Following Hephaestus into the forge, Kye was immediately assaulted by the blazing heat of the room. Hephaestus laughed loudly at his reaction.

"I know that it's quite hot kiddo, but is it really that hot?"

Kye nodded with squinted eyes, bringing one of his hands up to cover his face.

"This is the Eternal Flame kid. I was given this by Zeus as thanks for helping with the Promethus situation. It's existed long before even the Titans and it hasn't dulled a bit. Let me turn down the heat for you a bit."

Hephaestus snapped her fingers and the heat dropped rapidly to the temperature of a regular forge. Kye opened his eyes and walked to Hephaestus who was preparing some iron.

"I'm not expecting you to become some kinda master, but I hope that by teaching you how to control something unruly as a flame, you can temper yourself and concentrate for long periods of time. And hey, maybe you'll take to the whole forging thing, who knows."

She handed Kye a pare of tongs and pointed to an iron ingot laying on the anvil.

"Go, forge a sword."

Kye was dumbfounded, the only thing he knew about forging was what he saw in movies. Noticing that he was completely lost, Hephaestus offered up some advice.

"Hey kid, there are only two things you need to do to forge something. Prove yourself to the fire and concentrate."

Kye didn't respond but picked up the ingot with the tongs and held onto it as he heated it in the forge. At this moment, he felt the heat overtake him, like an all encompasing inferno had just devoured him. There was no pain, rather, it was an almost motherly feeling. The heat guided his hand, told him when it was time to pull the metal out, where to strike on the heated iron and how to warp the blade into shape. After two hours of constant heating and shaping, Kye felt the heat dissapate and looked down at his sword. It was twisted, warped and had some cracks in it. A resounding failure. Despite this, Hephaestus put a hand on his shoulder.

"You did well kid, you didn't stop until you thought you were. Despite the fact the end product is garbage, it's the process of concentrating I wanted to instill in you. This is something I do to all prospecting smiths who come to me. I call it being 'tested by the flame'."

She knelt down to be eye level with Kye.

"So kid, what did it feel like when you started banging on that metal, was it scary?"

Kye shook his head.

"No it was almost like the fire had taken over me but, it wasn't unplesant at all. It felt kinda... nice?"

Hephaestus nodded.

"The Eternal Flame isn't just a source of heat, it wouldn't be incorrect to call it the very embodiment of the primordial force of fire. Its highest temperature would reach the levels of the hottest dying star, the only restriction on it is the smith themselves. I might be the goddess of forging but i'm not the goddess of fire, even I cannot bare the full extent of it's power."

Hephaestus threw the garbage sword to the side and placed a new iron ingot on the anvil.

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"Instead of having the flame guide you, try to guide the flame."

Kye did this and for the next 10 hours he did nothing but produce warped garbage swords that no self-respecting blacksmith would call their own. Everytime he picked up the ingot it was like he could do nothing against the Eternal Flame's will as it just guided his motions to it's own uncomprehendable whims. In his intense focus, Kye's body was reaching his limit and as he placed yet another warped hunk of iron on the anvil, his body gave out and he fell into a deep sleep. Hephaestus caught the young boy before he hit the floor, giving a small laugh before shaking her head.

"It's alright kid, you did better than I could have ever expected."

Truthfully, she should have stopped him hours ago but she wanted to see the limits of his mind, how far would he go before his concentration broke. But it wasn't his concentration that broke, it was his body. The small boy in her arms today would grow into one of the most powerful men the world has ever seen. It was up to her and her two brothers who would be arriving tomorrow evening to guide the young man to his destiny. Hephaestus brought Kye to his bed and tucked him in before giving him a pat on the head and excusing herself from the room.

-

When Kye awoke, the sun pierced through the cracks in his drawn curtains. Looking at his phone, it told him it was just past 10 a.m. meaning he had slept in for 4 hours compared to normal. Throwing off the covers and making his way to the bathroom, Kye relieved himself and brushed his teeth before running downstaris to see Hephaestus nursing a hot cup of tea reading the news on her tablet. She raised her head to see Kye looking lost.

"Oh, so you're finally awake sleeping beauty. I was beginning to wonder if I would have to go up there and smack you awake."

"What... happened last night?"

"You passed out kid, right at the forge as you made the 50th failure sword."

Hephaestus adopted a slightly pensive look.

"It was partially my fault, I wanted to push you to see how far your concentration would go. Much to my surprise, it was your body that gave out. Needless to say, i'm very impressed."

Standing up and placing her tablet down on a sidetable, Hephaestus walked towards the kitchen.

"Lets say we get an early lunch in and then do the same we did before. Ares and Thanatos will be here in the evening but they're not important right now. I want to use this as a good concentration test and endurance strengthening exercise. Oh, and you're cooking."

Kye nodded and followed behind Hephaestus. He pulled out his phone and began searching for recipes that a basic chef could pull off. He decided on doing some stir fry after checking the ingredients in the fridge. Following the recipe intently, after thirty minutes of effort, a perfectly adequate stir fry was created. They both ate it without complaints and after the cleaning up was done, immedately went into the forge. Without being prompted, Kye picked up an iron ingot but instead of immediately getting to work, he contemplated the block of metal for a while before taking a square hanging on the wall and scratching some lines into the metal. Hephaestus didn't question what he was doing and simply watched on with intrigue. After drawing some more lines on the metal, Kye got to work as he did before. After a concerted effort over 2 hours he managed to produce a completely straight bar of metal. it was cracked and treated horribly but instead of being a wavy mess, it was to the exact dimentions he had drawn previously.

"What did you do Kye?"

Hephaestus asked, clearly intrigued by the rapid change from last nights attempts.

"One of the things I studied before was mechanisms. I got really good at tearing down machinery and putting it back together. The thing about machinery is that everything has to be done to certain specifications or the machine won't work properly, right?"

"Right."

"So, I tried to change my way of thinking about it. When I got my skills, I had to do a shift in mentalty to avoid breaking things. Instead of grabbing a glass of water, I had to think about not breaking the cup instead of simply picking it up. I thought that if i went into the forging process with a plan, I could better direct the flame to help me do what I wanted. While it's still pretty bad, it's better than any attempt from yesterday."

Hephaestus nodded before motioning to the pile of iron ingots stacked beside the anvil.

"Continue."

For the next 12 hours, Kye worked at it, producing cracked and untreated bar of iron after bar of iron, always to the specifications he drew out on the ingot prior. He was so concentrated that he didn't notice the two new presences in the forge with them. A 2 metre tall muscular man with a grim expression and a shrouded figure with an almost skeletal frame and pale skin that seemed to almost drape off the bone. Ares and Thanatos had arrived, and they liked what they saw.