Learning the Trade

It took a little while but I eventually found Harmur sitting next to an open top furnace.

He looked like he was about to shout again but stopped when he saw me.

"Ah, just the lass I was looking fer. I need ye ta put some of ye hellfire into this fer me." He requested.

He was my boss, plus I was excited to learn more, so I obliged to his request.

'[Hell Fire]' I chanted in my mind. I then raised my left palm and pointed it at the fire pit. Almost instantly, I felt the hellish mana flow down my arm and out of my palm as a constant flurry of fire burst forth.

It lit the charcoal inside the pit instantaneously, lighting up the area in sinister way.

"Mmm… Could ya make it a bit hotter?" He asked.

I had to think for a second as I'd never had to increase the heat of my fire before. I thought about ways to do so when an idea popped into my head.

I cancelled the [Hell Fire] and created some runes in the air that spelled 'Heat' and imbued it with my Fiery Aura. Then I cast [Hell Fire] again, making sure that it went through the runes I had written.

And sure enough, it worked like a charm. The flames were now emitting a greater temperature than before.

"Mmm, that'll do. I'll need ya te stay here fer a bit, keep the fire warm."

"Mm." I nodded. This was good because it meant that I could watch a master at work.

I watched him pull an ornate looking hammer from his belt. He then pulled out an ingot from his left side from goddess knows where, and placed it over the furnace top.

He put a glove on his left hand and then grabbed the now glowing ingot. I was going to say something or even stop the fire, but he seemed okay, still, I was worried regardless.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

He started hammering away at the ingot randomly. Actually, now that I think about it, why is he hammering an ingot? Shouldn't he melt it first? Whatever, I'm sure he has his reasons.

*CLANG* *CLANG* *CLANG*

He continued hammering away at it for a while.

'Wait, why is he hammering an ingot? Shouldn't he be melting it instead?' As I was thinking about this weird situation, he spoke.

"More fire."

That was all he said. I of course did as he said and added more [Hell Fire] at the same temperature, but I was still confused by what he was doing.

Either way I just did as I was told, he had been in the trade for a long time so he should know what he's doing.

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At some point, after supplying him with lots more fire and him hammering away at the ingot, he finished.

He let go of the now glowing metal block, took off his glove and wiped his brow.

"Whew, that took longer than expected. Ye can douse the fire now." He said.

I waved my hand and the fire dissipated into thin air. The metal that was resting atop what I guess you could call the 'grill' was still glowing with heat, but it slowly started to emanate a slight reddish aura.

I stared at it curiously, and soon its radiant white light which came from the heat it emanated, started to fade, making it return to its less bright, but still shiny, form.

However, different to its previous silvery grey colour, it was now a hollow red colour of sorts.

"Ahh… glad it worked. Whew, that took a lot outta me, hahh…" I heard Harmur say whilst sighing.

Glad what worked? What did he even do? He looked at me and saw my confusion and explained himself.

"Right, you probably wanna know what I just did. Well, basically I just turned this Chroma Steel into Demonite."

My face didn't change at all hearing that.

"Do... Ye don't know what Demonite is do ya?" He asked with a sigh.

I shook my head in response.

"Hahh, well, ye are a newbie here, and judging by how ye got here, I assume this was a decision you made on the fly yes?"

I nodded.

"Hahh, you have a lotta learn here missy. Guess I'll explain what I just did. I basically just infused the power of them fumes that came from them flames I got ye te release, and made this here metal artificially." He went on to explain.

I nodded in understanding.

"Anyways, off with ya, ye can go back te Derik and let him continue his lessons." He shooed me away.

I pouted slightly but did as I was told because I didn't want to get fired.

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When I got back to Derik, he was laying out a bunch of tools on the worktop that he used earlier. I came over to him and pointed at the tools he laid out, indicating that I wanted to know what these were and why he laid them out.

"I's waitin fer ya to come back so I could explain what these are and their purpose. Take a seat and I'll begin."

I took a seat next to the workbench and Derik started to explain the uses of all the tools. The hammer was used for a variety of things, but mainly to shape the heated metal casts into the desired shape. He explained that while most hammers had either a large or small flat surface on one side to bash the metal to the general shape, the other side could house a rounded end, or even a chisel like edge, this was because sometimes they needed it to make the shape more accurate to what they desire.

As for the other tools, there were various heat resistant tongs that would be used to pick up the hot metals, and depending on their shape, you would use the corresponding tongs.

There were also some chisels, though instead of being sharp ones, they were more like extensions for the hammers.

He then went on about some of the other tools but said that I needn't worry about them just yet because they were for more experienced smiths.

Now that he was done with explaining all about the different types of smithing tools and their uses, he went on to explain the smelting process.

Different to what I saw earlier, Derik did actually melt an iron ingot before pouring it into a cast, all while explaining the technique and things to look out for while doing all of this. And like a good little girl, I took in everything like a sponge.

He then showed me how to shape the molten moulded metal into a short sword. Once he got the general shape of it right, he cooled it off in some water.

To finish it off, he then ground the edge of the blade against a grindstone to make the edge a sharp one.

"And voila! That's how ya make a basic short sword. Now imma have ye make somethin yerself, probably just a dagger." He then sprung upon me that I'd be making my own weapon already.