He took out the dagger blank, already cooled and covered with a layer of black oxide, and casually tossed it onto the anvil, making a thudding "clang."
"Yesterday, you only gave it shape. Today, we're going to give it a soul. Next is the heat treatment. Remember, whether a blade becomes a magic weapon or scrap iron depends 90% on this step."
"Let it sleep in the sand for a whole night, this process is called 'annealing'. The purpose is to eliminate all the 'internal injuries' left in its body from yesterday's hammering, namely work hardening and internal stress."
"Now, the disordered crystal structures inside it have returned to their most relaxed and stable original state."
"But that's not enough," Old George's tone turned serious as he placed the blade blank back into the furnace. "Forging makes the grains inside the steel coarse and uneven. Annealing eliminates stress, but we'd better normalize it to refine these grains again."
