Sitting in his room, John was diving through the works of literature he newly bought. He was currently reading about the literature pertaining to the effects of stats on a person's ability to wield the arcane forces.

‘The Mana stat is basically like intelligence in a game. It’s just pure raw power…’ he found the part where it detailed the Control stat. ‘Influence a person's ability to wield their mana freely. The higher it is, the more precise the person could exert the arcane spell to its utmost potential…’ his line of sight brought down to the next passage. ‘Perfectly fit for jobs which heavily rely on defensive type of spells and mental based spells.’

Thinking things through, John wondered whether he should pay attention to those two stats. Yet gazing at the stack of books he bought, he opted to finish them first. For the next half an hour, John finished a book, and the result made him smile.

Turning his palm upwards, he uttered those special words, “Facere.Aqua.” Mana converged above his palm, and the unseen slowly turned into a palm-sized water ball.

“Can I drink this?” he asked himself. Taking on the challenge head-on, John took a slurp at it.

“Yup, it’s just plain water,” he threw it out of the open window and continued reading the next book. By midnight, John learned three more simple spells, fire, wind, and earth. He had a thought that it might come in handy if he was out there back in the woods. For an outdoor noob like him making a fire with a flint was definitely going to be a big challenge.

John rested for the night in a new room with no more goblin’s bloodstain. After everything he did today, his sleep had never been sweeter.

Dawn came, and John was up early. With his Soul Leo sword in his hand, John took a quick jog and came out to a clearing outside the western gate.

John sat on the ground in a combat stance with his eyes closed. He remembered the teaching that his Sensei taught him, revising them in his mind before he reenacted them in real life. The moment he opened his eyes, John drew his blade and kept the motion going, stepping forward, and dealing a lethal blow to the unseen enemy, a figment of his imagination.

He let out a long breath as John sheathed back his sword in the scabbard. Against the chilly dawn, John continued practicing his form with his upper body bare for the first light of the sun. Near a bed of grass, his neatly folded hoodie and his tee waited for the owner to finish his training.

An hour passed, and John was riddled with sweats. Pouring down his back and at the front, yet his breathing was stable, calm, and collected.

Another raised in his stats which further brought a smile on his face. After discovering the possibility of raising stats, it really let John looked things from a different perspective. It wasn’t all about battling as the world was fair to those who worked their hardest. And for John, that was great news.

‘Is the system never going to approve my iaido techniques?’ he had been waiting for the teaching of his Sensei to come up, but it still hadn’t come yet. Nonetheless, John continued his training for another hour.

The result was little, but he was happier than before. It had been a long time since he practiced his iaido, and being here made him remember why he fell in love with it in the first place. ‘Just like Kenshin,’ John thought. There was a time he was amazed by a certain anime. That told a story of a man who fought using techniques that resembled iaido. He decimated his opponents, yet he never killed them, not after repenting over his dark past.

‘If I keep this up, perhaps I can become stronger like Kenshin,’ back in the days, most kids wanted to be Batman or Superman. But John, he was a whole different breed. He wanted to be like the manslayer, Himura Kenshin, the petite swordsman. Yet unknown to him, his speed had already surpassed the like of Himura Kenshin in the anime.

With morning practice finished, John paid a visit to the only smithy in town. The door was closed, yet the chimney kept blowing the black smoke. John gave a few knocks and announced himself. “Hakeem, it’s me. It’s John,” he said.

Metals clanked against the floor, and rushing footsteps came closer to the door. John then heard the continuous sound of someone unlocking the door. Judging from what he heard, the locks must be numerous.

The door opened and revealed a man covered in soot and sweat. Hakeem flashed his white smile and invited John to come in.

“Woah,” he exclaimed. The heat hit him hard against his skin as being in this smithy was like in the Sahara. It was too hot compared to the cool morning outside.

“Sorry for the mess, sir,” Hakeem was frantic. He was moving around near John and crudely tried to tidy up the whole smithy.

Yet John could see the aimlessness in Hakeem’s eyes. “Are you okay, Hakeem?” he asked, wondering.

“I’m fine, sir,” Hakeem stood there with his hands on his hip. However, the smith didn’t dare look John in the eye. Whatever he was hiding, Hakeem had no intention of telling him.

John briefly looked around and noticed a pile of katana close to the forge. They looked good in terms of appearance, but there must be a reason why it was on the ground and not on the table.

“Is my katana ready?” John asked.

