As Walker had seen a lot and learned a lot while watching the wandering blacksmith and Su, he felt he needed time to grasp those things. So much of what he had seen could shape his newfound thoughts on how forging may work at a level exceeding that of mastery.
There would certainly be blacksmiths who were able to step above the mastery level now. What Walker had believed was that mastery skills were the top of the top. Nothing could be above them.
Yet, he now knew that the god systems, now the god classes were either appearing more or were waking back up from slumbers. The loss of mana had stopped these beings entirely made of the values that made them gods or were given the class because they embodied those values better than others. Such things were amazing when it came to figuring out how to handle the world.