The two kept working on the rest of the ores for hours, their movements becoming a practised dance between Master and student.
When the light of the next day appeared, casting long, pale fingers of dawn through the high windows of the forge, they were about to finish the monumental task.
"Phew, that took longer than I expected," Ellina said, casually wiping a non-existent layer of sweat from her forehead.
William's eyebrows twitched when he heard that. If it were him alone, without her Gold-grade stamina and explosive power, forget about taking a few hours—even an entire day of non-stop labour might not have been enough to refine this much material.
He was acutely aware of the gap between his current vessel and hers, but he was equally satisfied with the results of their overnight marathon.
"What are you going to do with these?" she asked, pointing at the smaller batch of the scarlet vibrant ores—the ones that William had handled before using his specialised hammer rotation. These were the hyper-dense, purified needles he had forged mid-air, looking like slivers of frozen blood.
"Do you happen to have flying knife moulds?" William didn't answer her directly and instead asked for what he wanted. He had a specific tactical vision for his trip to the Blessing Forest, and it required more than just a bow.
"Flying knives? What are these?" Ellina asked, tilting her head in genuine confusion.
Just like he expected, such a concept was still unknown in or at least extremely rare in this world. Most spirit masters favoured grand weapons—broadswords, heavy spears, or massive hammers—believing that bigger meant better.
The idea of small, concealable, and balanced throwing projectiles hadn't reached the mainstream of the academy's martial arts.
"Do you have a mould we can modify? I want to do something special with these ores," William said.
Ellina, fueled by the momentum of their success, didn't hesitate. She produced a mould from her storage ring that had a few holes in it, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.
She had already been shocked by William's actions more than once in the last twenty-four hours. Hearing that he wanted to do something special with a concept she had never heard of made her mind run wild with ideas. She was ready to be a part of another "miracle."
"I was still working on this one," she pointed toward the mould she brought out before adding, "but to modify it, you'll have to use a huge amount of spirit power. It's a high-density alloy meant for specialised daggers. Let me do it instead. Just tell me what shape you want and how many of them."
William knew what she said wasn't false. With his current thirty-five points of spirit power, trying to reshape a high-grade casting mould would be like trying to move a mountain with a spoon.
However, he knew it wasn't the only way to modify a mould—a master smith could use thermal expansion and specific resonance to do it—but he didn't say anything regarding this to her.
He was happy to let her expend the energy. He simply crouched down and started to draw on the ground with his finger in the soot and dust.
"Twenty centimetres long," he began, sketching a sleek, aerodynamic silhouette. "The first half of it is just like the arrowheads here—diamond-shaped and sharp—but slightly thicker. The other half will be in a cylindrical shape, acting as a handle, but balanced to ensure the centre of gravity is exactly at the midpoint."
"These… aren't these like knives used in cooking?" Ellina asked, her voice dropping in disappointment.
What she heard and saw made her frown. She had expected a revolutionary concept of war, but the drawing on the floor looked remarkably like a butcher's paring knife.
"They are like these, but cooking knives have different ratios," William explained, getting over his surprise at her comment. It was understandable; to a world that didn't understand the physics of throwing blades, a knife was just a tool for the kitchen.
"The cooking ones have four-fifths of their length dedicated to the blade, with very short handles. These are balanced for flight and penetration."
"Alright," Ellina said, though she still didn't see much of a difference. She decided to trust him, given his track record.
A thick wave of bright yellow energy gushed out of her body, so intense it made William's skin tingle. It enveloped the mould in mere seconds.
Cracking sounds erupted, sounding like small gunshots, as the alloy of the mould began to show signs of changing under her sheer spiritual pressure. Concave parts began to form, shifting and flowing like liquid metal until they took the exact shape of what he had drawn on the floor.
"How many of them do you want?" she asked, her breathing only slightly faster.
William looked at the pile of his purified ores and made a rough estimate in his mind. "Twenty," he said.
"It's done," she said. As the design was ready, she didn't need much time to prepare the mould. The design was always the hardest part of making any new item; changing the physical mould was the easiest and fastest part of the process for a master of her calibre.
The only drawback such a process had, in her eyes, was the huge amount of spirit energy needed to alter such a high-grade mould.
William examined the mould carefully first. He had to admit to himself that she did this task brilliantly, using her spirit power with the precision of a master.
"Now what?" she asked.
