A cold front raced through the world. It careened through the woods, shaking fallen leaves and picking up weak flowers. Its touch ruffled the short wheat shoots emerging from fields like green hairs of a sleeping giant and rippled the water standing in the field. It moved forward whistling down the road toward the village and got excited to see two boys competing with it. They were running, speeding up faster and faster. Their eyes serious, but their lips were smiling. They were Mannat and Pandit.

Pandit was obviously the faster one between the two. He had a lead of more than ten meters. Mannat was trying his hardest but he couldn’t catch up with the butcher boy no matter what. Worse, the distance between them was increasing. The winner was already set; Pandit only needed to cross the finish line.

He looked back and yelled, “I’ll wait for you ahead,” holding a sneer on his face, and sped up. He was mocking Mannat. Prideful as Mannat was, he didn’t give up either and pushed toward his limits.

Then the wind playfully intercepted them. It didn’t like the tallboy for making fun of the handsome one, picked up dirt from the road, and threw it at Pandit. The boy turned blind for a few seconds and went sideways, into the field. He shrieked and set off into the world splashing water everywhere. Momentum kept him going until his foot stabbed deep in the mud and he fell face first in the mud, dirtying his clothes, face, and dignity at the same time.

Hurray, the wind silently whistled and pushed Mannat toward the illusionary finish line. However, to the wind's dismay, the boy stopped near the place where Pandit fell off. Was he trying to help his opponent? The wind couldn’t understand.

Pandit was harrying abuses at the mud but yelled at Mannat to stop when he saw the boy getting ready to get in the thick of it.

“Stay there, stupid. It mud, not quicksand! I don’t need your help.”

“Are you sure?” Mannat mocked. He held a familiar sneer on his face, and Pandit threw a ball of mud at him. It flew past three-four feet above Mannat’s head, causing him to shrug his shoulders and sit down on the bank.

The wind didn’t like him slacking off. It wanted him to win the race, not sit down and stare at the endless fields of green! It caught his shirt and angrily pulled, filling and puffing it from inside. However, no matter what, it couldn’t get Mannat to get up. The boy simply closed his eyes to let it pass, and then set his eyes back at Pandit and the endless fields behind him. The wind moaned in anger and left him. It had a long tail, which kept his hair swaying even after the gust was long gone.

Mannat was looking at the lone tree standing a couple of hundred meters behind Pandit. It was barely visible in reality, but Mannat remembered it explicitly in his memories. There was a time when the two of them had helped the old man plow the land. They had spent more time under that tree than working. The three of them had inscribed their initials on its trunk with a sharp stone. He wondered if the initials were still there or had faded over time. He had spent a lot of time with Sharmilla there. She took care of them. He hadn’t forgotten the emotions behind her big brown eyes. He didn’t think he ever would.

“What are you looking at?” He heard and saw Pandit stepping on the road, splashing mud everywhere. His clothes were ruined, as was his day.

“Nothing,” Mannat smiled.

Pandit ignored the mocking smile of his friend. “Unfortunately, I can’t go on.’” He said raising his mud-covered arms for his friend to see. “We’ll stop here for today. I’m going to wash up at the ravine. You go home, and we’ll meet tomorrow?”

“I’ll accompany you.”

“You want to wash my shorts?” Pandit let out. “We are only friend’s man! Don’t try to take advantage of me.”

Mannat glared at him, clicked his tongue, and stood up. “Suit yourself.” He said, dusted his pants, and walked away. His mind was beginning to wonder again when he heard Pandit calling him.

“Are you coming tomorrow?” He heard and looked back. Pandit looked funny covered in mud, and he was not sorry for him. The boy had been acting overconfident since they met in the morning. A bit of dirt would do him good, and keep his character clean. He thought.

Mannat said, “I’ll come to your home, like always.” and sprinted down the road at full speed toward the smithy. He didn’t sweat much on the way. Though there weren’t any clouds in the sky, the weather was pretty cold. A playful wind was blowing through the village and keeping the temperature low.

