Even More Metal

Fri Jan 29, 2021 9:45 pm

Spoiler:

Kouma had been visiting a particular black smith every day for at least a week now, helping the middle aged man that was working there with various thing around the shop. After that, he would frequently visit another shop that was close that would sell nick knacks and puppet mechanisms, and while that was very niche in this kind of village, there was probably a shop like this in every village. He would visit because it was fairly rare to find such a young puppet user among the village, and the old man that made the puppet mechanisms would allow Kouma to come in and study them, for a small price, and it was the high light of Kouma's day, if he was being honest. He loved working the forge, and it was also making him quite a bit stronger, but he would only get fully engrossed in the mechanisms of puppets, at least out of the two activities he was doing. It was really fun and rewarding,. if a bit tiring at time, but he was also getting used to the hard labor and the skilled labor right after that, and so he was expanding what he could do as a ninja, and as a tinkerer. Today was simply another day that he would head to the black smiths shop and work with them to melt out the impurities of the metals again. This was a sort of cycle that would happen once every week or so for the black smith, at the first point in this cycle, they would simply stock pile the purified bars that were created when they smelted it and got the impurities out, and after that, the black smith would go and make tools out of them, schedule and take commissions from the village itself and the villagers for various things, and then sell other random things in the shops store front, which was different than the area that they used to actually do the work, which was outside under a patio and awning type hanging structure, this would allow proper ventilation when doing the smelting, which would give off fairly poisonous smoke that would be dangerous if they were not in a well ventilated area. As Kouma started to head down the main street to go and start his work, he noticed quite a few people outside the front of the shop, when he finally got there, and he wondered what exactly they were all doing there, as usually the black smith would not have such a large crowd. He could be considered a regular at this black smith shop now, and could also be considered half of a worker there, and so when he went up and started to push passed people, they did not mind and simply let him passed them when he was recognized.

He made his way to the front of the large crowd, before looking at the shop that he was very familiar with. Today, it seemed some sort of dignitary or something was visiting, and he had quite the entourage with him, which mostly consisted of these strange armored warriors with long katanas at their waists. They were wearing armor that completely covered their bodies and their heads, and the helmets of the armor cut quite a figure when one looked at them, as they were large shogun type helmets with gas masks, horns, and red lenses that covered their eyes. These people seemed to be making a small perimeter around the black smith shop, and so Kouma did not really push his way towards the shop, and simply waited in front of the crowd as they were talking. He did not forget to take a good look at these large people in their full armor, as he was especially interested in the gas masks of these people, and whatever the red lenses were, as they seemed to be made out of a specially designed glass that had some sort of purpose to these people looking through them, as he could not really imagine looking through a red lens the entire day for some reason other than one that would be of some use to him. They were also obviously body guards for whoever this person was, and after looking at an armored man up and down, he looked at the old man that was talking to the middle aged shop keeper. Kouma could not quite figure out what they were talking about, especially not with the constant murmuring of the crowd behind him, but he was essentially just looking at this old man that was talking with Seijin, which was the name of the middle aged black smith that he had been working for this entire week. It was actually fairly difficult to get this middle aged man to open up to people, and the people around here would just call him shop owner, and not actually have the gall or the guts to call him by his name. It was always strange for Kouma when he was talking and interacting with the middle aged man, as he never really knew that this middle aged man had some sort of reputation among the villagers, that seemed to make them warry and respectful to him.

Kouma was sure that the middle aged man was good at his job, but he did not see anything in the store of shop area that would actually warrant some profound reputation that would cause him to be somewhat feared by the villagers, but this might be something that he had missed, as it seemed that the old man was specifically coming here to commission something from the middle aged man, and the large amount of bodyguards and escorts were definitely drawing a crowd. Kouma simply waited, and in a little while, the old man seemed to shake the middle aged man’s hand before calling his guards to leave. The guards seemed menacing, but Kouma gave them a smile when they seemed to look down at him while they left, and they simply walked away. Kouma hoped that even if they had to wear that large intimidating armor, that he had least gave them a good warm feeling when they were leaving. Kouma then immediately walked over to the middle aged man Seiji, and reported for duty. He was not one to pry into other peoples business, so he said nothing about the old man and simply asked his current boss what the tasks for today were, and if they were the same as the last time, which was simply smelting and purifying a bit more metal. Seiji nodded to Kouma, before chiding him for being late, to which Kouma overreacted and tried to explain himself to his boss, before his boss simply chuckled a bit and told him to hurry to the forge, cutting off whatever other excuses or reasoning that Kouma could muster, and so Kouma simply nodded with a smile and headed over to the large brick forge.

