Azimuth: The Elden Throne (New Version)

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After giving Dale some time to think, Barme carefully pulled the cloth covering the long item, revealing what it was.

"And this leads us to this…"

It was a long spear about the same size as Dale, with a red tip, and a gray metallic rod.

Dale wasn't very surprised when he saw it, he expected it to be a spear, anything else would've been weird.

There were many weapons amidst the items he brought from the Wall, had Barme been capable of fixing one of them together with the armor? 

"..?...!"

But upon a closer look, he became shocked as he saw its tip!

"Is this?..."

'But I thought it was a lost cause…'

"Yup, the strange thorn you brought with you, the darned thing that took the Commander's life, or so you told me, I wasn't there."

/Cling cling.../

Barme started to scrub the spear, tapping a few places with a deep expression as he heard the metallic sounds echo.

"But… Didn't you tell me that it was impossible to work with it…?"

Feeling a bit hopeful, he turned to Barme and asked:

"Does this mean… You succeeded in creating…"

It was his dream to create a Masterpiece, if this is here… What else is there to think?

"No, don't get your hopes up, this is…"

His expression became solemn as he pushed the spear away from him.

"A complete and utter failure, and it shames me to look at it…"

"A failure?..."

Dale's eyes opened wide, he couldn't understand what was wrong with it.

"Why? It looks pretty good…"

"Yes it does, and that is what makes me embarrassed… Because I didn't make it…"

"It… It kind of made itself."

"??? I… I didn't quite get that…"

'This weapon made itself? How come.'

'Like... In a literal since? That would mean the weapon possesses some kind of intelligence/ego, but that would be...'

'Caldgolg was said to choose its holder, but I never saw any sort of unique reaction from it ever since I first grasped it.'

Barme shook his head, remembering what happened.

"Sigh… I'm a stubborn fool, I couldn't let it rot in the corner of my shop together with that sword… But if only… Sigh."

'I should've left it behind.'

"Previously, we proved that my hammer was too weak to work with this item, worse, even with the strongest fire I could produce, it didn't even turn red…"

"So I made a new hammer from the weapon and armor scraps that couldn't be recycled, I needed it anyway, my poor old hammer wasn't cutting it anymore, so albeit unfortunate, I retired it to the shelf."

'One day I'll reforge it… It's an old heirloom after all, I feel too bad to leave it behind getting dust like this…'

'But not today, such a thing needs the best materials, and when my Skills as smith sublimate, when I improve my working conditions… When all of this gathers…'

'I'll make a hammer worthy of being passed down.'

"Honestly, I'm a bit regretful that I had to do such a thing, but as you told me to, I did not hold back and used everything I could to make this possible."

'It was hard to ignore these items' origins, but I had to accept that these Masterpieces were going to be sacrificed for the greater good.'

"... Better put those scraps of Iron to work than to let them rot for a few more years, we need any help we can get, no?"

He raised his hand, making a hammering motion in the air.

"So after a few days hammering away, I made a new set of tools… Next time, try to raid the smithy of the Wall for me, will you?" Barme said with a warm smile

His expression then soured again…

"Yet even with this new hammer… I still didn't manage to forge it… No, I didn't even manage to make a dent in it."

'Even with alchemical products to strengthen the fire temporarily, I failed at even heating it up...'

"It was simply too tough."

"... What? So how did this…?"

"Heh, that's where things get interesting." Barme said as he pointed at the spear's tip

His expression became a bit red as he said in an awkward tone:

"I... Might've gotten... Frustrated after failing multiple times."

"So uh... After I gave this thing a good beating to vent my anger..."

"Next time I went to check on it… Its shape had changed… Over the course of a night, it wasn't very noticeable but it was there."

"I couldn't believe it, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me… So I did it again…"

"Look, I'm not proud of it okay?"

"With that in mind, I started experimenting."

"Each day, I gave it a good beating under the hot fire, and each day, the thorn changed… As if alive."

"The more I hit it, the stronger my hits and the fire were, the faster it seemed to change."

"I didn't know why it was changing, what shape it was turning into, I didn't know if that was a good thing nor if I should continue..."

"But I eventually thought to myself, why not try and guide it towards a workable shape? And so I did…"

"I tied a strong metallic rod to the thorn and enveloped it with a metallic cast of a shape I believed would be best for a Spear tip, since it was already halfway like one...."

"It worked, hence the reason why I said it made itself… Because it did.."

"The only thing I did was hit it until it took a shape half decent to be considered a spear…"

"The rod I attached to it completely fused with the thorn, and now, I can't remove it even if I wanted to."

"To be honest, I don't even know if it'll stay like this for long… The thorn could still be changing, just that minutely each day, making it almost imperceptible."

"This shape is also likely the best I can do because 4 days ago, it stopped changing no matter how much I beat it, or how strong each of my hits was."

"What I think was happening was that the thorn was assuming a shame to resist my strikes and the heat, and it eventually did, as it stopped reacting to me."

Barme seemed tired just thinking about it.

"The only thing I did was make a shaft, and that wasn't difficult at all, I simply used an already made shaft from the spears you gave me, using it as a base."

"There were many that were half decent, and after digging through the items, I found one almost new with only a few scratches here and there."

"Of course, for maximum efficiency, I used the shaft of a spear whose tip I couldn't save."

"The two came together and this is the result… I added a few more details, like the grip, I redid the entire grip, and I added a sharp end to the shaft too."

"It doesn't have a name… I believe it doesn't deserve one."

"Use it for now if you wish, I can guarantee you 2 things, the tip won't break, and its sharpness is out of this world."

"You can try to break it, be my guest, use that massive chunk of iron you carry around and see if you can break it, I would be more than interested in seeing how it looks inside…"

"In fact, if you keep hitting it, the thorn may assume a better shape..."

Barme took out a small rectangular metallic box from beneath the counter.

"Here it is, the thorn's cast I used, if you wish, try hitting the spear as strongly as you can every day before putting it inside the cast, so it can change into a better shape while maintaining its form."

"Perhaps if you hit it with the sword, something interesting might happen?"

He then looked at the spear with an ironic gaze.

"Or would it be the one to break? That is something I'm very interested in finding out since it's also made of hard materials I can't work with."

"Either way, the end result would be rather... Haaa..."

Barme let out another turbid breath.

"If only I could make something like this from scratch…"

"One more thing, the Spear is rather sharp, but not as sharp as it could've been... Given the fact I was unable to even scratch it, sharpening it was an impossibility..."

"..."

After listening to his narration, Dale was dying to know its stats…

So he opened his menu and inspected it.

[Failure (Gradeless)

/Blank/

Description: A makeshift spear made from the junction of two components, a sharp thorn of mysterious origins, and a sturdy shaft made of a composite alloy of immense resilience.

As the name implies, it is a failure, a disgrace to the materials used in its confection, the miners that spend days mining the ores used in this would be ashamed and revolt in their tombs if they could witness this creation.

It won't break, and it'll cut that's for sure.

]

The spear didn't have any characteristics, no bonuses, no Skills, nothing.

Not even a proper description…

Even some items from the tutorial would be better than this...

But Dale liked it.

As the description said, it was sturdy and sharp, it was oddly balanced, and the size fit his build.

The Spear tip was about the size of his head, being just a tad bigger, it was perfect for its size.

He should thank Barme more later since he definitely had to work a bit more to properly fit it to him.

This spear was also full of potential, one day, it would be something, and that would be the day Barme became a Master Smith.

But for that day to be possible, he had to advance his Questline, and as he said before, he would need to acquire better tools and a better working environment.

Until then, this spear would remain…

A failure.

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