By the time Cassia and I left the arena, it was already dark outside. As we left the Colosseum-like building a biting wind hit us. Small lamp posts lit the way for us, casting long eerie shadows. Her hiccupped breath had smoothed out.

  Her steps no longer thudding with anger, were rhythmically tapping the ground, while her eyes followed the flickering shadows, we cast on the ground. We were among the last to leave; the broad avenues of the Academy were deserted, reclaimed by the night.

  “How should we deal with the next class? We don’t really have teammates anymore…”

  “On the contrary.” I pause a little. “Lucian and Kael will do just fine going forward.”

  “But they betrayed us.”

  “Not exactly. Did they attack you? Did they do anything that might hurt you or put you in harm’s way?”

  “No, but…”

  “I was a new guy they couldn’t trust, and you were strangely adamant about me. They found this solution; it would have shown you I’m no good and put me in my place.” I paused a little thinking how to put it best. “They betrayed our trust with good intentions towards you.”

  “That’s…”

  “I’m only wondering if they’ll want to team up with us after the state you left them in… Quite deplorable.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Don’t try to, I’m just that weird. Anyway, don’t try to cut them out. If they won’t interact with you anymore, that’s fine, but problematic, otherwise give them the cold shoulder but don’t actively push them away. Show understanding, that’s how you get loyal helpers. They are just kids after all.”

  “Talking as if you weren’t a kid… You’re even younger than me, or than them.”

  “Again, with that…” I waved my hand dismissively. “Can you deny that I don’t act exactly like my age?”

  “I can’t… Whatever fancies you!” She snapped, her frustration boiling over. “I’ll do as you say. If we are betrayed again, it’s on you!” She poked my shoulder with her finger.

  We reached a crossroad. “Have a good evening.”

  I started going towards the servant quarters where my tower was. Cassia came and hugged me from behind, a sudden warmth and weight pressed against my back, putting an end to the relentless whipping of the wind. My breath got caught in my throat as I came to an abrupt stop.

  ‘I did not calculate this… How’d I get in this situation?’ Involuntarily, I raised my hand to place it over hers. I let it fall back down, loosely. This was not something that would work. Not something I could allow. She was here for her family. I exhaled releasing my tight back.

  “Thank you for winning. It’s my first win this year.” She let go. I didn’t know what to say.

  I remained silent. My purpose was to surpass this world, not to get tangled with some girl. I started walking, towards the tumult of darkness that the path ahead of me was swallowed by, welcoming the lashing of the wind again.

  “Be prepared for more wins.” I left these words behind.

  The next three days dissolved into a blur of grit and sweat. The kiln was ready to empty, so, together with Magnar we assembled the second chimney over two floors again. Vex helped with the new batch of mix this time, with his gaze often lingering on the small smelter.

  His help and our hard work made that third day of the week one of the most productive in a while. Next day, the finishing touches to the smeltery had a priority. We added two layers of sand to the U section. This was to ensure that the floor, the foundation of the forging area wouldn’t be affected by the heat of the metal pouring out.

  The first sand bed would absorb any heat while the second and last sand bed would be in what the smelted iron would pour into. I had Vex make for me a sand cast for a hollow mace head, all in preparation for the sixth day.

  I also took a gold coin loan from Magnar to buy ores, and we spent the rest of our free time making coke. I had bought several carts of brown-red iron ore stones and limestone, coming in messy piles, carrying the smell of earth and rust.

  These would be my new source of iron, no more buying second grade billets to lose time making them better. The rocks had the potential to become weapons, thus money in my pockets, to ensure smooth training and study.

  No more repurposing billets. I turned from a buyer into a producer, and this would fuel better crafts and more diverse crafts. This would mean better fuel efficiency too. No more coal wasted on small things, no more fuel waste to remove impurities from second grade billets.

  We built a new wooden staging around the blast furnace, using wood I bought from my own money a while back, completed with a pulley system. The new gantry creaked under Magnar’s weight as we assembled it.

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  Standing next to the mouth of the furnace before lighting it felt like staring into the throat of a beast. Back from the second training class of the week, I added in the furnace some coal, to raise the temperature inside before and avoid cracking.

  The furnace hummed, a low trembling sound, like the growl of a dragon, as an airflow was created, by the upwards pull of the burning coal. Before going to sleep I threw in from above layers of coke, iron ores and crushed limestone. Then, went to bed. Tomorrow would be a hard day.

  On the fated morning I woke up and quickly went through my routine. Magnar arrived soon after, his usually broad shoulders hung low, his face was slack, dark shadows drawn under his eyes while his hair was a tangled disaster. His dragged his feet with no enthusiasm, a low sound of heavy friction against the stony path.

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked seeing his dark eye circles and messy hair.

  “I couldn’t sleep all night…”

  “That’s rough… Do you think you can participate? I called you my assistant, it would be strange if you did nothing…”

  “I know, no need to remind me. I’ll just pump those bellows; I can do that just fine.”

