First, wisely prioritizing safety, the Smith topped up the magic power in the ward around his camp, then checked the wards around the exit to the old iron mine. It turned out they had plenty of magic power remaining, but the Smith topped them up all the same. Now he knew they would last at least a few days without needing a recharge.

Next, the Smith took the magic bag and hobbled painfully over to the monster corpse, leaving bloody footprints as he went. He wanted nothing more than to clean his feet and let them heal, but was worried he wouldn't have time to leisurely wait for them to heal, and he lacked bandages anyway. He waved his hand over the monster corpse and willed it into the magic bag.

Nothing happened.

After some experimentation with nearby stones, the magic bag wasn't broken, but James couldn't put the monster's corpse into the magic bag, and he didn't understand why not. Perhaps the bag was full? James' view on magic rapidly shifted from "wondrous" to "frustratingly arbitrary."

After much time and effort, the details of which are lost to history, James managed to relocate the several hundred pound heavy monster corpse from where he had killed it to his camp. Whereupon he promptly realized he didn't even have a knife to start cutting into the monster.

A short time later, James had produced a knife, found a suitable whetstone, sharpened it, and was ready to disassemble the monster. Please, dear reader, keep in mind that James had two classes that had nothing to do with butchering or monster disassembly or anything of the sort, and imagine how bad that would go for anyone else.

It was roughly that bad.

It was messy.

The flesh that James thought might be edible was piled up on a flat stone, of which James now had as many as he could want. Why, you might ask? Because the monster's claws cut through dirt and stone like a hot knife through cold butter. Thankfully, they were much less effective on iron, so James stored them in an iron box he crafted, and then they went into the magic bag no problem! Rolling his eyes, James turned toward the hide, which he had managed to get off the monster as intact as he could, which is to say hardly at all. He cleaned off the gore and viscera as best he could and then let it dry for a time, but was unsure as to how to treat it, not being a tanner, until he remembered that smoking meat could preserve it, so why not monster hide?

James spent some time creating a smoker large enough for the pieces of monster hide he had, plus some room for the pile of meat. Not knowing anything about smoking meat, he tossed some coal into the bottom, lit it, and called it good.

With the smoker running, James roasted a small portion of the meat over an open fire and tried it. It was so tough his jaw felt sore after trying to chew it, and the flavor was awful, extremely gamy and even bloody tasting. He spat it into the fire. He nearly gave up entirely on the meat in the smoker until he thought to check how much dried meat he had left. Not as much as he'd have liked, considering he had been in the cavern for perhaps a week at this point.

He resolved to keep the dried meat for special occasions and eat more bread and oats.

Once the meat was smoked, it was able to go into the magic bag. Same for the smoked monster hide. It was stiff and it stank something fierce, but it was enough to fashion some crude moccasins for his feet. The problem was, as was becoming a pattern, James was no Tailor.

Experimenting, James crafted some short, thin nails with a broad, flat head and in a fit of pique, just hammered the pieces of leather together.

The nails just slid back out.

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He brought the two pieces of monster leather up close to his face, focused intently on the nail poking through both, focused so intently he didn't even register the foul stench of coal smoke and poorly preserved monster hide.

Poke the nail up through the leather. Tip of the nail goes past the second layer of monster hide. Let go of the nail. Gravity pulls it right back out.

The Smith had a flash of inspiration-

[Synergy] Skill [Design] has reached level 3.

He tapped the sharp end of the nail with his smallest hammer, bending it over to the side, forming a small hook that prevented it from falling out.

[Smith] Class Skill [Joinery] acquired.

[Smith] Class Skill [Forging] has reached level 4.

The Smith held up the now joined two pieces of leather and wiggled them. They remained joined, even as one piece of leather rotated around the nail.

[Appraisal]: Rivet, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 1/1

The Smith had just figured out rivets.

That accomplished, the Smith crafted some moccasins for his feet using a questionably large number of his newly fashioned rivets.

Suddenly, James' head jerked up, having just put on his new moccasins over his freshly washed scraped up feet. He hadn't checked the cavern for monsters in who knows how long.

The gloomy cavern was still, the ever present soft breeze continuing to flow.

Breathing a sigh of relief, James looked over the rest of the monster corpse, now just the skeleton and a pile of unsorted organs. He decided to leave it for the moment, and focus on perhaps the most important thing he needed to do now that he could walk and move around without hurting his feet too much. He needed to get mining.

He picked up the magic bag and walked over to the warding stakes protecting the exit to the iron mine. He safely deactivated the ward then collected the stakes. Looking around (all clear), he then moved to the largest green iron ore vein he had seen in the cavern, about three quarters of the length of the cavern away. Looking around again, ready to run if any more monsters showed up (they didn't), he activated the wards. Breathing a sigh of relief, he turned to the cavern wall.

Although green iron ore was the least common type of ore in the cavern, that didn't mean there still wasn't an objectively large amount of the ore, especially compared to the old iron mine. The vein here would probably be enough to entirely reforge his suit of armor, if not also his shield. The Smith pulled out his pick-axe.

Pick. Pick. Pick. Pickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpick.

He got into a rhythm and before he knew it, he had completely mined out the vein of ore. Littered around his feet were piles and piles of the stuff. He looked around for monsters and spotting none, stored all the ore in his magic bag.

Then he picked up the warding stakes and moved to the next vein of green iron ore.

Pickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpickpick.

In this way he moved through the entire cavern and mined out all the green iron ore he could reach at ground level. The entire project took mere hours, much less time than James had spent dealing with the monster corpse and crafting his moccasins.

While James was waiting for the smelter to warm up, to turn all his green iron ore into proper green iron ingots, he idly sorted through the mole monster organs, having quickly determined that he had no idea what he could use the bones for (and they refused to go in the magic bag, too). As he shifted them over, he found the monster's heart, in which was embedded a brown crystal about an inch across in size. Excited, he picked it up. Enchanting!

Mentally reviewing the enchantment templates he had memorized what felt like a lifetime ago, he considered what he could do with the Earth enchantments [Earth Resistance] and [Heavy Blow]. And, continuing in that vein, given that he had a white magic crystal as well and probably more with all the glowshrooms around, what he could do with [Glow] and [Reflect]. The Smith quickly realized that he didn't have enough magic crystals to do all the enchantments, and he would need to prioritize.

In fact, although he wanted to reforge his armor, especially so since he had some good ideas for the design, at least better than the primitive hook and loop system he had used before, the Smith realized that he was putting the cart before the horse. He still hadn't fixed his war hammer. And although he wanted to improve his armor, in a pinch he could use it as is and merely repair the pauldron and armored skirt.

Belatedly, he checked the cavern again. All clear. Breeze still blowing, check.

The Smith's priorities crystallized. First, a new warhammer, and if possible, enchanted with [Heavy Blow]. Then, forging new armor with [Earth Resistance] if he had any leftover enchanting material. Finally, a slightly smaller tower shield. He was initially unsure whether to use the [Glow] or [Reflect] enchantment before deciding to go with [Reflect]. The cavern was dim, but by this point James' eyes had gotten used to it. If his shield was a light source, it might just end up dazzling him in the middle of a fight. But this was the lowest priority for James, since his first tower shield was still in perfectly usable condition, and likely would be for a long time given how durable he had forged it.

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