Kouma then swiftly got to work, and he had done this a couple of times now, and he was getting pretty good and efficient at it, and so he got to work immediately. He could now tell the difference between the ores, and could tell the aluminum apart from the silver and the nickel, as they were very similar in color of the ore stuck in the rocks and other refuse. He then immediately went over to a large platform, and now the job was to break up the ore into smaller chunks before placing the chunks in some sort of rock tumbler that ground the remaining rock into powder, leaving only the chunks of metal behind. So as he walked over carrying a large chunk of rock, he placed it on a large metal disc on the ground and walked over to the tool shelf to get a sledge hammer. This large hammer would be able to use great inertia to break the rock into smaller chunks that would make it easier for the tumbling machine to brek it down further. With a large swing, Kouma smashed down on the rock ore with his sledge hammer and instantly formed a large crack in the rock. One more good swing, and the rock split into two halves, starting from the already large crack. This was not the end, however, as Kouma would then proceed to hit the rock four more times, each time breaking the pieces into smaller and smaller chunks. When he first started doing this part of the smelting process, his body was really weak, and he could barely lift the hammer above his head to actually swing it onto the rock, but now he had gotten a bit stronger. It also took him many swings to actually break the rock initially, and now it only took two, so he was showing steady and constant progress when it came to these things.

After that, he got a much needed rest, as all he had to do was place the rock chunks and the pieces that he swept up into a circular tumbling machine, that used another mechanism to slowly turn it with large, bumpy sides that slowly ground the rocks down into powder, leaving the slightly harder metal. Kouma was off to the side stretching his arms, when Seiji walked over and gave Kouma a bottle of water, which Kouma appreciated. He then told Kouma that for the next week or so, he could come and observe, but he would not be working in the shop, as he was going to make something very special for the person that just showed up, and that he would be far too busy to oversee what he was doing, so he would not allow him to touch any of the dangerous materials like the forge. Kouma nodded, and it would be great if the next time he saw the middle aged man, he would be working on something worthy of a large power like the old man coming here and requesting the design to be made personally. Kouma would love to learn something from this, and it seemed pretty amazing. After the talk and the break, the tumbling machine was done, and Kouma emptied out the powered rock and placed it in a bag, which would be used by the farmers for some sort of agricultural use that Kouma did not know about. Kouma then proceeded to smelt the metal down into liquid using the forge, constantly blowing the bellows with his feet, alternating. This was essentially a full body work out for Kouma when he came here, working out his core constantly, his arms from the hammer, and his legs from the bellows. All the while sweating from the heat of the forge and the liquid metal.

Kouma then wiped off the slag that was on top, and waited for the aluminum to solidify while taking another small break, but also watching the bar of aluminum solidify. He could tell now from a look if the aluminum was pure or not when it cooled, as the bits of slag or other refuse would be a darker shape of red hot when it cooled. After that, he simply bid the show owner farewell before heading home, excited about next week and his ability to watch a master work.

EXIT
WC:1896
Claiming 1875 words towards Chakra Enhanced Strength A rank (2500 with 25% discount)
Claiming 2100 ryo from mission and genin
Claiming 10 ap from mission
Claiming 1 Aluminum

Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:05 am

~~Ah, there seems to be a problem. The technique you are trying to claim is beyond your reach. You must have the Medical Spec to learn B rank or higher jutsu in that field.~~

My apologies. I didn't know your clan specialty was Medical. Approved

Even More Metal

Even More Metal

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