When Lukey arrived in town, the sun hung in the center of the sky, indicating he had been gone for the remainder of the morning. The trip to Claw Cove gave him some good information on what he needed to do but cost some time. If he wanted to get anything done today, he needed to start making his trips around Tranquil Waters.

  Lukey looked at his quest log to see what he needed to do.

  Personal Quests

  -Upgrade Spear – Make, thinner, lighter, sturdier

  -Upgrade Fishing Rod

  -Make New Traps and Equipment

  -Discover Claw Cove and Investigate Crabs

  -Make Crab Lure

  There were two items of note that Lukey wanted to accomplish today.

  First, improving the spear was essential at this point, as it was the main weapon he would be relying on through his trip through Claw Cove. The current fisherman’s spear needed a lot of force to pierce armor, but if it were thinner, the tip could pierce the armor easier. The spear’s current shape and weight also made it cumbersome to use, so Lukey wanted the improved version to weigh less.

  Of course, Lukey knew the downsides. Being thinner would make the spearhead more likely to break, and making it lighter would give the entire thing less force. The spear would break against the first enemy it came across if it was made of something like bone or wood.

  Unless it was made of metal.

  If the fishing spear used metal instead, then many of these problems would be solved easily. The entire spear would be strong enough to pierce any fish’s hide, even that of the Armored Trollfish. Metal was also sturdier than wood, so the entire structure could be thinner and use less material than traditional spears.

  There was only one problem: the metal. There was none on the entire island. Nobody knew exactly how the island was formed, but there were no metal deposits on the island. It was only recently that the foreigners brought metal tools to the island from outside. Simple iron tools were purchased from outside, but no ore made it to the island, as they did not have a blacksmith to refine them until recently.

  It was these thoughts that flooded Lukey’s head as he was walking through the town looking for the blacksmith. He remembered seeing one disembark from the ship from Vetus when he went to talk to the emperor. Lukey was looking for the blacksmith’s home, but there was nothing that would advertise his location.

  Right now, Lukey was walking through the half-finished town, looking at the islanders carrying wood and constructing several buildings. They painted with alchemical paint and brushes and used hammers and nails that were all made and shipped from outside. Nothing, save for the wood, came from the island, making progress on the town crawl at a tortoise’s pace.

  Everything that was commonplace overseas was difficult to get here. It took months for a single shipment of materials to come from off the island, and even when it did, the ship couldn’t carry much as they also had passengers and other deliveries to make. Perhaps if they could afford it, they could get their own ship and deliver the supplies themselves.

  It is here where the cruel cycle comes full circle. No shipments of supplies mean no progress on Tranquil Waters. No town meant no visitors, which meant no income from outside the island. No income means they couldn’t purchase supplies, which resulted in a town that has taken years to build and still isn’t finished.

  If they could just be self-sufficient, it could be a lot easier to develop the island. The botanist class certainly makes it easier to source wood from the jungles, as well as find flowers for decoration and herbs for medicine. More classes made doing everyday work easier, which is why classed people like blacksmiths were so important.

  A blacksmith could make tools on the island without having to pay for the exorbitant costs of imported products. On top of that, the money would stay on the island to be used in other businesses. Specialty products could also be made by a blacksmith, which was what Lukey wanted him for.

  Unfortunately, Lukey still couldn’t locate the man, so he decided to head back to Offshore Imports. If anyone knew where to locate an artisan, it would be the person who sourced their materials. The blacksmith would have talked to Lucia at some point, so it was best to ask her if he showed up.

  ...

  A short walk led Lukey back to Offshore Imports for the second time today.

  Lukey walked through the front door and was met by two people arguing by the counter. One was Lucia, who had her arms behind the front desk, looking angrily at the person in front of her. The other was a short-haired, pudgy young man with hairs that lightly dusted his chin. He was taller than the shopkeeper and had fair skin reminiscent of the far south. He wore a plain white shirt and trousers, with an apron and goggles that seemed to be permanently fogged up.

  The man had both hands on the desk as he was growling at Lucia in rage. His voice was slightly high-pitched yet also carried a certain rumble to it.

  “What do you mean you don’t have any ore on this island!?” he said.

  “I mean it exactly like I said it. There are no veins of metal on the island. No mines either. Nothing,” Lucia replied. “I can order some ore from off the island, but it will likely take months before it arrives.”

  “Ugh, DAMMIT! I staked everything on coming to this island! Maybe I should have just stayed in Goldleaf.”

