Hero of Darkness

The early morning of the next day started as a military drill for both Kahn and Blackwall while Throk was their drill sergeant who woke them up by releasing his killing intent on both the disciples. 

"Get into your working clothes you useless shits! 

Is that how you want to become a blacksmith? 

By sleeping instead of training?!" bellowed the old dwarf. 

Yawn! 

"What's this? Since when did you start working so early?" asked Kahn who looked like a walking corpse in his half-asleep state. 

BANG! 

Before he could even react, Throk leaped in the air and punched Kahn in the head. 

Crack! 

His head was buried in the floor as the tiles were cracked open. 

"Inside the forging room, you only address me as Master!" shouted Throk with a visible fire coming out of his eyes. 

He then looked at Blackwall with his fiery eyes and the abyss knight general instantly stood straight and rearranged his posture like a wooden pole. Otherwise, he too was going to receive the same wake-up call. 

"Hey, why did you…" 

BANG!! 

"Argh!" 

Another fist hit Kahn's head as he was buried even deeper. 

"Hey? What 'hey'? What did I tell you to call me?" asked Throk as he released all of his orange-colored pressure full of world energy belonging to a second stage saint. 

"This is going too far! This is…" 

BANG!! 

This time, Throk hit him even harder and Kahn's head was thoroughly buried in the flooring like an ostrich. 

"So… what did I say again?" asked the saint blacksmith. 

"I will wake up early from now on… Master." spoke Kahn like an obedient child as two swollen mountains appeared on his head. 

"Good. Now both of you will start the forge and show me how you two perform smelting and then casting." he said in a domineering tone. 

Both Kahn and Blackwall instantly went into alert mode as they felt a sense of foreboding that involved them getting beaten to death by the old dwarf if they missed a single step or made a slight mistake. 

Kahn and Blackwall quickly brought in metal ores weighing around a kilo and rearranged everything in the foundry. 

In the Vulcan empire, the top blacksmiths used A Rank mana cores to power the magic furnaces just like how Albestros used to do in Rakos Empire. But the equipments here were far too advanced and directly let them know of the temperature of the furnace and how close were the ores to the melting point. 

Soon, the metal ores that varied in shapes started melting and they prepared cylindrical casts to pour in the liquid metal. After clearing out the slag that surfaced at the top and putting it in the crucible, Kahn tilted the furnace using a leveling level while Blackwall held onto the mold where they were to pour in this molten liquid. 

Although this was just normal casting procedure, the duo felt like their life was hanging on a thread because Throk was intensely staring at them… just waiting to see a slight mistake in the process. 

After carefully pouring out the molten liquid in the mold and successfully performing the casting… Kahn then started a magic cooling equipment surrounding the mold that cooled down the liquid while it took the shape of the mold without affecting the inner composition of the metal or forming cracks on the shape since it needed to naturally lose the temperature. 

If this was earth… this equipment would save the professionals hours of time that they had to waste just to have the liquid cool down. 

In just 30 minutes, the whole casting procedure was over and they took out the sample from the mold and presented it to the old dwarf. 

"Hmm… not bad. There are no bubbles or any cracks. 

I would've broken your arms if there was even a slight amount of slag." said Throk as he looked at a perfectly cast cylindrical-shaped sample. 

"I guess you two have learned enough to be done with smelting and casting. 

Now show me how you do hammering and quenching." he commanded. 

"What shape?" asked Blackwall. 

"Perfect rectangular ingot." he said. 

"What?! This is cylindrical. And you want us to make it in a flat rectangular shape without smelting it?

Do you know how hard that is?" questioned Kahn. 

"He he! Of course, I do. 

But I didn't say your training was going to be easy using the conventional methods. 

If you can't make me a perfectly rectangular ingot in the dimensions I order you to… 

Then you both are already failures as a blacksmith." spoke Throk with a condescending look on his face as if he was looking down on Kahn and Blackwall's entire existence. 

But to no avail… the duo had to follow the orders and the entire morning hammering and sweltering the casted samples into the shape. 

----------------

At night, Kahn was finally free after spending 15 hours of training without a break while Throk berated him and Blackwall and beat the shit out of them while they made many mistakes. 

Although he had learned hammering skills a while ago… the rank was still lower and so was his mastery. Thus, he screwed up more than 20 times and had the old dwarf physically and physically torture them. 

Kahn now stood in his new bedroom in the company quarters. 

Swoosh! 

Ronin appeared out of the shadows and handed Kahn a space ring. 

"Enough for two months." he said and disappeared from the spot. 

Kahn then quickly activated his Dimensional Domain and poured out the content of this space ring. 

And one by one, he started creating doppelgangers, all of whom possessed 70% of his physical stats and all his skills except for the divine abilities and the blessings. 

After 5 doppelgangers were created and received enough SS Rank cores with their separate space rings, enough to supply them with mana to sustain themselves for months… 

Kahn distributed the heap among the 5 and spoke in a resolute voice since this was only the beginning. 

"Alright everyone… it's time to start the hard grind."