First Step

"Why are you so offended? Isn't she quite likable?" Eris asked Taylor after they ended up in the smithy.

It was a pretty large room of more than 50 square meters, with a large anvil next to the large stone forge. On the wall opposite the forge, Taylor could see a dozen hammers with various shaped heads and different weights hanging.

The metal tongues were lying on the anvil, and there was a large metal table on the right side of the forge. There were a bunch of machines on the table, including a belt grinder, and a bunch of other necessities such as several well-maintained whetstones.

Meanwhile, on the left side of the tidy smithy, one could see all the necessities to temper the forged goods properly.

Taylor looked at everything for several minutes, his hand stroking gently on the surface of everything and a faint smile emerged on his face.

"Bertha's might be a good human, but I don't like the fact that she made it look like forging was nothing much. She basically disgraced many passionate blacksmiths by trying to act as if she is humble," He said calmly, not averting his attention

Eris rolled her eyes at Taylor's explanation and she turned quiet afterward. Taylor's eyes turned fierce at the mere thought of Bertha's comment, which was completely out of proportions.

But it was not as if Eris would say anything. The moment Taylor made his first impression of someone, it was pretty difficult to change his opinion, which was why Eris didn't even try to do anything.

It was not as if she was interested in Bertha, to begin with.

Taylor didn't say a single word after his explanation. He was fully focused on the smithy, which he was trying to get to know better.

He had never been in a smithy, which was why Taylor had to learn a few things.

Oddly enough, half an hour seemed to be enough for Taylor because he started to move smoothly through the smithy once he was ready.

He walked to the corner of the room where a large box with ordinary Nitran black coal was located. He picked up a batch of coal and walked back to the forge while heating up the coal with his body.

He created flames out of nowhere and put the hot coal in the forge. A flame was already burning in the forge but the forge's flame could hardly rival the flames Taylor created.

Without much hesitation, Taylor put down his backpack before he retrieved the Ufnir Iron ore. There were a total of 10 pieces of various sizes and shapes, and Taylor picked the smallest before he put it calmly inside the blazing hot forge.

His hand was instantly engulfed by the searing hot flames but Taylor's expression didn't change a bit. He was fully focused on the task ahead.

Thus, he didn't even see his burning arm that looked like it was glowing when he put the small piece of Ufnir Iron ore in the middle of the small pile of coal.

"755 degrees celsius…770…810…that's still not enough…then how about 1000?" Taylor mumbled to himself, trying to gauge the temperature of Ufnir Iron ore required to undergo a reduction with the Nitran blackcoal inside the forge.

The reduction process Taylor focused on was pretty simple. He wanted to reduce the ore to a pure metal with the use of Nitran black coal, bellows, and some heat.

This was usually pretty simple but as it was Taylor's first time, he was tensed up and overly vigilant of every single detail that happened.

His eyes were basically darting inside the forge to make sure that he didn't do anything wrong.

After a few minutes, the forge's heat finally reached 1000 degrees celsius, which was still not enough. It required a bit more, which Taylor provided with his control of fire.

He was trying to use his Ancient Power in a more profound way than the day before but this was hardly possible. He sweated buckets trying to do everything perfectly.

Unfortunately, Taylor quickly understood allowing both his eyes and his Fire Ancient Power to drain his spiritual power would wear him out too much.

However, understanding something didn't mean that a stubborn man such as Taylor would accept this fact. He ignored his exhaustion and continued to watch the reduction process that had started.

The bellow were automatically adding oxygen in the forge, carbon monoxide was created and the Ufnir Iron ore was rapidly reduced to Ufnir Iron.

Taylor smiled brightly when he saw this and he added another small piece of Ufnir Iron ore.

Afterward, everything happened really quickly. The second piece of Ufnir Iron ore was redacted ot Ufnir Iron and it was taken out of the forge for a short while.

Taylor increased the temperature within the forge by more than 200 degrees celsius and walked over to the wall where all the forging hammers were located.

He thought about what hammer to pick, just to end up with a flat-headed hammer that weighed 5 kilograms seconds later.

The weight didn't feel as if it was anything worth mentioning but Taylor could clearly tell that his arm would ache heavily this evening.

He would perform strike all the Ufnir Iron more than a thousand times in total, after all!

This thought caused him to smile brightly and his passionate heart began to blossom when he picked up the tongues to retrieve the hot piece of Ufnir Iron.

"Baby, let's see how smooth we can turn you!" Taylor mumbled nonsensical as he pulled the flat-headed a little bit above the anvil, where the glowing metal was resting on his tongs.

Without a sign of hesitation, Taylor hammered down, smashing the hammer on the hot metal, intending to shape it.

The first strike was accompanied by his entire tremendous force, but Taylor quickly noticed how little effect that had.

He clicked his tongue and continued to strike the hot Ufnir Iron, slowly shaping it. The process was slow and arduous and he had to reheat the Ufnir Iron to its melting point over and over again before it would slowly be formed in a thin bar.

It didn't look any special, was thin, and weighed less than a kilogram.

"Well, I might as well add the other piece of Ufnir Iron to make a larger bar…I'm just practicing either way…" Taylor clicked his tongue at the appearance of the Ufnir Iron bar and he ended up putting both inside the forge to heat them up.

His entire being was overflowing with passion but he didn't like what he was doing. Shaping the Ufnir Iron how he wanted it to be shaped was far more difficult than expected.

Taylor was not even able to focus on the squirming veins that he saw inside the metal. Ufnir Iron was said to be dead metal, but what Taylor saw inside the metal was certainly not dead.

It was just near-impossible for the veins to squirm in the near-molten Ufnir Iron because there were too many impurities around the veins.

This caused Taylor to frown deeply, especially since his heart couldn't accept wasting precious materials.

"I will make the best out of you!" He grumbled as he retrieved both searing hot pieces of Ufnir Iron from the forge.

He put them down on the anvil and stretched out his hand to activate his Ancient Power.

A blazing flame manifested around the two pieces of iron to force them to stay hot.

"Let's have some fun!"