At the smithy, Mannat saw the open doors and went straight in. He felt like the first time he had entered the shop. His heart had been racing then, just as they were now. There was a customer at the shop up front and his father was talking to the middle-aged man. There wasn’t anything on display as everything was stored in the back room. Not many people bought new things in the village anyways. Customers mostly came to get tools repaired. His father still kept a stock of common items like skillets, nails, tongs, and handlebars among other things.

They were finalization the deal when Raesh saw Mannat coming and told him the job.

“The man wants three strong bolts. We don’t have any in-house, so you’ll have to forge them for him.” Raesh was still speaking when the customer, a man with grey hair and dark skin –a laborer by trade-- interrupted him.

“Wait,” the man said hurriedly. “I want you to make them.”

“He’s my apprentice.” Raesh calmly told him. “You don’t have to worry about the quality. He’ll fulfill your needs.”

However, the man had different thoughts. “You don’t understand.” He barked, glaring at Mannat. “I don’t want the witch boy to touch the things of my house. Either you make me the bolts or—“

“OUT!” Raesh barked. He pushed the man with such intensity he stumbled back and only managed to keep his feet by using the wall for support.

The man’s face had gone pale when he raised his head. His eyes were wide open in fear. “No-now listen…” the man stammered and tried to contain the situation, but Raesh had already lost his temper and wanted nothing to hear from him.

“Get out of my shop!” Raesh snapped. He picked the shivering man and threw him out. “Don’t ever come back here. You are not welcome!” He yelled from the door and banged it shut from the inside. His anger was gone as quickly as I had come, but so was his mood. How happy he was for Mannat’s return to the smithy! All that joy ruined by a shallow-minded man.

Raesh struggled with the bolt for a few seconds before turning back to face Mannat. The boy was staring at him with his big green eyes, silent, stiff, and cold.

“Do I still have to make the bolts?’ The boy suddenly asked. There was not a hint of anger or sadness in his voice. Did he not hear the man or he simply didn’t care?

Raesh sighed. “Don’t take what the fool said to your heart. He--”

“I won’t.” Mannat interrupted. “It’s his problem.” His nonchalant tone made the hair of Raesh’s arm stand up in attention.

He had also heard the woman call him a freak the previous evening. He didn’t know what to say then, and he didn’t know that day. ‘Maybe I’ll never know,’ he thought walking ahead of Mannat. Whatever the case, he wasn’t going to let others change the boy.

Unfortunately, he only knew to beat things up; Noor was the emotional support of the family. She would know what to do in the situation. Since she wasn’t around to help, Raesh decided to deal with it is the only way he knew--

“Come then,” Raesh said. “Let’s see how much you have forgotten.”

“It’s only been a week, father,” Mannat replied helplessly.

Raesh paused and Mannat heard him mumble, “It felt like a lot longer to be honest,” before the large man walked through the narrow corridor to the heart of the smithy.

“Check your feet when you enter. The smithy is a mess right now.” Mannat heard from ahead. His father went straight to the storeroom, while Mannat stopped at the threshold and looked around.

Light from the skylight had the smithy glow brightly. Mannat had to shade his eyes with a hand to let them adjust to the radiance. There were a few changes around the smithy. There were three full-sized barrels near the storeroom, and his father had moved the mechanical grinding wheel near the drain hole. However, his anvil was still sitting where he had last left it.

“Father finished the consignment?” It had only been a week since he left, and his father worked alone. The bigger surprise was that he had already taken a new order. His father used to take a small break between each big order to fill the village's needs.

“No wonder someone was at the door in the morning,” Mannat mumbled.

As for the mess that his father talked about-- a bit of dirt and slag was unavoidable since he was the only one working, but his father had kept the workshop properly ventilated. He didn’t smell smoke in the air. Smoke would mean a leak in the chimney somewhere, which would be big trouble in general. His father wasn’t simply being polite, Mannat had indeed seen the place in better shape.

Mannat eyes kept staring at the workbench as he reached the wall where his clothes still hung. He saw his tools and warmth filled his chest. His father’s tools were right beside his. His hammer was also there. It had hung all his life on the wall of his room, and now again it was made to hang uselessly. He felt sorry for it.

