Spirit Soul

The two opened the front doors and all of them immediately coughed as they were greeted by dust.

Thankfully, cleaning the house didn't take them long.

In the end, Gard and Mell acted quite simple.

They made use of their mana in order to wipe away the dust, and cobwebs.

Selene watched all of this with an astonished expression as the little insects and rodents hiding in the creeks were thrown out of the house in no time as well.

After that, Mell and Gard dusted their hands and looked at the two young adventurers who were staring at them.

She asked both Mell and Gard to take a look around the house because she and Gard wanted to freshen up.

She also told them that they could take a bath if they wanted to.

But, both Kyle and Selene were still fine in comparison to Mell and Gard.

The couple's clothes were in tatters and were barely held together by a handful of threads.

After the couple returned wearing a fresh set of clothes, Gard entered the basement.

He had probably got back to work based on the loud noises of hammer colliding against metal.

On the other hand, Mell was in the kitchen preparing dinner for everyone.

Not wanting to sit idle, Selene offered to help in the dinner preparations.

That left Kyle alone so he asked Mell if it was fine for him to enter the basement too.

He was intrigued about what Gard was doing and wanted to talk to him either way.

After hearing him, Mell replied,

"I guess you can go down, but don't expect too much. He is probably frustrated about having lost his arm.."

Mell let out a sigh and continued, "...Just let him try to forge, and don't say anything that could make him even angrier than he already is...We had never planned to return, nor for Gard to lose his arm…"

Kyle just nodded his head in response.

Leaving the two ladies in the kitchen, he turned around in order to approach the stairs that led him downwards.

The basement had yet to be cleaned, but Kyle simply ignored the dust and cobwebs.

With careful steps, he walked through the short hallway that lay straight ahead.

It led him towards a room that radiated heat outside its walls.

Due to this, he felt the increase in the temperature of the hallways.

After carefully opening the heavy metal door, he took a quick peek.

Gard appeared to be busy at work. So, Kyle squeezed himself through the small gap before closing the door once again.

Not much heat escaped the room, and Gard didn't even notice that Kyle had entered the smithy.

Kyle looked around and saw that it had only a small fireplace with a chimney that threw the smoke out of the house.

Other than that, the entire room was relatively simple and sparsely decorated.

It had an anvil in the center of the room, and a working table right next to it.

There were several batches of faintly glimmering ores on the shelves on the left side of the room.

From the looks of it, Gard had already prepared everything in order to start forging, which caused Kyle's eyes to gleam.

However, to Gard's misfortune, as expected, the young blacksmith was unable to forge as he usually did.

Working with just one hand made things extremely difficult for him.

Using the tongs, he picked up the ore and carried it to the fireplace to heat it.

Then he transferred it onto the anvil once the reduction and heating process of the ore had finished.

During the reduction process, the ore would generally lose oxygen that would then react with the carbon of the used charcoal in order to form the metal.

As for the heating process, the pre-forged metals were called ingots and Gard had yet to shape them into the desired form.

This was the trickiest part of the process.

The ingot had been heated to a nearly molten state by using an extremely high temperature.

The nearly molten state allowed it to retain its shape while allowing Gard to alter it with force.

Thus, the moment Gard laid the dark red glowing ingot onto the anvil, he quickly switched the tongs with the hot hammer he had.

Taking a deep breath, he struck the ingot by using varying degrees of force.

Despite that, he noticed, with a grim expression, that he failed to alter the ingot into the desired shape.

The ingot was squirming around like a fish on dry soil.

And when Gard struck the hammer, it fell to the ground with a ringing sound, the moment the ingot had cooled down.

Without a high enough heat, it was impossible to properly alter the shape of an ingot.

Meanwhile, Gard, who was well aware of the missed opportunity could only stare at the fallen piece of ingot on the ground helplessly.

There was just a short period of time wherein one would have to switch between using the tongs and hammer to strike the ingot.

But, he couldn't do that, not just with one hand. Some part of him had already known that yet he had wanted to try.

Sighing deeply, he put away the hammer before picking up the tongs as he took a step towards the ingot.

It was at that moment when he noticed that he was not alone.

Thus, he hastily straightened to look at who had been watching him.

There, Gard was able to see Kyle, who looked at him sheepishly, not knowing what to say.

He simply waved his hand at Gard.

For half a minute, nobody said anything and they simply looked at each other.

It looked like Gard was about to say something only to turn away a moment later.

He thought that Kyle would throw some pitiful words at him.

Or even worse, reassure him that everything was fine and that he would be able to return to his old strength.

This would have ignited his anger and made him vent out his frustration.

But, Kyle's calm expression was completely against his expectations.

