Vivi bathed in the feeling of relief for a few minutes longer, lying on the ground. The job was done. She'd completed the most complicated set of veins of her career yet. Looking at her project, Vivi couldn't believe she'd come up with such an insane design. Getting the dark mithril branches to extend from the core to the edges of the blade turned out to be far more difficult than she'd imagined.

Lucius was flying around the room with full energy. "We did it! Without one mistake!"

"There are mistakes," Vivi said. The veins were far from perfect. She's shaped most branches perfectly, but there were miniscule deviations here and there. Each mistake lost a slight amount of efficiency. Then she had that one catastrophic error. In theory, she had fixed that error by repeating it on the other side, but Vivi wasn't certain how the mistake would show itself in the finished sword.

"It's too early to celebrate," Vivi said. "Sometimes, runeswords just snap in half even if everything seemingly goes well. The process is unpredictable." She sat back up. "But I'm positive. I feel like this went well."

She untied the veins from the vise and cut off the dim ether root. The calm parts still remained. Vivi had to carve the runes and forge the sword, and every preparation step in between.

"Thank you, Eem," Vivi said. "We only got this far because of you."

The fiend was still watching from the side. Her face lit up. She ran over and hugged Vivi's leg.

"The smithy will only get hotter from here," Vivi said. "Can you handle it?"

Eem nodded, looking determined.

"Don't blame me if you pass out from the heat," Vivi said. "Forging is a hot process. Remember to drink water."

"What metal will we choose?" Lucius asked.

Vivi turned to the ingots the demons had provided. The selection was… Well, she had metals. A few more ingots of red hardsteel, some rainbow-colored ensium, and green mithril. They were all solid metals, but nothing about them was particularly impressive. Vivi's excitement dwindled the more she looked at them.

"These just don't fit the sword, do they?" Lucius said.

"You don't even know what these metals are, Lucius," Vivi said. "But you're right."

Lucius gave her a side-eye. "How will we get something better?"

Vivi thought about her options. She could postpone forging the sword to obtain a better metal on her own. But that would leave her at a risk of being scammed with no way to defend herself.

The demons had said Vivi could knock on the door if she needed something…

Vivi decided to try her luck. She hid the veins of her project in spatial storage, then pounded on the door a few times.

Ten seconds later, the door opened. The armored man stepped into the smithy. "Did you need something?" he asked.

"I'm ready to forge the sword now," Vivi said. "But, um…"

"Is there a problem?"

The armored man looked down at her with that creepy helmet. Vivi really didn't want to ask for anything from him. If she ran out of food, she would have postponed eating over asking for more.

"There's no problem," Vivi said. "I just thought these metals were unfitting for the sword I'm crafting. Do you have any other metals? Any high tier mithrils, adamantite, or something like that?"

"We're in Zand," the armored man said. "Metals like those are hard to come by. But I'll see what we can find. I will be back."

Vivi lowered her head. "Thank you."

*

Thirty minutes later, Ven arrived in the smithy carrying a small rack lined with ingots. His body was enhanced with ether just to carry the rack. He placed it down and said, "These are all the metals we're willing to offer."

Vivi studied her options. Ven had brought all of the commonly used metals Vivi saw all around Zand. Black asmite, and more mid to low tier mithrils. The most rare metal on display was high platinum, which, despite its high price and shiny surface, was not actually that much stronger than low-tier mithrils.

"Adamantite is nearly inaccessible in Zand," Ven said. "If adamantite is ever found in the mineshaft, the Stewards collect it. The same goes with all metals that cost more than a few hundred ether per ingot. Anything stronger is considered contraband."

Andre had crystal mithril, Vivi thought.

"This is all we have, then?" Vivi asked.

"We have venerium," Ven said. "That's one of the rare metals that the Stewards aren't very interested in. No blacksmith wants to work with it."

Vivi's head perked up. Venerium. The venomous metal that gave rashes to skin, even through gloves, just by touching it. And that was when the sword wasn't powered by runes. Venerium's raw strength and hardness was also on par with other high tier metals. It wasn't the strongest metal in existence, but some called it the deadliest.

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"Bring me the venerium," Vivi said.

Ven tilted his head, giving her a weird look. "Have you worked with venerium before?"

"A coating of ether around my skin should protect me from its effects."

Ven thought about it. "Very well. We have no other use for the metal. I don't know if I believe in your skills, but I expect results."

Vivi lowered her head. "You won't have to worry."

Although, I'll be using this for my own sword.

Ven left and came back fifteen minutes later to deliver the venerium ingots.

*

With the metals in her hands and the smithy back in silence, Vivi could move to the next step of the process. She told Lucius to heat the crucible furnace to twenty-one hundred kelvins. If she recalled correctly, that was roughly the melting point for venerium.

The ingots were purple with a rough surface. The metal looked rotten, like a plague. The ingots hadn't been polished to look pretty like every other ingot Ven had delivered. Whoever had worked with the venerium gave up mid-way through.

Vivi was nervous about the blacksmithing process. The metal glared at her from the corner of the room while she carved the runes into the veins. She was still shaken from the fact that she'd even gotten this far.

Carving runes didn't get more difficult with three-runed swords. Vivi just had more runes to carve. The process took longer, and it was just as labor intensive as usual, but the difficulty didn't come close to vein-shaping. A wrongly carved rune could still ruin Vivi's work, but she could take as much time as she wanted. After so many years of carving runes, Vivi rarely made mistakes.