One by one, Mannat wore the leather shoes, pulled up the gloves, and belted the apron around his waist. He turned back just in time to see his father coming out of the storage room.

Raesh grinned as he walked toward Mannat. He held a knife-sized wooden case in his hand. His eyes grew wider when he saw Mannat ready in his work clothes. “You look good.” He said with a hint of a spark. Mannat replied honestly, “I feel good.”

“Here, this is for you.” Raesh pushed the case to Mannat, who looked at wondering if he had seen it before. He had not.

“I came back that day your mother fell ill and found your first knife lying on the floor. I didn’t know what to do with it so I put it in the box.”

Mannat’s heart trembled. He opened the top lid and saw a black thin knife lying inside over a blue velvet cloth. His memory erupted as soon as he saw it. The eagerness, happiness, frustration, anger, and pain that he had felt that day cycled through him once again before pure and simple longing replaced them.

Exhaling loudly, he pulled the knife out and held it in his hand. He remembered its weight, just right so his mother's wrist wouldn’t hurt; it was medium-sized and had a relatively thicker spine as Mannat wanted her to use it for a long time. There were still forge sparks on its surface. His father had wiped the tempering oil but hadn’t touched the blade otherwise.

“I thought you would like to work on it. So I saved it.” Raesh said. He knew what that knife meant to the boy. Mannat didn’t want to be a master blacksmith, he only wanted to make a knife for his mother. Seeing how Mannat held the knife, Raesh was glad that he saved it.

The knife was neither sharp nor polished. It also needed a handle, though Raesh had straightened its spine. It would have become a useless piece of junk if the bend were still present while its internal structure hardened.

Mannat tightly gripped the knife from the tang and swung it around a few times in the air. This was his first work; it was supposed to start his blacksmithing career. He bit his lip, put the knife back in the box and closed the lid, then took a breath. His father was watching him. He looked happy. Of course, he was. His son had returned to the shop.

“Thank you,”

“That’s all right. So do you want to work on it now or do you want to help me get things straight?”

Mannat looked around. Everything told him his father was very busy in the shop and needed all the help he could get. He indeed wanted to complete the knife, but decide to let it wait for a bit longer. There was no hurry after all. “Tell me what to do.”

Raesh smiled. “Can you get the fire going while I grab the tools?”

Mannat was happy to oblige.

Soon, Mannat had a fire lit in the furnace. The coke was burning and igniting the coal. It would take some time for the furnace to reach optimum temperatures, and they were free until then.

“What’s the order?” Mannat started the conversation, both to pass time and know the details.

“Arrows,” Raesh said. “The minimum order is for one barrel full of arrowheads each month.”

Mannat looked at the three barrels by the storeroom. Raesh explained before he could ask. “They are to keep the just forged and polished works separate from the finished goods.”

Mannat nodded in understanding then suddenly asked. “Is there a war coming?”

“What makes you think that?”

“…Because jobs with minimum order are mostly set up to fill the armory.”

Raesh watched the boy with a raised brow. He didn’t even know why he was surprised. Mannat had always been a fast learner, and the boy had asked him many related questions in the last year. It made sense for him to have developed some understandings of his own. However, he didn’t think there were many apprentices out in the wild with such a keen sense for business.

“Did you learn it in the books?” He asked, knowing the answer would definitely be a straight no.

“No, it's common sense.” The boy said and asked, “Is the ore provided by the count?”

This one made Raesh wonder if the boy was a monster. “You can even figure this out?” Maybe he was still underestimating the boy.

“From where else would I get so much metal?” Raesh said solemnly. “As for your previous question, I don’t know if there will be a war in the future, but there is no reason to spread the word. If you understand what I mean.”

Mannat answered with silence. Raesh sighed and explained the job to him.

“We are only responsible for the arrowheads; the shaft is not our responsibility. However, that doesn't mean we can dally. We still have our work cut out for us. We have to make at least 50 arrows every day to finish the job on time.”