“Over here, sir,” Hakeem went to the back, fetching something. He came out from the doorway and handed to John the curved blade hidden inside its sheath.

“Give me some space, will you?” to John’s words, Hakeem kept himself at a safe distance from John.

Ignoring the heat and the dryness in this confined smithy, John was smiling. His hand was itching in drawing this blade. Slowly his hand reached for the hilt. Then it flashed. The instant glimmering of the blade was hard to notice as John was too fast. Yet the man cared nothing about his speed as to him what was important was the feel of the blade itself. And just now, John felt his blade right down to his nerves. The execution was smooth when the katana left the scabbard. It was like a graceful ballerina, dancing on the dance floor with no hitch in her steps.

His smile went from one ear to another. It was the biggest smile he had after that sex he had with Fellelone. His twinkling eyes found the one who created this for him. John rushed and over and tightly grasped his hand. “Thank you. You did a great job with the katana.”

But rather than being proud, Hakeem couldn’t stop looking at the floor. He wore a pained expression as if it didn’t feel right to him.

“I know you have a problem, Hakeem, and you might as well tell me since I’m here already,” John said.

“It’s the katana, sir,” Hakeem timidly replied.

“You mean this?” John showed the katana in his hand, and Hakeem nodded. “Is there something wrong with it?”

Hakeem hesitated but in the end, he gave in. “I managed to replicate the shape but for some reason, I felt like it was missing something…like the essence of the katana isn’t there,” Hakeem said.

“I see…it’s probably because of the material and the technique,” John blurted.

“Wait, you know how to make it?” out of excitement, Hakeem grabbed John by the shoulders, staining the hoodie with the black soot on his hand. John saw it, but he kept himself calm. It was meaningless to retaliate since it already had been done.

“Not exactly…but I did hear a thing or two from my Sensei on how they made these katanas,” John said.

Out of the blue, Hakeem knelt in front of John. “I beg of you, sir, please bestow me with your sacred knowledge. I’ve been making katana after katana and all of it doesn’t feel right…And forgive me for saying this but I’m not satisfied with the katana I gave you. The little mithril given by the Mayor was wasted in the hands of my incompetent skill.”

Hakeem really hit the wall here. He tasted of how it felt being lacking in skills. And knowing there was a chance to improve, he did not hesitate to beg for it.

“You’re overestimating me too much here…I only know just the trivial things, not the details that you wanted,” John said.

“Please, sir,” Hakeem wouldn’t back down. He hugged John by the leg, and John could feel his heart broke. ‘I should have just told him,’ it was a bit too late for regret as the other half of his pants was stained with another round of black soot. Washing that off was going to be a hassle and John was not liking it.

Hiding that little scowl he had, John aided Hakeem to stand back up again. “I don’t know if this will help, but the main thing here is you need to have the tamahagane steel, the main material of the katana,” John started to explain.

A fervent look was on Hakeem’s face as he scrambled on the floor searching for something to write on. “Continue please,” said Hakeem with a quill pen in his hand dabbed with a touch of ink.

“All I know is you need two types of iron sand, one is the lower quality, and the other is the higher quality. I don’t know the exact ratio but you mix it up while heating it, and for the finishing touch, you add the charcoal,” John said.

“Thank you!” Hakeem leaped at John and gave him a tight hug. It was like a bear giving a hug to an average size human.

The smell of burning charcoal, metal, and sweat drilled into John’s nose as he forced himself not to frown. After a few more squeezes from the burly smith, they then parted. Hakeem was beaming like the sun as if the light had finally shone on him.

“Just you wait, Master. With this newfound knowledge bestowed upon me, I’ll make you the most perfect katana you will ever wield,” a bold declaration for a smith from a small town.

“Um…don’t you think calling me Master is a bit too much? I only said a few words, and I’m not even a blacksmith,” John said.

“Nonsense, Master. When someone taught me their knowledge they will always be my Master in my eyes, no matter who they are, and no matter what status they hold,” Hakeem said.

John’s eyes blinked rapidly. He unintentionally solved one-third of the quest. ‘I guess that kinda work?’ shrugging his shoulders, he accepted it and bid farewell to Hakeem the Smith.

‘Since I’m done with Hakeem, should I pay a visit to Jose and Randal? For all I know, perhaps I might finish this quest a bit earlier than I expected.’ With a goal in mind, John headed to the Guardsman’s Station.