Rei woke early on the third day with the hookblade by his side.
The forge was cold again, and his Crafting Slot hadn't reset yet. No flicker of heat. No glow. Just rust, broken stone, and silence.
But he stayed there anyway.
He cleaned tools. Sorted bent nails. Looked over anything with a whisper of potential.
When he focused, that strange sense returned, his Material Sense skill working in the background. Not sight. Not sound. Just... resonance. One shard of a horseshoe vibrated faintly when he touched it. Another hinge seemed too brittle, and when he snapped it in two, he felt no regret.
[Material: Brittle Iron Fragment]
[Quality: Unstable]
[Warning: Not suitable for Living Forge shaping]
He set it aside.
Later that morning, a kid approached him, small, no older than ten. The boy held out a dented knife and a shattered sickle.
"Can you fix these?" he asked.
Rei looked them over. The knife's edge was chipped, and the sickle had a bent shaft and cracked spine. Too damaged for forging anew, but maybe enough to salvage.
"I can try," Rei said.
The boy nodded once and ran off.
He laid the tools beside his piles. They weren't worth binding through the Living Forge. But he could still work on them. Slowly, he chipped away the damaged pieces and straightened what he could. Mundane repair, no system prompts. But it felt right.
Around midday, he heard someone approaching. Naomi.
"Still here," she said, stepping into the half-shadow of the broken forge.
Rei looked up. "Told you I would be."
She glanced at the sorted piles. "You do all this?"
He nodded.
"Okay," she said. "Then come with us."
Rei frowned. "Where?"
"Scavenging run. We leave in ten."
He didn't argue. He wrapped the hookblade in cloth and followed.
Naomi led a group of five. A tall, quiet boy named Rell. A stocky girl with two knives called Brin. A younger pair, twins maybe, who didn't talk much. Rei didn't catch their names.
They moved fast through the woods, staying low and following trails beaten by weather and desperation. Naomi kept them organized without barking orders. Everyone had a role.
Rei just tried to keep up.
After an hour, they reached a fallen cart overgrown with vines. The wheels were shattered. One of the axles was cracked in half. But the cargo bed was mostly intact, and Naomi sent the twins to dig through it.
"Scouts said this was part of a supply convoy hit weeks ago," she told Rei. "Probably looted already, but we check everything."
Rei nodded. "What are we looking for?"
"Metal, tools, rope. Food if we're lucky. Anything we can trade or repurpose."
He watched them work. Rell stood guard. Brin worked a blade through the vines. Naomi moved like she'd done this a hundred times. Efficient. Quiet.
They found some half-rusted tins. A few chunks of preserved wood. A broken lantern frame, which Naomi handed to Rei.
[Material: Lantern Frame]
[Quality: Low]
[Potential: Minimal. Suggest dismantling]
He kept it anyway.
They were heading back when the atmosphere shifted.
Rell stiffened and raised a hand.
Everyone stopped.
Then they heard it. Too many footfalls. Not animals. Not the cautious steps of other scavengers.
Naomi's hand went to her waist.
"Run. Back to the village. Now."
No one questioned her.
They ran.
But the woods weren't silent anymore.
Shouts in the distance. Cracking branches. Something moving fast behind them.
Rei's heart pounded. His legs burned. His mind flashed to the hookblade. He hadn't bound a second item. The Crafting Slot was still locked. But he gripped the cloth-wrapped blade tighter.
The trees thinned.
Lennwick came into view.
And behind them, three figures burst from the undergrowth. Scarred men in patchwork armor. Blades drawn. Raiders.
Rei turned as the others cleared the tree line.
One of the raiders lunged. Rei didn't think. He swung.
The hookblade wasn't strong. Wasn't sharp.
But it reacted.
[Command Input: Deflect]
The edge shimmered. His arm moved faster than it should've. The blow struck and slid aside, just enough to turn the blade away from his chest.
Rei staggered back.
Naomi was already moving. She had a short spear. Brin flanked. Rell charged the second raider with a cry.
But it wasn't a real fight. Just a stalling clash.
Then, from the village, a horn sounded.
The raiders hesitated.
From the crumbled wall, older teens with weapons emerged, makeshift, but ready. One fired a crude bolt-thrower. Another threw a torch. The raiders snarled and withdrew into the trees.
Rei collapsed to one knee.
The hookblade dimmed again.
[Durability: 21/24]
Naomi helped him up.
"You fought. That matters."
Rei couldn't speak.
Back at the village, everything felt sharper. People ran to secure doors. Watch posts were manned. Supplies were counted.
That night, Rei sat by the cold forge again.
He looked at the hookblade, scarred but alive in his hand.
[Affinity Detected: 4%]
[Sentience Progress: 30/100]
He stared at the numbers.
The Affinity had only climbed slightly. But Sentience, somehow, that had jumped.
Maybe it was the fight. Maybe it was the blade responding to danger.
Maybe forging a tool was only the first step.
It was using it that made it start to awaken.
He ran his thumb along the rough edge.
Not just a tool anymore.
It had seen him. Protected him. And now, it remembered.
A spark.
And he would build from there.