Grey woke up feeling pretty well rested but still troubled by the brief insanity that had plagued him yesterday. Was it the magic after effects of the pain test? He didn't know and he thought that only one person might have an idea as to what was happening to him. The Elder would be getting a visit from him later today. But first time for some delicious food. In the past few months that they had spent here they still had not found out who the person was that made this delicious food.

Speculations they had a plenty but no real proof or anything of the sort. It had to be someone extremely strong or maybe it was a group of someone's. Carrying that table in and out could not be easy he was sure that he couldn't lift it. Honestly he had even tried to lift it, as expected though it didn't even budge. After they had eaten breakfast they began their normal morning exercises. The exercises had become a habit for everyone living here. He had heard that even the elder and the forge master did the exercises but they did it a bit before they did theirs.

With the morning exercises finished Grey decided to just ask the Instructor about whoever cooked their food.

“Instructor, who is the one who actually makes all this food?”

“Aaah you guys haven't seen her yet have you” He told them with a small smile “Might as well just go to the kitchen so you can see for yourself”

The kids followed him through yet another of the seemingly endless side passages that led out from the training hall. They entered the lightest room they had been in yet. The room wasn't very big at especially compared to some of the other rooms they had. The kitchen itself was made from stainless gleaming steel. And behind he kitchen counter there was a woman. At least he knew it had to be a woman from wat the instructor had told him.

The chef was small, noticeably so he thought the only one who might actually be smaller was Pebble who barely managed to reach his hip. The woman had short cut hair and a rough face. A big potato like nose that fit her dark messy hair and the black beady eyes above them. Her skin colour was a sickly green and her arms where slightly longer than her torso. She walked with a bit of a hunch. Actually he was pretty sure this 'woman' was a goblin.

Everyone was pretty much in complete shock seeing who made all the delicious food they had been eating. The only one who seemed to take it all in stride was surprisingly Snowflake. Wat surprised him even more was that snowflake stepped forward and asked the goblin if she would teach him how to cook. He even seemed rather exited when he asked her, something which Grey could not understand by any logic.

The Goblin got extremely exited by this question. Showing a grin with sharp pointy yellow teeth she grabbed Snowflake by the hand and started showing him around the kitchen. The goblin was basically bouncing around with enthusiasm telling Snowflake about each tool she had in the kitchen and about the spices. Dragging him around from one thing to another with that obviously happy face made the rest of the group laugh a bit. He had to admit he kind of liked the goblin. It was hard not to like someone who went around doing their job with such passion.

“This be knaif use much for cut meat!” The goblin exclaimed. “This be hammer use for smack meat. Make meat much juicy good tasty.” Although she spoke worse than most kid's. They still couldn't get over this simple pure enthusiasm. He was not sure how the goblin had found out about her passion for making food. He for one was glad she had because the food they ate here was really one of the better points. A stable foundation of their day's of work. Then something suddenly came to him. How did this little goblin move that giant table?! How strong was this female goblin.

Well mysteriously powerful goblin chef aside the rest of the day went uneventful before he headed to the forge he headed to the elder first. Snowflake accompanied him because he was going there for lessons anyway. “Are you worried?” Snowflake asked him. Another thing he noticed was that over the months Snowflake had lost most of his shyness towards him and the rest of the group. “I'm actually hoping it's because of the magic.” Grey confessed.

“Why?” Snowflake asked looking at him with a quizzical look.

“Because it would mean im not a blood thirsty madman at heart.” Grey stated simply

“Wat if he says it's not because of the magic?

“Then i'll have to figure out how to control it, or atleast be able to direct it.” Grey said sighing. “Wouldn't be cool if i killed you guys instead of who or what ever we are going to have to fight.

“I'm not to worried.” Snowflake said giving him a pat on the back. “I was right next to you when you went insane last time and i came out without a scratch.”

Feeling a bit comforted by his freind's words they arrived at the plate room.

“Goodmorning younglings.” The elder greeted them.

“Mornin'.” the two replied.

“So wat is wrong Youngling. Snowflake here i expected but you i did not.”

Grey told him about what had happened in the forest. He told him every detail of how he had gone crazy and his bloodthirst had led him to rage an onslaught against all those within range.

“Except me!” Snowflake intervened quickly.

