Hammer of Will

Ironically enough I passed out in my study face deep in my notes. Alfred woke me up.

I guess without coffee, staying awake all night is impossible.

I slowly got up and got ready with Alfred's assistance. I have a busy schedule and it's only Odin's day (Wednesday).

Today I will have my first practical forging lesson.

I decided to take the long way to Nordri's place. I have a feeling I'm going to see someone I don't want to see if I go through the underground passage. I'm also having Muninn fly ahead of me scouting out my path.

Passing through the front gate, the guards acted as if they didn't recognize the completely hooded up me.

I guess their under orders to not recognize me.

Passing by the Clinic on the way through Main Street, I can see the construction workers going at it. I can also see a few maids giving orders to them.

These Valkyries are very useful. Maybe I should start a pharma company with them as my managers. Hello big pharma!

I also noticed some people staring at the building with mild curiosity. It seems like people are interested in the shop especially since this store was the Royal Storefront

Walking through the street early in the morning, I shuffle to the blacksmith building.

Making my way down into the building and down into the depths, I'm greeted with a familiar sight at the entrance to Nordri's manor.

Fafnir seems to be out front of Nordri's gate. He's decked out in a resplendent robe and an evil frown on his face.

Why does this guy look like he always have a stick up his ass.

I attempt to shuffle by him under his stare only for him to comment, "you better terminate your apprenticeship if you know what's good for you."

If only I could get Muninn down here without exposing my identity. I'd have him shoo away this guy by poking his eyes out.

I looked at him through my lovely mask and stared straight at him. Because of our heights, we were comically at eye level.

Before I can speak a word, a loud rumble came from the door only for it to be abruptly open.

"FAFNIR! Threaten my apprentice again and I'll smash your head in"

Whoa violence!!

I saw Fafnir shy away at this point by bowing and running away. He scurried away as fast as he could. Hopefully he won't bother me again.

I looked at Nordri with an awkward smile.

"Thanks for the help".

Nordri finally looked away from the scurrying Fafnir and then looked to me with his usually jolly smile. "Come let's forget about that, we have to get started."

Walking into the forge room I can feel the heat from the forge. My ice bones were helping me keep cool but my skin still felt it.

I couldn't help but notice a worn out hammer next to Nordris beautifully chiseled hammer. There were several designs on Nordri's. It looked carved ice with one rune dead center of the heavier piece of the hammer. Mine looked like a tiny piece of junk in comparison.

Nordri picked up his hammer and began speaking, "Okay before we get started, we will have to discuss something important. What tool you will use. Traditionally it is a hammer that is used as it can be useful for all schools in forgemastering. But if you want to use let's say a dagger, we can compensate for that."

"A hammer is fine. I don't think bladed weapons fit the scenario", I said. I've been gearing myself mentally for a hammer, there's no way I'll be using an axe now.

"That's good. Just be aware that we will build your own forgemaster tool for your own personal use by the end of the year. For now you can use this spare hammer. There's no gimmicks to it, just a regular hammer. It looks light enough for you to use," Nordri said passing me the worn hammer.

I grabbed it only to find out that although it's a light hammer it's still heavy. I was intending on incorporating small weight lifting Into my schedule but with this hammer I don't need to try as long as I use it correctly. It weighs about 10 pounds total. I weigh about 60 pounds. I'm fairly tall for my age and thicker with condensed muscle. I'm not a body builder but I'm fairly in shape.

Still lifting this is consistently is gonna be a pain in the ass. I'll need to figure out a way to increase my strength and endurance.

"Today we aren't going to do anything to intense besides having you acclimate to using Hammer of Will while swinging the hammer, and ill send you home with an assignment for Rune Smithing," Nordri said calmly.

There's homework here now too?

[Doesn't it just fill you with joy that some teachers know the value of hard work]

Over work more like it. My schedule is packed enough as it is. Ill have to spread this out into chunks.

