A Dragon’s Curiosity

 

 

With the smithing hammer in her hand, Nisha hesitated for a moment, observing the rectangular piece of iron on the anvil.

During this period, the students were encouraged to get familiar with the forge, tools and procedure; no one had imparted any smithing techniques on them yet.

In the end, she still brought the hammer down with a hard swing, albeit not with her full power. The orange glowing ore still bent slightly from the impact, deforming even further as the hammer hit on one of the edges instead of the flat surfaces.

Encouraged by the first strike, the elf silently continued to raise and bring down the hammer, creating a ringing melody while the initially bent and imperfect iron ingot slowly regained a proper form.

Throughout the performance, Conner kept silent. He was already thoroughly astonished by the elf’s talent. In the beginning, the blows only deformed the metal further and were without rhythm or grace. However as time went on, Nisha had slowly found her flow and each strike had a target, a driving force behind it with a definite image in mind. The deformed ingot gradually returned to its original form, and even the impurities from before began to slowly disappear as the black specks on the surface were hammered out by the dragon.

 

Sadly, before Nisha could finish restoring the iron ingot, the heat remaining in the metal ran out, and the orange glow faded away. Unsure what to do when each blow required more and more strength to change the item on the anvil, she looked up in an attempt to get help from the young man overseeing her work.

Chuckling to himself his round face lit up in amusement since the matter was rather easy to resolve if she had thought it through. This case did not mean that her head was stupid, the elf had only immersed herself completely in improving her skill and thus failed to find a way around the current predicament.

“Here, give it to me. When the fire fades from the metal, you only need to heat it up again. Although heating it up too often is detrimental to the material itself, a few times are no problem.”

Returning the cooling iron into the stone basket inside the forge, they earned a short amount of time to converse while the flames worked hard to heat it up again.

 

“The longer I know you, the more astonished I am. Are you sure you didn’t have experience with smithing before?”

Wiping away the droplets of sweat running down his brows, Conner slightly shook his head while watching the metal inside the forge.

“Why do you ask?”

Similarly not taking her eyes off the already red iron ingot, Nisha didn’t understand why he was asking. She didn’t lie to him in any way and clearly explained how this was her first time working in a forge. Of course, she didn't know her current technique already any longer resembled that of a complete beginner, the elf could already form the metal like she intended to under her hammer.

“To begin with, your current aptitude already exceeds my own. I can’t work metal like that, at most I have some knowledge how to operate the formation and treat the metals to work them. On the other hand, you almost finished refining your first iron ingot during the first time you picked up the hammer. If I didn’t oversee how you went from a complete novice to a decent beginner in the course of a few candles, I’d not believe it!”

Laughing until his whole body shook, his countenance did not quite fit his words, and Nisha wondered whether he was somewhat slow in the head.

 

“Do you feel unwell, Conner? I’ve heard too much heat isn’t good for humans, do you want to sit down for a moment? I can fetch you a glass of water.”

Treating him like a silly person, Nisha wondered if he had a heat stroke or not. The young man in question blushed for a moment upon realising her line of thought and continued to explain.

“So shameless, I’ve not yet lost my marbles. Let me recapitulate.

When you started attending this course, you said you had no idea about blacksmithing.”

Waiting for Nisha’s nod, he elaborated.

“After falling out with the teacher and insulting him, you took a forge for yourself, alone. If you had no idea, then you’d have to test each and every tool around here to figure them out. Compared to the other students who formed groups, this would take a much longer time.”

Again, the elf nodded, his words made sense. Furthermore, Nisha had been prepared to learn everything on her own, the dwarf’s taunt went against her pride, and she wouldn’t let him win, no matter what.

“Then, with the help of only one other student with theoretical knowledge - me - you started hammering away at a failure of an iron ingot discarded by a previous student. Not to speak of the force needed to forge, you managed to turn a random piece of scrap metal into a proper ingot with only reheating it once. If that isn’t unbelievable, then I don’t know what is.”

 

Removing the now orange gleaming item in question from the furnace, Conner handed her the tongs and the hammer as if he was her assistant, also eager to see the final product made by the elf.

Nisha wanted to retort first, yet she could not find the words to do so right away. Instead, she begrudgingly accepted the offered tools and went to work again, replaying their conversation in her mind while she worked away.

Adding some finishing touches the dragon could not deny she probably had some talent in the metalworking area. When she just started out forging earlier during the lesson, she just wanted to get some experience and try out swinging the hammer. At some unknown point in time, the goal slowly switched, and she wanted to perfect the ingot instead. Her affinity for fire overwrote the control on the formation burning inside the furnace step by step, and she could feel the heat remaining in the iron instinctively. As long as she willed it, Nisha was fairly confident the melting process could be done much faster under her direction.

