Once the forge was complete, Luke positioned it centrally within the smithing chamber. He then cast Glamdring into the furnace, subjecting it to intense heat and a fierce blaze for tempering.
Glamdring was originally forged by Thorin and several dwarven craftsmen. It had been reforged from an ancient wight's sword, enhanced with a touch of mithril, and inscribed with runes signifying "flame." Gandalf had once wielded it in Moria during his confrontation with the Balrog, using it to channel the sacred Flame of Arnor against the Balrog's Udûn Fire. However, this didn't mean glamdring inherently possessed such power; Gandalf had simply served as a conduit for the Flame of Arnor through it.
This time, Luke intended to employ elven smithing techniques to reforge glamdring, aiming to make it even more potent. The sword's original body was bronze, but compared to mithril, its properties were vastly inferior. Luke now planned to use something far more precious: the Mother of Mithril itself.
Yes, he was going to reforge glamdring using the Mother of Mithril.
He began by placing glamdring into the furnace. A testament to its dwarven craftsmanship, it melted exceedingly slowly, even under the furnace's extreme heat. Luke augmented the flames by adding more flame crystals, accelerating the sword's melting process.
Under his watchful eye, glamdring dissolved into a pool of molten metal, its impurities rapidly burning away. All that remained was a small, pure clump of flawless molten bronze and a thumb-sized lump of molten mithril, the mithril Thorin and the dwarves had originally incorporated into the sword. Though small, it had been the most significant gesture of goodwill Thorin could offer at the time.
Now, Luke divided a fist-sized piece of the Mother of Mithril into two halves and tossed one half into the furnace.
The Mother of Mithril was significantly stronger and more heat-resistant than ordinary mithril; even the Balrog's flames had failed to melt it. Inside the scorching furnace, it remained inert.
Observing this, Luke added the remaining flame crystals into the forge. The furnace's power intensified tenfold, and its flames shifted from white to a hotter blue. The temperature now vastly surpassed that of a volcano, to the point where even the molten bronze inside began to vaporize.
The Mother of Mithril finally started to soften, though at an agonizingly slow pace. At this rate, Luke wondered when it would ever fully melt.
He directed his wand at the furnace's fire inlet and unleashed the Fierce Flame. This destructive fire merged with the furnace's blaze, elevating the temperature to a bluish-violet. Under such terrifying heat, the Mother of Mithril began to melt more quickly.
A week passed before the half fist-sized piece finally melted completely. The molten bronze from the original glamdring had diminished into a tiny, pure essence, gleaming like gold.
While mithril was excellent, it was too light; a sword made entirely from it would lack the necessary weight for control and lethal impact. Therefore, Luke combined the light molten Mother of Mithril with the dense bronze essence, creating an alloy of ideal weight. This fusion combined mithril's lightness, corrosion resistance, and magical conductivity with bronze's stability and strength.
He extracted the alloy from the furnace, allowed it to solidify, and then hammered it with a mithril hammer in a specific rhythm. Each strike imbued the alloy with magic and further integrated the mithril and bronze. Once sufficiently hammered, he returned the alloy to the furnace for another round of melting and tempering, allowing the mithril, bronze, and magic to react continuously.
This meticulous process continued for three full months. When the mithril, bronze, and magic became inextricably bound, and their "metal memory" fully awakened, the forging finally concluded. By then, the mithril alloy had already assumed the shape of a sword.
Luke used a mithril engraving knife to inscribe runes along the blade. Once finished, he immersed it in molten mithril for coating, then tempered, polished, and quenched it in a prepared crimson liquid, a fae quenching solution made from dragon's blood.
The sword rapidly cooled in the dragon's blood, absorbing its essence; the blade shimmered with a faint brilliance. After further tempering and hammering, another three months elapsed before a slender, silver-gleaming longsword was finally complete.
Its body was bright silver, with subtle golden hues from the bronze. The crossguard featured a phoenix engraving at its center, with its ends shaped like a crown and inlaid with red gemstones, the pommel also housed a large one. These were not genuine rubies but flame crystals meticulously carved into gem shapes.
Strangely, the once-scorching flame crystals, now embedded in the hilt, emitted no dangerous heat, only a gentle warmth, keeping the wielder comfortably warm even in freezing cold.
Along the blade, an inscription in Elvish read: "Luke, bearer and master of Glamdring, wielder of the Fire of Judgment, destroyer of all dark foes."
Arwen had penned this, recording both the sword's and its master's names, imbuing it with the will to judge and eradicate darkness.
After six full months of arduous labor, Luke was overcome with joy and a profound sense of accomplishment. "Glamdring!" he called. In an instant, the sword vanished from the anvil and materialized in his hand.
Feeling its familiar weight, Luke smiled. The sword, having absorbed his spirit and will during its forging, had already bonded with him. No matter his location, it would appear at his command. Unless he granted permission, no one else could lift it; any ill-intentioned individual attempting to do so would find it searing hot, at best suffering burns, at worst dying instantly.
Crafted from the Mother of Mithril, Glamdring was not only indestructible but also possessed immense magical properties, capable of resisting all manner of spells, even the Killing Curse. Crucially, the sword could absorb and integrate new substances to grow stronger, one of the most renowned aspects of elven forging.
Luke tested this by pouring basilisk venom onto the blade. The sword slowly absorbed it, gaining the venom's corrosive, all-destroying power, and becoming lethally poisonous, a single cut would now kill instantly.
Next, he plunged the sword into a Balrog's body, allowing it to absorb its power. Now it could devour fire to strengthen itself and unleash fiery attacks, even carrying the properties of the Fierce Flame.
Finally, Luke reluctantly retrieved a crystal vial of Eärendil's Light and dripped a few drops of star-dew onto the blade. The sword absorbed the starlight's power, becoming purer, the flame crystals in its hilt turned perfectly clear, and all traces of the Balrog's darkness were cleansed.
To his surprise, the sword could now absorb starlight whenever Eärendil's star shone overhead. Since Eärendil's Light was a formidable bane to dark creatures, Luke was delighted, if the sword absorbed enough starlight, it would become a true nemesis of darkness.
To maximize its exposure, he placed Glamdring atop Amon Sûl, allowing it to bask in the glow of Eärendil's star.
With the reforging complete, Luke paused his smithing work and shifted his focus to alchemy. Elven forging and wizard alchemy shared certain underlying principles, and his progress in the former had deepened his understanding of the latter.
His primary alchemical ambition was to create a Philosopher's Stone, which would lay the foundation for his immortality. However, creating such a stone was no simple task. Even though The Book of Abraham detailed the method, without profound alchemical skill, it would be as challenging as asking a schoolchild to construct a nuclear weapon, possessing the blueprints was one thing; actual production was another.
Thus, Luke sought assistance from his future father-in-law, the wisest and most learned lord of Rivendell, Elrond. Although Elrond was not entirely in favor of Luke and Arwen's relationship, he could not bear to see his daughter heartbroken, nor could he endure the thought of her sacrificing her elven immortality for Luke's mortal lifespan.
Given the Philosopher's Stone blueprint and a runic dictionary, Elrond quietly immersed himself in their study. With his boundless wisdom, he swiftly mastered the runes and even surpassed Luke's comprehension, gaining profound insights into the stone's creation.