In her thirteenth year, Karzaia was switched from weapons training to the forge. After extensive testing with various crafts, it was determined that her Talents made her suited for the enchanting and forging of powerful weapons.

So it was that every morning from her thirteenth birthday to her fourteenth, she was to spend at the forge.

The Manthein clan forges were in a massive solid stone building at the foot of the keep. Three floors, each with six workrooms and six full forges, were set up to create the weapons for the men who stood the Wall for the clans and those who protected against the beast surges. Another building across the road had an equal amount of space for the armorers.

Four months after her thirteenth birthday, Karzaia could be found patiently and intently pounding a length of red-hot iron as she wove her affinity into it, folding the metal, pounding it flat, lengthening it slowly into the blade of the sword it was meant to be. Large amounts of mana surged in and out of her body as she endured the pain of her Soul-Forging Talent, infusing it into each grain of the metal.

The hot metal, which had been glowing orange, began to show flickers of silver as her affinity fused more deeply with the grain of the metal. Karzaia was far stronger than the other children her age. Even reaching only the first stage of a cultivation Path was sufficient to quadruple her physical strength and the durability of her flesh. It was an advantage that few would have without the use of an enhancing Talent.

When the orange of the hot metal turned completely silver, she began to mold it with her mind, as much as the hammer. The grains became tighter, more even, the metal strengthening as it became infused with ever greater amounts of mana. The blade had already been folded dozens of times to get to this point, and if she faltered, it would explode, the mana released in a surge likely to give her critical injuries.

Over the course of hours, she managed to flatten the ever-more-stubborn metal, repeatedly reheating and infusing it with her mana. She was in a trance, as she wove a pattern of magic whose meaning she herself did not understand into the flat of the blade.

It was well into the night when she finally came to a stop, quenching the completed blade in a trough infused with an alchemic mixture including her own blood before dropping it in a box of sand to cool. She dropped to her knees, exhausted beyond measure from over-channeling so much mana and controlling it for so long. The physical strain of shaping the metal was almost trivial compared to that.

It took her almost two hours to recover enough to rise to her feet, and she went over to the box of sand, taking the blade out, brushing it clean. She looked at the weapon with satisfaction. She still needed to use the grindstone, but the sheer power of the magic infused into the blade showed her that she had succeeded in her goal. She could sense no other person would be able to use it. It was a weapon made by and only meant for her use.

A polished ironwood hilt inscribed with enchantments of durability and preservation sat on a nearby workbench, along with a simple bronze crossguard. The weapon itself was a straight sword, slightly thinner than a bastard sword, but it was in actuality about twice as heavy as it should have been. By physically and magically refining the weapon as she forged it, she had greatly changed the structure of the metal, making it as close to indestructible as she could.

The blade looked like silver, but it was in actuality magesteel. Magesteel was formed when a smith infused a weapon with their affinity strongly enough to alter the very essence of the metal, a task that few had the concentration or power to do. The color of the results tended to differ based on the affinity involved.

Carefully, she picked her tongs up and clamped them onto the tang of the blade before taking it to the grindstone. Patiently, infusing just enough mana to make it possible, she used the grindstone to give the blade an edge. Magesteel was difficult to shape in the best of times, and sharpening it without magic was impossible. It took her another three hours to give an edge to both sides of the blade, whereupon she ocne again slumped to the ground, her energy reserves depleted.

After a few minutes, she rose again and stumbled over to the workbench, where she slid the tang of the blade through the guard and into the slot in the hilt. She then inserted four screws through the matching holes and tightened them inasmuch as was possible. This was followed by her wrapping the wepaon’s hilt in leather from a lesser hydra’s underbelly. She carefully tested the weapon to make sure it was secure… before flopping onto the workbench and promptly falling asleep. She began to snore loudly, drawing smiles from the early crew just walking up the steps.

Karzaia was generally liked by the smiths, young and old. She was dedicated, earnest, and willing to admit when she didn’t know something. It made it somewhat easier than one would have thought when she surpassed several of the younger smiths in months.