The elder looked at him for a moment and told him to come closer. He then made Grey open his eyes and he shone a bit of light in them with those strange magical fingers he had. Something else he noticed was the signs of some kind of tattoo that the elder had running up his arms. He hadn't noticed these before. The tribal-ish tattoo's seemed to be glowing with a blue pulsing light the same as Snowflake did when he started using his innate magic

“Well i have good and perhaps some bad news” The elder said giving him a measuring look. “The good news would be that the magic does somewhat enhance the feeling of blood thirst. The ripples seem to spread the bloodthirst blocking out almost all of your coherent thoughts.”

“The bad news would be that the magic is not wat caused this bloodthirst. The beserker like behavior is from you yourself. It's a part of your personality or so i would put it. The problematic thing is that i cannot help you with controlling this beserker like behavior of yours. It is something that you will have to figure out how to control it yourself.”

The news hit Grey a bit hard. So he was insane that's wat he thought to himself. Without any further ado he pardoned himself from the room and headed to the forge. Atleast the steady beating of the hammer could calm him down making. The more he worked at the forge the more he liked working there. He wondered if they would ever make it out of the arena. He would really like to start his own forge.

He soon reached the familiar smoky and hot room. The smoke and heat had long since stopped bothering him. It was surprising how easy it was to get used to these things. The forge master greeted him with his usual nod of the head. Grey returned the nod and headed to his own little part of the forge. There was actually space available for 4 Smiths to work at the same time in this area so even though the bulky forge master was huge it still seemed spacious. Grey headed to his forge in the corner and sat down on the anvil for a moment thinking.

He pondered about the Naginata he used. although it was a splendid weapon now that he was gaining bulk it became harder to make use of the Naginata's strengths the speedy whirls and spins that the made the weapon so dangerous where harder to do now that he was more muscular. Although his strength had greatly increased his speed did not increase as much as those of the others that made use of fast and light weaponry. He suddenly had a spark of inside and asked the Forge master for some of the better steels. The forge master just pointed his thumb to nearby door letting him know to just take whatever was necessary.

He entered the dusty storage room and looked around. There where all kind of boxes and pallets full of different kind of metals. Some of these metals he had never seen before and was unsure of their property's. Suddenly he saw a pile of ingots that really attracted his attention. The ingots had an icy blue colouring to them and when he picked one up which was the size of his lower arm he was surprised by the weight. The metal was so heavy he couldn't even pick it up with arm. This really surprised him because of the work at the smithy he had been doing he was pretty sure that the only one who might be stronger than him was Oak.

intrigued by this extremely heavy and dense metal he put it on the ground and grabbed a hammer.

He wound up his arm and swung down with every ounce of strength his body possessed. With a loud clang the hammer hit the metal and the impact numbed his arm and hand. Infact the impact was so strong that he could no longer hold onto the hammer as it flew from his hand flying down the storage area. He grinned like an idiot when he looked at the metal ingot. Not even so much as a scratch was to be found on the metal. Even when he used the ripple to check for imperfection there was nothing to be found on the ingot.

He had made his decision on which metal to use. This incredibly tough, dense and heavy metal would be wat he was going to use to make his own new weapon. Not a staffblade this time but a weapon that would fit the way he was growing and the style of fighting he wanted to adopt. He grabbed an ingot and took it back to the forgery he had to make a trip to the storage room 3 times because the metal was so heavy he could only carry one at a time. The forge master seeing him lug out the heavy metal with a passionate shine in his eyes gave a small smile that went unnoticed.

Once Grey had dragged the ingots to the forge he went around and looked at the molds he could use for the weapon. He was still unsure on wat weapon he should use. He looked at the different swords and shook his head these simple swords wouldn't do the trick. He moved on to the axes and wondered how it would be if he wielded a great axe. The image of a bloodthirsty berserker wielding an axe as big as himself was intimidating for sure but for some reason the idea did not appeal to him. Neither did any of the blunt weapons he looked at. A mace or a morning star would not fit well into the way he wanted to fight.