"The reinforced wooden planks are smoking!" Kyle suddenly exclaimed.

Gard turned around, only to see that the ingot was still hot enough. It caused the heat-resistant wooden planks to catch fire almost immediately.

Quickly moving his hand, he used the tongs to pick up the ingots as his expression turned grim.

He added with an almost emotionless voice.

"Kid, if you have something to say, do it now, right in my face. I don't like being talked behind my back to."

Kyle liked Gard for his blunt attitude that he didn't back away. He was simply straightforward and that was what  Kyle preferred to be as well.

As such, he smiled lightly, while wiping away the light sweat that had appeared on his forehead before replying,

"If you want to forge properly, you'll need a prosthesis. Alternatively, you can also use a claw arm that you attach to the anvil or working bench.

It could at least hold the ingot, and you would be able to forge, even if it's not the same as before.

As for the refilling process of coal, and heating up of the fire, you can definitely improve that too..I guess?"

Even though he was not versatile in the forging process, he knew the bare minimum.

He had also seen a mechanized smithy in his past life. Thus, he could list many more ways in which Gard could lessen the stress of being a one-armed blacksmith.

While Kyle was deep in thoughts, Gard could only stare at the young blonde-haired man.

'That's not what I meant by 'say it to my face', lad….' He thought.

But in the end, Gard could only smile lightly, thinking that Kyle was too naive.

Shaking his head, he put the ingot back on the anvil.

Handing Kyle the tongs, Gard remarked,

"Now that you're already here, you might as well help me forge. Use the tongs and follow my instructions. You might as well learn something!"

The sudden change of events was something Kyle hadn't expected.

But he wasn't a person to back away when an opportunity to learn presented itself. Thus, he grasped the tongs, only to nod his head.

There was something Kyle had on his mind.

He figured that learning some basics about the blacksmith occupation would definitely be helpful for the future.

However, he was having a hard time keeping up with Gard.

Contrary to his expectations of raining doubts on him, he was just mindlessly following Gard's instructions.

By doing what Gard asked, Kyle lost track of what he was doing and had no time to learn or ponder about the process

First, he had to heat the ingot, up to a specific temperature before it could be hammered into the desired shape.

This temperature was different for every ore. It varied depending on the melting temperature and the temperature at which the energy veins inside the metals would deteriorate.

Every metal was imbued by one of the three cultivation energies if not altogether.

It created faint veins inside the metals that allowed the energy to circulate through the metal.

The higher the energy conductivity the rarer the metal.

This also improved their quality, making them a good choice for cultivators with abundant energy.

Circulating energy through a weapon increased its durability and sharpness.

It also made them suitable for other specific tasks, such as increasing the required tensile strength of a bow.

Because of that, it was possible to regulate the generated force to extreme precision.

Owing to this, blacksmiths and other occupation practitioners were required to pay attention to the energy veins inside the materials they were using.

Kyle and Selene's black steel weapons didn't fall into this category.

They had bought these metals exactly because neither weapon required cultivation energy to be sharp enough to kill beasts at the Fortification stage.

It was possible to circulate mana and primordial energy through them.

However, the resultant reinforcement in their durability and sharpness was negligible, to put it simply.

Kyle was unfamiliar with the ingot he was holding with the tongs.

But that was solved when he inserted a slight trace of energy to empower the Nurture ability.

When he looked at it carefully,  he could faintly perceive one vein.

This made him believe that it was an ore that supported the mana path.

This was because mana was the most abundant cultivation energy in the Sadorla forest, and so were the ores!

After heating the ingot several times, Gard had been able to roughly shape a small dagger blade.

It looked crude, but that was something the young blacksmith had expected.

He had lost his strong arm with which he would do most of the forging after all!

Nevertheless, Gard was fine with the result of his first forging process. And, after looking at Kyle, who was sweating profusely, he could only smile.

Kyle was rubbing his wrist that was aching a little after lifting the heavy smithy equipment.

He was wondering how long it would take for him to gain the same physical strength as Gard.

His eyes flicked to Gard, only to notice that the blacksmith was looking at him.

"Are you tired already? It looks like you won't be able to become a blacksmith then...what a shame!"

When Kyle heard this, he couldn't help but curse inwardly.

'It's the first time for me to feel the brute force of a being at the Vitae stage, and there is a fucking fireplace whose temperature is definitely above 1200 degrees celsius!!!'

Despite the internal grumbling, Gard's words had intrigued him.

"Becoming a blacksmith?...That could be quite interesting!"

Gard had not heard him mumble.

As such, he didn't know what was going on.

A sudden idea crossed his mind as Kyle stared straight into the blacksmith's eyes.

"Can you do me a favor? I have a…'small' request!"