"I know you already understand that your will is what allows you to move mana. Now we will work on inputting your mana into the hammer in a non destructive way. The intent here is that your mana will feel the differences in material that you hit the hammer with." Nordri said while putting a block of hot iron on the anvil.

"This is the first level of hammer of Will called Hammer Sight. It allows you to sense the internal structure of whatever your forging."

He continued to demonstrate this by first focusing on the hammer. I could feel his personal mana leaving his body into the hammer. It was slowly filtered through until the hammer looked to be glowing.

He then lifted the hammer with one hand and slammed it on the ore. I could see the glow in the hammer shifting a bit.

"Doing this requires practice and experience but in essence the shift in your mana will reflect the internal structure."

"The important part I want you to focus on today is not destroying that hammer with your mana. Remember mana can be destructive if used incorrectly. You want your hammer to be saturated evenly with mana so that it can properly sense its surroundings."

His lesson was fast but I understood the gist of it. I looked at my hammer and didn't even bother lifting it. My goal today is to work on not destroying the hammer.

Looking at it I had a little more than 16 mana. I slowly moved my personal mana. Personal man doesn't change a lot with druid training as I said before so this is likely to not change in the immediate future. I have to get used to using this amount.

I slowly filtered mana into the hammer trying not to overwhelm it. I had it spread out like a gas only to feel the hammer shaking. I stopped putting mana in so I wouldn't break the hammer.

"Remember, you want even distribution not a full distribution", I heard Nordri say.

Hmm maybe instead of having my mana spread out like a gas chaotically, I could try it in a liquid way where a full volume would fill the hammer evenly like a glass of water.

And surprisingly it worked. The glow slowly started to fill the entire hammer.

I turned to look at Nordri only to see him with his mouth open.

"I think I know why your hailed as a genius. Your mana control is significantly better than most people. Newbie forgemasters at least take a week to figure that out."

I though about it for a moment and finally realized that was likely what wisdom was. My finesse with mana.

My mother has extremely high wisdom then from training. Her finesse must be off the charts.

I have an unfair advantage though since I have been actively probing the nature of mana for my entire life time here already. Also, my old worlds concepts and thoughts are deeply entrenched in me.

[You left your old world for here so it's quiet ironic that you would continue to use that world's concepts]

Just because as a whole there was a lot of problems with the world, doesn't necessarily mean their accomplishments in certain subjects were wrong.

Nordri excited said, "Since you figured that out, its about time you smashed it on this iron ore. Tell me what you feel happens to your mana when you hit it."

I looked at the ore and sighed. Here we go. Lifting the hammer with two hands I slam it into the ore paying attention closely.

One, my arms hurt. Yea that hurt a lot, the vibration was a lot for my arm to handle. The reinforced ice bones keep a lot of it stable though so I didn't let go.

At the moment though I felt a sliver of my mana enter the ore from the hammer. It spread like a branching river into it until it became nothing more than small creeks.

I explained this to Nordri.

Nordri smiled and said, "good remember that feeling. As you keep hitting it you will notice those streams bank and split around the same spots. Those are where the impurities are. The main goal of black smithing is to drive those impurities out and forge a pure weapon. Once your mana expands uninhibited in the ore, it means it's been purified."

"Blacksmithing is a long laborious task. Today I'll share with you a brief explanation of the fundamentals of blacksmithing and show you some example of oils, heat treating, Alloys, casting, welding, and forging. We can go over that now along with the basics of Rune Smithing so you have an idea of it ahead of time," He smiled with the same smile Uncle Vili had.

"We will have practical lessons on these fundamentals of black smithing these next few weeks before we move onto using your Hammer of Will in mana refining, which we just covered a bit, and Spirit Imbuing. We will work with normal ores like iron and copper since their easier to handle. Magical metals will have to wait until you are stronger and have more of an understanding of them. We might have to put that off until after soulsmithing."

[No sleep commitee]