The sword lying on the bench beside her was not a masterwork, at least not by the high standards of the Manthein clanhold’s weaponsmiths. However, it was a solid peak journeyman work. Such a weapon would serve any high-ranking Adventurer well as a reliable partner and be welcomed even by those who strode the Wall in service to the clans of the Nine Lands.

However, any experienced smith with a knack for infusion would be able to tell it would only serve once master. The hostility the weapon gave off when the other smiths approached said it all… Karzaia had forged herself a partner, rather than a mere weapon.

The master smith, an ancient-looking man with a bare-chested, muscular figure with skin covered in massive furrowed scars, walked up to her and kicked Karzaia off the workbench. Predictably, Karzaia didn’t even notice the impact, her tempered body not even feeling it and her instincts not registering any hostility.

“Silly girl. I told you to wait,” He said with a fierce scowl. Silis’ar, one of the oldest individuals in Clan Manthein, was annoyed. The girl was supposed to fail, not create a spirit weapon on her fifteenth try.

For the past two months, since she mastered the basics of making manasteel out of iron, he had had her repeatedly trying to create a personal spirit weapon, with the expectation that she would fail at least a hundred times before success. Karzaia had immense potential as a smith, her vision abilities and surprising control of her immense physical strength giving her a serious advantage over her peers. However, he had expected that it would take until the end of her last year before her Journey to complete it.

All who went to their smiths for their Craft Year were told to create a spirit weapon once they could make manasteel. A weapon that could only be destroyed by the breaking of the user’s will or a being twenty Tiers higher than them was just too useful, and it served as proof of basic competence.

A spirit weapon was an intimate creation, and the results when one was completed were generally far beyond what the apprentice could create normally. As such, it was to be expected that her spirit weapon would enter the level of one of his journeymen’s creations. However…

He sighed, “Girl, if I only had three years… just three years and I could pass everything on to you.”

His words were wistful and full of regret that the traditions of the Nine Lands required so much of their children. In truth, he saw no reason why crafters should be forced to go through the two-year Journey like the warriors and sorcerers. Those with true talent for a craft were far rarer than those who could fight or cast spells. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of years of tradition far outweighed the grumbling of an old mastersmith.

He also knew Karzaia would never tolerate it. Her desire to adventure, her inherent wanderlust made it a foregone conclusion that she would go on her Journey the second she was given permission. She was still mostly unformed, as all the young were. However, to his inner vision, she was to be sculpted, the excess scraped away, not built up and forged as most of his students had to be. It was like there was too much to her, and that everything he taught her merely cut away parts that did not fit with the sculpture that was Karzaia.

As a true Artisan, Silis’ar saw deeper than he really should have, the System unable to encompass the scope of his vision and brilliance, his madness that devoured him even as he forged weapons that could kill demigods. Only the Maker Himself understood the old man, for the Maker too was a being who understood the madness that only true creators could feel.

“Wander you will, but when I am gone and dust, you shall make me proud,” The old, ancient undead smith said, his withered, scarred soul brightening as he decided to push on for just a little longer.

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For the next month, he made her create nails. Nails for horseshoes, nails for floorboards, and even the silverite nails necessary to permanently bind a corpse lord’s flesh into true death. Karzaia pounded out nail after nail, while the ancient smith screamed at her for even the most minor of failures. His kind, grandfatherly manner from the first three months was gone, and in its place was a demon that surpassed even her uncle for harshness.

Occasionally, he would begrudgingly proclaim that one of her nails was ‘passable’, and he would toss it in a small box. The others he would make her melt down and reforge, again and again. She was not allowed to use her affinity to infuse the metal, nor could she use her Talent to ease the process of shaping it. Only the skills he taught her could be used, and if she slipped… only the gods could help her.

