Read my new story (CaveLeather)
Game of Thrones: The Sword King
Game of Thrones: From Deserter to Power
Game of Thrones: King of Harrenhal— Garth Greenhand Stat Panel
In the blacksmith shop, the clang-clang sound of hammering was incessant. The hot air carried the smell of metal and charcoal fire.
Knoll was burying his head in dealing with a red-hot iron billet. In the interval of looking up to wipe sweat, he saw Shane and the other two walking in at a glance.
A surprised and happy smile bloomed on his face immediately. He put down the hammer and went up to welcome them.
"Shane! Why did you come back?"
"Have some business; want to borrow your shop to use." Shane's gaze swept over the familiar furnishings in the store, getting straight to the point.
Although he could use the Class Card to manifest tools and summon furnace fire himself, having a ready-made blacksmith shop with complete tools was still more convenient.
Hearing this, a trace of difficulty appeared on Knoll's face. He glanced at the inner room and lowered his voice. "My master is working on a batch of urgent orders inside; I'm afraid he doesn't have time to attend to you. And he's a bit rigid; he probably won't agree to lend his tools to someone your age—"
Before his voice fell, a loud voice interrupted him.
"Lend! If your friend wants to use it, let him use it!"
Accompanied by heavy footsteps, that extremely burly man with arm muscles comparable to Shane's thighs lifted the curtain and walked out from the inner room.
He first glared at Knoll. "Originally wanted to see if you brat were slacking off again—"
Immediately after, his gaze turned to Shane. That face reddened by the furnace fire actually squeezed out a kind smile. "But if it's this friend, use it as long as you want! Knoll, go clean up the best spot!"
Knoll's mouth opened wide enough to stuff an egg in, his face full of disbelief, but he still subconsciously responded, "Yes, Master!"
The boss didn't say much either, leading Shane toward the work area inside.
He extended a thick finger, pointing to a wall on the side, his tone carrying undisguised admiration. "I heard from Knoll. Those on the wall are all your works, right?"
Shane looked in the direction he pointed, couldn't help being stunned, then scratched his cheek somewhat awkwardly.
On that wall hung neatly all the experimental works he had left on Knoll's truck before, from short daggers to rapiers, not a single one missing.
But these things were all failed products forged by taking shortcuts with [Arrow Construction] before he saw through Senji Muramasa's True Name.
In his current view, the appearance was ordinary, the structure immature, with no craftsmanship to speak of—simply pure black history.
Being displayed so solemnly at this moment felt more like a public execution than being praised.
"Uh—sort of," Shane responded vaguely.
The blacksmith boss, however, got more excited the more he looked. He walked up and stroked the thread of a spiral sword almost obsessively. "Wonderful! This peculiar winding actually doesn't hinder the sword swing at all, but faintly carries a kind of force—
And the weight distribution of this sword body—I've been forging iron for decades and never seen such an exquisite yet solid structure! Young man, what technique exactly did you use? How did you think of—"
He asked like a cannonball but stopped abruptly halfway, a look of annoyance and embarrassment appearing on his face, waving his hand hurriedly. "Sorry, got too excited. Excuse me, excuse me!"
Every blacksmith had their own unique skills at the bottom of the box, secrets accumulated over years and months.
Asking rashly was tantamount to provocation; even the best friends might fall out because of this. The boss knew this rule well and felt he had lost his head just now.
However, the more he bragged about how excellent these works were and how incredible the structures were, the stiffer and more awkward the expression on Shane's face became.
That feeling was exactly like a corporate slave who had graduated for many years being forcibly pulled by someone to open their QQ Zone from more than ten years ago, pointing at those unbearable "painful literature" posts and reading them word by word.
His toes curled into the ground, wishing he could dig out a three-bedroom apartment on the spot.
"Boss," Shane hurriedly interrupted him, pointing to that "Wall of Honor" that made him ashamed, "I'm already very grateful that you're willing to lend me the shop. How about this? You help me out. If you have anything to ask, just ask directly as long as I know."
