After building the house, I had only 800 credits left, which I used to buy iron ore and pure carbon to make steel. Adding molybdenum and chromium in around 16% of each batch made the steel even stronger and more resistant to corrosion. I created steel ingots sixteen ounces each, making eight of them by creating it myself when buying the same alloy from the shop would've cost me twice as much.
I took two ingots and did some experimenting with them, turning one into six throwing knives and the other into a single long dagger. It was all of the same general quality, and the knives combined sold for the same amount as the dagger, likely due to the material put into it. I used the rest of my steel to make six more daggers, turning my 800 credits into 2000. One winter month of daily smithing - broken up by socializing with my neighbors - I had 320,000 credits to play with. Since smithing was the path I was currently on, I decided to invest in it further. I bought a lathe for handles and a leather tanning station, increasing my productivity, and started purchasing magic skills with the intention of getting one in particular, though it was down the line.
At the cost of a lot of magic stamina, I could imbue a basic effect into any item. I could only do it two times before needing to meditate for an hour to rest my magic muscles and the effect I could imbue was not only temporary, but weak, but that didn't matter when I was going to sell the item immediately. My daggers had a better degree of sharpness, durability, lightness, and could even cut through butter marginally easier. This made them sell for 1.2x what they already sold for, raising the profit from 250 credits per dagger to 300. Four of those every day took less time than my previous grind, which allowed me to start doing commissions for my neighbors. I fixed some tools, repaired some walls, all for a cheap sum.
By the end of that winter, I had thoroughly ingrained myself into the community, and was continuing to gain trust. This would be important in eleven years, when the Long WInter came. I had no intentions of letting thousands of Hobbits die to the cold, starvation, and sleepless madness, if I could help it, but that was all I'd say on the matter for the time being. I had to build a reputation before they would believe I had seen the future. Read the future, more like.
I became somewhat famous for my culinary skills. I was able to make cooking utensils which expanded my capability to cook enticing meals, and using combinations of herbs from my own garden and vegetables bought from locals alongside meats from my hunting expeditions I cooked a variety of dishes for the guests I had pretty much every night. Hobbits would travel from across the Shire to spend a night in one of my guest rooms and eat a hearty dinner - they even coordinated amongst themselves, so all I had to do was play host to whomever showed up. I enjoyed it, and it quickly became tradition.
I eventually built a barn and traveled back to Bree to purchase a horse, some pigs, a few chickens, and even a cow which became companions of mine on my little homestead. Having access to daily milk and eggs, and pork every six months was nice. I grew close with my horse, a black mare I named Nyx. She and I would ride around the Shire to make deliveries and socialize; her tall stature earned her quite a bit of respect from the little folk.
For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely content with life. Still, I had higher ambitions. I wanted to make the most of the power granted to me, and create artifacts of legend. The next step on that journey was industrializing my smithing process. To do that, I spent 100,000 on a basic rune-carving kit and another 50,000 on an encyclopedia of magical runes, both of which I began experimenting with.
By utilizing runes, I could instill longer-lasting enchantment effects into objects, which varied depending on the wines used and in which order they were inscribed. Each rune had a variety of meanings that only came to life when combined or annotated in specific ways, which made the process of learning them very tedious. I had never been good at language, but I did enjoy the magic aspect of it so it was all worth it in my mind.
By the time the next Spring rolled around, I had done it. A magic-electric generator, about the size of a car battery, which could absorb magic from the atmosphere and store it in mithril capacitors within the device. That magic could be turned into electricity at any time, with enough current to power a variety of things. The first thing I did was build a fridge so I could store my perishables without making use of ice magic like I had been previously.
The magic tree opened up a lot after the first enchanting skill to include elemental, psychic, divination, and all other types of magic. I hadn't spent a lot of credits on it, as I preferred to focus on my crafting skills at the moment, but I had dabbled in ice and fire magic, healing magic, telekinetic magics, and animation magics. It was still limited to specific spells, but with the acquisition of the
I wasn't anywhere close to that, though.
Still, I began offering healing to anyone who needed it, finally revealing my magic to the Shire. To say my neighbors were surprised when I displayed a levitation spell to them would be an understatement, but wizards were well-regarded in Middle Earth and especially in the Shire because of Gandalf. He and the White Council, alongside the Elves to a lesser degree, were the only beings capable of magic that one would run into often enough. The Hobbits were happy to have an entity, even a weaker one like me, among them.
Speaking of Gandalf, I finally had the pleasure of meeting him during the summer celebration during my third year in the Shire. According to my friends, Galdalf showed up every few years for one celebration or another, bringing pyrotechnics of all manner from across the land to show the humble Hobbits. He hadn't come during my first two years here, busy with White Council duties no doubt, but was said to have brought a particularly special firework this time around. In preparation, I spent the night before and the morning of the celebration cooking up a feast worth of dishes never-before-seen by this world. It wasn't anything mind-blowing, like the pasta I had first made a couple years ago, but the African cuisine I cooked up was full of spices and flavors the Hobbits would surely savor.
Finally, the night came, and I transported all of my dishes to a tent I constructed in the field the Hobbits were using for the celebration. The smell from the tent garnered a lot of attention, but I sternly prevented any Hobbits from getting inside to take some food before the celebration began. And they tried, thirty-five times over the course of two hours, I picked up a Hobbit between the ages of eight and ninety-three by the scruffs of their necks and threw them out. Regardless of how gray and wrinkled they were, they would simply snicker and run off to get their friends to try. It delayed my preparation some, but I couldn't help but grin the entire time.
Eventually, the celebration began, and ale began to flow like a river as thousands of Hobbits danced and sang to celebrate another summer equinox passed and a bountiful harvest reaped. Of course, I had to join in with the festivities and I'm not ashamed to say I got a little tipsy after fifteen or so mugs of butterscotch ale - they're a quarter-pint each, so I think it's perfectly reasonable! The various families, who had brought a portion of their harvests in food, opened their tents and Hobbits passed like a flood to fill their bottomless stomachs. If I heard right, my tent was a favorite of a great deal of them. The sky darkened, and that's when the fireworks began.
Explosions of light and color filled the air, sparks raining down on us as booms and pops sounded throughout the clearing. Hobbit children ran around with smaller fireworks, shooting jets of sparks at one another while parents chased after them, creating an atmosphere of joy and warmth that would inspire the hard work of everyone over the course of the planting season to follow. I found myself wandering through the crowd, feeling bloated on food and alcohol until I ended up by a familiar wagon. I just so happened to trip over a stone, and fell into a tall man in a gray robe, who almost toppled over, himself if not for the quick and precise placement of a staff to support him. I lifted myself to my feet and hurriedly apologized before freezing when I recognized the face of Sir Ian McKellen - Gandalf.