Karzaia Manthein

Title: Heir of the Hooded King

Affinity: Soul (Tier 5)

Talents: Soul Sight (Level 5), Soul-Tempering (Level 5), Soul-Forging (Level 5), Mana Well (Level 5), Qi Sense (Level 5)

Cultivation: Path of the Crushing Soul (Early Mortal Formation Stage)

Her Talents and affinity had plateaued… but that was to be expected. Until she undertook the Manthein Trial, the gods would not allow her to progress them further. The ancient pact required that only those deemed worthy by the Trial would be allowed to go on their Journey and progress beyond the first stage of power.

She didn’t understand why the mastersmith was so brutal with her. The others who went to the smiths for craft-teaching were treated as she was the first three months. However, she was determined to regain his regard, though she knew not how she had lost it in the first place.

Her misunderstanding of the situation was easy to comprehend. For all her exceptional potential, Karzaia was a child. She was perceptive, but she lacked the experience to make use of her natural ability.

It was precisely two months to the day from the time she finished her spirit blade that the old smith finally freed her from the forging of nails.

“I suppose that’s good enough,” He said with the same grudging praise he’d given so infrequently, before taking her now-full box of ‘perfect’ nails and handing it off to one of his assistants.

The assistant showed no sign of confusion, for he too had gone through this particular baptism of fire during his apprenticeship. He also showed no signs of the sympathy he held for Karzaia over what was going to happen next.

The mastersmith led her down into the depths beneath the topside workshops, into the dusty labyrinth. There were fewer rooms there, but each of them was carved through manipulations of the Earth affinity to create a perfectly private space for a mastersmith to work.

At the clan’s height, each of them had been occupied, but, for the past twenty thousand years, only two or three mastersmiths had existed in the clan at once. Those whose potential was almost entirely that of a crafter tended to die during the Manthein Trial or their Journey. As such, each generation had few true crafters compared to the easier times an age in the past.

At the bottom, seventeen levels below the surface, the ancient undead, a vampire lord of immense power, revealed himself before his student.

His rugged features changed little, but his eyes turned pitch black with red irises, and an aura of miasma rose from his flesh. For four ages, the old vampire Artisan had worked the forges of Manthein, those few who knew his truth and the Clan Lord sworn to secrecy. He was old enough that he recalled Manthein from before the beast waves began to grow in strength and frequency, to when the clan hold had held millions instead of a mere seventy thousand. He recalled the time when the Journey was only necessary for true warriors and sorcerers, for Adventurers and protectors of the people.

He took in the expression of the student he had chosen for his last with more than a little weariness. It was not because he disliked what he saw. Rather, it was simply because he was just that tired. His flesh endured, but his soul was worn away by the passing of centuries. Every time he made something with his hands, his Artisan’s gift devoured another part of who he was. The power of an Artisan was not kind to the one who used it, as his few true students knew all-too-well.

It was very rare, but on occasion undead like him were made, so valuable skills and crafts would not be lost during the endless beast waves. However, even an undead could only maintain a facsimile of sanity for so long.

Karzaia looked up at her teacher with hope that the horrors of the last two months might be over…

… and the ancient undead grinned maliciously, “Since you can make passable nails, I think it is time you learned how to repair armor.”

He gestured to the battered workroom behind him, which had punctured breastplates and cracked pauldrons galore piled in every open space save the forge itself.

“You have a month to repair everything in this room to my satisfaction,” He proclaimed before exiting the workroom and locking her in behind him. He began to whistle a tavern ditty from his misspent (and long-gone) youth as he headed back up the stairway, twirling the large iron key on his right index finger.

What he’d just done was something he did to all his true students. The weaponsmiths he made to repair armor, the armorsmiths weapons. In time, this made them much better at their original specialties, as they learned more of the metal and their own limits. The nails… were just to see if they would give up before he was ready to send them on to the next task.

He cackled to himself, his humor at a joke he’d played on his students tens of thousands of times in the past briefly bringing life to his withered soul.

__________________________________________________________________________

For the first time since her System Day, Karzaia was at a loss.

I have no idea of what I should do, She thought as she stared at the punctured iron breastplate sitting in her lap.

