“Young lord, how have you been doing?”

“I’m fine, thanks for coming.”

“Of course I’m going to come over if my only student himself asked for it! GAHAHAH!”

My dwarf master started laughing loudly and people outside the smithy looked at us. Embarrassed, I beckoned Dhorin to come in and talked inside.

“Eh? Student? Then Mr. Dhorin is...”

“You’re right! This child is my one and only disciple! You’ve been doing a great job taking care of him eh Smith?”

“Huh? Uhh... yes.”

“You guys knew each other?”

The way they talked sounded like they have already known each other for a long time.

“His master was my good friend.”

“Yup and Mr. Dhorin helped me a lot after Master passed away. I was finally able to manage the smithy on my own after a while.”

“It was nothing much, I just helped around a little bit.”

I see. Dhorin must have been like an uncle to Smith. That’s good news, I don’t have to introduce them to each other then.

“Is it alright for you to leave Steelton?”

“It’s fine, my men can manage on their own back there.”

“I see. Ah, what am I doing. I’ll go prepare some drinks.”

“Alright!”

The dwarf cheered in excitement at the mention of drinks. Smith came back with some alcohol and fruit juice for me then we talked away until midnight. I invited Dhorin to come over for a different purpose but I guess that can wait for tomorrow.

***

“So? Where’s the thing you wanted to show me?”

“Here. And I’ve been making different stuff so take a look.”

I pulled out Yami and presented them to Dhorin, along with the different weapons I’ve been crafting for the whole time I was in Cale. This was the reason I called him here; Dhorin was the most skillful craftsman I know, so I want him to see my growth and form an opinion about it.

“Hmm. Indeed, this magical sword is better than the first one you created. And I could see how your magic tempering method might have improved. This is great, your magic sword truly deserved to be called a national treasure but the craftsmanship is still too lacking to be called a master’s work.”

“However, you are truly talented. A normal dwarf, not to mention a human, would usually take 10 years to reach this level of skill. You will surpass many master craftsmen in your life. I’m proud to have you as my student.”

He said my skills are still lacking, but praises started pouring out from him after that when he examined my other works. I’m happy to hear those words and they served as good motivation.

“Alright then, since I’m already here I’ll teach you some things. Smith, you join in too.”

“Huh? Y- Yes!”

Smith who had been watching the whole time nodded happily. I could tell he was excited to be taught by Dhorin.

“Say, you’ve never worked with anything other than steel have you?”

Dhorin asked me an unexpected question. Now that I think about it, I’ve been working with only iron since the beginning of my career. I’ve heard about powerful weapons made with some rare magical minerals like mithril but I’ve never even seen a mithril ore before. That said, I’ve seen Smith did some maintenance on those kinds of equipment but I’ve never worked with them myself.

“I knew it. You’re not really going anywhere if you only work with iron you know? Smith, you got better stuff to work with?”

“Let’s see, mithril are expensive so I don’t have them but I do have some black iron.”

“That’s good enough.”

Smith grabbed some dark-colored ores and handed them to Dhorin.

“Listen, young lord. If you want to become good as a craftsman you need to work with many materials. Iron and steel is just the beginning, the further you go you’re going to be dealing with much better materials.”

He threw the ore into the blast furnace and smelt them. The whole process was so smooth it made me admire his skills. He truly is my master.

“Look closely, Young Lord. Black iron has a much higher melting point than iron which means it’s going to take much more heat to smelt them.”

Indeed, it was taking much more flame than usual to smelt that black iron. When the metal was separated from the ore Dhorin quickly took it and put it on the anvil. Don’t you need to go through steelmaking first?

“Black iron is already a stronger metal than steel, young lord. So you can shape them as soon as you smelt them. In the future, you will encounter many weird metals like this one. Build up experience, and you will become a great craftsman before you know it.”

He said while hitting on the bright red lump of metal with a hammer. It was a cool sight of a master working that I haven’t seen in a long time.

When he finished, a straight sharp blade was produced. It was dark as the material it was made from. Yami and Night were dark from the influence of my mana but Dhorin’s blade was naturally dark. It was pretty.

I examined it and admitted that the craftsmanship was far from what I could achieve now, but that motivated me even more. Even Smith was delighted that he was able to see a great master at work.

“Well then, it’s your turn now. I’ll guide you along the way while I’m in this town.”

After that, the smithy was filled with sounds of hammering from two people hitting molten metals constantly and the voice of a dwarf offering guidance to the two people. It was the start of my breakthrough as a blacksmith.

***

Ttang! Ttang!

Boing Boing

I was busy hammering in the smithy while Mizu was hopping around in a circle nearby. She seemed to be enjoying herself doing so. But I concentrated on my work while Mizu was having fun.

I pondered about how to develop the mana tempering technique further, so I kept practicing and used it every day. Although I didn’t make any weapons from it. I don’t want to have a pile of magic swords lying around. But because of that, there’s a pile of mana-tempered iron ingots instead. Smith and I didn’t know what to do with them so he stored them for later use.

As a result, the technique has developed incomparably to when I first used it to make Night. My blacksmithing skills had been showing significant progress too after months of practice and working with different metals. Smith too had shown great progress with his blacksmithing skills after witnessing Dhorin’s work firsthand. He’s bound to reach the levels of an expert craftsman soon enough.

While I was concentrating on hammering the glowing metal on the anvil I suddenly stopped. I felt the movement of mana within the workshop, and that’s when I realized that Mizu had stopped hopping around for some time. I turn around to look for her and when I found her I witnessed something unbelievable.

Mizu was swaying left and right while enveloping herself with mana. She’s controlling mana! How is this possible?

I had studied slimes in my spare time from a book in the library and surely, although they are generally creatures born from pure mana these types of slimes are rare. Most slimes found in the wilds are ones that were birthed from other slimes. Imagine mitosis, if you will. I had considered that Mizu was exactly the rare type of slime that is born from nature; furthermore, she was born within the territory marked with my mana signature, which explains why her mana signature felt familiar to me and why she was so attached to me.

Anyways, slimes are generally also not very intelligent. So they don’t usually have the ability to control mana. Heck, there’s actually no precedence to it. None that is recorded, at least. So I was astonished to find Mizu doing just that. What could have triggered Mizu to doing so? It couldn’t be...

I looked at the hammer I was holding and certainly, there was mana enveloping it and circulating on its surface. Was Mizu imitating me?

*Boing* *Boing*

With that, Mizu made her way towards me and bounced up and down in front of me. She was like a cute daughter trying to get her father’s attention by doing something cool. It was adorable.

“Yes, you did a great job Mizu” I gave Mizu a thumbs up while praising her.

She started hopping around in a small circle when I said that. She seemed happy. I showed a proud smile watching her behavior. My familiar is such an intelligent slime, I’m happy.

This is great. I adopted her because she was cute, who would have thought she turned out to be this talented.

Smith walked in on me being all proud with Mizu bouncing in a circle and showed a confused expression.