Thinking hard about wat weapon to use the Forge master walked up to him with a mold. It looked like a longsword at first glance but no it was to big for a long sword. Yet it was too small to be called a heavy sword or great sword. He read the words that marked the mold for wat it was. Bastard Sword. He had to admit he kind of liked the ring of it in his ears. Bastard sword, it sounded pretty dark and menacing. It sounded much more dangerous than a longsword or spear. He gave the forge master a grin. He was sure of it now his new weapon would be a Bastard sword!

He got started on the working process he melted the heavy ingots one at a time it took extremely long before they melted so long infact that the forge master who was watching him work grabbed another of the blowers and added it to the forge and started blowing himself aswell. Adding even more heat to the fire both of them pumped furiously turning the forge into a blazing inferno of flames. After about 10 minutes of painstaking pumping they had both started sweating like never before. After a few more minutes the familiar sizzling sounds could be heard that indicated that the ingots had melted.

Grey carefully let the glowing molten metal slide into the mold. Letting it cool down just enough to switch form liquid state to solid state. He then grabbed the end of the sword where the hilt would eventually be and start methodically and calmly hammering on the blade. The ripples once again consumed his thoughts. The rippling calm spread through his thoughts consuming anything that got in the way of his focus on smithing. Unknown to him his eyes had started glowing and his hair had lifted of his should swimming around his head as if he was underwater. Strange symbols glowed on his skin his entire body glowing as if it was a magical web. The sight of this made the forge master step back a bit in surprise as he watched the now illuminated Grey work.

Grey not aware of wat was going on just calmly kept hitting the red hot metal. The clashes of the hammer hitting the sword drowning away all thoughts as he continued his work in some kind of trance. After he was done hitting the sword mold into shape he put it back into the forge and started reheating it. Once the sword was once again red hot he did something he had never used before. Something that even the forge master had never done. He folded the metal and then hit it into shape again before folding it yet again. He then reheated it and then continued folding it and hitting it back into shape. He kept repeating this until he had done it about 200 times.

Once he had finished the folding he reheated the sword and put it back on the anvil. He then took a tiny yet sharp metal rod that was used for inscribing and started drawing weird runic symbols on the sword. The now redish light that was emanating from his body seemed to be leak in the sword. The light seemed to somehow be liquid as it flowed into the blade like water. The light gathered into the runes that Grey was carving and gave them a weird crimson red glow that was noticeable even tho the sword was still red-hot. Once he had finished inscribing the sword he started working on the hilt.

He rushed back into the storage room to find something for the hilt and came back with strange blue white ivory. He then started carving the ivory into shape for the hilt of the sword.

Unlike how they usually would be glued together to form a hilt. Grey started singing something so softly that it wasnt even audible. The strange song made the room seem a buzz. It was almost as if a million bumblebees had gathered in the room. The strange song seemed to have an effect on the ivory as it started to form itself around the hilt as if they had always been that way. Even the hilt was not left clean of runes. The red glow spread itself around the hilt this time in wat seemed to be black tribal markings. He then made the cross guard from the same heavy blue metal he had used on the sword. The cross guard seemed to be simple at first glance untill the blue metal seemed to multiply and gather at the pommel guard. The metal started making a thin steel chain of about 20 centimeters long that ended in the clasp of a cuff that seemed to be made from the same icy blue steel.

The forge master was long done with helping and stared in amazement at the display before him. Just when he thought Grey was done with his weird forging he started to use the rest of the ivory to make the last thing that was missing, The sheath. Just like the rest of the sword the sheath was not left free of magic. He made some miniscule runes around the edge of the sheath where the sword would enter. Surprisingly he left the rest of the sheath untouched he then grabbed the sword and stuck it into the sheath. Before drawing the sword again immediately. As soon as the sword was released from the sheath a low sound could be heard spreading through the room as if someone had hit a particularly large gong. The cuff seemed to flow around the wrist of the young man connecting his arm to the sword. There he stood, glowing, with his hair shifting around his head eyes shimmering red with a sword that had red glowing runes running all over the blade. Intimidating he left the forge master utterly convinced that this was the appearance of a mad war god thirsty for his blood. The sight of it made the bulky forge master back up until his back hit the wall.

This day would later be known as the birth of the famous sword Bloodthirster.

Largest chapter yet! And boy did i have fun writing this :D, Sorry for the delay i thought i had taken my documents with me to my parents place when i went there for the holiday but i forget them! Might happen again! I'll make it up to you guys xD