Chapter 96: Weapon Enchantment

Hiss! The dark-red short blade plunged into the quench trough, and a cloud of white steam surged up at once.

Flint lifted the quenched dagger out of the water and inspected it, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. Then he tossed it to his nephew.

“Tom, the polishing and sharpening is yours. Joan, you should learn this too; you’ll need it someday.”

Joan hurriedly thanked the old dwarf. Then, remembering why he had come, he turned back to fetch his coat, took a letter from the pocket, and respectfully handed it to Flint.

The old dwarf was already used to Joan’s odd habit of writing things down instead of saying them face-to-face. He took the letter, skimmed it once, and stroked his beard with a hearty laugh. “So the enchanted-weapon scroll I gave you a month ago is finally going to be put to use! Tell me, how do you plan to begin your weapon-enchantment experiment? If it sounds workable, I can provide the room and the materials free of charge.”

“Let’s start with that dagger.” Joan pointed at the wavy broken blade Tom was polishing. “This is my first time enchanting a weapon, so I can’t promise success.”

At least if I ruin my own handiwork, I won’t have to pay for it...

“Have you prepared all the enchantment materials?”

“Most of them are ready, but... I still need one ounce of mana crystal as a stabilizer,” Joan said a little awkwardly. “The mana crystals in the town general store were all bought up by Mr. Longfellow. If you have any in stock here, I’d like to buy some...”

A pound of mana crystal cost ten thousand gold ducats at market price. One ounce was one-sixteenth of a pound, which meant six hundred twenty-five gold ducats. Joan had truly bled for the sake of honing his weapon-enchantment craft; if he failed three or five times, he would be forced to declare bankruptcy.

Flint nodded thoughtfully. “We can talk about money later. I’ll provide the mana crystal. From here on, it all depends on your skill, young man. I’m looking forward to being surprised.”

Joan immediately felt the pressure double. Wiping sweat from his brow, he said, “I’ll do my best...”

In truth, he had no confidence at all. Still, faced with the old dwarf’s expectant gaze, he could only grit his teeth and go through with it.

Tom handed Joan the dagger he had just polished with sandpaper and reminded him to be careful not to cut his hand on the gleaming edge.

Joan took the dagger and placed it squarely on the workbench. He did not rush to begin. Instead, he spent a minute organizing the enchantment procedure in his mind. After that, he took out the deep-sea squid ink and the quill pen he carried with him and laid them neatly on the table.

Flint set a ceramic jar full of mana crystal powder down in front of Joan. When he saw Joan dip his pen in the ink and write a line of strange characters along one side of the dagger, the old dwarf raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Flint had spent many years in the forging trade and knew weapon-enchantment techniques inside and out, but he had never heard of the method Joan was using now. A dagger was neither a spellbook nor a scroll. What use was there in drawing magical runes on a steel weapon? Even if the runes truly held magic, they were far too fragile; one wipe with a rag would reduce them to nothing. How could the magic possibly be preserved for long?

Flint guessed that the symbols Joan was drawing on the blade were merely a preliminary sketch, and that he would later trace over them for engraving or etching. That was standard practice in the field of enchantment, so he set out a carving tool fitted with a diamond tip, ready for Joan to use at any time.

However, Flint soon realized he had guessed wrong.

Using ink, Joan wrote the Sixth Rune, Keen, on both sides of the blade. This rune carried a dual meaning. On the material level, Keen represented strength and energy. On the spiritual level, it also meant potential and inspiration. As one might imagine, the first meaning of the Sixth Rune pointed toward evocation; most arcane disciplines involving ice, fire, lightning, magnetism, acid, or even positive and negative energy could be expressed through this rune. As for Keen’s spiritual meaning, it was even more profound. Within the sphere of arcane theory, there was no strict equivalent school, but it was closer to the concept of psionic power.

Joan was not a psychic, and for the time being he still could not grasp Keen’s spiritual significance. Right now, he only needed its power on the material and energetic level.

Once the first stage was complete, Joan carefully picked up the dagger and held it up to the sunlight streaming through the window, examining both sides of the blade to confirm that the rune had been drawn flawlessly. Only then did he put the dagger down in satisfaction. He took a white cloth and wiped the remaining ink from the tip of the pen, then opened the jar of mana crystal powder. He dipped the pen into the powder and, like tracing over copybook characters, rewrote the Keen rune on both sides of the blade, ensuring that the still-wet ink was evenly coated with a fine layer of pale blue crystal dust. The rune took on a beautiful ice-blue sheen.

With the second step finished, Joan set down the quill and began casting. He pointed the fingertips of one hand at the upward-facing side of the dagger from a distance, traced a string of intricate gestures in the air, and chanted an elven incantation. At last, he uttered a short activation word:

“Sharp!”

“Keen” was an adjective in ancient elven, meaning sharp, and was therefore perfectly suited to activate the first-circle spell Enchanted Armament.

No matter what method was used to forge an enchanted weapon, it could not be separated from the spell Enchanted Armament. The main reason was that ordinary metal had very poor affinity with magic. Like oil and water, if they were forcibly mixed, they would eventually separate again, and the enchantment could not be preserved for long. The primary function of Enchanted Armament was to enhance a material’s affinity with magic so that mana could be stored stably and for a long time. In addition, materials treated with Enchanted Armament would see a significant increase in strength and toughness, which in turn made the weapons forged from them far more powerful.

The higher the caster’s own level, the more pronounced the improvement Enchanted Armament could bring to a material. Weapons below legendary grade were usually divided into five enchantment tiers. Given Joan’s current mage level, the Enchanted Armament he could cast barely met the standard for a Tier One enchantment.

After the dagger was blessed with Enchanted Armament, the metal blade itself began to shine brightly. The mana crystal grains attached to its surface seemed to melt under heat, continuously seeping into the deeper layers of the blade and altering the properties of the metal. During this process, Joan had to keep adding mana crystal dust to the blade until the expensive stabilizer had fully permeated the inner layers of the metal, allowing the spell’s effect to take complete hold. The higher the enchantment tier of a magic item, the more mana crystal it consumed in this process. This was the main reason magical implements of higher rank were more expensive: aside from the caster’s fee, most of the cost lay in the mana crystal used up during enchantment.

By the time the dagger’s radiance had subsided and it no longer absorbed any mana crystal dust, the rune drawn on the blade had also permeated into the metal’s inner layers, and the ink used as a base had vanished completely. With that, the third stage of the enchantment process was complete.