She had never been taught the making of armor. For the first two weeks of the year, all those going for smith training were put together, where they learned to make simple things like knives, pots, pans, and horseshoes under the tutelage of one of the lesser masters. At the end, depending on how they did with the various projects, the masters decided whether they would specialize in weapons or armor.

As such, she quite simply didn’t have a concrete idea on how to repair a breastplate or a set of pauldrons.

To be blunt, Karzaia had never tried to figure things out on her own. For better or worse, even her weapons training and tempering were done under the instructions of her uncle. It was only now, that she was left alone in a room with no idea of what to do that she realized she hadn’t actually done anything on her own before.

That was, in fact, part of the exercise. Despite the harshness of the clans’ traditions, they protected their children fiercely as they raised them. Even their training, as brutal as it sometimes was, was overbearingly protective. Thus, the task of teaching some facsimile of independence to the children of the Nine Lands generally ended up being fobbed off on crafting trainers with no blood relation to the children in question.

Though few took as much pleasure in it as the Artisan.

Karzaia eventually began touching the metal, looking at it closely, even analyzing it with both of her sensory Talents, trying to match up its grain with the methodology she already knew. She quickly realized that she lacked the skill to make it as good as new. She was pretty sure she’d need at least another two months learning the same way she had with weapons just to even attempt it… but she resolved to do the best she could.

For the next month, she patched breastplates and pauldrons that were relatively intact using metal scrap from the more damaged pieces. She hadn’t been given any metal other than the armor itself, and most of the armor was damaged to the point where at least a significant chunk was missing. As such, she interpreted her instructions to mean she was supposed to melt down the worthless pieces and repair the ones that just needed a little care.

Her work was visibly lower quality than the original armor. All of the damaged armor had originally been high journeyman or low expert in quality. The best she could do was early journeyman or late apprentice works. The ‘patches’ were generally off in color and were just wrong in every way that mattered.

However, when the mastersmith entered the room at the end of the month, he merely nodded slightly after looking at them. He couldn’t say he was completely satisfied, but she had done what he wanted her to do.

“This will do… though your skill is pathetic. I guess it’s worth teaching you to do better,” He said, the illusion of human features laid over his withered undead face stretching in a grimly gleeful smile.

The rest of her last year as a child was spent learning from him and slowly forging the tools she would take with her on her Journey. She made the pitons she would need for climbing the many mountains of the Nine Lands, she forged the traditional hunting knife of Clan Manthein, a thick, hatchet-like blade meant as much for chopping as cutting, and she, of course, made a lot of nails. She even made a set of armor, after her master beat the proper methods into her. It was a simple set made of leather-backed manasteel scales, rather than a true set of plate and leather like the warriors wore, but it was hers. The manasteel was only lightly infused with her affinity, her master having finished it with his Fire and Darkness affinities to make it more resilient and warm her at night.

“Brat,” The old undead said as she jumped to make sure the armor was on perfectly.

“Master?” She queried. It was rare for the ancient being to speak so softly to her.

“Your Trial is going to be… bad. Normally, I wouldn’t bother warning someone about their Trial, but the gifts you’ve been given mean that the gods will test you more than most. We haven’t done well by you, either. We’ve coddled and treasured you when we should have pushed you beyond your limits,” He said heavily. Now that he had finished building the foundation upon which she would one day build her true skill as a smith, he had no need to play games. His final task, the one he’d set for himself when he looked into the depths of her spirit blade, was complete.

“Master, I will be fine. My uncle has taught me well… you have taught me well. I cannot possibly fail before I finish my Journey and pay my respects for all you have given me,” She said passionately. She loved the old undead smith, what little fear she’d felt for him long tossed aside during her training.

He shook his head, unwilling even now to tell her he wouldn’t be there when she came back… if she came back. His soul, which always seemed to know better than his mind, told him he would never see her again, even if he changed his mind and continued his existence past this day.

