I followed Alfrigg towards what seemed to be his home where he guided me to a modest room containing only a bed and told me that this is my room as long as I live here.
Also, as long as he doesn't see I'm good enough, I can't leave nidavellir or ever call myself his student, well, my impression of him is that he's a very strict mentor.
Not that I mind this, after all, a strict mentor will make me learn against my will, a lax mentor won't care if I even learn.
The dwarves were living in a series of wide tunnels connected to a giant cave under a mountain range in Nidavellir, when I asked Alfrigg about the reason, he said that because the environment in the caves is very suitable for dwarves, they also prefer the high heat in the caves, and because the surface is full of monstrous creatures like Goblins. and ogres and other strong wildlife.
Despite this, dwarves have urban homes made of brick or wood, and they look almost like homes in the 17th or 18th century, only stronger and more resistant, and that's because the materials in the other eight worlds are denser than Earth.
Also, there are only about 300 dwarves, so there is still plenty of space in this underground city.
In the first weeks of my 'training' Alfrigg did not let me do any blacksmithing or touch any of the materials and he asked me to watch him work all the time only, according to his words, he did not want me to spoil anything.
Although I wasn't the kind of stubborn or arrogant type, I was of course not satisfied with this, but I did not complain and I did what he wanted me to do, and I started watching him work on metals and beat them for long hours every day.
After nearly 45 days of this incessant torture, yes, the sound of metal pounding became hell to my ears (it looks like I'm sensitive to the sounds, hey!) Alfrigg has decided that I'm ready to start learning some things, but he didn't start teaching me the practice, but he gave me several books that talks about the profession of blacksmithing and metallurgy, mineral processing theory, metallurgy, and many things similar to it, and he also gave me a book that talks about basic dwarf runes.
However, I was happy that I would actually start learning, contrary to what others think, crafts and industry require not only physical strength but a vast knowledge base as well, for example, the slightest mistake in the process of forming a weapon would turn the final product into a piece of scrap.
I also got acquainted with some minerals that I did not know exist, such as the flexible purple metal, which is a heavy and flexible metal at the same time, or the seventh star metal, which is an ore that is rarely produced when stars die and is of a very high density, There are other minerals too like vibranium, which I was surprised to see was mentioned in the book but nothing was mentioned about it being in Midgard, instead it was mentioned as a very rare extinct mineral.
As for the dwarf runes, I only learned the most basic and common runes, as Alfrigg made it clear that I would not learn any of the dwarves' secret techniques, but I don't care either, it's their secrets and I will respect that.
After memorizing and understanding all this, Alfrigg began to teach me blacksmithing Finally, every day, I was practicing forging under Alfrigg's directions, from morning until evening I would pound the metal hundreds of thousands of times, only to start the ball again the next day.
This went on for a year, this kind of practice was used to build up my arm strength and endurance to heat, and get my body accustomed to the blacksmithing situation.
Later, he finally started teaching me metal processing, magma casting, and weapon shaping, and I kept doing this under Alfrigg's direction for an entire 5 years before he told me I could leave if I wanted to, which means he really taught me everything he could teach me. .
Sometimes, I felt that he did not teach me some things on purpose until after I had mastered the things he had previously taught me.
However, I didn't leave right away, I've been on Nidavellir already for six years, and I feel like I have all the time in the world, so I decided to stay and learn more trades.
Nidavellir had a garbage in which both failed materials and inferior tools were to be thrown away. Some might think that I would not take advantage of it because of my pride as an asgardian, but, contrary to popular belief, I recycled this garbage and used it as material in order to practice my blacksmith skill.
I also started learning other crafts, carpentry, engineering, agriculture, and construction from other dwarves.
After all, some life experience is always a good thing, and I've been learning from dwarves all kinds of careers for another 14 years.
With practice comes mastery, with mastery comes understanding, and with understanding comes perfection.