Chapter 116: First Blade (1/2)
”He's still here?” Allan muttered as he read the notification in front of his eyes while he climbed the stairs of the Pavilion.
When he had reached the edge of the Filter Dimension, he received the same kind of notification that signaled him of a friend being present. So, he accepted it and predicted to see Rakna resting on the couches or training in one of the rooms, but what he saw forced him to make a double-take.
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Rakna brought down the hammer in his hand for what felt like the thousandth time, sweating ever so slightly because of the strain. He was still working on the expanded steel ingot, trying to work out the most efficient ways to forge it.
Old Wang had exited the smithy to go to sleep after guiding him for around an hour. He had given him permission to stay for as long as he wanted while also mentioning that the place was insulated so he didn't need to mind about the noise.
And so, Rakna just decided to continue hammering with terrific absorption. He wouldn't mind spending the entire night if he needed to. As he was pondering that, his HL began to ring and he answered with a scowl.
”Wha-”
”RAKNA! There's a goddam T. Rex in your section's lounge!” Allan's voice pierced through before he could ask what was going on.
He blinked in surprise. ”…what? You mean Tyran?”
”You gave a pet name to that thing?!”
”Calm down. Why are you so agitated?” Rakna responded with an even tone, hammering the last corners of the original steel ingot. The clanks couldn't be heard on the other side of the line since the HL transmitted nothing but his voice. ”He should barely look more threatening than a cat.”
”Seriously? You're sure you've seen that thing clearly!?” Allan retorted confounded and he sighed, preparing to say something else when his blond friend sent him a video through his HL. He closed his mouth almost instantly.
The video depicted Tyran and Pronos sleeping on the floor. Well, that wouldn't have been very problematic if only the now-undead T. Rex wasn't doing so in his original size. Rakna had to admit that he did look intimidating, and the considerably strong gusts of wind that the beast was causing with his breathing alone didn't help to pacify the image.
”Well… don't worry. He's docile,” Rakna ultimately said.
”Rak, I'm sorry to tell you that there's no way I can relate the word 'docile' to the most historically glorified carnivorous predator on Earth!”
”Just ignore him.”
”Way ahead of you! I've already left that death trap.”
Rakna shook his head exasperatedly. ”Whatever. So? How did it go?”
”What do you mean?”
”The training with Evelyn.”
”Ooh, that. Well, we got her to level 24 and she said she has re-learned pretty much all of what she had lost over her time spent in the seal. She's also doing pretty good with Hell Blaze. She's also caught up with us. We brought her to the 10th Plateau.”
”So, I'm the only behind now, huh?” Rakna said blankly while putting the half-done blade he was forging under the care of Karna's flames.
”Like hell you're behind. If anything, we should be grateful you're crippled so we can dig the gap between us, or else you'd leave us in the dust.”
”Ah, I fixed that, by the way. I'll be fully healed in two days.”
”…of course, you will. Where are you right now anyway? When I was given the authorization to enter your private section, I thought you were in there but my welcome was a damn T. Rex.”
”I'm learning blacksmithing,” Rakna replied dully, resuming his hammering. ”Speaking of which, I guess the fact that you were able to join Pronos and Tyran means that our friend status extends to our pets. Interesting to know.”
”Apparently… wait, did you say blacksmithing? What for?”
”To hopefully improve my spells or my Magic Theory.”
”Uh, so you're following in the footsteps of the old master?”
”As if,” Rakna retorted with a scoff as he increased the strength behind his swing. The hammer struck the red steel and bent further. He was now following the old dwarf's instructions to change the angles to control the flow and shape the sword. ”If anything, I would wish to make my footsteps in the opposite direction of his.”
”…I never heard you say that,” the blond said, genuinely taken off guard.
”Allan, if there's one thing you should know about my old man, is that his 'footsteps' lead nowhere other than hell. In other words, something I'm trying to get away from.”
”I see… Well, in any case, tell us whenever you're ready to come to the 10th Plateau. I'm gonna hit the hay for today after passing by the shop. The girls are having a sort of sleepover right now… at a hotel, I guess? All I know is that they're probably having their girls' talk.”
”{That is definitely something you don't want to intrude in,}” Higure commented mirthfully.
”Well, have fun, Rak. Oh, almost forgot; Flavia and Evelyn wanted to ask you if you could train them to use weapons. They asked Nyx but she said she wasn't very good at teaching, so…”
”I get it. I'll call them when I'm done on my side,” Rakna said as he broke through one side of the blade for the tang that would go inside the handle.
”All right! See ya.”
And with that, the sound of the smithy and hammering was the only thing left again. Rakna looked at the piece in front of him and marked the thicker sections. Normally speaking, forging an average sword would take days of continuous work but for someone like him, with strength far beyond normal humans, if he did it right, it would only take hours, half a day at worst.
After about an hour of drawing the basic shape of the weapon, he then started to tweak the parts that were a bit irregular as well as smoothing the edges as best as he could. Then, as he was doing that, the notification he was waiting for finally popped up.
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Through accumulating practice, you have learned a new proficiency, Blacksmithing!
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