The Smith, growing more comfortable with fighting the mole monsters, carefully stepped away from the carcass on the cavern floor as this new monster approached. This time, however, he wanted to test out the [Reflect] enchantment. He poured mana into his shield and felt the enchantment activate, just like [Heavy Blow] had. Like before he set up and thrust the shield to meet the mole monster's tackle, and this time was even easier than the last. The monster bounced off his shield slightly and hesitated, seemingly stunned. James realized this only at the last second, because acting almost faster than he could think, the moment the monster had come to a stop he had activated [Hammer Strike] and [Heavy Blow], using a powerful overhead swing to pound the flat face of his war hammer into the monster.

BOOM

With another loud sound, the blow connected with the monster's head, which first deformed around the face of the hammer before being pushed into the ground, where the follow-through of the hammer strike met the ground and the entire head exploded in all directions, and a small crater formed in the ground as the hammer continued through the monster's skull and into the packed earth and rocks.

Monster flesh and bone fragments clattered against the Smith's shield and greaves.

James paused for only the barest fraction of a second to take this in before he noticed the corpse twitch, and immediately he drew up for a second strike, aiming for the left shoulder as the left limb with its razor sharp claws was closest to him. Another [Hammer Strike], this time without [Heavy Blow], crushed the left shoulder, pulverizing the bones and smashing the soft tissues.

Again, another blow, this time towards the spine. The other three limbs were still spasming, the monster unaware it was dead.

With this final strike, the monster stopped moving. Hind legs stopped scrabbling against the ground, right foreleg stopped twitching. All that was left was a steadily growing pool of blood pouring from the mangled mess of the monster's neck into the shallow crater his enchantment boosted strike had created.

The Smith stood once again and took a defensive stance, scanning around the cavern.

This time, it was truly empty. Peace had returned to the cavern.

With that realization, the Smith became aware of his heavy breathing and sweat covered body. In the heat of battle he hadn't noticed; now he panted for breath and fatigue swept over him.

But first, collecting the spoils.

The first thing he did was drain the blood, as much as he was able.

[Material Identification: Monster Blood (Earth Essence)]

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When he looked closely at the pooled blood, he could see that it was teeming with brown swirls of earth essence. He recalled the tremendous effort it had taken to enchant his war hammer with even only the slightest swirls of earth essence interfering. No thank you. The essence could stay here, far away from his forge.

Once the monster carcasses were drained of blood, they were much lighter, and so he was able to drag them inside his ward. After a short rest, and with great caution, he dismantled the ward and reset the stakes to form two separate wards, as before: one ward around his camp and worksite, and another ward around the exit to the old iron mine.

Reinstating the wards required hardly more magical energy than he had recovered from dismantling them, but he still paused a moment to reflect on the battles he had just fought and won.

[Heavy Blow] was amazing! James only wished that he knew what the theoretical maximum for the enchantment was, because either it was really high, or his enchantment was really strong. Either way, using [Heavy Blow], he was strong enough to kill them in one solid strike.

[Appraisal: Earth War Hammer, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 15/15, Enchantment: Heavy Blow (10)]

Interestingly, the durability of the hammer hadn't been affected at all. But now James pondered what the "(10)" meant. It hadn't gone down despite using the enchantment twice. And when he had used the enchantment he had poured mana in, and then during the strike all that mana was expended. It wasn't like the wards, where the stakes stored magical energy and released it slowly over time.

Maybe it was 10%? Like Meridox had said was normal for enchantment efficiency? So that would mean that he had, on his very first enchantment, on an essence tainted hammer, managed to produce an enchantment as efficient as a skilled, trained, and experienced enchanter?

That didn't seem right either.

James turned to his tower shield, his only other enchanted item.

[Appraisal: Green Iron Tower Shield, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 14/14, Enchantment: Reflect (10)]

This also had the mysterious "(10)". It would be extraordinarily unlikely for both of his first enchantments to be 10% effective, and it clearly didn't refer to the number of uses for the enchantment.

Also, the enchantment behaved differently than [Heavy Blow]. When he had activated it, it had constantly been draining his mana and activating simultaneously. Even before the monster had tackled his shield, but also during and after. It was only when James had been striking the monster's corpse, when he had made the decision not to use [Heavy Blow], that the pull on his mana had stopped.

As a test, he activated the [Reflect] enchantment again. He could feel it activate, but other than that, there was no effect. The shield was already a near perfect mirror even when the enchantment was not activated, so James couldn't tell if there was any difference. Nor did he think that knocking the monster back with his shield was due to the enchantment. First, his shove with the shield had been stronger, probably thanks to his Smith class leveling up. Second, the mana drain from using the [Reflect] enchantment hadn't changed at all during the fight.

There was, however, one undeniable benefit to using the enchantment even if it didn't appear to do anything. James could feel his mana moving inside him. And the more he moved it, the easier it was to move, even if only the slightest bit. If he focused with all his might, it was like he could feel the motion of his mana becoming easier, smoother, faster the more he channeled mana into the [Reflect] enchantment.

So, in this way, the Smith came to use the [Reflect] enchantment habitually as a form of magical training.

Having grown tired of trying to puzzle out the secrets of magic on his own, James stood and got to work. He disassembled the monster corpses, doing a slightly better job of it than his first time, and set the meat and hides to smoking. The stench was easier to deal with by this point. The bones and organs were buried, and the monster's magic crystals were retrieved and cleaned in pure water. Now he had three of the Earth Magic Crystals. Interestingly, they were all uniform in size and shape.

James thought nothing more of it at that time.

And with that, the Smith donned his armor and slung the magic bag on one shoulder and took his war hammer in hand.

It was time to explore the passage at the far end of the cavern, where the mole monsters had been coming from.

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