"Time to add the final touch," William said. He went back to the workbench and used the pots from earlier. This time, he placed the other half of his light candles—the ones he hadn't used for the arrowheads—into the pots and set them over the fire.
Once the wax was a glowing green liquid, he took the thirty refined scarlet vibrant ore needles—the ones he had forged mid-air—and placed them into three separate pots. He let them melt down into a concentrated, hyper-stable but high-energy fluid.
The candles melted faster, but he didn't hurry to take them off the fire. Ellina mistook this as him wanting to let them stay in a liquid state for ease of pouring.
But after the passage of ten minutes on the fire, a new change occurred to the green liquid. After being still for long minutes, sparks of dark green fire started to dazzle the entire room, jumping from the surface of the pots like tiny, emerald lightning bolts.
"This…"
Ellina never expected the candles would have another stage of purification. What she didn't know was that the candles had more than one stage of purification—five stages at least, according to the secret lore of the higher realms. But right now, William only needed the second stage of it.
The first stage of purification would burn the impurities that were basically hindering the candle material from working properly in forging.
In other words, this was usually done when anyone would simply light up the candle for illumination. After all, the light emanated from the fire was fueled by burning these surface impurities away.
But the second stage was different. It would act on the fine, microscopic impurities and also concentrate the green material into a higher, more potent form.
To achieve this, the entire candle had to be inside a pot and placed directly on a high-intensity fire for ten minutes at least. This form wouldn't only help in augmenting and conducting energy; it would also add another crucial feature: long-distance control!
That was the basic concept behind flying weapons in the outside world. Right now, and with William's limited spirit power, he could only control such low-weighted knives. And he could at most control three of them with his current low spirit power.
Each knife would require at least ten spirit points to control effectively in mid-air. If he used a bigger weapon, like a flying sword, then this consumption would soar much higher, likely draining him in seconds.
Even if he couldn't use all of them right now, he wouldn't miss this chance to produce more and store them for later. He planned to raise his spirit power above a hundred soon.
By then, he'd be able to control around ten flying knives simultaneously. If his spirit power grew past the two hundred mark, he'd be able to control all twenty knives with ease, turning himself into a whirlwind of silver death.
While waiting, he didn't stand idle. As he left the pots on the fire, roughly knowing it would take around twenty to thirty minutes to get the second-stage liquid ready, he went to the logs of wood in one corner to finish another task. He needed to prepare the shafts and the grips, but first, he realised he lacked a basic tool.
"Do you have a sword?" he asked, turning to Ellina. "Mine got ruined during my last task."
"Don't tell me you still have that old, useless scrap of metal," Ellina said, her voice full of surprise.
As a porter, he'd typically be issued the lowest grade swords available. These were commonly in a very bad state, mass-produced with poor tempering, usually ending up getting broken or notched in less than a few years at most.
She weirdly eyed him in doubt. He was indeed fulfilling all the criteria of a porter—the uniform, the lack of wealth, the lowly status. But she was bewildered because she knew how formidable the master standing behind him was.
If weapons were pricey and hard to get for anyone else, for forgers, it was a piece of cake. Why would a master let her star disciple carry a piece of junk?
William could only smile bitterly. He had planned to buy a decent sword before he dropped the issue, thanks to his low wealth and the priority of buying the scarlet ore.
He thought he would have to pay a steep fee for getting the work done here at the forge. But if he had known Ellina would be here to help, and he wouldn't even have to pay a single spirit crystal for the facilities, then he would have bought a better sword than his old, rusty, and useless one.
"Here," she said. Without caring, like she was simply taking out a bar of chocolate, she reached into her storage ring, pulled out a long sword with its scabbard, and threw it towards William.
The weight was perfect. William caught it by the hilt, and the balance was so exquisite it felt like an extension of his arm.
"This… isn't that a gold grade sword?!"
The moment he unsheathed the blade, William got an instant fright out of pure shock. The metal was a deep, translucent blue, etched with golden runes that hummed with latent power.
His top dream in buying a sword with his current wealth and abilities would be a decent white grade or even a mediocre bronze grade one. This weapon was worth more than his entire cabinet and everything in it combined.
"This is nothing," Ellina said, a wide smile developing over her face. "Consider it a mere gift."
She would never miss a chance to get closer to this kid. In her mind, she wasn't interested at all in William's own status, but in his master. Giving the disciple a "mere" gold grade sword was a small price to pay to ensure the mysterious master looked favorably upon her and the Forging Department.
.