14 How it works
A/N- I hope everything makes sense in this chapter, if I missed or got anything wrong from danmachi then please let me know. I hope you all enjoy and happy reading!
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Hephaestus is currently inspecting the entire forge to see what it's all about by using her divine eye. The problem is that she couldn't understand anything about this thing even with her divinity. The main reason for this is that the material used in creating this forge doesn't exist in this world and that she is mostly sealed like all deities.
How the 'all-knowing' part of the deities works is - firstly, the item, material, etc should either exist or have existed in the world they live/ look over. They then should have a divinity related to that item and lastly, if it's related to crafting then the item should have been made in the world they govern and 'stored' into their divinity/ sea of knowledge, an example is if a sword was made in this world then those with the smithing divinity would instantly be able to recall how it was made, even if a sword was brought from a different world, as long as the technique or material used is the same then its creation could easily be seen through.
The reason it doesn't work and why Hephaestus is always excited with anything that Alvar makes is that Hephaestus has no idea what material they are made out of or how they were made. Even if she could tell a few similarities between techniques or materials, it could never lead to a full conclusion until she could see it or make it herself.
The same with this forge. In fact, this forge is even more complicated than anything else... excluding the weapons on display that gave her a headache just from looking at them. The only thing she could tell was that there might be hints of iron or lead used somewhere in this forge's crafting process.
That's it. Nothing more, nothing less, and this knowledge gave her a new sense of excitement. A new forge with untold potential in crafting? What smithing deity would not be?
"Ready to learn how this forge operates?" Alvar said as he walked closer to the center of the forge. Hephaestus excitedly nodded as she followed him.
Alvar waved at the front of the forge, which caused a system panel to show up, shocking Hephaestus.
She looked at it intrigued, unable to understand the language used. Alvar understood that and tapped on a few of the holographic buttons, causing a lot of small 'creatures' to come out of parts of the forge and come together to form a headband. Alvar put it on his head and pressed a few more buttons, causing the language to change to the one that Hephaestus understands.
"...What are those?" She asked as the headband dissolved again and returned to the forge.
"Do you know what golems are?"
"Creatures that are made out of solid materials but are still alive?" She was unsure if golems were similar in both worlds, so she answered with uncertainty.
"Think of it like that but they act similar to a hive mind and aren't 'Alive' at all," he said, nodding.
"You can set the temperature of this forge so that it is suitable to smelt the materials. However, you should be careful how high you set it since it could evaporate weaker metals if the temperature is set too high. This part here is used to set how many crafting stations and anvils are around, and this part here is used to create blueprints so that the forge can form its cast. However, you can still use the method you are used to if you activate 'Legacy.'"
"You can throw all the metals on there that you want smelted. A prompt would then appear asking if you want the metals separated or combined and which ones to combine. Then it would alter the temperature on its own so that both materials can melt. Do note that it only works with metals it has knowledge of; otherwise, it would take longer for it to slowly amp up the temperature until it can find its burning point."
Hephaestus got confused and asked, "Wait... if it can do that automatically, then why is there a button where you can set the temperature manually?"
"Sometimes the materials used are too chaotic for the A.I. to figure out, so it needs manual input for those. Or if you use too many metals that require largely different temperatures then it gets confused and asks for manual input. Otherwise, it's just me getting bored and messing around with the forge's temperature to see how far I can push it, and to see what happens to metals at different temperatures," Alvar answered her question with a smile.
"...I see. Have there been any interesting reactions with those metals?" Interest is evident in her voice and face.
"There were a lot of interesting effects, but I think you'll like it more if you find those out on your own."
"I hid most metals and materials from the log so that you can have fun exploring them and their uses so that you can mess around and discover them here in your free time. All of them can be found inside my chests, storage over there. But I locked some too," he pointed at the chests lining the area with labels.
"...So the more I discover from these metals and materials, the more different types I can use and gain access to?"
"Exactly, I made it like this so that you don't accidentally create a black hole with the more volatile ones, and the more you learn how they work and unlock, it will let you understand how the more complicated ones might work and how to use them," she nodded understandingly and followed Alvar towards one of the workstations and Anvil's sets.
"Connected to the workstation is a pipe that brings the liquid metal towards the molds, the necessary tools to create molds are here as well. Some Materials don't need to be heated so you can use the tools in this station to use them. The manual of how they work and some unexplained functions are in there as well. The anvil is self-explanatory. Now then, since everything is more or less explained. I will be creating the eye contact that you wanted as a demonstration," Alvar smiled as he took out some materials from his storage.
The first thing that Alvar did was to place two different metals into the forge, Cosmilite, and Shadowspec bars. Setting them as separate and letting them smelt. Afterward, Alvar made his way to the crafting station and took out a divine geode. Using the tools before him, he broke it open and gathered up the shards on the inside. He then slowly heated these shards together and treated them like glass as he formed a see-through lens.