“Is that even possible?” Mannat was taken back at first but quickly corrected his approach. He asked, “What do I have to do?”

“You want to forge or sharpen the arrows?” Raesh asked, beckoning a smirk from Mannat.

There was no choice. His father was not asking a question, but testing him. Mannat shook his head. Finally, he felt like he was back in the smithy. His father wasn’t foolish enough to let a complete beginner forge weapons that could determine other people’s lives. Skillets and nails were one thing, but forging arrows, especially for the county, was a completely different matter.

“I'll go get the polishing stones,”

“Good,” Raesh said, not showing any reaction.

Mannat was going to the storeroom when he remembered something that had completely slipped his mind.

“Did you try inspecting the piece while working on it?” He asked, expecting a response.

However, Raesh looked confused, like it was the first time he had heard such a thing. Mannat was obviously not happy. “I told you a week ago when you came to the clearing… Don’t you remember?”

“I do now,” Raesh said. “It all works out in the end, doesn’t it? You are here now. So you can try to see if it works?”

Mannat’s ears twitched when he heard his father’s plan. Of course, the old man was trying to put the thing on him. For all his good, his father was after all comfortable with the way he had been doing things. Why try out something new if the old way works just fine? However, it was indeed Mannat’s idea. Now he could see for himself whether it was a hit or a miss. There was nothing to lose only a bit of hassle.

Mannat sighed and shook his head. Now he had another thing on his hands. “Then who will work the bellow?”

“I can do it myself.” Raesh shooed him away. “You go polish the arrows. I’ll call you when I have a job on the anvil.”

Mannat could only agree. “Okay,” he said and the two got busy.

Mannat took the polishing tools out of the storage area and sat near the barrels. The barrel on his furthest left had some polished goods inside. He took one arrow out to look at it.

An arrowhead's shape determined its range, attack, and penetration, but the shape itself was determined by its area of origin. The arrowheads forged in their region were thin, short triangles with fullers running down the center on both sides. Being lightweight and small they had low penetration power and range, making them were useless against armored units and heavy shields. One reason behind the creations of such an arrowhead was the low availability of natural iron in the region, and another was the price.

Manama picked up an arrowhead and inspected it.

[Iron arrow] [Common]

[Weight: 22 grams]

[Durability: 4/4] [Attack: 3/3] [Effect: +Bleeding]

It had low durability, but slightly higher attack power because of the groves on the surface. Its attack power increased as Mannat sharpened its tip to a point. It was a tiresome repetitive job and required some level of focus. Thankfully, 'focus' was one skill that Mannat didn’t lack. He had an abundance of it, which at many times put had him in a bind, like this time.

Mannat brought the arrowhead close to his ear and rubbed a thumb over its edge. A smile grew on his face when he heard the distinct sound of a sharpened edge scraping a layer of skin from his thumb. This was what he was looking for. Mannat pulled the arrowhead away from his ear and threw it into the barrel of finished goods. It made a thud inside the almost empty barrel as he pulled another polished arrowhead from the adjacent barrel. It new arrowhead looked the same as the previous one but was definitely heavier. He inspected it and the skill informed him the same. He wondered if there was a way to make two similar products.

He was going to start working on the arrow when he heard the sound of metal clanking.

He peered toward the furnace and found his father already working on the job. Why didn’t he call him? He was supposed to inspect the pieces. What happened?

He heaved up on his feet and went to his father. He didn’t know how many arrowheads he had sharpened, but his father had already filled half a crate of forged arrows on his side.

He exclaimed, “How long was I out for?”

“Maybe a couple of hours,” Raesh said. “Why, you have to be somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Mannat said solemnly. A couple of hours… how did that happen? Sighing he added, “I have to return to the clearing at noon. ‘Inspect’ is not the only skill I need to work upon. Why didn’t you call me?” He complained. In his heart, he knew it was not his father’s fault.

Raesh told him the same thing. “I called you plenty of times, but you were too busy sharpening the arrowheads. I was going to shake you, but you looked too happy. You were really enjoying your work.”

Mannat let out a groan.

