Chuckling at the thought that had popped up, Valyr continued following its train of thought as he asked himself, 'Now, if I were to transform the sword into an artifact, what artifact would I forge specifically?'
At this question, the young man went silent as he rummaged through the treasure trove of memories from his past life regarding artifacts.
Considering that he already had a base to work with in the form of the blade Nila forged, a great portion of these blade artifacts were quickly excluded from the list.
Instead, he focused on artifacts that would be forged in a similar manner to the True Wyvern Armor he currently had.
'I don't even know if it'll even turn into the Empyrean Dragon Armor at the final step,' inwardly muttered the young man to himself as he briefly thought about his armor.
'After all, the fact that still stands that I've done quite a few things differently when compared to the guide, such as the plus modifier and the introduction of the [Breath of Beginnings].'
'Either way, it'll still be a good set of armor once all is said and done,' said the young man to himself as he returned his train of thought back to the blade artifact he wanted to forge.
In the end, after scouring through his treasure trove of memories for around half an hour or so, Valyr was able to narrow it down to five artifacts, all of which had a step-by-step guide to reach the actual artifact.
Keeping those artifacts in mind, he then took a look at the materials available in the material cache he was given.
Seeing that some of the artifacts needed materials that the material cache didn't have, Valyr did not hesitate to remove those artifacts from the list, eventually whittling down the number to two total artifacts.
"It's either I forge the Heaven Sundering Blade… or the True Blade of Samadhi."
Muttering these words to himself, the young man scratched the back of his head for a bit as he spared a glance at what Nila was doing.
Surprisingly, the woman was already hard at work modifying the basic dagger he had given her.
Breaking down the dagger into its constituent parts, she put some of the parts to the side before taking out a few sets of materials from her cache, chucking those and the other dagger parts into the furnace with great confidence.
'Looks like she's going to do a total reforge of the item," said the young man to himself as he nodded in understanding.
Though there was nothing wrong with the process Valyr was taking, which was slowly upgrading the item to his desired rarity, it wasn't something other blacksmiths would usually do.
Instead, what was usually done by blacksmiths to upgrade items to a higher rarity was to keep what was considered the essence of the item before reforging everything else to the desired rarity in one attempt.
Of course, that's due to the fact that a majority of the items in the world don't have a Growth or a Pseudo-Growth attribute affixed to them, forcing the blacksmiths to get creative and make workarounds to upgrade the items of people to greater heights.
If anything, the process Valyr was going to use for his sword was just a more convoluted version of the usual process.
However, unlike the usual process, the gradual upgrading process reduced the likelihood of total failure.
Not only that, but it also gradually increased the potential of the base item per upgrade, slowly increasing the chances of a fortuitous encounter happening during one of the forging processes.
In fact, he could even recall a certain blacksmith imbuing the Growth attribute onto the weapon they were forging during one of the upgrades.
But of course, just like how the process had its upsides, it also had its downsides.
For one, the process demanded quite a lot out of the blacksmith in terms of skill.
Aside from that, a far greater amount of materials would be consumed during the upgrading process, which was the main reason why only a few blacksmiths took the gradual upgrade route.
Then again, since he had access to a material cache that contained all of the materials he would possibly need for the item's upgrade…
Why would he limit himself?
"Either I forge an artifact with no attribute or an artifact with the Fire attribute," muttered the young man as he took out a few materials from the material cache.
After a while, a faint smile crept up on Valyr's face, only to let out a bit of laughter as he thought about his earlier words.
"At this point, it's a no-brainer," said Valyr to himself as he proceeded to take out more materials from the cache.
"The True Blade of Samadhi, it is."
Whoosh!
After heating up the furnace to his desired temperature, Valyr chucked a great portion of the materials he had taken out into it, putting the other materials to the side for the meantime.
After that, he activated [Zen], causing all of the discordant thoughts in his mind to disappear as he imagined the artifact he was going to craft.
"The first step is to attune the sword first with the Fire attribute," said the young man to himself as he activated [True Prodigious Mana Arm].
At the same time, he took out the Hammer of Beginnings from his spatial bracelet, only to activate [Breath of Beginnings] soon after.
Taking in a deep breath as he brought up the guide to forge the True Blade of Samadhi in his mind, the young man began to dismantle the basic sword into its constituent parts, placing the essence of the item itself to the side.
Then, he took out a few of the materials out of the furnace with a pair of tongs before placing them directly on top of the other parts making up the sword.
Hiss…
With the molten materials gradually engulfing the parts that were once on the anvil, the young man focused all of his attention on the items as he begun to hammer them into their respective shapes.
Ttang! Ttang! Ttang!
Little by little, the parts began to take shape once more, allowing Valyr's imagination to become more vivid as he visualized the final product that would come out of the first step.
At the same time, he went over the other parts of the guide, refreshing his memory as to what kind of item he would have at the very end.
'Though the guide more or less guarantees that I'd be able to forge the True Blade of Samadhi, it also mentioned that it was more of a template rather than a guide, allowing those following the guides to forge the final artifact into something that more suited their needs.'
'Hmm…' Pondering over the contents of the guide as his body continued to work on the blade, the young man eventually came to a decision as he let out a bit of laughter.
"Guess I'll upgrade it beyond its intended rarity."
"I do have a few more guides in my head that I could use to enhance the thing beyond Epic+ grade anyway."
With a determined expression briefly appearing on his face, the young man soon put back all of the sword parts together once more, prompting a notification sound to resound in his mind the very moment it was complete.
Ding!
[You have successfully modified the weapon 'Steel Sword'.]
[Due to the immense modification done, the weapon has gained the ability to tap into a far greater expanse of power it initially couldn't, thus increasing the weapon's rarity to Uncommon.]
[A great number of materials have also been added to the weapon, increasing the potential the weapon has for further advancements.]
[Thanks to this change, the name of the weapon has been changed to 'Blade of Flames', reflecting all of the modifications and improvements the blacksmith has made to the weapon.]
"[Superior Analysis]."
Taking a brief look at the improved description of the sword, Valyr nodded in satisfaction as the result was more or less what he expected to appear.
With the most important step to forging the True Blade of Samadhi now done, the young man gave himself a small break before proceeding to the next step.
And that was to align the weapon onto the path of becoming a true artifact.
"I wonder how Nila is faring?" Taking a seat on a sofa that surprisingly came with the workshop, Valyr allowed his body to sink into it as he took out a couple of potions from his spatial bracelet.
"I think it's been a few hours since we've begun modifying each other's items."
Glancing at the woman, Valyr noticed that Nila was reforging the parts making up the dagger one by one, transforming the usual process into something that was a mix between the usual and the process he currently took.
Sensing the high level of craftsmanship that went into the part she had just finished reforging, Valyr began to ponder over the Hephaista clan for a bit, which soon turned into a flurry of thoughts with [Zen] still activated.
Because of that, the young man could not stop himself from blurting out a thought that lingered in his mind, prompting Nila to look back at him with suspicion.
"Say, Nila…"
"You're not from this planet, right?"
