"This…"
Just seeing the state William had ended up in gave Ellina a massive scare. The boy was swaying on his feet, his eyes glazed over with the sheen of a man standing at the precipice of total collapse.
She instantly cancelled her shield—which felt entirely useless now that the danger of an explosion had been replaced by the danger of a boy working himself to death—and appeared at his side in a flash.
Her strong, muscular arm caught him before his knees could hit the stone floor, supporting his weight with effortless stability.
"T… Thanks…" William wheezed.
He was far too tired to speak properly at this moment. During the past few hours, he had truly gone overboard, pushing his underdeveloped eleven-year-old body far beyond the limits of what a thirty-five-point spirit master should endure.
His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird, and the air in his lungs felt like liquid lead.
"Here," Ellina said, her voice unusually soft. She reached into a hidden pocket of her smithing apron and took out a small, translucent yellow bottle, handing it over to William with a steady hand.
"This is the Spirit Breath. It is one of the best potions in existence for recovering one's spirit power and cleansing the deep fatigue of the marrow."
"Thanks," William rasped.
He didn't even attempt to refuse such a precious gift. Even in this backwater region, he knew the reputation of Spirit Breath. A bottle of this quality would cost at least ten thousand spirit crystals on the open market—if you could even find a master alchemist willing to part with it. And most bottles were even smaller than the one she was handing him now.
He uncorked the vial and took a single, measured sip. The effect was instantaneous. It felt as if a cool, mountain spring had been poured directly into his veins, washing away the acidic burn in his muscles and clearing the fog in his mind.
Just a few drops were enough to restore his exhausted strength to its peak. After all, William was still a weak spirit master to begin with; his "vessel" was small, so it didn't take much of such a potent elixir to fill it back up.
Ever the pragmatist, William didn't want to deplete the entire bottle in one go. He carefully recorked it, intending to save the remaining drops for the life-or-death struggles of his upcoming adventure in the Blessing Forest.
"I have to admit," Ellina said honestly, her eyes never leaving his face, "that master of yours is a genuine genius! But she is also a terrifyingly harsh one!"
William wanted to laugh bitterly at the irony, but he controlled the urge. If Ellina considered this level of exertion "harsh," he wondered what she would call the inhuman, bone-breaking training his master had put him through in his previous life. To him, this was merely a stressful afternoon.
"Thanks for this," William said, his voice now clear and strong as he gestured with the yellow bottle.
"It's nothing. I just want to see what you will do in the end," Ellina said, waving her hand dismissively.
She moved to the side of the anvil but did not return to the entrance. To someone of her grade and position, the potion might seem priceless, but to her, it was a small investment to witness a miracle.
"Won't you get back there?" William asked, pointing at the spot behind the now-deactivated shield.
Ellina shook her head firmly. "I'm now trusting what you said. You're a lot of things, William, but you won't throw your life away simply like that. You value your craft too much."
While her words were respectful, William saw through her true intention. She wanted to be closer—close enough to catch the subtle tremors of his hands and the specific frequencies of his spirit power.
She didn't want to miss a single detail of the innovative techniques he was displaying. She likely intended to replicate everything he did the moment he left.
William didn't stop her. She had already taken the sacred vow to keep his secrets, and in his mind, she had paid a fair "tuition fee" by giving him the Spirit Breath.
As his strength replenished, he returned to the anvil to repeat the gruelling process.
The drawbacks of the Atmospheric Forging method were not just limited to the physical toll; it was a massive time-sink. He was only able to process a single ore once every five minutes, and he required a few minutes of rest between batches to let his meridians settle.
With the Spirit Breath coursing through him, he grew bolder. He exerted more force, tightening the rotations and shortening the time spent on each needle by half. But even with that increased efficiency, the sheer volume of work was daunting.
It took him over fifteen hours of continuous labour to finish the task. During that time, the orange sunlight faded from the workshop windows, replaced by the deep indigo of night. Neither of them stopped. William never faltered in his rhythm, and Ellina never left her post.
She kept her eyes fixed on his moves, barely blinking during the first few hours. The more she watched, the more her internal monologue shifted from scepticism to pure, unadulterated admiration for both the boy and his "mysterious master."
'So, he is using the high-frequency percussion caused by the hammer to vibrate the impurities out of the lattice... using those specific vibrations to cleanse the berserk energy without triggering the internal collapse... Brilliant! Why didn't I think about using resonance to tame the scarlet ore before?'
She stood in the dim light of the forge, her mind on fire with new theories, watching as the final raw stone was hammered into a perfect, lethal needle.