  I nod. “Alright. By now the ores should have reduced, we just need to bring them to melting point and pour them into the casts.”

  He went to the furnace and with a yawn that rivalled the hum of the burning beast, he started pumping air in. There were only a few minutes left until the rest of the class would show up too. I ensured that the steel slide coated in refractory clay, that would control the flow of the molten pig iron, was firmly fixed then I joined Magnar in his efforts.

  The cacophony of multiple steps and chatter reached us, overcoming the growing roar of the blast furnace. I left my post at my bellows and went to open the gate.

  “What in the aether are you doing?” Asked professor Varen looking at my blast furnace. His eyes were open wide, locked on the blue flames rising from within, his forehead creased with surprise.

  “We are preparing for the demonstration. Well, the iron needs a higher temperature to fully liquify and to pour well, so I’d ask you to excuse me, but I got more work to do.”

  I go back to pumping air as our classmates poured in my courtyard. A small lake of pristine white, blue and black uniforms spreading over, looking out of place against the blackened, weathered stone of the tower and the dusty gray of the fresh cinder stone used to build everything.

  A girl pulled her skirt close, her nose wrinkling at the low hanging smell of smoke and sulfur. Most of the boys however froze with jaw slackened expressions seeing the crafting appliances in my courtyard.

  I ignored them. My job here wasn’t to care about what some eleven-year-olds thought about my place. I looked in from a small peering hole. The blinding sun-like light of the molten metal told me that we reached the needed temperature.

  We continued our pumping until there were no more lazy, viscous drops of molten rock falling down. Once the molten drizzle ended, we waited.

  “Why are you doing nothing?” Professor Varen Inquired.

  “Come here and look in. Enforce your eyes with aether, or you’ll go blind” I called him forward.

  He stepped closer and looked in through the small orifice. I was blocking the flames and heat with aether as he looked in.

  “Look past the glare. Do you see that white glow? Gathered in pools atop the light yellow like oil atop a good soup?”

  “Yes, I do. Though my eyes hurt… How are you fine?” He looked at me questioningly.

  “Got trained by a dwarf… Anyway, that is slag, impurities caught in limestone. I need it to rise to the top so I can pour it out separately. It makes for good material for bricks but is a contaminant that embrittles iron. If I leave it in, the user won’t have to worry about his weapons maintenance, he’ll be left with no life and shattered scrap.”

  “Alright. Everyone! Line up! You’ll all come and look; I’ll enforce your eyes!” He clapped his hands, using aether to create a collision loud enough to cover the furnace and the bored chatter around.

  One by one the kids looked inside. After the last one peeked, I cautioned.

  “Now fall back, stay away from the sand and the furnace! If you don’t and you go blind or get burnt and lose an arm, it’s not going to be my fault!”

  From my position on the platform, I used an iron rod to break the clay seal in a single sharp strike. The molten metal burst forth, with a surge of orange radiance, bringing forth a wave of heat that hit with physical weight, instantly drying the sweat on my face, making the air thin and hard to breathe.

  The first mold was that of the mace head. All the others were made in a rectangular shape, with their long side pointing downwards. That way any extra impurities would gather at the top and would be easy to remove after the ingot cooled.

  I allowed the metal to pour out. A light orange river, glowing with enough force to rival the sun flowed down like thin honey. Magnar and I used iron rods to help hasten the flow of iron in the thinner sections, so that it wouldn’t cool and cause clogs.

  As the metal caressed the sand, the molds screamed. A chorus of sharp hisses and pops filled the yard as moisture evaporated instantly, and the air grew thick with the scent of scorched earth.

  When the glassy slag began to follow the iron, I lowered a ceramic cap to block the flow, ensuring only the purest metal filled the trays. With a quick shift of the slide, I diverted the remaining waste into its own matrices.

  As soon as I finished with this, I grabbed a pair of tongs and yanked the hollow mace head out of the sand cast.

  “Don’t get close to the cast iron and don’t touch the molds!” I barked in my rush. “Even if it’s dark and looks cool it’s still hot enough to melt the skin off your hand!”

  With the mace head still hot and glowing I rushed and plunged it in a cubic stone box with rust dust prepared especially for this. I poured aether in the mace head to make it aether conductive and to make it vibrate, so that the carbon diffusion would go faster.

  Above the box bluish, phantasm-like flames danced while the dust seemed to melt around the mace head. I started using my aether to maintain the temperature of the iron, trying to get a slightly thicker coating of pure iron than what could have been done on Earth.

  The intense focus and high heat needed to perform this enhanced version of the Whiteheart process left me sweating buckets. Small drops trickled down my forehead, glistening under the combined light of the sun and the ghostly flames before me.

  As the minutes stretched into hours, the initial awe in the courtyard began to sag. Students shifted from foot to foot, their whispers turning into bored sighs, while some leaned against the stone walls, their interest dampened by the long, silent wait.

  Two hours of arduous aether use later, I had a dull light grey mace head that would be rigid enough to never bend and be held together by a layer soft enough for it to never crack. The first piece of a weapon without peer.

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