“Brat, I’ll say this just once. You are the last treasure I have made, and the only one I’ve left unfinished. You aren’t meant to languish in the Nine Lands, where you won’t meet a tenth of your potential. When you cross the ocean to enter that sect your uncle is sending you to, don’t look back. Pass through the Trials and Tribulations the gods offer you, grab every scrap of power and knowledge you can… and make me proud, brat,” He said, unable to shed the tears he wished would well up.

Before she could reply, he pushed her out into the street and slammed the door. Only then did he slide to the ground, a weary grin lighting up his face, even as the illusion fell, his teeth regaining their yellowed and porous appearance, his lips turning as thin as rice paper, the skin of his face drawn tight against his skull, is tongue as black as pitch.

“Master!” His true students, numbering twelve, each of them on the verge of becoming a master themselves, rushed into the room from where they had been waiting at his request.

“The time has come, brats. I’ve already hung on longer than I really wanted to. It’s past time someone else took over watching over this clan of muscle-heads and twinkle-finger sorcerers,” He said with a ghost of his usual mad cackle.

His students were crying, each of them pleading with him to stay just a bit longer, to show them one more time what the greatest Artisan of Iron in the Nine Lands could do when he set his mind to it. Each and every one of them was a crafter to the core, men and women who had survived their Trial and Journey solely so they could return to learn under him. Two of them were even from other, allied, clans.

“Brats, it’s long past time you started making things of your own. Walk your own Paths… and be well,” He said, an oddly gentle expression taking over his face as the Wandering God, as thin as a wisp, stepped into the world before him, causing the others to fall to their knees from the sheer pressure of his existence.

“So, Judge, I guess it is time then?”

The Wanderer smiled wryly at the last descendant of the Hooded King’s personal bladesmith. The old undead’s inherited memories told him exactly who stood before him, and they were the primary reason he’d held on for so long.

“Descendant of Sethesis, I did not think anyone recalled the method to summon me under that name,” he said with a bemused expression on his face.

“Hah! As if any of us could forget, after you took our Lord!” The old undead said, his laugh devolving into hacking coughs due to the fact that what little moisture left in his body was already evaporating.

“Over twenty ages, and still your line never forgot, never forgave. If the clans had simply cast off the old traditions, they would not be suffering as they are now,” The god said with exasperation.

Long before, when the balance between mana and qi in the Nine Lands began to turn in favor of mana permanently due to the corruption rising from the Tower, the gods had made certain offers to the clans. All they had to do was abandon the continent to the beasts, and a new Realm would be given to them to rule and contest over.

They had refused, of course. Since then, their powers had become entirely mana-based, and their numbers and the size of their clanholds gradually decreased, generation after generation. The god estimated the clans only had five or six more generations before the beasts overwhelmed them completely and the oldest existing civilization vanished forever.

“We are the Vassals of the Hooded King, and you are one of the Liars. Even if another forty ages pass, our souls will never forget our King!” The old smith whispered, his eyes fierce.

“Yet you summon me to release you from undeath,” The Wanderer said quietly.

“I’m mortal, even in undeath, so I can be a hypocrite if I want,” The undead said with gleeful humor. Unlike his clansmen, he had no respect for the gods, and his students all shivered at his presumption.

The god laughed uproariously, “I suppose I deserved that. You do your ancestor honor!”

With gesture, he caused the sword he hadn’t drawn since becoming the Wanderer, the one that had claimed the Hooded King’s wife, to appear in his right hand. To break the resolution he made when his aegis was changed pained him greatly, but he couldn’t bring himself to do the old creature a disservice by using his other blade.

His eyes became haunted as he brought the blade around and swept it through the Artisan’s body, ripping his soul from his long-dead flesh. The ancient smith’s smile froze in space for a moment before his body fell to dust, nothing remaining behind, even his clothing or tools.

“May your rebirth be a kind one, creature of the old world,” The Wanderer whispered in sorrow as he faded back into the aether, the duty he’d set himself done.

