The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) Jonathan Brooks (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

leftover blood, dirt, or fats (which wasn’t really too much of an issue since it was created by Sandra), but it also made it softer and easier to remove the stiff hair attached to it.  Then came lots of scraping, shaving, and trimming of the hides, which was then placed on a rack to dry.

However, during the drying process, she needed to keep it supple, which required a liberal use of animal fat to prevent it from drying out and cracking – which she was conveniently able to procure from her Raw Bearling Meat.  The resulting end product was probably a little smelly – and would eventually become slightly rancid if the fat was left to sit on it – but she didn’t have the necessary oils and other ingredients which would help protect the leather as well as make it last longer.  After a few hours of tanning, she was able to scrape off most of the fat and stretch and shape it, which helped to loosen it up a little so that it was flexible.

Once it was tanned completely, Sandra brought it to her Leatherworking shop and cut, molded, and shaped it into what she wanted.  For the apron, a few simple cuts to the larger piece of Leather was all that was needed, and she turned the scraps into its string-like ties.  Using an awl, she was able to make holes in the Leather, which allowed her to feed the ties through and secure into place.

For other types of products like armor it was easier to use a pattern, which she didn’t have but could make if she wanted, but she didn’t work on any of that yet.  In her free time away from teaching Kelerim, she concentrated on creating as many Steel weapons as she could, from swords to knives to war-axes.  She also replaced her very first forge with a larger one which an Ironclad Ape could use, because foot-long swords probably wouldn’t be much use to the Orcs.

Her plan to help the Orcs – at least initially – was to provide them with superior weapons compared to what they currently had.  She was also thinking of supplying them with armor, though that was a little harder without an auto-fit Enchantment.  In fact, she wished she could do any sort of Enchantment on her weapons, because that would exponentially increase the effectiveness of her crafting endeavors, but she was going to have to do without it for now.

The one time she tried to have Kelerim learn an Enchantment ended up as a failure, because she couldn’t demonstrate what it was supposed to look like.  His own inexperience with manipulating elemental energy didn’t help, as he could barely light a small spark and had no idea how to touch the Earth-based potential she knew was inside of him.  Sandra couldn’t help him on that front, either, as she had never had experience handling any elemental energy other than in the form of Dungeon-based Mana, which Winxa had explained was entirely different.

To hopefully rectify her Enchanting problem, she started working toward upgrading her Core Size with the goal of hitting Size 20 so that she could access the Advancement system.  She had completely ignored it while she was building the VATS, as well as the whole new forges; most of her Mana went toward those two projects, as the traps in both were highly Mana-intensive and needed most of her maximum capacity to finish each room off.  The trial-and-error period working with Air-traps for the VATS took almost an entire week of constantly draining her Mana, but it was worth it in the end.

The issue with upgrading her Core Size was the time she was going to be “down”, which meant that she wouldn’t be able to do any cooking for Kelerim.  Luckily, she discovered that he could use the oven and cooking surface, as well as the water spigot, as long as her Sentinel was nearby.  She was able to leave a large quantity of raw meat for him to cook when he needed it, as well as a sizable collection of Copper, Bronze, Iron, and Steel bars for him to work as he wanted them.

The other issue was one of security.  While she “trusted” that Kelerim wasn’t there to hurt her, she couldn’t rely on her constructs protecting her if he wished her harm.  To that end, she got rid of her original little spiked pit trap (which had been rendered ineffective because she had built a bridge over it for her Dungeon Monsters to traverse) and set up a deadly-yet-simple trap in its place.

First, she built a wall of stone in the room, blocking off her sight from the entrance tunnel, but it also had the added benefit of blocking most of the heat from a giant wall of flames that would emerge from her new trap.  She pumped almost her full capacity of Mana into it, which made a flame wall six inches thick spring up when it was triggered; it covered the entire entrance near the tunnel, so there was no way to bypass it.  It was so hot, in fact, that her nearby constructs melted within a few seconds when she tested it out.  Although it wouldn’t stay active for long, if anyone walked through it, she estimated it would be like walking through lava – only worse.

Eventually – a week and a half after Kelerim started learning (re-learning would probably be the more accurate term) how to be a proper Blacksmith – she was ready to upgrade her Core Size.  Winxa had been in and out between her Home room and her own Fairy world, but she made it plain she was uneasy with Sandra being left practically defenseless while she was upgrading.

“It’s completely your choice, of course, but keep in mind that all it would take is one good thwack with a sword or knife and you’re a