Limits-Chapter 36: Birth of the New Dagger

Days passed and so went my life. In the morning, I went to the blacksmith's workshop and created ingots and in the afternoon, I trained in the art of stealth for couple of hours. After that I would go watch the fishes. I couldn't figure out how these fishes were able to do this. Other weird thing was that not all fishes could actually achieve this.

From the school of fishes only about 10% could actually achieve that. I thought 'Well, it would be pointless if all could do it anyway. The predator would just choose from all of them that way but if only 10% can do it, they can survive'.

In the evenings I would usually read the Great Scriptures of Evil Medic. With every passing day I learned more recipes and those that really caught my eye, I would try to remember harder. Of course, I wanted to remember the whole book but if I remembered the more useful ones first then if needed I could use them or at least gather necessary materials used in creating that recipe.

Nick would visit sometimes when I was at my house and check on my progres. He was a bit shocked when I told him that I managed to combine the art of stealth or rather all my previous training. He said "It took me over 5 months to figure out how to do it, yet you achieved it so fast. Now what is left is the 'Avoid the light' part".

He then asked "How are you doing on that front?". I said to him "I have some ideas in my head and when I'm ready I will test them out but no major improvements in that part". Nick didn't seem to be disappointed, rather he was glad I didn't actually complete the training. He would be too shocked and probably killed himself on the spot if the merging of the art of stealth took him more than 5 months.

After the week of work I got my payout which was whole 70 coppers. Not a lot but it was my first money in a very long time. I didn't spend it and just left it aside. I would probably need money in the future, so I started to save. I didn't need to spend money anyway, I received food and shelter for free as they said, it was just a deal for me to stay and work.

I also managed to save enough leftovers to create one dagger. I used the time when Grond was not around and smelted the dagger but then I realised something. I was doing the same thing as I did last time. 'Why not improve the dagger?' I thought to myself.

In the past I had no choice but to do something fast, now I could take my time and create something really useful. I needed a mould. I decided, I would create a mould that suited my needs. I wanted to create a dagger out of wood and then convert it to mould with the use of clay. It wasn't that hard to create a mould actually, you needed to make an imprint of whatever you wanted the mould to produce, in the soft clay. Then you just baked it and the mould was ready. It was one time use mold but creating 5 moulds wouldn't be a problem and just to be safe, I wanted to create 10 moulds. I would always have an original wooden craving, so that wouldn't be a problem either, even if I wanted to produce 100 moulds.

After my work, I went out to do some training and collect some good wood that I can use for carving. I had this old style dagger on me and because I already created it, I would use it to carve the wood to the shape of a dagger that really suited me.

I knew that logs of wood don't just grow around. It had to be produced and so I went to a place where there were too many of them. At the woodcutter's lodge, I took one log of hardwood and went back to my house. I wondered 'What type of dagger would suit me?'. I didn't know the answer to this question. I decided to just go for it with what the heart dictates. Nick said that this would be the most suitable dagger for me, so I gave it a try.

It was actually very hard to create such detailed carving. I was no sculptor and although I had experience working with the wood, this was still very difficult. I scraped away the wood and the time went by. I was lost in my thoughts, thinking about the fishes and how can I imitate that or at least learn how the fishes can achieve this.

I tried to figure out why but how could I ever confirm my theory if I just looked. I had to catch such fish and study it. Maybe this would bring me some results. The problem was, I had to catch the one with such abilities. As I said before, there were about 10% of fishes able to achieve this "avoid the light" thing. I could use a net which would be faster but how would I distinguish between them. When they were out of the water, I never noticed anything and I ate loads of fishes in the past.

I would have to catch a lot and study them in details, maybe even keep notes of each fish. This would be very time consuming but if I managed to learn something, the time I spent doing it would be trivial. I wanted to find out if the fishes with this ability have different scales or are naturally different from other fishes of the same kind.

As I thought like this for some time, I forgot that I was carving the dagger. When I realised that, the dagger was already wasted. It looked all weird and irregular. I lost my concentration and the result was a fail. I threw the failed dagger to the side and something wasn't right. This dagger, was perfect. I never threw anything that was so well balanced and intricate. I remembered what Nick told me. If I could create the dagger by heart then wouldn't that be it? My thought ran off somewhere else while I was carving, yet in my subconscious I managed to create this shape. I picked up the dagger from the floor and played around with it. It was perfect. It was as if the dagger was part of my body.

I thought to myself 'Sometimes, you can receive something from nothing and sometimes you can work whole life to achieve nothing. I think this shall be the shape of my dagger!'. The dagger I would create was curved down at the tip and towards the middle the curve would return up until it met the handle of the dagger, creating something like a wave effect. The blade would be long and and thin while the handle was a bit more thick. There would be a small blade at the end of the handle that was curved downwards, towards my hand. It could act as a normal dagger but it could also act as a throwing dagger. This dagger was perfect for close combat as well as for the hidden weapons art.

I was very excited by this new design. It kind of reminded me of my training in the art of stealth as well as the knowledge from the art of medicine. It combined both worlds. The blade was like a herb, growing a main leaf and a side leaf. It also reminded me of my training I did with poles and the behaviour training. It would be perfectly balanced but it could change on the whim. It would be slick and quiet like the art of stealth itself and deadly like the art of medicine.

I wanted to go to the blacksmith's workshop immediately and start working on the moulds, but I restrained myself. I would have to do it when I go back to work the next day.