He wasn't a stingy person. On the contrary, in his philosophy, he didn't want the legends and skills of those Heroic Spirits who responded to his summons to be buried in this other world.
Under permitted conditions, he was very happy to spread this knowledge.
"Re—Really?!" The blacksmith boss's eyes instantly widened like copper bells, the huge surprise making him somewhat disbelieving.
He turned his head abruptly and roared at Knoll, who was still dazed, and several other apprentices: "Hear that? Suspend business today! Push all reservations! Close the door; no one is allowed to come in and disturb the Master!"
He even changed the address directly.
Shane added very easy-goingly, "Everyone in the store, those interested can also watch from the side. There's nothing that can't be learned."
As soon as these words came out, not only Knoll but also several other apprentices who were originally working showed wild joy on their faces, looking at Shane with gratitude.
The blacksmith boss felt deep respect. Being able to impart knowledge so unreservedly, this broad-mindedness made him admire endlessly.
Then, the first thing Shane did was, under the blacksmith boss's extremely pained gaze that was almost about to cry, take down those "black history" items from the wall one by one with his own hands and throw them into the raging furnace without hesitation.
Watching them twist and melt in the high temperature, Shane finally breathed a long sigh of relief in his heart.
Next was the step-by-step process.
Selecting suitable ores and metal ingots, throwing them into the furnace to smelt into specific alloys, tonging out red-hot billets, swinging heavy hammers to start repeated forging, removing impurities, and shaping into the ideal rudiment.
The clang-clang sound of hammering rang rhythmically, sparks splashing in all directions with every strike.
During the process, besides answering the blacksmiths' questions, Shane would stop from time to time, pull over Erza who was standing quietly aside, and ask in a low voice about wrist size, waist force angle, or gesturing the comfort of a certain arc.
Erza also watched seriously, sometimes stretching her body to cooperate with Shane's measurement, sometimes softly putting forward her own feelings.
The blacksmith boss stared at every movement of Shane with full concentration throughout the process, from hammer grip posture to hammer fall angle, from heat control to quenching timing, nodding heavily from time to time as if realizing something.
That scorching focused gaze made Shane somewhat unable to handle it.
If the other party weren't a burly man with knotted muscles, Shane would almost suspect he planned to offer himself in marriage.
Forming a sharp contrast with this bustling scene inside the shop was Gray, squatting in the corner with nothing to do.
The temperature in the blacksmith shop was extremely high. The heat waves emitted by the furnace fire surged wave after wave, making him, an Ice-Make Mage, uncomfortable all over.
"Hey, I say—" he couldn't help speaking up, "how long exactly are we going to stay here?"
No one paid attention to him. Only Knoll kindly handed him a bowl of water.
Gray drank it all in one breath, but the emptiness of having nothing to do and the stifling heat became heavier.
He stood up abruptly. "I'm going out! It's deadly hot here!"
Shane happened to stick his head out, holding a red-hot branding iron in his hand.
He looked at the unhappy Gray and realized suddenly, "If you have nothing to do, do me a favor? Go to the seaside to help scout the location of the 'Winter Tail Fish'."
This was a commission they casually took from the notice board before setting off for this seaside city.
That was a rare fish species that would only migrate to the shallow waters offshore during specific periods in winter.
Named for its beautiful tail fin resembling ice and snow sculpture, it was a top ingredient competed for by high-end restaurants, with a reward as high as 3,000 Jewels per fish.
Seeing that Shane seemed to really intend to take root in the blacksmith shop, concentrating on forging equipment for Erza and completely throwing Ultear's matter to the back of his mind, Gray scraped the ground with his shoe somewhat dissatisfiedly.
But thinking that he indeed promised to obey commands before departure, he held back a stomach full of sulking and couldn't flare up easily.
"Got it!" He responded grumpily, turned around, and pushed open the shop door.