She kept thinking about giving it a try and using the same way to cleanse the vibrant ores. However, when she thought about being inexperienced in such moves, she refrained from doing so.
She was a master of the forge, and she knew the difference between understanding a theory and possessing the muscle memory to execute it.
One slip of her heavy hand, one millisecond of desynchronization between her golden spirit power and the hammer's strike, and the resulting explosion would test even her sturdy shields.
And like that, she decided to continue watching and learning, mimicking William's actions in her mind to better engrave them into her memory. She visualised the horizontal rotation, the delicate "slide" of the hammer face, and the way William used the air itself as an anvil.
In time, she got hungry. Rather than leaving, she sent for a disciple to bring a fancy meal that would be enough for five people. When the spread arrived, the aroma of roasted meats, seasoned vegetables, and spirit-enriched grains filled the soot-stained air of the workshop.
William refused to eat until he finished this task. He was utterly absorbed in the process. He feared losing his focus if he stopped; he knew that the trance-like state he was in was fragile. If he broke the rhythm now, the mental toll of restarting would be even greater. So, he pushed himself and kept going.
His fatigue was already cleansed away by the potion. His strength was restored as well. But his body still needed to eat, and his mind couldn't recover from the mental exhaustion of constantly focusing like his body.
The "Spirit Breath" was a miracle for the meridians, but it could not replace the biological necessity of calories or the rest required for the brain.
Just a few hours before he stopped, his stomach started to ache and make weird sounds from time to time, echoing against the metallic clangs of the hammer. As for his mind, he felt an annoying headache—a sharp, throbbing pressure that felt like his head had been opened by a brutal axe.
"Phew, I'm done." As he finally cleansed the last piece, he stopped and drank a few more drops of the yellow potion to replenish his strength.
When he noticed the darkness outside the small workshop windows, he couldn't help but feel a little weird. Time had lost all meaning in the heat of the forge.
Just now, he realised that Ellina had stayed all this time by his side without moving an inch. This meant she remained here for over fifteen hours!
'Doesn't she have anything else to do or what?' William thought to himself, momentarily baffled by the dedication of this Gold-grade master. Before he could dwell on it, Ellina pointed at a new wooden table that her disciple had brought earlier.
"Come, let's eat."
"Thanks," William said. Once he saw the food, all the hunger he had suppressed exploded without control. His stomach gave a loud, demanding growl.
Without acting polite or maintaining the persona of a refined disciple, he went and sat on the opposite side of Ellina before gulping food like a monster. He tore into the meat and shovelled rice with a desperation that only a growing, exhausted boy could manifest.
"Hahaha, easy, or you'll get yourself choked, hahaha!" Seeing him like that made Ellina's mood better.
In this moment, William returned to being the little eleven-year-old kid he appeared to be, and that mysterious, ancient air he emitted during his forging process vanished without a trace.
Ellina might have bought the story of the mysterious master, but who said reading a book was enough to become an expert? Knowledge was only half the battle. One had to be talented, and even that wasn't enough.
Constant training over these skills and techniques was also required. So even if William had a formidable master like he claimed, then that master also had a scary disciple to execute such skills with such precision.
She looked at his small hands, now covered in soot and grease, and marvelled at the power they had just wielded.
"I can't believe you are only eleven years old," after asking about his age between his bites, Ellina couldn't help but express her surprise.
"I see you are a porter... why not quit this useless job and join us here? I can speak to the Head Master personally. You wouldn't be a servant; you'd be a Star Disciple."
In her eyes, such talent would be left to dust and be wasted if William continued to be a porter, carrying bags for people who didn't have a fraction of his worth. William didn't stop eating while answering her with a full mouth:
"I will, but not now."
"Why? Why wait even a day?"
William kept eating as he felt his headache and hunger were cleansed clean with the food. The warmth of the meal was doing what the potion couldn't—grounding his soul back into his body.
"It's my master's wish," William shrugged and put a helpless look on his face, as if this was out of his ability to decide. It was the perfect excuse; in the spirit world, the word of a master was law.
"Sigh, that master of yours… I can't criticise her, but her methods are really strange," Ellina sighed, leaning back and watching him finish the plate.
She couldn't believe that a master would force her disciple to work in such a low job when he could shine and live a life of kings in the Forging Department.
But if William surprised her with his abilities, then she was sure his master must be something else entirely—a hidden powerhouse of the highest order.
How could she, a mere Gold-grade master in a regional academy, say anything about such a master's teachings? She could only watch this little "porter" and wonder what he would become once his master finally let him off the leash.