Clank
Clank
I wipe my for head with the back of my hand after putting the piece of iron I have been hammering back into the furnace to be heated up again.
As I do I think back on the time I've spent here in the undercity of Zaun. It had been a hell of a time waking up from a massive bender in a body 10 year younger than I was, it was even worse when I realised that I wasn't in my universe anymore when I discovered where exactly I was.
The only form of relief I managed to find is that I want put here with nothing and instead had received someing more than enough to survive.
The inspired inventor.
The ability to put charges gained once a week (5) into any form of possible knowledge (excluding straight up magic) and received at bare minimum a collage grade understanding with only a single charge while also allowing for charges to stack increasing understanding and even the mixing of totally different tech bases.
When I discovered that I had this ability the first thing I did was put three charges in self defence and two in purification because I wasn't sure if this body was an inhabitant of Zaun and if it wasn't than it was in no way ready for the level of toxins in even just the air.
I pull the iron out of the furnace and inspect it to make sure I had heated in properly and nodding when I was sure I had before laying it on the anvil and starting to hammer into into shape.
That first week was a difficult start but I was glad I had it because it helped me decide what I wanted to do, I wanted to help people. I didn't care for power, world domination or anything like that I saw how hard the people of my new city had it and I wanted to help them, not by pulling a batman and beating up the homeless but by pulling a Bruce Wayne and creating infrastructure that could aid those in need.
When I noticed that my iron had started to cool a bit too much I placed it back in the furnace to heat back up.
The next set of charges I got when into a very specific knowledge base, other than two that I put in food production and recycling I put all the others into clockwork machinery, specifically the technology from the anime clockwork world.
While some world's may have better technology or even easier to make technology the thing I was looking for in that tech base was the Y series automatons like RyuZU for their human looking body's along with the imaginary gear they hold.
With the clockwork world charge along with the recycling charge I managed to reuse a lot of thrown away things to repurpose and sell, mainly I created toys and other nicknacks like clocks and alarms.
But I also made sure to use the best recycled parts to start creating a guard for my new home, I knew I didn't have the parts good enough or small enough to recreate even the simplest Y series so instead I used the clockwork technology to make a Colchis bull that will stalk the area around where I live, making sure it doesn't just hang around where I live so people don't connect us.
I use my tongs to pull the iron out of the forge and check it over for any defects before nodding and laying it on the anvil to start hammering it again.
The third week I used two charges to get a master doctors skill in general medicine, two more charges to both infrastructure and aid services management and the final charge I put into mechanical engineering.
I used the medical knowledge to help those I found in need of it who could otherwise not be able to get help themselves even going so far as it place medical tools inside the chest of the Colchis bull to use of there are any true emergencys.
The infrastructure and aid management helped me finally use the food production charges to manage what I originally made as a homeless shelter. But because of the general distrust of the people of Zaun I instead traded food and clean water for any scrap or clockwork items they brought me, no matter if I could use it or not.
The mechanical engineering was really only to be a general boost to my knowledge but It had the unexpected benifit of giving me knowledge of everything from the expected knowledge of how mechines I expect but also the knowledge of how to build prosthetics even if only just.
The combination of clockwork tech combined with my new knowledge of prosthetics allowed me to create actual working limbs that move realistically, sadly I wasn't able to get feeling or actual nerve conduction.
I hammer the iron that is slowly taking the shape of a simple knife a final time before placing it back into the furnace to reheat.
The fourth week was when I ran into some actual trouble and by that I mean somebody tried to mess with the homeless shelter I made, they came in with all manner of weapons intending to take as much of the food they could carry, seemingly to lazy to gather the scrap to trade for it.
Needless to say the arrival of what people had thought of as a growing myth in the form of the Colchis bull seemed to diswayed them from that action in the hopes the bull wouldn't maul them. When I had completed the bull I didn't want it to just sit idle while I worked so I had used the logic system from the Y series (if a much simpler, only to the level of a guard dog) to give the bull a mind.
After the ruffians had left and I had patted the bull on the snout letting it go back it its patrol I had been bagered by a child about what that was until I had got so fed up I just made up a lie on the spot.
"That was the Colchis bull, a mechanical bull made by the god of the forge Hephaestus to guard his home. Unfortunately the bull managed to get lost somehow and ended up in the deepest parts of the scrapyard stripped of most of its parts" I then explained that I had aided the bull by replacing its parts even if they were suppar.
"Now he wonders this area hoping for its patron to find it but in the meantime he keeps the peace" the child had stars in their eyes when I was finished so I (unable to resist the smile of children) reached under my counter and grabbed a toy I modelled after the bull.
"I was keeping this to see if I could one day recreate the work of Hephaestu. But I expect you to enjoy this much more than I would" I pass the child the bull figure and hold out my hand to them.
"Not for free of cause gimme your gear" I say as I point to the actually good condition gear the child has as an ornament of their hat.
I had used the payment as a way to actually get the child to keep the toy because from the way their face seemed to scrunch up in distrust from me just offering them the toy they probably wouldn't of taken it.
I take the now properly shaped knife out of the furnace and dunk it in the oil I had prepared before hand for quenching before removing it and inspecting my new knife.
As I look over the knife I smile as I enjoy what I see, "just as I expected, absolute trash" see I had made sure to not grab a charge in blacksmithing because I wanted to have at least one skill that I myself had learnt wholly by myself without the aid of inspired inventor so I had picked a skill that was unlikely to be actually used in this world of magic and technology.