“Don’t worry,” Raesh said. “You still have plenty of time to figure out your thoughts.”

Mannat stood at the side as Raesh picked the tong and pulled the block of glowing hot metal from the furnace. No sparks erupted from its mouth, but the flame tongues reaching out from the furnace was scalding hot. Raesh had a high constitution, but beads of sweat were already forming on Mannat’s forehead.

The heat pulled him back to a week ago when this was his normal everyday life. It didn’t take long for the heat to burn away the comfortable life he had lived for the past week, and brought the old him out from the ash that had accumulated on him.

Faint rumbling sounds came from the metal block as it slowly cooled at room temperature, but this was normal.

Raesh put the lump on the anvil. He clenched his fifteen-pound hammer in the other hand and asked Mannat, “How do you want to do it?”

He was asking how he would ‘Inspect’ the job without touching the scalding hot metal. It’s not that he hadn’t tried Mannat’s method, however, this first obstacle made him back off harmlessly. However, Mannat no longer needed to physically touch to ‘Inspect’; he could do it mentally when in close distance to the target of inspection.

Raesh figured it out when he noticed Mannat’s eyes moving back and forth for no reason. This was a tell-tale sign of someone reading a system message. Surprised, shocked, but also proud at the boy’s accomplishment he stopped wasting time and started shaping the block into an arrowhead.

He wasn’t going to use all of it. The one-pound block had enough metal in it to produce a couple of dozen arrows-- the amount and quality were dependent on the blacksmith.

The road to mastering forging was a well-trodden path with few obstacles; it was long, but not audaciously difficult to walk. However, he was yet to reach the end of it. A master blacksmith was someone who could perfectly control all the criteria of work. He was still far from it.

Meanwhile, Mannat read the character sheet given out by ‘Inspect’.

[Block Iron][Malleable][Uncommon]

[Temperature: 1439-1470 °C] [Weight: one pound] [Purity: 97%]

Mannat let the floating apparition disappear and his eyes fell on his father. Raesh was busy shaping a small portion of the block into a small finger-sized arrowhead. The whole process barely took ten minutes. Each hammer strike reduced the metal by a hair width and changed its shape into a thin flat arrow. There were no major cracks, dimples, bubbles on the surface of the job. The arrowhead was shaping to be similar to others before it, but Mannat remembered that the arrowheads though looked similar all had different shapes, size, and weight. No two of them were similar to the other one. The inspection had revealed the weight of the whole block, he wondered if they could take advantage of it.

He ‘Inspected’ the arrow that his father was drawing and found that it was slightly on the heavier side with a weight of 23 grams.

Raesh noticed him moving and asked if there was any good news.

“I can see the weight of the arrowhead you are drawing,” Mannat said calmly, but his words swept the ground from under his father’s feet. The hammer suddenly banged at the arrowhead and directly tore it from the metal block. It bounced off the stone floor and slid toward Mannat, sending sparks flying.

“Take it. Quickly,” Raesh yelled. Mannat hurriedly picked a spare tong and handled the scrapped piece of metal. It was smoking red and Mannat remained vigilant of it. They had just avoided an accident; he didn’t want to cause another because of his neglect. He dropped it in the bucket of water under the furnace causing it to fizzle and boil. White smoke erupted from the bucket and rose toward the skylight as the water fizzled and bubbled from the exchange of heat.

When Mannat turned, Raesh was standing in front of the furnace, lost in thoughts.

Raesh had picked the lump and put it back in the furnace for reheating. Its temperature had dropped by a good few degrees; the temperature was fine for shaping the arrowhead, but not high enough to draw it out of the block.

“Father,” Mannat called. It could have been dangerous. “What are you thinking about?”

“Can you feed me the exact weight of the arrowhead while I’m drawing it out?”

Mannat nodded and said, “I can,” This was exactly what he’d done before. The arrowhead hadn’t been detached from the block when he inspected it. Wait! Why was his father so interested in it?