  The man buried his head in his hands and proceeded to groan. He took a few moments to stay in that position before he slowly righted his body with a calmer look on his face. While he was doing this, Lukey took the chance to glance at his information.

  [(Advanced Blacksmith) Lv. 114]

  This was the blacksmith Lukey was looking for. It looks like he came to Lucia to acquire some materials to work with so he could get started. It was unfortunate then that he had no metal to make anything, but Lukey had to ask the man regardless.

  “Excuse me,” Lukey interrupted.

  The blacksmith and Lucia both looked towards the door where Lukey was, taking their attention away from their argument.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “If this is a bad time, I’ll wait, but I need to order something,” Lukey quietly said.

  “Lukey? I’ll be with you in a second!” Lucia said.

  “Not you, Lucia…him,” Lukey said, then pointed to the blacksmith.

  The blacksmith gave a confused look for a minute, then his eyes widened as he came to realize what Lukey had requested.

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s talk outside; I’ve got nothing else to do here.”

  The blacksmith walked away from the desk, shoulders slumped in dejection. After a minute he made it to the door, and Lukey followed him outside. The young fisherman and the blacksmith walked side by side down the empty road. Lukey walked with him in silence for a while before eventually deciding to speak up.

  “I need a spear,” Lukey said. “A metal fishing spear, preferably one that’s long and thin.”

  “A fishing spear?” The blacksmith questioned. “Why do you need something like that made of metal? It seems a lot cheaper to make it out of wood and bones like I see most of the islanders do.”

  “Those don’t pierce through crab shells, and even the ones that do are too heavy to use for someone like me,” Lukey said. “Can you make it?”

  The blacksmith sighed, then eyed Lukey as he continued walking.

  “I don’t know how much you heard of that conversation, but I don’t have any metal to work with,” the blacksmith said, “and even if I did, I would still need to set up my forge, which is going to take a while.”

  Lukey thought to himself, then had a gleam in his eye as he looked up.

  “What about scrap iron!” Lukey exclaimed. “You can melt down the broken tools around the island if you need the extra metal!”

  The blacksmith slowly looked up thoughtfully, and Lukey thought he saw a smile creep up on his face, but it disappeared as soon as it arrived.

  “Good idea,” the blacksmith admitted, “but it’s not as simple as that.”

  Lukey made to open his mouth, but before he could, the blacksmith stopped in front of a certain building. They had been walking for a while now and were a few blocks away from Offshore Imports. The building they stopped at didn’t look much different from any of the others next to it either.

  “My shop,” the blacksmith said with a lopsided grin, waving at the building with one hand. “Well, it’s going to be as soon as I get everything ready, which might be a while considering the lack of supplies.”

  The blacksmith walked up the steps and opened the door, ushering Lukey into the building. Lukey took a short look at the building, then moved inside.

  The blacksmith’s house was utterly barren, with only a single chair as a piece of furniture. The other side of the floor was comprised of a sleeping bag, some tools that were laid out, and a copper tea kettle on top of a small metal frame.

  “Coffee?” The blacksmith asked, gesturing to the copper kettle.

  “What’s that?” Said Lukey, confused.

  The blacksmith’s eyes widened briefly before closing in realization.

  “Ah, right,” he said. “It’s a drink that wakes you up. Sorry, I forgot you islanders don’t know much about the outside world.”

  “Is it from Vetus?”

  “No… Actually, it’s from Novus,” the blacksmith said. “It was grown by the Luxe, then transported on ships to Vetus.

  Lukey just listened while the blacksmith talked. Meanwhile, the blacksmith took out a clay cup and began pouring a cup of black brew from the kettle. After he finished, the blacksmith continued.

  “The climate wasn’t right for it though,” he said. “The botanists need to maintain constant attention to grow the beans for these things. I managed to buy some just before getting a ship to the island.”

  The blacksmith blew the top of the cup gently. Once it reached a cooler temperature, he took a slow sip of the tar-like drink. Lukey could hear the man gulp the drink down, and then the blacksmith began to talk again.

  “Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes… The tools in the shop are all made from iron; pig iron, no less,” the blacksmith explained. “It’s not too strong, so if you want me to make a spear out of the stuff, I will have to use a lot of it, making the spear thick and heavy.”

  “So, you can’t make it light AND strong…”

  “No, well, not unless you have something I can add to the iron to make it stronger.”

  Lukey looked up with a faint sense of hope and an equal sense of curiosity.

  “Like what?” He asked.

  “Well,” the blacksmith began, “typically, you would add carbon to the iron, and this would give you steel. The carbon would usually come from coal, but you can't get that here.”

