Chapter 61: A Smithing Technique

Kristofer shook his head, as did Ash

“Dammit!”, Zachery shouted

With the many people in the area, it was hard to thoroughly search for Teo. There were also many people here who hid their faces, so checking all their identities were impossible; Perhaps they might offend a hidden expert.

After a while, the group gave up the search and dispersed.

Teo watched patiently from a distance and breathed a sigh of relief as he saw them leave, but he knew that this was a temporary solution to his problem.

His hand gripped the cane tightly.

With today’s incident he knew it wasn’t over with just this. It was best to bring a weapon to protect himself.

….

After some time, Teo arrived at a small building with several chimneys on top. There was still sometime before their inscription class and Teo did not want to linger near the area, so he decided to get out of the shopping district and wait for Lia outside of her smithing class.

The building had their double doors wide open and from the outside, one could see the many students working. Some hammering pieces of metals placed on several anvils, others managing the heat of the forge, and and a few discussing topics related to smithing.

Teo stood there peeking inside the class as he waited, he noticed many available materials laying around and some completed works that were displayed on the walls.

Sparks flew as the hammer struck down into the heated metal. One hit after another, and the shape of the piece of metal was slowly being formed.

Eventually, some of the students started to notice Teo outside and soon, everyone noticed him as well. Lia eventually noticed Teo and as she did, she approached him.

“Teo what are you doing here? Look at the armor I am currently making”, she smiled as she held up a piece of armor she made with large metal tongs.

She loved to brag so as she asked Teo she showed him her current project.

“I decided to visit, I was getting bored by myself.”, Teo said.

He kept the earlier incident a secret from Lia, so she wouldn’t be worried. After that, he said

“Your class seems interesting”

“Want to come in and watch closer?”, but before Teo could answer she immediately left her to ask the instructor.

Unlike Deacon, the smithing class’ instructor was not too secretive and Lia was very good at flattering people, and easily got the instructor to allow Teo to observe the class with Lia’s supervision.

Teo’s eyes sparkled as this piqued his interest, he knew very well the joys of creating something with your own two hands. He could feel the intense heat that emanated from the many furnaces. Many of the students sweated and toiled, but they had satisfied look on their faces.

Almost every student enjoyed the elective classes they took. If they didn’t want to do the work, why would they choose to take them?

‘Maybe I should learn smithing next year’, he thought to himself.

Although the third year was the start of his combat classes, they weren’t restricted from learning other classes. The only requirement was to pass the test at the end of the year, so even if they took elective classes, the academy didn’t care.

As he moved his eyes inspecting each person working one by one, he saw something that shocked him for a long time. His eyes grew wide and his hands shivered in excitement. Eventually, his whole body shook, the excitement overflowed through every corner of his body!

Lia who was responsible for watching Teo during his visit noticed his strange reaction as he stared at a classmate who was working with metal.

This classmate was holding a large ceramic cup which held a mixture of liquified metals, and was pouring this hot mixture of metals into a small hole of a ceramic block.

“This method is called ‘casting’, it uses a ceramic mold to shape the general shape of the weapon or armor and when it cools down, the liquid metal will harden.”, Lia explained

‘CASTING!’

As Teo heard Lia’s explanation, he saw the possibilities of this technique!

“This is… this is it!!”, Teo could not contain his excitement and shouted loudly in class

“Teo..”, Lia grabbed him and covered his mouth, but everyone’s attention fell on Teo

“Ah.. I am sorry everyone”, Teo quickly apologized and bowed

The disturbance wasn’t a big deal so everyone easily went back to their own business

“What’s up Teo, why are you acting so strange”, Lia inquired but Teo did not explain his joy

“It’s nothing”, he smiled so pleasantly as he found the last key to open the path that blocked him for such a long time.

“Lia, do you think you can teach me how to do this ‘casting’?”, he immediately asked

There were many things that Teo did not know, and he didn’t have access to these kinds of equipment. If Lia could teach him it would be a big help; if Lia could get the instructor to be able to use their furnace, it would be even better.

“What? Interested in smithing?”

Lia was suddenly feeling superior. Teo was very good at inscriptions and studying and was even slowly catching up to her within at fighting ability. Being good at something over Teo was an uplifting feeling for her.

She learned that Teo had a secret inscription that he wouldn’t even share no matter how she tried to persuade him, but right now she finally has a leverage!

“Well mister Teo Char, I will certainly help you but.. You have to do something for me”, she revealed a sweet and innocent looking smile

…..

Teo couldn’t contain his excitement since his agreement with Lia. Throughout the day, he was distracted and could not concentrate in his inscription class or his training exercises, all he could think about was Lia’s promise to teach him casting. She would teach him about casting and assured Teo that she could get the instructor’s permission so that he could used their equipment during the weekends, but Lia needed for a few items from Teo.

Although Teo would not reveal his “secret inscriptions”, he promised to inscribe the things that Lia asked for. It didn’t stop with just the boots, but also her armor, and sword.

Despite Lia promising to get the instructor to allow Teo the use of the smithing class’ equipment, Teo knew it would require some time for Lia to accomplish, but knowing her, Teo was confident in her ability to persuade others.