The same went for blacksmithing. Blacksmithing was intense for the body, requiring all of Vivi's muscles, but its difficulty and intricacy wasn't as demanding as vein-shaping. The most exhausting job was saved for last, after an already difficult runesmithing spree.

With the runes carved and the venerium ingots melted, Vivi opened the lid to the crucible and dipped the veins into the molten venerium. The crucible looked like a witch's cauldron, filled with suspicious purple liquid. A creepy sizzle sounded when Vivi's veins made contact, combining with the hot metal.

She pushed a lot of ether through the runes on the hilt. If the veins didn't receive enough, they could melt along with the metal, or they wouldn't combine properly. The veins had a higher melting point than metal, but only when filled with ether.

After an hour of waiting for the metal to solidify, Vivi broke the crucible. The inside of the crucible had a purple tint to it, as if the molten venerium had poisoned the crucible itself.

Perhaps that should have been a warning that this perhaps wasn't such a good idea. But Vivi's best veins were inside the blob of venerium. She wasn't about to back down now. She picked up the heftiest gloves she could find. She didn't intend to touch the blade directly, but she'd heard stories of blacksmiths that died from venerium poisoning even while wearing full plate armor during the forging process.

Regardless, Vivi placed the metal into the forge and asked Lucius to fill her body with ether. She began hammering the metal into shape.

The first few minutes progressed normally. The metal responded to her swings just like any other heavyweight metal she'd worked with. As creepy as the venerium looked, Vivi couldn't feel anything weird about it.

Then her hammer started to turn purple.

Vivi felt a sting in her fingers. Something had gone through her gloves, into her fingers.

"Lucius, more ether!" Vivi called. "Protect the hammer and my hands. And push more ether to the veins. We need to keep them protected from the venom."

Lucius did as asked. The stinging feeling disappeared, and Vivi's hammer was coated with a slight layer of ether. The purple didn't disappear, but hopefully its spread would slow down.

"You should activate Shadow Swipe," Lucius said. "It will push more ether to your hands and the hammer."

"Good idea," Vivi said. She activated the skill, and her hammer was enshrouded in the cloud of ether. Vivi wasn't sure if the skill helped, but its shroud certainly made it harder to see what she was hitting. Her body was filled with ether as if she was fighting a boss.

"Are you feeling okay?" Lucius asked.

"I don't feel the sting anymore," Vivi said. She continued hitting.

Just focus on blacksmithing… Vivi told herself. The veins are inside. I'm not being poisoned. Everything is okay…

For the next ten minutes, Vivi didn't feel anything. The coating of ether worked. Though, Vivi would have to work quickly, and she had to be careful managing the strength of her swings. If she used too much ether, Lucius would run out before the sword was done. They'd already dimmed out five hundred wisps.

Lucius didn't seem concerned. He studied the process from the side.

"Won't the veins get squished inside when you smith the metal into a sword?" Lucius asked. He looked a lot more curious. He never used to pay attention to the blacksmithing process. Vivi had to admit, it was a good question.

"The veins do get squished, and their shape evolves as I swing, but only slightly," Vivi said. "When done correctly, the metal forms around the veins. Ether roots have a higher melting point than the metal. When placed into the forge, only the metal becomes soft, while the veins stay strong.

"Still, smithing a sword with the veins inside is more precise. I can't use folding techniques, and it's almost impossible to change the shape after the metal has formed. If I swing in the wrong angle, I'll have a harder time correcting the progress. I need to get the shape correct right away, and the shape needs to be symmetric. That's why I'm turning the sword around a lot."

Lucius listened curiously. "Well, I don't need to understand this part anyway. I just need to trust you to do a good job."

"You need to keep the forge at the right temperature," Vivi said.

"A simple job," Lucius said. He lay down above the forge in a loaf. The heat didn't seem to bother him. "Smith it well, Vivi."

She continued hitting, putting her all into her swings. The hammer resounded in the small smithy. The venerium blob started to look like a sword. The sharp edges formed.

Vivi's coating of ether was starting to lose its effect. Her hammer was turning purple again. The venerium rot had made it to the handle, quickly toward Vivi's gloves. Her fingers were stinging again, slowly losing sensation. She gritted her teeth and told Lucius to push more ether.

The ether didn't seem to help. She could barely feel her right hand. Her arm beneath the glove was subtly glowing.

The sword was almost done. Vivi just had to finalize the shape. She ignored the pain and the poison attempting to invade her body and listened to the rhythm of her hammer. If she didn't complete the sword now, the veins and the sword would solidify, and further adjustments would get difficult. She just had to focus for a few more minutes…

Focus on the rhythm… Listen to the…

Vivi heard something. A clashing sound. Not from her hammer hitting the metal, but from outside the door. Eem went on guard, staring at the door. She heard it too.

Lucius? What's that?

"I don't know," Lucius said. "I can sense ether outside. Something is happening in Ven's base. It sounds like blades clashing? I think there's a battle going on?"

Great, Vivi thought. Are they being attacked?

"Sounds like it," Lucius said calmly.

She continued hammering. The sword was almost done. Vivi already knew that this would be the most insane sword she'd ever crafted.

The door to the smithy opened. A figure in a cloak and a tall-headed black mask peeked into the smithy.

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