Luckily, the Smith spotted the problem immediately and prevented further damage.

During his attempt to activate all of the enchantments at once, and only managing to activate eight of the heating strips, they all activated at full force. And one property of metal that every smith knows is that metal expands when heated. And one property of enchantments that every enchanter knows is that when the substrate of a material is altered, it damages the enchantment. Basically, the regular iron heating strips were capable of getting hot enough to melt themselves and destroy their own enchantment.

[Appraisal]: Heating Strip, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 2/2, Enchantment: Heated Blade (6)

On a full sword, or even a knife with higher durability, this likely wouldn't be a problem. But for a thin strip of metal designed just for outputting heat, it was a problem.

James sighed, then pounded a fist into his thigh angrily. What a mistake! He could have used red iron instead! He had plenty! Red iron got hot fine and had a crazy high melting temperature, it would have been perfect! He just hadn't thought of it!

And he only had four small fire magic crystals left.

Remembering the last several times he had shouted in the Dungeon, James held his tongue, but the words he wanted to say would have earned him the whooping of a lifetime if his mother had heard them.

He allowed himself to wallow in frustration for the space of five deep breaths.

After that, he put his frustration and regrets about the past behind him. He turned his mind to the future.

The heating strips worked. The entire system seemed feasible, if he could just control it.

He was the weakest link here.

It was the first time the Smith had ever produced a craft he was incapable of using to its full extent. Even his [Reflect] enchanted shield, probably his best and strongest creation to date, wasn't so strong that he couldn't fully use the enchantment. Probably. Not that he ever wanted to test it in real combat. But he also knew that, as a Smith, and of course as an Enchanter as well, that he would eventually produce items that were beyond his own ability to use. That was, sort of, the point. To produce items, not to use them. That was the business of customers, to actually use his products. Even his skill, [Product Testing], wasn't really for using items, it was to test them. In fact, it was probably as close as he could get with his Classes to actual capacity to use items the way they were meant to be used. And he had never heard of such a skill from Jared, his smithing mentor, nor from Meridox. In fact, it was possible that, like his [Mining] skill, it was a highly unusual skill for a crafter to acquire, likely driven by his unusual circumstances. Even an adventurer with a Smith class would also have a combat class, which would be more likely to have applicable skills rather than the Smith class acquiring a skill like [Product Testing].

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Author's note: the [Product Testing] skill is more common today, but in the Legendary Smith's time it was nearly unheard of, and only a select few master Smiths were known to possess the skill.

Editor's note: At the time of publication, several hundred years after Andrew the Chronicler's time, [Product Testing] is intentionally taught to apprentice crafters, as it has been found to have beneficial effects on the production quality of crafters that compound over time. Research is currently ongoing into the skill at various institutions.

James considered his situation. He had, roughly, two options: try to re-design the heating system such that he could use it, or try to develop the ability to use the system as it was.

After some consideration of his resources, he decided on the second option. If he had unlimited fire magic crystals, obviously he would just redesign the system: he could make longer heating strips of red iron such that there were only two distinct enchantments to control.

But he simply didn't have that many fire magic crystals. Such a system would require redesigning the enchantment significantly, and much more magic crystal dust to fill in the etchings for the enchantments.

And he felt like his chances of growing to match his crafted items were pretty good.

Particularly, because of his [Enchantment Activation], [Mana Manipulation], and [Enchantment Testing] skills.

[Enchantment Activation] made the process of activating enchantments much, much easier. Even when activating two, let alone a full eight enchantments, trying to do it manually by channeling his mana into them, the way he did with the wards and how he had originally done with his shield, was way more mentally taxing than just relying on the skill, which made the entire process as simple and instinctual as moving his hand.

[Mana Manipulation] also massively simplified the process of adjusting the heat output of the enchantments, while also making it much easier to use his mana in the first place. Unless he was actively using it, it tended to sort of solidify inside of himself, until he warmed it up and softened it through mental effort so that it could be forced to flow around and be used. With the skill, his mana flowed much more easily and was much easier to direct while flowing.

Finally, [Enchantment Testing], the skill in his Enchanter class that seemed to be linked to the Synergy skill [Product Testing], gave him feedback on both the enchantment itself and on his own ability to use it. It wouldn't enable him to use more enchantments at once by improving it, but it would let him know if he was improving at all.

The final issue was that James couldn't practice his skills on the heating strips he had created. They were far too fragile and irreplaceable. So, the next day, he spent all his time forging more iron strips, roughly the same number and sizes as his heating strips, but with a different enchantment, with much more abundant magic crystals: [Glow].

[Appraisal]: Glow Strip, Quality: Very Low, Durability: 2/2, Enchantment: Glow (8)

He tested one of the strips, finding that it was even easier than the heating strips to adjust the output of the enchantment. He could dim or brighten the glowing light as he pleased, and even causing the strip to glow at maximum brightness for almost an hour did nothing to damage the enchantment nor the strip itself. But just like with the heating strips, he found he could only activate up to eight at once, at maximum brightness, and that if he wanted to adjust the output of the enchantments, he could only activate four at once. He also found that if he adjusted the output, all the enchantments would adjust the same, unless he went all the way down to only two simultaneous enchantments. With just two, he could adjust the brightness of their glowing independently of each other.

His ultimate goal was to control twenty-six different enchantments independently of each other.

He had a long way to go.

First, with three glow strips, he activated two of them with his skills and then manually activated the third, without the aid of his skill. His mana felt incredibly strange in that moment, both soft and warm, but stiff and cold at the same time.

His concentration broke instantly and all the glow strips deactivated.

James sighed, took a deep breath, and mentally reset himself.

He had a long way to go.

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