Young Master in the Apocalypse

[Your spirit core has been upgraded to stage 3.]

[Your spirit force has increased by 5 points.]

[You have learned a new spell - Metal-tempering]

Viktor read the notification over, and a massive grin slowly formed on his face.

"Nice, nice… Very nice!" He muttered to himself. An upgrade and a new skill would always be welcomed by him with open arms.

Without wasting time, Viktor turned to look at the Djinn and asked for an explanation. He readied his ears as the Djinn started to explain what the skill was all about.

To put it simply, the skill functioned the way its name implies. With it, Viktor now could temper metal.

At glance, the skill didn't really sound that impressive. However, Viktor knew better than to underestimate this skill as his first skill [Metal-bending] had given him quite a pleasant surprise.

Viktor glanced at the last remaining heap of metal he had in his storage, before he decided to use them to test his new skill. He was confident that this experiment would be much more useful long-term than upgrading the snow sleigh, so he took all of the metal out without slightest hesitation.

First, he used [Metal-bending] to merge them into two metal plates and cast [Metal-tempering] onto one of the plates.

The process took a few seconds, and he could see the metal beneath his touch gradually thickening and shifting, each molecule trembling before reforging the sheet in a stronger state.

A fascinated expression appeared on his face, but he quickly returned his focus to the task because he knew this was only the beginning.

As the seconds went by, he could feel sweat run down his brows and his back, but he persisted and held on what he was doing. In the end, his efforts seem to have been worth it. Viktor could feel that he had succeeded.

[You have successfully tempered tier 0 material with outstanding quality]

On one hand, seeing that Earth metal was not even worth considering as a tiered item was somewhat painful. But on the other hand, he still found notifications about his successful skills satisfying to hear.

For a quick test, Viktor left both sheets of metal hovering in the air before stabbing each of them with the tier 1 dagger. He soon discovered the difference between the two, or rather, the changes his [Metal-tempering] skill had brought.

While the dagger could pierce through the normal metal in one go, it would take him two attempts to do the same feat to the tempered metal.

A thoughtful look could be seen on Viktor's face as his eyes looked at the tempered metal.

"Hmm, this could be useful."

As an experiment, Viktor waved his hand and created three more metal sheets with the remaining materials. As soon as the metal sheets were formed, he tried to cast [Metal-tempering] and found out something new.

[You have successfully tempered tier 0 material with outstanding quality]

[You have successfully tempered tier 0 material with excellent quality]

[You have successfully tempered tier 0 material with outstanding quality]

Apparently, not all his tempering attempts would let him reach the same quality. The Djinn explained that there are three possible qualities a material could reach after tempering attempts.

[Outstanding: 30%]

[Excellent: 60%]

[Masterpiece: 90%]

Between outstanding and excellent, the information says there are 30% difference in the durability results, and indeed he could feel it. The end result of the excellent quality could resist at least 3 stabs of the tier 1 dagger before a hole was created. The seemingly insignificant difference between outstanding and excellent quality could mean the difference between life and death.

As for the masterpiece quality, apparently, it was not possible for him to create it until he reached the next stage.

"That's a shame."

Viktor also realized that at this point, his [Metal-tempering] skill was limited to the so-called tier 0 material as he could not temper his Tier 1 weapon when he tried to do so.

However, there was also good news. Now that he reached stage two, he was able to cast [Metal-bending] onto the tier 1 weapon, even though he did have to expend greater effort in order to succeed.

With this, the rest of the missing information could be gleaned and inferred by logical thinking. To put it simply, the higher his core stage gets, the more power he could access, allowing him to bend and temper higher quality materials.

While Viktor was thinking about the best way to make use of this new skill of his, a notification suddenly appeared in his mind.

The Djinn was thorough enough to give him details regarding his own skill stats.

[Stage 3 spirit core of anvil - 0%]

[Metal extraction - tier 1]

[Metal bending - tier 1]

[Metal tempering - tier 0]

For [Metal Extraction], apparently for now his limit was tier 1 materials, hence he could not extract the tier 2 axe. Well, thinking about it, it would be stupid for him to consume the only tier 2 weapon he has, as who could say that he wouldn't need it in the future.

Looking at his journey till this point, there was a fat chance that he would have to fight a tier 3, beat a mutated bear, or something like that in the foreseeable future, hence the tier 2 axe will be his new favorite for a while.

As he tried to ride on his happiness, Viktor realized the name of the spirit core. Anvil. That word suggested he would be something akin to a blacksmith.

Realizing what it meant, the flames of his excitement died down. Does that mean the skill would only give him benefits if he works hard and tempers one kind of metal to another?

"Darn it, Djinn!" Viktor cursed. "I never even worked a single job in my entire life, and now… you wanted me to be a blacksmith?!"

No, no, no, absolutely not. This is not the kind of vision he has of the future. Where did his dream of a relaxing life in the apocalypse where he has nothing to worry about go? This led him to the next important question.

"Now, Djinn, I cannot let this go to pass. How about you give me something to make bending much easier? This tier 1 metal is too hard to bend, I need a way to pull this off easily!"

<Your realm still too low to control tier 1 materials>

The Djinn paid no mind to Viktor's rants and gave the man a simple succinct answer that effectively shut him up. When the Djinn was talking about realms, he meant Viktor's spirit force level.

[Spirit Force - 42]

[Earth realm - initial stage]

Viktor just got 5 points of spirit force from upgrading his core to a stage 2. Unfortunately for him, the next earth realm upgrade would require him to reach 50 points, then a breakthrough.

He glanced at the place around him and calculated that he still had at least one hour or so before Eva came ready for their weekly ritual. Therefore, Viktor decided to use the time to increase his spirit force.

"Let's see how many wonderful spirit force you little yellow stones will give me."