“Here we are.” Paulina said as we got out of the carriage. Alice wasn’t with us, so it was just me, her, Ria, Kay (Paulina’s personal maid) and our an.

  We were close to the easter wall of the city, in the knight barracks area. Specifically, the smithy they have for equipment repairs. And making some neons, even if most new swords are left for the professionals.

  The building was a bit smaller than I expected. I don’t know why, but I just thought that smithies were these huge buildings with an enormous fur its ter. But maybe that only goes for the ones in the mining cities, where they actually turn the ore into the metal or something. After all, the one inside my factory where Kotetsu works is actually quite pact.

  “Lady Paulina. I’ve been expeg you.” A knight was there waiting for us.

  Paulina had told me about him a bit on our way here. His name is Bryson and he is a logistics officer, in charge of on and armor maintenance.

  “Thank you. Did you prepare what I asked you to?”

  “Yes. The fe is lit and ready to be used.” He answered. “May I ask what you are pnning to use it for?”

  “Oh. I’m not the one using it. Brian here will.”

  “He? Well, if you say so.”

  “Don’t be too rude to him. Brian is a new uping noble. While he hasn’t been officially nominated, he is a new dungeon founder and will get his title eventually.”

  “Ah. I see. My apologies.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s fine.” I casually responded.

  “... thank you. This lease.”

  “Sorry to say this, but I must be off.” Paulina interrupted as we were about to enter.

  “My dy?” The knight seemed to ask.

  “Just let Brian do as he wishes. He also use any materials ie. Just help him in any way he asks.” Paulina said before returning to her carriage.

  “... well, that happened. So, we go in?” I asked the knight.

  “.. y-Yes, Sir.” He said as he opehe door for me.

  “... and he is back to being stiff again.” I muttered.

  “And here is our storehouse.” Bryson said. He had given us a quick tour of everything and this was the final pce. He had gotten a bit more fortable with speaking with me during that time.

  “Thanks. I guess nothing more to it than to call my smith.” I said as I pulled open my colle and got out a monster. “Iron Bcksmith Kotetsu.” I had already warned Bryson, so he didn’t reauch.

  Spoiler

  [colpse]

  Like st time, he appeared with his hammer and anvil, ready to work.

  “Master. I see that you have secured a good pce for us.”

  “Yeah. Check the materials we need for the blood iron a’s get to work. We don’t have all day. Literally. It is already the afternoon.”

  “Of course. Did you secure the blood we need for that?”

  “Laura said she had something for that.”

  “I see. Then you’d better call a vampire here as well. I’ll check the iron we will use.” Kotetsu said as he began cheg the iron ingots on the shelves.

  He also went through the scrapped materials in the scrap barrels and collected some amount of everything for us to use, pg it all on a work cart, so we could wheel it to the furnace.

  Meanwhile, I got out the vampire that reehat I summon, and summoned him.

  “Vampire Voivode.”

  Spoiler

  [colpse]Now with him here as well, I just he blood.

  (Repeat that, please.)

  (We will use Mystik Wok to make the blood of Tyrant Dragon into a meal. It isn’t that plicated.)

  Spoiler[colpse](... yeah, but how? Since when has that been possible?)

  (Always. We just never did that, as humans don’t really drink blood.)

  (But we know aire vilge of people that do. Not to mention Ria. Why not use that to get blood for them?)

  (And that is a part of why we didn’t do it before hand. You don’t drink blood, Rhianna does. And now that she has Card Summoner, we don’t have to worry about using single use cards.)

  (And why do we have to use dragon blood?)

  (It has the best qualities of any blood avaible. It will make the highest quality blood iron. Holy, I would like to use the blood of Blue-Eyes White Dragons, but I know how you feel about them, so I believe that Tyrant Dragon is a det alternative.)

  (... fine. But ime, you tell me when you realize these kinds of features.)

  (I’ll try my best. But please do realize that your colle holds 1332 unique cards. Even I don’t know everything they and ot do.)

  Yeah. I guess she wouldn’t.

  I left Kotetsu with Bryson to wheel the materials to where we will use them, a outside with Voivode and Ria.

  “Ria, I need you to activate this card.” I said as I handed Ria the two cards.

  “Mystik Wok. Make me a blood drink with the blood of Tyrant Dragon.” Ria said to activate the card. This specific w arently helpful for the success of the operation. Kind of like a magic t is helpful for a successful casting of a spell.

  The massive body of Tyrant Dragon appeared for a sed, before it was cut in a few pces by a giant cleaver. Then the parts were positioned in a way where the blood would gush out of the corpse.