Raesh pulled the block from the furnace when it reached optimum temperature and laid it on the anvil. This time a torrent of sparks ensued from the furnace mouth, telling the state of Raesh’s heart. He was excited, but so was Mannat. He wanted to know if his father had figured.

A fire burned in Raesh eyes as he hammed the edge of the block. Slowly, he drew out a small lump of metal from it. Mannat ‘inspected’ the lump and a blue apparition appeared floating in front of his eyes. His eyes went straight to the weight column and stared as the weight of the small lump slowly increased by a few grams with each hammer strike.

“How much does it weigh?” Raesh asked without raising his head. He wanted to hurry up and complete this arrowhead. He could feel the momentum building. If he could make an exact replica of the sample given by the guild--

“Fifteen grams,” Mannat interrupted his flock of thoughts.

Raesh grinned. He clenched the hammer tighter. It was really happening. “Tell me when it reaches 19 grams.” He said and the hammer moved once again.

Raesh continued hammering at the block, drawing more metal into the small lump he was separating for the arrowhead. Mannat specifically kept an eye out to both the numerical value and the lump itself. He saw it change in front of his eyes and then its weight reached exactly nineteen grams.

“Nineteen,” Mannat said. His voice jumped out of this throat in excitement. His heart was beating. Raesh stopped drawing more metal into the lump and broke it from the block.

He put the bigger block back in the furnace and started working on the coin-shaped lump he had separated from it. He put all his attention into it, and the result was an arrowhead perfect in dimensions, weight, and quality. At last, he flattened the tail at the end and quenched the arrowhead in the oil vat.

Mannat glared at the rippling black surface of the oil as his father pulled out a black forged arrowhead from the tail up. Raesh cleaned it with a rag, looked at it, and started laughing. He didn’t ‘Inspect’ but instinctively knew that he had succeeded in creating a perfect replica to the sample which the guild had provided. However, he still asked Mannat to fetch him the original.

“Where is it?” Mannat asked from the storeroom and Raesh replied, “It’s in the large box by the colors.”

A few grueling heartbeats later, Mannat returned holding the black, finger-sized arrowhead whose polished face shone brightly in the fiery orange light of the burning furnace.

“Give it to me,” Raesh extended a shivering hand to the boy, and almost snatched it from Mannat’s hand when the boy tried to put it upon his palm.

Mannat had never seen his father so fervent and excited. The tall, strong man was almost maniacal. Mannat worried about his father’s health. Could it be a result of his mother’s absence? Mannat could understand why his father was in such a rush to stay busy. He had also thrown himself into an overwhelming routine. In a way they were both similar, coping with the situation in the only way they knew.

Mannat wanted to know the result so he softly asked, “How is it?” His voice was barely audible next to the furnace. However, Raesh heard him clearly.

Mannat saw his father’s lips tremble. The man closed his eyes and raised his head. The sunlight seemed to be gathering there only for him. Mannat saw his rising and falling chest and grew emotional. A few seconds later Raesh dropped his head and looked back at Mannat. Softly he said, “It is perfect,”

His master would be surprised if he knew the boy he had once told would never become a master had just taken his first step toward mastery.

At this moment, Mannat was hearing bells in his mind. A moment later a blue phantom grew visible to his eyes and partially covered his sight.

[Congratulations! Your Skill: Inspection has risen from level 6 to level 7.

[Your Wisdom has increased by one point.]

Mannat wanted to share his joy but found his father standing dazed and unresponsive. He called Raesh a few times and suddenly, the man dropped the arrows he was holding. His eyes grew wide first and then they became bloodshot. He swayed and almost fell, but kept his feet using the anvil for support. Mannat tried to help but Raesh put a hand up to stop. “I’m all right,” he said. “Just a little shocked.”

“What’s happening?” Mannat asked. He worried something was wrong.

However, his father’s answer completely confused him.

“It increased,” Raesh told him.

Mannat noticed his father’s trembling hands and thought it was something serious. He was right; it was indeed something serious, but not in a way, he imagined.

Raesh clenched his hands to stop the shaking and told Mannat holding the biggest grin possible, “My job level increased. I am now a master blacksmith.”