Chapter 17: Dilemma
Nick didn't need the metal super hot like he would if he was going to work it merely hot enough that it doesn't get cracked from the chisel. Once hot enough Nick took the metal out of the fire and picked up the chisel before carefully lining it up the cut off a strip of material close to seven millimeters wide. Nick then hit the blunt side of the chisel with his hammer cutting that strip from the rest. He repeated this process until the billet of copper had been cut into twenty four , seven millimeter wide and two and a half inch long strips about two and a half millimeters thick.-
The rest of the shaping process was easy after that as he merely needed to heat the strips to a workable temp before gently tapping on one end of them causing the other to widen an form a mushroom like shape. Once the mushrooms "cap" was the right size Nick flattened the edges until the mushroom "cap" now was rectangular , like a smiths hammer. After that it was merely a matter of repeating the process for the rest and them curving the "handle" forming a ring shape that was then sized based on the list he had gotten from the men at the refinery.-
Once that was done Nick found himself with a problem of conflict between what he wants to do as the craftsman and what he should do as a wizard. On one side his instincts as a magical craftsman were telling him that the rings needed to be enchanted. While his brain told him he would get in a huge amount of trouble if the ministry found out he knowingly gave enchanted objects to muggles. This was quite the dilemma for Nick as he was equally torn between logic and emotion.
'As much as it pains me to admit , the risk of enchanting these rings is just too heavy. I can't tempt fate and getting sent to Azkaban just to satisfy myself.' He thought with a heavy heart and started to polish the rings to remove any rough edges. They weren't flawless store quality pieces but Nick was satisfied with them appearance wise. The system apparently automatically knew he was done with these rings and popped up a series of notifications. These notification told him that he got a certain amount of ring points for making these rings.
They weren't worth many points as he only got three for each of the rings which multiplied by the fact there were twenty four of them gave Nick seventy two points total. In addition to the twenty eight points he had left from creating Sanar he now had a hundred points even. This was just enough to let him buy a single mystery ticket if so chose or two pieces of basic equipment like a hammer and tong. Nick would be lying if he said he wasn't interested in testing his luck with the mystery ticket but decided to hold onto the points for now.-
As promised Nick wrapped the rings in a piece of cloth and brought them out of the shed after dousing the fire to show Harry. Harry was in their shared room on his bed reading one of Nicks books thinking it was a fantasy book rather than a school book for the up coming year. Specifically "A history of magic by Bathilda Bagshot" which was an ironic choice considering how hated that class was according to the books. "You certainly look comfortable." Nick said getting Harry's attention while peeling his sweat soaked shirt off and into the clothes hamper.-
"Did you finish!?" Harry asked instantly growing excited as he bent the ear of the page he was on and closed the book much to Nicks horror. "Don't bend the ear like that or you'll ruin the book!" he said angrily. Harry held his hands up in surrender "Okay okay! geez no need to get so miffed." he said defensively as he undid the bent ear and used a torn piece of paper as a bookmark. "To answer your question though , yes I did finish the rings , here." Nick said tossing the bundle of rings to Harry who caught it no problem.-
The boy opened the bundle but had a confused look when he saw the rings in it. "Isn't jewelry supposed to be shiny?" he asked in confusion. Nick laughed " depends on a few factors really , first is who is meant to receive the jewelry. Second is what it is made from and finally weather the person who made it has the ability to make it shiny. The answers to those questions in order are metal workers , copper and not with the setup I currently have." Nick said honestly.
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