  Vampire Voivode, for his part, was catg every single drop and guiding them to a magic fsk that I had gotten out from my iory. Thank god I made a few of them when we visited the dungeon.

  “... wow. This stuff is so good.” Ria said. She had ‘stolen’ a bit of the blood while we were doing this and had immediately drank it.

  “Well, it is dragon blood, so I guess that is to be expected. I let you have those cards.”

  “Would you? Really?”

  “Yeah. It's just two cards. Well, the dragon is a bit much for now, so that might be something I take back between uses. Maybe we should go out and have you fight with the monsters and prove that you trol the dragon.”

  After the dragon was pletely drained of blood, its corpse disappeared into specks of light. I theurhe two grayed out cards into the colle. Sorry Tyrant Dragon, but at least you will be baorrow. Or perhaps Laura will just Monster Reborn you. I have enough copies of Monster Reborn where I waste one on that.

  We went back to the fe with the blood and Kotetsu had everything ready to go there.

  Voivode walked up to him and said they were ready to start, so the first ingot went into the fire.

  “Here. You should put these on.” Bryson offered both me and Ria a pair of furry earmuffs. They were made of some kind of monster wool and then ented in a way where they would stop most sound, except talking. Quite useful, when you work in loud enviros.

  “Thanks.” I said as I received them and put them on. Ria also put hers on.

  We watched as my two monsters got to work. Well, Kotetsu was doing most of it, while Voivode just added some of the blood iron into the ingots, as Kotetsu fed them out into longer bars, before folding them over onto themselves. I even ended up summoning ahree Kotetsu, just to make the f go faster. And in case you were w about their anvils, need I remind you that my monsters put their ons baside their cards when they don’t hem? Yes. That includes the anvil Kotetsu es with, so the extra anvils were returo the cards.

  “Sir, may I ask a question?” Bryson asked as we were looking over them.

  “That already is a question, but I’ll assume you meant another one besides that. Go for it.” That is probably my new go to response when someone asks me for my permission to ask questions. You always ask, but you might not get an answer.

  “What kind of summoning magic allows for oo call upon a smith and a vampire?”

  “... the one I use, I guess. What kind of summoning magic allows someoo call upon spirit tigers or heavenly dragons?” I asked back, referring to two categories of monsters I’ve heard you summon with this world’s summoning magic.

  “I … I guess so. I’ve just never heard of humanoid summons like that.”

  “Well, first time for everything.”

  “What are they even making? They seem to just be folding that piece over and over. What is their goal?”

  “To make blood iron.” I answered.

  “Blood iron? Really? They do that?”

  “You know of it?”

  “Of course I do. It is said to be on par with high quality steel. I’ve heard of smiths that are willing to sacrifice their safety and live in a dhampir vilge for the ake some.”

  “... that’s something. I guess if they get the skill Agatha has…”

  Now I just wonder, is blood iron really that worthwhile? For a human, I mean. Or a dwarf. For a dhampir, sure. But a dhampir could theoretically make it themself, as long as said dhampir knows how te steel.

  “Ria. e over here. We shall now turn this blood iron into gaus for you.” Vampire Voivode called on Ria.

  I was actually the one w why a metal that be trolled with magic has to be formed, so I asked about it. And the ahat I got was.

  “Blood iron has what is called a ‘default state’. This state is made during the f process and the metal wants to return to it, while not actively under blood magitrol. It is better for us to make something that be used as is, without having to trol it with blood magic.” Voivode expined.

  I guess that makes sense. So if you make a dagger, it wants to be a dagger, but you temporarily alter it into a whip. But after you let it be, it will go back to being a dagger.

  With Ria o the anvil, the quartet of smiths got to work, f the two ingots they had into gaus for Ria. I was a bit worried about how they were going to size the things, but Voivode used the blood we had as an insutor wheried the gaus for size, so Ria didn’t get burned. It still looks wrong, but if it works, it works.

  When the gaus were in a form that the smiths, the overseer vampire and the t Ria all approved of, they heated it on st time, before Voivode covered them in a thicker coating of blood to set the final form of the blood iron.

  As we had a bit more time, and materials, the smiths and Voivode got back to work, making anot. This time, they were actually using scrapped pieces of old swords and armor. Not because it was better, but well it kind of was. The ingots were mostly iron or low quality steel, but some of the scrapped pieces were high quality steel. And they would need high quality steel as a base if they attempted to make vampiric steel.

  So my smiths broke the pieces into even smaller pieces, stacked them up in a way where they would stay together, using some sort of magic to ‘weld’ the pieces together a bit. Then into the fire the bundle went.

  They spent a good time carefully trying t the pieces together and when the quartet was satisfied, they once again began the process of folding the steel and adding blood iween the folds.

