Blacksmithing

The midday sun was pressing down on the dungeon city. A particular smithy was lit up with the bright flames coming from the forge. The elf standing in front of it wiped a small bead of sweat rolling down his eyebrow, before continuing to work the bellows, increasing the heat in the forge to satisfactory levels.

The smith then placed a bar of steel in the heart of the fire with tongs and waited for it to heat up. The metal slowly turned dull red and then bright orange.

With the steel at the proper temperature, the smith pulled it from the fire with his tongs and laid it on the anvil. He hefted his hammer, feeling the familiar weight in his hand, and began to strike. Each blow was deliberate, driving the steel into shape. The rhythmic clanging echoed through the forge, a sound that spoke of unerring precision. The smith's arms moved with practiced efficiency, the muscles straining as he pounded the steel into the rough shape of a blade.

The smith reheated the blade frequently, ensuring it remained malleable. As he worked, the shape of the sword began to emerge. He hammered out the edges, forming the bevels and thinning the blade to the desired thickness.

After an hour of forging, the blade started taking its final shape. Relieving the stress in the blade marked the almost completion of the blade.

The smith then moved to the grinding wheel. Sparks flew as he pressed the blade against the coarse stone, refining its shape and sharpening the edge. He switched to finer grinding stones, smoothing out the surface and honing the edge to a razor-sharp point.

For the finishing touches of the blade, he heated the blade once more until it reached a bright orange color, then plunged it into a trough of oil. The oil hissed and bubbled as the blade cooled rapidly, hardening the steel. This made the blade extremely hard but also brittle, so the smith tempered it by reheating it to a lower temperature and allowing it to cool slowly, thus reducing the brittleness and making the blade resilient.

The smith then fitted the blade into the prepared hilt and secured the connecting point to be firm and unmoving. Finally, after polishing it, the newest sword was finished ready to cut foes down.

"Well I'll be damned, you managed to forge a quality sword after just a week of instruction." The red-haired smith who had been observing so far spoke, his voice full of awe and incredulity, which made Cassian smile proudly.

It had been a week since Cassian started apprenticing under Welf.

It had been a busy week. Cassian and Nico's dungeon dwelling was reduced by a lot, concentrating more on their personal development.

Cassian went from a complete beginner in blacksmithing to being a journeyman in just a week thanks to his devotion and genius talent provided by his perk.

He couldn't help but notice just how much faster the progress was in comparison to his sword skills. It made him aware that having a teacher greatly synchronized with the talent perk, accelerating the rate of growth in that field. This made him decide to find a teacher for his combat skills too.

Welf on the other hand couldn't help but marvel at how fast his apprentice was growing. The level of progress he had made in just a week left him in shock.

The sword he made was nothing special, a decent and serviceable weapon, but when taken into account that it was made by a smith who had been at his profession for all of a week, that changed everything.

"I don't know whether to beam with pride that I taught someone this talented or burn with envy. This is just ludicrous." He spoke with exasperation.

"Heh, what can I say, I'm just that good." Cassian answered humorously with an upturned nose.

"Don't get cocky, you're still a rookie, haha. By the way, are you sure about not wanting to join the Hephaestus familia? With your talent, you'd go very far if the goddess of smiths trains you."

"I'm good, I am plenty happy with the familia I have now. Thanks for the offer though."

"Sigh, I guess that's fine, it's just a shame someone with your potential is treating blacksmithing as secondary, behind combat."

"Don't get me wrong, I've come to really enjoy forging, but adventuring is still my main calling. It's the path I decided to take."

"I suppose that's fine, just don-" "WELF!" Suddenly he was interrupted by a feminine voice shouting his name.

"Oh no, not her…" Welf muttered with a grimace on his face and slumped shoulders.

Just then the door was thrown open and in walked a tall, tanned woman one could honestly mistake for an Amazon. The revealing clothes sure didn't help that misconception. She had long flowing black hair and an incredibly toned body, but the most striking feature about her, besides the phenomenal bust that Cassian had a hard time tearing his eyes away from, was the eyepatch covering her left eye.

"You?! Why do you always break into my smithy?!" Agitation was clear on Welf's face, along with a hint of dread if Cassian guessed correctly.

"Aww is that how you welcome me Welfy boy? I thought we were close!" Tsubaki said with a poorly faked hurt look, before grabbing Welf and putting him in a headlock.

"Agh! Get off of me you ogre of a woman!" Welf struggled to escape her hands but it was in vain. His level 1 strength could do nothing against the level 5 Tsubaki, leaving him at her mercy.

This was a common occurrence in these parts. Tsubaki watched Welf grow up ever since he was a child, and so developed an older sister type of bond with him. She was always down to help him with what he needed, but that came with its own fair share of troubles.

Namely, Tsubaki loved messing with Welf, constantly teasing and making fun of him, even staging pranks to embarrass him. It was to the point that Welf was known as "Tsubaki's Toy" among the blacksmiths of the Hephaestus familia. It was understandable why he would be irritated by her presence.

As Welf was doing his best to get free, Tsubaki looked up at the other occupant in the room.

"Oh, you must be the apprentice Welf kept droning about to the entire familia. How a talented rookie was apparently so star-struck by Welf's genius, he begged to become his student, saying it would be the greatest honor to become to be taught by him." Tsubaki spoke with a smirk and her words made a tick appear on Cassian's forehead.

