Forging Arrowheads

"You'll soon be able to see for yourself," William finished putting the dimmed ores on the table before he went ahead and did something different. Unlike what Ellina expected, William didn't place the ores on fire but another thing.

"These candles…" she muttered while watching William liquifying the candles. It didn't take much time before three pots were filled with melted green liquid, shining brightly the entire room at such late hours in the night.

"Do you want light during work? I have a higher grade candle here," she took out a much bigger, a lot thicker, and deep green candle of light from her storage ring.

"No, I'm using it in the forging process," William brought another pot and filled it this time with the dimmed scarlet ores.

Once placed on fire, Ellina couldn't help but call out her spirit power in fright. The deep fear of these ores' explosions ran deep through her bones and made her reflexively react.

But nothing like what she feared happened! Just the miracle she never expected appeared there and the ores got liquified smoothly and without any problems.

It took roughly ten minutes to melt the entire ores into bright scarlet red fluid. William didn't hurry to start hammering it, and instead he placed that pot carefully on the ground before taking one of the three green fluid pots and slowly poured some into the scarlet liquid.

*Swoosh!*

A thick cloud of steam assaulted him and rose fast to fill part of the room. His face was slightly burnt by the gush of heat, and his hair looked a bit dishevelled. However, that didn't prevent Ellina from witnessing another miracle.

The red melted vibrant ores once got in touch with the green liquid started to emit dazzling sparks of light like fireworks. It seemed there was something inside the green liquid that stimulated the melted scarlet vibrant ore.

Ellina didn't know what it was, but William knew. The candle of light material had an outstanding ability to augment any spirit power conducting material, just like what it did with the spirit crystals.

However, this wasn't the only effect it had. It also had the ability to regulate any energy conduction. The candle of light turned the fierce natured scarlet vibrant ores that got slightly under control using the clay material into more smooth and obedient ones.

It was like a second calming bonus added to the scarlet vibrant ores to prevent them from going berserk under any condition. Doing this ensured the further forging process of these ores safely without any unforeseen accident.

Within the thick cloud of red mist, William reopened his wound and let his blood fall over the mix. He didn't wait for the mist to clear as he placed the pot aside to cool off and grabbed another one.

During the next hour he kept doing that until he finished melting everything he had. The number of light candles needed wasn't that much. Out of the number he bought before, he was left with almost half of it.

"Time to temper it," he returned one pot to the fire and carefully waited for five minutes. He didn't want the mix to become liquid, but in semi-solid form.

Then he took it out, poured it over the anvil before starting to hammer it.

He didn't have enough strength to hammer it properly and efficiently, so he used the same method as before. Rotating for a few times before finally landing the hammer down was enough to cleanse the semi-solid mix and release sparks of fire all around while burning impurities.

Despite it being a simple hammering process, William didn't have enough strength or spirit power to use the hammer efficiently in doing so. And soon enough Ellina noticed this.

"Let me do it for you," at this point, Ellina knew this was William's weakness. He had such a fragile body and that would limit the amount of cleansing he could do.

"Thanks," Knowing his limits, William didn't refuse the help. He stood on the side while preparing other pots for her. And Ellina started to show her position as one of the top five forging masters in the entire academy.

*Clang!* *Clang!* Clang!*

Each hit was done with all her strength, making even the entire room tremble under her fierce hammering. William looked in envy towards her and couldn't help but aspire to get such strength and more.

"It's ready," after hammering, cooling, reheating and repeating the process for a dozen times, the earlier scarlet bright mix with a few lines of green changed to become silver in colour.

Such change was bizarre in Ellina's eyes, but it was expected for William. After all, the real colour of the scarlet vibrant ore's essence wasn't scarlet red, but silver!

All that red was the impurities which invaded the ores from other minerals and soil. The first piece to be ready was left again inside the fire before it turned totally into fluid.

Ellina didn't continue working and William knew the reason behind that. She wanted to witness his last moves before returning to work on the remaining scarlet ores.

"Do you want special water for cooling?" she didn't consider this as a simple forging process. In her eyes, William might be doing arrowheads, but these heads looked special to be cooled with normal water.

"No need," but William knew wasting such resources over these consumables wasn't a wise move. After all, the forging process went better than what he expected thanks to the timely help of Ellina.

Besides, using higher grade cooling water wouldn't add any boost effect to the arrowheads. So, he calmly declined her offer.

The next thing was done like any usual forging process. He poured the melted mix inside the mould and then used water from the big basin inside the room to splash it evenly on the mould to cool it off. Steam came out again, but it didn't last long this time.

*Clang!* *Clang!*

As he got done from forging these arrowheads, William just flipped the mould on the side and hit it with his fist. The pieces fell and the arrow heads were ready to be used.

"These contain such tremendous power… enough to wound silver grade monsters," Ellina examined a few arrow heads and gave out her surprised opinion.

"Wound? Humph, if these arrows are used properly, forget about silver monsters… They can even wound gold grade monsters in a fatal way! As for silver ones, they would be long dead by the explosion," William said in pride without holding back his ego.

After all this was his work. How could he let Ellina misjudge his arrowheads like that?

"Really?" Ellina seemed to doubt him, "can I keep some for me to test?"

"Take whatever you want," William knew she didn't ask this out of her curiosity. She was thinking not only to mimic his brilliant forging process, but also to show such unique products to the forging high ranked master.

Or else how could she make these masters agree on the deal she promised him?