  “Here you go, Master.” Voivode handed me the finished ingot. It wasn’t a ready to go bde or anything, as we had ran out of time, but we could just keep it as an ingot till we had a use for it. “I’m sorry to say, but it isn’t quite up to the quality we'd like to get.”

  “No. This is fine. Even if it is lower quality, you mao make some vampiric steel and that is impressive.” I plimented.

  Yes. They had in fact mao make a vampiric steel ingot. Sure they say it is low quality, but at the same time, it's vampiric steel. A metal more or less on the level of mithril. And they made some, with a produ cost of basically zero, as they just used some scrapped pieces of steel and some blood I got for free.

  “So, how much do I owe for usage fee and the materials?” I asked Bryson.

  “There is no usage fee. The material cost is two gold per ingot, so fold in total.”

  “What about the scraps we used?”

  “They are just that, scraps. You don’t have to pay for them. Normally, we would send them to Yuva, where they are remade into ingots, so you actually saved us the trouble.”

  “Well, if you say so.” I said as I paid the fold for the ingots.

  “So Ria, what do you think? Do you like them?”

  “Yes. I do want to test them out in an actual battle though.” She responded. She hadn’t taken off her gaus sihey were ready. I guess she was like a little kid with a oy.

  They weren’t your cssiight gaus, which cover your entire hand and are desigo protect the wearer, but more like brass knuckles whily cover the outside of your fist and some of your forearm. It had quite well refined knuckles, so you could punch things hard. And, of course, Ria could, once she learned how to, transform it into something else as well. Maybe I should tell her about Wolverine’s cws.

  “Well, we are heading to the vilge again tomorrow, so I summon you something there. Or we go out and find a natural monster, if you prefer that.”

  “Either will be fine.”

  We took it somewhat easy for the rest of the day. Well, some magic practice was in for both of us again, but other than that, yeah.

  For Ria, it ractig using her new gaus. Not like pung with them, but trolling them with blood magic. I summoned Vampire Scarlet Sce to be her teacher for that. Maybe I should give a feires for Ria as well. Maybe Scarlet Sce and Grimson.

  Spoiler

  [colpse]

  For me, it ace magi the factory. Once again, with the entire family.

  Tahlia was really showing us off, again. Other than the apport spell, which she already ma time, she also mao use a spell that makes a wall on trated space. Basically, a barrier using space magic.

  I actually found that spell a lot easier than apport, maybe because I actually see a practical purpose for it, so I moved on to practice it instead. By the end of the session, I was able to cast a ace magic barrier.

  Great. Step one, done. Now I just o do it with the mana of this world ahe skill. Then I use my cheats the rest of the way.

  And as the evening came, so came my time to write in a diary. Ria’s diary. Everything is still fine. I also got a letter from Christina, asking when we would e over and tellihat, while not officially opened, some adventurer’s (lower ranked ones) would be allowed to test the dungeon, uhe supervision of one of the Diamond Sword members. I promised Christina we would go visit her the day after tomorrow, or one day ter if something more important came up. After all, tomorroill go to deliver the blood, so ’t do it tomorrow.

  And our Level Ups. I did level up Ria today, as she seemed fully over her siess. Hopefully she won’t get another one.

  I myself am still on that Irind. Just two more days to go. For Ria, Vampiriodification. It is her new skill and it does seem extremely useful. But then again, all of her skills seem quite useful. She just has a great set of skills. I really need some better stuff myself. Ria will out do me otherwise.

  SpoilerName: Brian WoodRace: Human !Level: 62HP: 2110Mana: 265th: 445Defense: 645Magic: 565 Skills: Pack Opener LV.4 (unique)Different Dimension Factory LV.2 (unique) Telekinesis LV.2 (extra)Summoner’s Unity LV.3 (extra)Iory LV.8 (extra)Dungeon Founder (extra)Summon Water Spirit (extra)Health scious (extra) Mana trol LV.5 Water Spirit’s Blessing (Greater)Language prehension (humanoid)Sve MasterSves: Rhianna

  [colpse]SpoilerName: RhiannaRace: DhampirLevel: 52HP: 1510Mana: 167th: 870Defense: 580Magic: 780 Skills:True Blood Magic LV.4 (Racial)Vampiriodification LV.2 (Racial) Card Summoner LV.1 (extra) Fire Magic LV.3Mana trol LV.3Fast Mana Recovery LV.4Internal Magic Teique LV.5Unarmed bat Teique LV.4Flickering Step LV.2Power Boost LV.4Defense Boost LV.2 Blood Sucker (Racial)Sve. Master: Brian Wood[colpse]

  Anyway. That is all for today. Good night.

  nro_8