himself through this whole thing, cycling between aliens in rapid succession to achieve different results and solve each problem, causing his soul essence to drain by a substantial amount. That meant that he now had to finish the smithing job in his human form.
He grabbed the hot crystalline hammer and returned to work, hammering the molten bones into the denser shapes and then, carefully smithing them into the shape of boots and gloves individually
With that done, Hugo had finally finished smithing the objects meant to become Galvanic technology...
They looked pretty advanced compared to standard equipments found in the dream realm but they were not true galvan tech yet... They still needed enchantments and most importantly, painting.
For now, Hugo simply left the room to breathe and escape the heat, as he stepped out, he nearly collided with Sid, who was on her way to the gateway.
He was only wearing his pants right now, with his upper body entirely exposed. This was done so that Hugo would not suffocate while smithing, but of course the fire keeper did not know that causing her cheeks to flush red.
Hugo paled in return, the last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable, or seem like a creep.
"Sorry," he said, summoning [Asura] to cover his torso. "I was smithing and It got hot."
Sid coughed, recomposing herself quickly.
"It's alright. No harm done." She paused, looking over his shoulder and into the room. "Do you mind if I ask what you're working on?"
The Fire Keepers didn't have a personal artificer so her curiosity made sense.
"Just some items for the cohort, but it's mostly training for myself, if I'm being honest. I'm using them to improve my smithing and sorcery."
Sid seemed intrigued by the concept of craftsmanship, which was an unusual interest for an awakened who preferred simpler paths to power.
"I see..." She said. "The sorcery you and Lady Cassia discussed two days ago was fascinating and the sorcery you used back on the Forgotten Shore was also quite intriguing, now that I think about it. "
Hugo nodded. "Sorcery is a fascinating profession. If you're interested, you're welcome to join the lessons I give Cassie. Any of the Fire Keepers can, actually. I don't mind, the more the merrier."
The dirty-blonde woman beamed, clapping her hands together.
"Thank you, I'll let the others know when I get the chance." She glanced toward the gateway. "I suppose I should leave you to your work now. See you later, Master Hugo."
"I'll be seeing you then, Master Sid."
Hugo waved her goodbye as she passed through the gateway.
'She's pleasant to talk with...'
Among the Fire Keepers, he had the most interaction with Sid so far, even back in the Forgotten Shore.
Hugo definitely wouldn't mind if he got to know sid better, her and all the Fire Keepers were very friendly.
'Anyway, I should rest for now. Two hours and I'll be fully recharged.'
Hugo molded the [Asura] into a more comfortable armor, and went to the lake area of the island, finding a chair there and sitting on it.
As he did, he used his Omnitrix's internal system and entered the Network tab, putting on one of his favorite shows and relaxing onto the chair, letting his body find rest.
Life was good so far, and hopefully, it stays like that.