  Lukey listened intently to the blacksmith and simply nodded. Every action he took to make life easier came with additional challenges. If there was a way to solve this, Lukey would think of it.

  “What exactly is carbon?” Lukey asked. “And can anything with carbon be used?”

  The blacksmith stared at Lukey, shaking his head at the young man’s stubbornness.

  “I appreciate you listening to me, I really do, but is it really worth it just to get a simple spear?” The blacksmith asked.

  “If I help you with this, then you can use that knowledge to help others on the island. Doing this is mutually beneficial for both of us,” Lukey replied.

  The blacksmith just chuckled in amusement. While he did, Lukey thought he could catch a glimpse of pale blue eyes behind his steamed-up goggles.

  “Why so serious?” The blacksmith said. “Alright, fine, I’ll humor you.”

  Then the blacksmith began to explain.

  “All I know is what the alchemists and my mentor have told me. Basically, carbon is this stuff that animals make. You can find it wherever large creatures have died and decomposed for thousands of years. Materials like coal and oil are usually found near those places.”

  “As for your second question…maybe? I’ve honestly only worked with coal to create high-grade steel. I’ve never worked with anything else. It would require testing, but I hear people have used stranger things.”

  Lukey began to sink deep into thought.

  Carbon comes from living things. Dead things from a long, long time ago. Are there any places like that near Leviathan’s Rest? The only things that died near the island are leviathans, giant crabs, titan jellyfish, whales, and… Wait a second, there are plenty of places like that!

  “What about bones?” Lukey asked. “Specifically, giant leviathan bones. Those are found all over the island, and even underwater.”

  It was the blacksmith’s turn to fall into thought. He pondered the idea for a solid minute before he finally spoke. It was then that he started to have a more hopeful look.

  “That…might work. It would be better than working with plain old iron. I still need to make the forge, but it will be something to investigate while I’m busy.”

  “It’s settled then,” Lukey said. “I’m Lukey, by the way; a fisherman. It’s a bit late now, but welcome to the island.”

  “Thank you. By the way, I should have introduced myself earlier, but I’m Adran Galz, a blacksmith.”

  Lukey began smiling to himself. For once, this wasn’t a situation that required extra steps. The blacksmith would make what he needed in his free time; Lukey just needed to come by and pay for the finished product when it was done. He had other preparations to make, so this worked out nicely.

  “If I may ask? What brought you to the island?” Lukey asked. “You mentioned a place called Goldleaf earlier?”

  The blacksmith’s face immediately fell at that statement. The mention of the past seemed to bring up bad memories for the man. He seemed to have an internal debate with himself as he made various faces, each a fusion of pain and strife. This continued until he finally spoke.

  “It’s the name of my home village; a tyrant made its home nearby, and I decided to leave rather than risk staying,” Adran finally said.

  “It was some kind of forest monster; [Alecto, the Spiteful] I think was its name. It showed up one day and started killing anyone who wandered into the forests. People constantly worried about being ambushed on the roads, so we lost our supply chains. It even got so bad that people started staying awake all night, which only made people lose sleep and become more paranoid.”

  Lukey stared at Adran in disbelief. The only tyrant he encountered until now was the measly eel. He heard of tyrants that could annihilate entire kingdoms, but those were only told about in legends. What was in front of Lukey right now, though, was reality, and the truth was that tyrants of all kinds were uncommon but not unheard of.

  “Eventually, I and a bunch of other people from my village decided to leave and move somewhere else,” Adran said. “I travelled all the way to a city called Bloodshore to catch a ship, and when I got there, I decided to take the first ship that was leaving port.”

  “Honestly, I just decided to risk it. There weren’t many places you could go to without a lot of money, and staying in Bloodshore wasn’t an option. I talked with some of the people who were on the ship with me, and they were in similar situations.”

  Lukey listened to every word of Adran’s story. Up until now, the problems that plagued the rest of the world had felt so distant. Bandits, monsters, cruel emperors, and tyrants—these were things you were told about but never encountered living on an island in the middle of nowhere.

  These problems always felt so far away to Lukey, as if his island were a haven in the middle of a terrifying and unknown world. It was a sanctuary, where he would always be safe, should the world prove too much for him.

  This was far from true.

  At any moment, a tyrant could show up and start slaughtering everyone around him. If a puny eel can show up, so can a real monster.

  Lukey said goodbye to Adran before leaving out the front door. He still had preparations to make and an entire evening to finish them.