The Crafter's Defense: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 2) by Jonathan Brooks (top 10 novels txt) 📗

So, with her Oak Wood, Sandra could create similar things as her Monster Seeds; tiny little wood chips, wooden cube blocks, rounded sticks, and flat boards. She had the ability to change the size – like the thickness and length of the material – but the general shape was essentially stuck in those forms.  Which was fine, because when she looked at the quality of the wood – she was again struck at how pristine it was.

She had become accustomed to the “pure” form of the metals she had created for her blacksmithing; sometimes it was difficult to imagine what having impurities in them again would mean for the crafting work she did.  With the wood she was able to create, however, it was obvious how different it was compared to the tree that was still growing and repairing the chunk she had taken out of it.

First of all, the graining inside was perfectly straight, which was essential to maintaining strength while granting a little bit of flexibility.  There were also no flaws or cracks, no knots in the wood, and it appeared extremely smooth – as if it had been sanded with the finest sandstone wheel.  She couldn’t actually “feel” it to tell, of course, because her Ironclad Ape only had so much tactile response in its form; she longed to run her fingers over the grain to feel the utter perfection the wood she created represented.  It was just another reason to see what other kind of Dungeon Monster from another Classification could do for her – one that hopefully had some sort of responsive skin to it.

In her woodworking workshop, she had used an Earth trap to set up a moving bladed saw that was similar in form to a grindstone.  Instead of stone, however, it was a circular piece of Steel that had little teeth cut into it like a handsaw, and it was connected to a central shaft that would turn very quickly through the use of the trap’s function.  She had it sticking up from the center of a flat stone table, in which she could use her Ironclad Ape to feed and cut her wood into whatever shape she desired.

Deciding to start with something simple, she created a dozen Oak wood boards that were 3 inches wide, 2 feet long, and an inch thick.  Activating the trap via standing in a particular spot near her saw table, she had her Ape lay the wood flat against the stone and push it into the quickly rotating metal saw – and wood chips started to fly and the board was almost ripped out of her Ape’s hands.

Whoops – pushed it in on the wrong side.  Realizing what she did, Sandra had to correct the trap activation placement and moved it to the other side of the table, so that instead of cutting in an upwards motion, the saw was cutting downwards.  With that fixed, she had her Ape try again and succeeded in cutting the board with precision.  Buoyed by her success, she brought her boards up to Kelerim’s old Forge and used her blacksmithing skills to craft a simple flat Steel band 2 inches wide that would stretch and wrap across all 12 boards in their center.

While it was still relatively hot and malleable, she placed the boards next to each other and quickly wrapped the Steel band around them; when it was in place, a few quick hammer strikes allowed her to seal the ends of the bands together in a relatively crude weld, but it was enough to hold it in place.  The metal was still hot enough to start to burn the wood, so she brought the whole board and band combo to a small trough she had filled up nearby with cool water from the Kitchen/Dining Room.  Steam rose up as the metal rapidly cooled, but the Steel was of such purity that even rapid cooling couldn’t cause it to weaken from the extreme change in temperature.

When it was cool enough, she brought the now-wrapped bundle of boards to the woodworking workshop again.  Laying it flat on the saw table, she used the rapidly rotating circular saw to trim and shape the outside of the boards into a rough circular shape.  Her Ape didn’t really have as fine of control as she would’ve liked; subtle movements of the entire bundle was difficult with its sausage-like iron fingers.  As a result, it looked more like someone had taken an axe and inexpertly cut around the edges of it, but it would work.

Fortunately, blacksmithing for the Ironclad Ape was much easier.  Once the shape was achieved, she brought it back to the blacksmithing shop and created another quantity of Steel to make another flat band; this time, however, it was shaped to cover the outside circular shape of the wood bundle.  It would also cover the previous Steel band, keeping it in place and extremely secure.  When the still hot and malleable Steel was ready, her Ape used its bare hands to shape it along the edge, allowing it to wrap the wood and then welded the end together when it had made a full circuit.  It was a little too long, however, so she had to cut the end of the band off when she was done using a hammer and a sharp chisel that could cut through the still-slightly soft metal.

Another bath in the water prevented it from burning up and catching fire, and when it was cool, she brought it back out.  Now was time for a dozen rivets to hold it in place; using a center punch tool – which was essentially a long spike with a sharp point – she hammered a hole into the edge of the outer band, through the wood, and then created another hole on the other side. Directing her Ape exactly where to place the