"Dinner with the round table, ey?" Thomas chuckled as he doused the flames of the forge. "I've been working here for over eighty years and I've never seen them."
When he turned around he was met with shocked expressions of the group.
"What, surprised that I'm this old?" The blacksmith laughed. "I was very talented in aura cultivation, it's the main reason I got so upset they denied my battle trial and knighthood - after that I cultivated purely out of spite."
"What do you mean?" Cassian questioned.
"Once I stopped aging they could no longer pressure me into taking in an apprentice - I would be here for as long as they need me after all. They didn't allow me to become a knight because they weren't willing to risk their only blacksmith, so now they'll have only one blacksmith - forever."
"You didn't cultivate just out of spite though, right?" Calen stated.
Thomas raised and eyebrow and smiled faintly.
"What makes you say that?"