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Karzaia made her way to the Trial of Manthein. Her spirit blade was sheathed at her side, a wrapped short spear in her right hand. A pack was strapped to her shoulders, and her scale armor covered her chest and shoulders, a short ‘skirt’ of the scales reaching down past her groin to just above her knees. Hardened leather was strapped to her forearms and calves, with thick gray wool covering her under the armor. On her feet were a pair of black leather boots gifted to her by her brothers. Her hunting dagger sat in its sheath behind her back, hilt visible behind her right hip.

She wore a simple hardened leather cap lined with dire wolf fur, a simple metal band one inch wide circling it around her forehead and temples. Her short spear’s leaf-bladed tip was a bit longer than her hand from wrist to fingertips and it was made of manasteel, infused with non-affinity mana to allow it to channel any affinity, like most of the weapons in the clan armory. The haft was made of stonewood, a relatively rare mana-rich resource found in the forests inside the Wall. Normal steel blades wouldn’t even scratch its surface, and it was heavier than most standard wood.

The Trial of Manthein looked to be just another wooden door built into the side of the mountain… until you got in close and felt the sheer pressure of divinity and pure mana surging from underneath. Those who had not reached their System Day would be unable even to approach the doorway, much less pass within.

A guard, a sorcerer in light leather armor with the glowing red eyes that spoke of an awakened circyx bloodline, addressed her in a soft voice, “Do you come to submit yourself to the Trial of Manthein, child of our clan?”

His words were a formality. Few ever refused the Trial, and doing so meant they were no longer clan. They were slaves, Servitors, for all the remainder of their lives. Few were willing to endure the shame of such a fate.

“Indeed, I come to submit myself to the judgment of the gods as I endure our clan’s Trial,” Karzaia proclaimed firmly. Fear did not enter her expression or voice, and the guard nodded in approval before turning to face the door.

He placed his palm upon the door, and wooden thorns suddenly punctured his hand in a half-dozen places, emerging glistening with crimson fluid from the other side. He grimaced at the pain, but he was accustomed to it, as all guardians of the Trial were. Karzaia walked up beside him and placed her own palm beside his, on a faint indentation that was identical to the other. Thorns pierced her hand as well, and, though she had grown accustomed to suffering during her tempering and through the use of her affinity, this pain was somehow worse.

She could feel the spirit within, introduced to her through the guard’s sacrifice, observe her, evaluate her will, her personality, her flaws. Everything was laid bare before the spirit, whose cold evaluation held nothing of humanity within its depths. Suddenly, something within Karzaia rebelled ferociously at the invasion, lashing out like a serpent at the spirit.

The spirit recoiled as vindictive hatred filled Karzaia, her soul consumed by the desire to expel and obliterate the intruder. Her affinity awoke, and she could feel herself attacking the spirit of the door ruthlessly, mercilessly as it screamed in sudden agony of its own.

The guard noticed none of this, for his contribution was his blood granted as permission for her to attempt the Trial. However, he did notice the waves of power emanating from the door and the young scion of Manthein.

Karzaia and the spirit clashed dozens, hundreds of times for every second that passed, as what lay beneath the surface of Karzaia’s soul sought to obliterate the ancient being. The spirit wasn’t intelligent or sentient, but its instincts told it that if it relented for a moment, it would suffer true death, consumed utterly by what lay beneath the surface of the seemingly humanoid girl.

It sought a way to live, struggling to hold off the onslaught for a few precious seconds before it settled on simply allowing the child through.

The thorns withdrew from Karzaia’s flesh, the wounds healing in an instant, leaving no scar. The door swung open, and Karzaia blinked, her spirit suddenly free of the haze of hate that was already fading from her memory. By the time she stepped over the threshold, she recalled nothing of what had occurred after touching the door.

Upon Karzaia’s entry, a message displayed across her vision.

Welcome, Child of Manthein, to your Trial.

The message disappeared a moment later, and she could see that she stood in a simple stone corridor. When she turned around, the door was gone, and a solid stone wall stood in its place. She turned around slowly and firmed her lips, clenching and unclenching her first on the haft of her spear several times before she started down the corridor, her eyes scanning the walls, ceiling, and floor for any sign of trouble.