Teo had already finished a basic prototype array design of the void inscription. If the simple array he designed worked without problems, then the complete version of the design should also work!

In fact, he had already created two different array designs of the equivalent void inscription. The only thing he needed was to test the prototype and add a few properties to these designs and choose between them. If one failed, the other was the back up, but since it wouldn't take him too long to do, he temporarily put that on hold.

Lia’s current demands leaped to the top of the list of what he had to do.

With his understanding of the concealing properties of the ring, he decided to use that into the arrays that he was going to place on Lia’s equipment. Although the concealment properties of the ring was not as great as the concealment properties of the void necklace, Teo deemed it good enough.

Within his cave, he started to design an array that had the same effect of his boots but with a concealment property. He used the design that he was currently using and modified it.

‘Hmm should I put a limiter on it?’, Teo wondered

He was worried that if Lia kept using the boots when she grew stronger, it might suddenly break down on her causing her to hurt herself.

But after a while, a mischievous smile appeared on his face.

He stopped all his work and took out the disguise he had earlier.

‘I think i should experiment for a bit’

…..

The following weekend, a short hunch figure carrying a large sack suddenly entered into the large doors of the Emerald Pavilion.

The figure had held the large sack of his hunch and covered his whole body. Not a single skin or hair was visible, even the large straw hat covered his eyes, preventing people to have the slightest clue who he was.

From the way he walked, he looked like he had a very stable body, but for some reason he held a walking cane in his other hand.

The lady in the counter was not surprised from what this figure was wearing. Several customers and clients preferred to hide their identity when buying or selling. From the looks of the dirty bag he brought in, it looked like this person was here to sell some items.

She did not judge the guest by their appearance alone. There were a few incidents of eccentrics who often wore crude and dirty clothes but surprisingly sold extremely valuable items, so this could be one of them. She was also trained to welcome any and all guests that visited their establishment.

“Greeting esteemed customers, how could we help you today?”

The woman behind the counter was always beautiful and alluring, but with Teo’s age, he could not appreciate such beautiful fairy.

“I would like to sell some of my wares”, Teo replied with a masked voice. Even if his voice was muffled by the mask he wore, he also altered it to seem like he was old.

In contrast to his first visit, he had subtly learn a few precautions in further hiding his identity.

“Of course, dear guest”

she looked towards to one of the attendants and said

“Please escort our esteemed guest to the seller’s chamber”

There were two paths that guests of the establishment could take. On the right was a hallway the led to their different stores. This path was for buyers of common merchandises.

On the left was a door that led to a few small rooms. These were the seller’s chambers.

These chambers were used to appraise the products being sold and negotiate for the price that the pavilion would be willing to buy it for.

Teo was led into one of these small rooms, it was quite a simple room. Only two chairs and a large table was inside the room but the walls was extremely thick similar to it’s doors.

“Please wait until a representative arrives to help you”, the attendant politely said as she left Teo inside to wait.

He sat down on one of the chairs and placed his sack on the table.

After waiting for 5 minutes, the representative arrived.

It was a middle aged man, that was slightly fat with a fake smile on his face.

“Sorry for the wait”

The man looked at Teo’s clothes and bag and sighed inside.

He knew about the eccentrics who sold valuable items while dressing up as a beggar, but they were quite rare. Also, most of these known eccentrics were given a personal medallion that they could immediately show at the counter.

These medallions proved that person’s importance. All medallions were made of pure gold, although they were small, they were well crafted and extremely detailed and had a beautiful azure green emerald adorned in the middle.

The chance of an unknown eccentric suddenly appearing was quite low, so while he treated Teo was an important guest, inside he sneered at the dirty figure before him.

“So, what does our guest have for sale?”

Teo did not speak and took out one pair of shoes after another. A total of 10 pairs of shoes.

The fat representative sneered even more and this time he did not bother hide it at all. From his years of appraising goods, he could tell that the materials of the shoes were very low. In fact, one could probably buy these pairs of shoes for only a few silvers coins, and what’s more is that on each side of each shoe, was a mark denoting a number. Each pair of shoes were numbered from 1 to 10 and made the ugly looking shoes even more undesirable.

He took a pair and carefully looked at all sides of the shoes. Inside, outside and even the bottom, there were no indications of these shoes being engraved with any inscription. He had thought that the markings were some sort of inscription, but after further examination, these numbers were just simple numbers and was written using a special ink that was very difficult to remove.

‘He dares sell these kinds of junk here?’, he inwardly sneered

“Sir, with all due respect, our Emerald Pavilion do not purchases these kinds of merchandise here. They are far too low quality for us to make any profit”, the fat representative said with an annoyed face

Wasting his time with such junk items was simply irritating.

“How about trying them on before you make that judgement? Are you new here?”

[Author's Note: Welp, I decided not to post anything on April 1st for obvious reasons, so I am posting 2 today.

Since it's the a new month, I will be asking if there are people who wish to support this series to consider on donating or helping with finding grammar errors, typos, etc. thanks again!]