Next, he used several Ruinous souls and fused them into the lens while he waited for the bars to go through the pipes. The lens started to slowly change into different colors continuously while maintaining its see-throughness. As the metal went through the pipes, Alvar placed the lens into a small stone cube the liquid Cosmilite fused into the lens, giving it a purplish glow.
After the Cosmilite stopped flowing, the dark and vile liquid known as shadowspec ran down into the cube on top of the lens. The entire cube is filled with a dark miasma that looks like it gets burnt as it trails upwards.
When the lens finished absorbing all the metal, it started looking dark in color as the same miasma started radiating from it, but less chaotic and more light in color. Alvar picked up the lens carefully with a tweezer placed it on the work
table and placed Nanotech on top of the lens, causing the miasma to engulf the orb into itself. The nanites started to fuse themselves into the lens and connect all the different properties of materials until it finally finished itself.
The lens turned into normal-looking eye contact. Alvar picked it up with a small tweezer and walked towards Hephaestus who looked extremely shocked with everything she just saw.
"You can pick this up with your hand and place it on your eye. It will automatically visually change it to be identical to your other one. It will also temporarily seal your divine eye's properties. Whenever you want to turn it back on you only need to consciously want it to go back on. It's the same with its visibility," he said as Hephaestus picked it up and placed it on his eye.
"... Wouldn't my eye focus on the lens instead?" She asked but was surprised that her eye didn't work on it at all.
"It's materials that I used so that it gets completely concealed from any divine abilities. They are the divine Geode which makes it like a house for the eye's abilities, then Cosmilite and shadowspec to conceal the eye, the Ruinous souls to enhance the Divine geode's ability, and the nanotech to connect them all and for it to 'listen' to the wearer and to partially fuse it to the user so that the divine eye sees it as part of the wearer. A few other reasons but that's the main reason," Alvar said as he saw Hephaestus playing around with the features, from flickering the flame inside her eye. The flame burning brighter or lighter, disappearing and becoming the same color as her other eye.
"...This is so interesting, I can dampen the effects or even increase it to a certain extent!" She mumbled while walking towards the workshop to look at all the tools that were used to create her eye contact.
"I noticed the lens started absorbing all the metals, is that a property of the geode?" She asked while looking at the cube and broken geode.
"Who knows?" Alvar shrugged.
"I guess you have to get to that stage to figure that out." Alvar chuckled at her deadpan.
"..." She sighed and said, "Fine, you win. Now I'll be borrowing this for-" Before she could continue, Alvar stopped her.
"I hope you remember that you still have a Familia to run and I still want to know how a falna works," Alvar said and smirked at Hephaestus begrudgingly walking away from the crafting station.
"First off, us deities are the ones that bless the adventurers with our blessing or grace, granting them a Falna. This then means that they joined our Familia. The Falna is created by dropping a bit of our blood onto their back and then using that as a medium to give them the blessing."
"The Falna unlocks their potential and gives them a status where when they fight creatures or do certain actions would give them excelia while fighting monsters. These excelia would increase their Basic Abilities which are Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, Agility, and Magic. All the basic abilities start at rank I and get increased depending on their excelia. The rankings are the following: 0-99 is I, 100-199 is H, 200-299 is G, 300-399 is F, 400-499 is E, 500-599 is D, 600-699 is C, 700-799 is B, 800-899 is A, and 900-999 is S."
"It's extremely difficult to max out all their stats since not everyone is an all-rounder, and it takes a very long time."
"Next up is to rank up to the next level. This brings in high-rank excelia, this excelia is gathered only by doing feats that would impress the deities. Like fighting monsters stronger or out of your league. Once this excelia is enough then they can rank up to level 2. When you rank up then all stats go back down to rank I, but the previous level's stats won't disappear and stay there. A rank-up is basically another layer to your strength."
"From Level 2 and above they have a chance to gain a development ability. Development abilities are characteristics specializing in a certain area, and very strong and useful. They also have ranks from I to S. Examples of development abilities are Blacksmith, Mage, and Abnormal Resistance to name a few."
"The last thing would be skills that can be gained regardless of level and magic which has a limit of 3 spells. I can't really get into magic so I'll only be talking about skills."
"Skills can correct and strengthen specific basic abilities, magic, and actions. The chance of discovering a skill is said to be rare, and skills with effects that no one else has are considered to be rare skills. They can be discovered during a rank-up or through other methods such as smithing."
"That's all I can tell you right now, I can't really get into magic because my familia aren't exploration-based, but all I know is that it is difficult to learn magic, and the more you learn the harder it gets. There are grimoires that give you magic and you can't have more than three."
