Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Chapter 91

When the video export progress bar reached 100%, Matt sat up straight in his chair and turned his laptop towards Lin Yuan.

"Final version. 11 minutes and 47 seconds. Take a look at the title and description; if there are no problems, I'll upload it."

Lin Yuan took the computer and read it through from beginning to end. Matt adopted his suggestion, compressing the equipment printing section from nearly a minute to just over thirty seconds, and removing the warm color filter from the finished product display section, making the cold white base color of the sword and that very faint blue layer clearly visible under the light.

The title reads "Forging the Godskin Stitcher — Elden Ring Weapon in Real Life".

(Forging Divine Leather Stitching Needle - A Real-World Weapon from the Elden Ring) The description lists key parameters such as steel type, number of layers, total length, and weight, and ends with Li Wei's signature as 3D Modeling.

"Okay." Lin Yuan handed the computer back. "Upload it."

Matt took the computer, opened the YouTube channel backend, and dragged the video file into the upload interface. He pasted in the title and description, and used the previously taken finished product photo as the thumbnail—the sword lay horizontally on the black velvet cloth, the stepped patterns of the blade and the curved shape of the guard clearly outlined in the sidelight.

The announcement date was chosen tonight at 8 PM.

"More than three hours to go." Matt closed his laptop, leaned back in his chair, and stretched. "Just wait."

Lin Yuan didn't wait idly. He went to the materials shelf and lifted the asbestos cloth covering the rough blanks of Nelson and Jason's knives. They had been sitting in the corner after the forging was finished, waiting to be worked on after the stitching was completed. He measured the thickness and width of the two rough blanks with calipers, and the measurements matched those recorded in his notebook; there was no deformation.

He placed the two rough blanks into the coke oven and began normalizing them. The coke in the furnace was already thoroughly burned, and orange-red flames peeked out from the gaps between the charcoal blocks. He adjusted the damper to stabilize the temperature in a range slightly below the quenching temperature, then stepped back and leaned against the material rack to wait.

Matt moved his laptop to the desk in the office area and refreshed the backend every now and then. After the video was uploaded, it entered the transcoding process, and the progress bar slowly climbed forward. He watched the progress bar, his fingers unconsciously tapping a rhythm on the desktop.

At 7:40, transcoding was complete. The video is now listed as "scheduled" on the channel, with a countdown of 20 minutes until its release.

At 7:58, Matt moved his laptop to the materials shelf next to Lin Yuan, with the screen facing the two of them. "Two minutes left."

Lin Yuan turned around from the furnace, glanced at the screen, then turned back to continue monitoring the temperature inside the furnace. The furnace would need to be fully heated a little longer before it could be taken out.

At 8:00 AM sharp, Matt refreshed the page. The video status changed from "scheduled" to "public." He clicked on it and saw the view count jump from 0 to 3, then to 7, then to 14. There were no comments yet, but he saw a new notification—someone had liked the video less than a minute after it was posted.

"Someone's squatting down and waiting," Matt said.

Lin Yuan didn't reply. He took the rough ingot out of the furnace, placed it on refractory bricks to cool naturally, then walked to the office area, sat down next to Matt, and glanced at the screen. The number of views had jumped to over eighty, and the first comment appeared in the comment section, which read, "Finally someone made this weapon."

Matt placed his phone on the table, with both devices running in the background simultaneously. The view count on the computer screen increased slowly but steadily, while the phone screen refreshed much faster, with the numbers increasing with each refresh cycle.

At 8:15, the number of views surpassed 500. The comment section started to buzz. Some asked about the specific steel ratios, some commented on the high fidelity of the equipment, and others urged for the next weapon. Matt picked out a few replies, typing quickly and providing concise and appropriate responses.

At 8:40, Lin Yuan stood up and walked to the furnace. He wiped the two rough blanks, which had cooled to room temperature, cleaned them with a cotton cloth, and covered them again with asbestos cloth. When he returned to the office area, Matt turned the screen around to show him that the number of views had reached 1,200.

"This speed isn't explosive, but it's stable," Matt said. "YouTube's algorithm hasn't started pushing yet, so the current traffic mainly comes from search and existing channel followers. Once the algorithm recognizes a good engagement rate, there will be an increase."

Lin Yuan nodded without asking any further questions. He packed his things and went back to the dorm with Matt. On the way, Matt was still browsing the backend; the light from his phone screen reflected on his face, making his expression difficult to discern, but the corners of his mouth were turned up.

The next morning, when Lin Yuan arrived at the forge, Matt was already there. He was sitting in a folding chair in the office area, his laptop open, the screen displaying the backend data page of his YouTube channel.

"It went up by more than 8,000 overnight." Matt turned the computer around to show him. "There are more than 400 comments and a little over 2,000 likes. This data has exceeded expectations for the first video."

"7

Lin Yuan put down his backpack and walked to the computer to take a look. Views: 8,447; Likes: 2,103; Comments: 468. He scrolled through the comment list; the top comment was a rather long analysis, breaking down the steps in the video from layer calculations to heat treatment processes, concluding that "the lamination is consistent and the..."

"The geometry looks correct." Later, someone replied asking if he was a knife maker, and he said he made knives as an amateur and had a small workshop in Atlanta.

Another comment, which was pushed to second place, read, "I've been waiting for someone to make this."

I've been waiting for someone to make this weapon since the game came out. Finally.

Finally, it's here! ) Below this was a string of replies discussing the realistic feasibility of the game's weapons. Someone mentioned the weight issue, and someone specifically used the parameters given in Lin Yuan's video to calculate the weight of the entire sword, replying, "This is actually usable for..."

A sword of this size ("For a sword of this size, this is actually usable")

Matt pointed to a comment and said, "This person is from the gaming community, and their account is verified as a community creator for Elden Ring. They shared your video with the caption 'best game weapon recreation I've seen so far.'"

(This is the best game weapon replica I've ever seen.)

Lin Yuan scrolled down and saw several comments from the knife-making community. One of them was from a North Carolina account that made custom knives, saying that the color treatment of the cloud pattern was very interesting and asking if he would be willing to exchange technical ideas. He didn't reply on the spot, but took a screenshot of the comment and saved it.

The iron gate to the forge was pushed open. Daniel walked in, carrying a cup of coffee and holding the day's newspaper under his arm.

He placed the coffee on the table first, then walked to the office area and glanced at the computer screen. "How many?"

"More than eight thousand," Matt said.

Daniel leaned closer to the screen to look at the comments section and asked curiously, "How many people said it was good?"

""

"Most of the comments are positive." Matt scrolled down the comments section. "There are a few who question the authenticity, saying that the pattern might be a fake cloud pattern created by acid etching. We don't need to pay attention to these people; those who know what they're doing will answer them for us."

""