Furthermore, the elf only needed to picture the finished product inside her mind and then she could aim her blows much more precisely to shape reality according to her wishes.

The best comparison she could make likened the process to playing an instrument she had not played in a while. Although there was still some stiffness and hesitation on her part, she knew the ins and outs regarding the fire. Forging fell under that category, so to Nisha, it wasn’t that hard.

 

“It’s not like I downplayed my abilities or practised smithing before. You see before I started to live here in the capital Thurgau, my grandpa and I needed to do everything by ourselves since our home was pretty much out there in the woods. You tend to pick up things faster, someone needs to do them, and no one is out there for miles. And it might sound arrogant, but regarding smithing, I should be a bit talented.”

For some reason, she didn’t want Conner to misunderstand. Since he already took the initiative and stood with her when the teacher singled her out, she would be left with a bad taste in her mouth if he decided to leave now.

Fortunately, it looked like the worst case scenario would not come to pass.

“I was just venting for a bit … and maybe teasing you. It’s still awesome, you haven’t spent much time at all to learn and can already refine an iron ingot. If you learn everything else as quickly won’t there be nothing left for you soon?”

Picking up the still glowing iron with a new pair of tongs, Conner placed it on a nearby stone table to let it cool down. Just from looking at it even a complete beginner could tell how high the quality of the finished ingot was. None of the black impurities remained, and the edges were well defined, forming the average figure the two students had observed in one of the moulds lying around in the smithy.

 

“Coincidentally you also reaped a small harvest. The first exercise for new smiths should be to forge something simple from an iron ingot or at least get comfortable with the forge while attempting to create something. Since you already have an ingot now, you will not need to spend your merit points on the materials for the next lesson.”

Stretching his fat body, the young man broke out into his earlier grin, eagerly looking around to see how the other groups were faring in their respective units. He estimated among the students, even with the ones who had some pre-existing knowledge regarding metalworking, the two of them ought to be the only ones to have forged a real item. Aside from the roaring furnaces, the occasional pain filled yelp when an unfortunate student failed to respect the blazing heat and the constant chatter of the other groups, and no one had noticed their achievement yet.

“How could I just take that ingot for myself. We both worked on it, surely we can think of a way to split the reward between us.”

If she took the profit all by herself, Nisha would not feel comfortable. After all, without the guidance and explanations from Conner, the elf would not have attempted to produce something from the random iron scraps lying around.

Seeing that he was about to disagree, the dragon remembered the other metal fragments they cleaned up.

 

“I have an idea. Since there’s still time until this lecture is over, we can attempt to refine the second ingot. There’s still material left over, and we can start from scratch this time, melting it all down, pouring it into a mould and then hammering it into form.

Since you know more about operating the forge, I’ll take care of giving the finishing touches while hammering it out.

This way each of us can take one ingot for the next lesson, and in the future, we can similarly split the work and act as a team.

Is that okay with you?”

For now, that was the best proposal Nisha could come up with, in this manner both of them would reap benefits.

As the son of a prosperous merchant, the other party naturally recognised the value of the proposed arrangement. Not only would he obtain the materials for at least one future lesson, but he would also have the chance to work again together with Nisha, who apparently had a gift for metalworking.

Since they also built a somewhat closer relationship through this opportunity, unless he thoroughly offended the elf, he had a very high chance to pass the course without trouble.

If he still rejected such blatant goodwill, he might as well give up on succeeding a position in his father’s merchant house and become a monk!

“It’s a deal! Thank you very much.

And I know it’s rather forward to ask like this, but have you already broken through to the second aura rank?”

 

The question did indeed catch the dragon off guard. However, it also appeared that the issue was not relevant at the same time since the round teenager started walking around, gathering the more promising iron scraps and preparing the forge to start melting them down.

“Ah, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s just that you have been swinging around the forging hammer for quite some time now and it’s rather heavy.

Here you are, not out of breath nor the slightest trace of effort visible. And you want to forge a second ingot right away. Therefore I thought it’d be rather natural for you to have already entered the second aura rank.”

Having gathered a generous heap of iron, he directly tossed everything into the stone basket inside the forge, the roaring forge hissing as the flames instantly burned away the dust and grime covering them.

“I’d have waited for the topic to come up naturally later on, but if you feel tired, you don’t have to forge again right away. I can also give it a try, even if it turns out wrong.”

Evidently, Conner knew how much of a favour he received and even offered a way out in case the elf would have to strain herself.

Laughing like the silver chimes ringing in the wind, Nisha dusted off her leather garments, rising from the stool she had sat on after she had finished forging the iron ingot.

“It doesn’t matter; I’m indeed at the second aura rank. Fortunately, I also happen to have a flame attribute, so a bit of forging doesn’t count as much.

Here, let me help.”

Assisting the male student, Nisha decided to trust him with this much information and joined him in their endeavour to forge a second item.