"Starstruck and begged huh? It seems 'Welfy boy' over here is suffering from delusions." He spoke with an irked smile, which made Welf start sweating nervously.

"W-Well I may have gotten a bit too excited and exaggerated it a little bit, hehehe?" He spoke unsurely with a nervous laugh.

"Just like how you were a bit too excited and went to go peeping on the girl's bathhouse along with those two other smiths the other day?" No trace of the previous annoyance was seen anywhere on his face anymore, instead, it was replaced by a sickeningly sweet smile.

Welf's face on the other hand drained of any color and became as white as a sheet.

"Oh? What is this I hear about Welf, care to elaborate?" A frighteningly cold voice came out of Tsubaki's mouth laced with malice. It sent shivers down Welf's spine and he started trembling.

"W-Wait a m-moment, he was joking! Right Cass, my friend?!" He called out in a desperate voice. Meanwhile, Cassian looked out the window at the setting sun.

"Oh my, it has gotten pretty late. I should get going now." Completely ignoring, his words, Cassian grabbed his things and relished the look of betrayal on Welf's face.

"No, w-wait, wait you BASTAAARD!"

Cassian hummed satisfyingly at forging a decent blade and throwing Welf under the bus, as he went home.

--- Elfin Lounge ---

"I'm home!" Cassian announced when he entered their shared suite.

"Welcome!" Two voices responded.

Walking into the living room, Cassian saw Hecate and Nico among a huge pile of books, papers, and other work-related tools, as has become common in the last week.

The two have been hard at work at exploring and developing Arcane Magic. Back in the Witcher verse, magic was an extremely complex, research-extensive, and hard-to-master subject. Sorcerers and sorceresses spent decades developing themselves and their mastery of magic.

Thankfully Nico had his talent perks and a literal goddess of magic on his side, accelerating the progress. But even then it was not going to be easy or fast. Especially, since this was Hecate's first exposure to this kind of magic. One that can draw on mind, or rather mana according to its special dictionary, from both internal reserves and external sources. Specifically the elements themselves.

It reminded Hecate a bit of the magic wielded by spirits. While Falna magic could take any form and have a rather fixed casting sequence and outcome, Spirit magic was less restrained. It entailed free manipulation of their respective elements. Only the esoteric and differing spells needed an incantation for them.

Arcane Magic was like a cross between the two. A fusion.

Along with advancing their theoretical and practical knowledge of it, the two of them have also been working on streamlining Nico's current spells and developing new ones. That's right, they had discovered that the casting sequence, namely the incantation of the desired spell could be shortened or theoretically completely eliminated.

It depended on the user's mastery over that specific spell, the overall power and complexity of the spell, and how mana-intensive it was.

Nico had spent the past week shortening the chants as much as he could, as well as learning concurrent chanting, as he did not want to be rooted on the spot while casting spells. It was hard, but with Hecate's help, he pulled it off, with her praising him for learning such an ability at level 1, as it was notorious for being a hard technique to pull off.

"How did it go?" Hecate asked.

"See for yourself." Cassian's voice held a hint of pride as he handed over the sword he just made.

"I may not be a weapon expert, but even then I can tell this is a good sword." Hecate remarked, her voice adopting the same pride as Cassian's, but even more intense. Then she hugged Cassian with the joy and warmth a mother would have for their child when they succeeded at something.

"I'm proud of you."

At those words and the warmth held in them, Cassian's heart clenched for a second and he felt weird emotions coming over him. As an orphan, he never expected to hear those words, much less the emotions held in them, so this was an unexpected situation for him.

He stood there awkwardly for a moment before returning the hug, smiling widely and muttering a thank you.

Shortly after they released the hug, primarily because Cassian felt awkward and embarrassed, and continued their conversation.

"What now? You were planning on being able to forge a decent weapon before moving on to the next part." Nico asked after removing his face from being buried in the book.

"Now I move on to the runes part. This last week I've been seeing different kinds of runes floating in my dreams whenever I go to sleep. Part of the talent perk I guess. Those will be the starting points and the first runes I learn. I'll start experimenting on them tomorrow in the evening."

"Got something planned in the morning?"

"Yeah, we're going back into the dungeon. We've been running short on funds for a while so it's time to refill our wallets. Nico, how's the progress?" The question caused Nico to grin, clearly happy about the subject.

"Pretty good! I've managed to shorten the chant of all my current spells and learned concurrent chanting, so now I can run and even fight while casting spells. Although developing a new spell will take more time."

Seeing the enthusiasm his little brother was showing about studying, Cassian couldn't help but smirk.

"I had to tie you down to the table to force you to study before, but look at you now heh, did my baby brother finally grow up?" This caused Nico to look at him with annoyance.

"There is a difference between studying math and magic! One doesn't allow me to blast trees apart with a couple of words!"

"Well, as long as you're being productive."

"So what are you planning tomorrow for the dungeon." Hecate interrupted.

"We're going to the guild to get a lecture from Rose and then hire a supporter. Afterward, we're going to hunt on the 10-12 floors."

"Not the middle floors?"

"Nah, I want to make runes usable before going down there and for Nico to have one or two more spells."

"I see, well since you'll need the rest for tomorrow let's end it here now. Goodnight boys."

"Goodnight" / "Goodnight"

Then they dispersed and went to bed after taking care of all the necessities that they'd need for tomorrow's dungeon dive.