Seeing the battle was overwhelming, I had never seen something so brutal and ugly, the battlefield was nasty and I avoided looking at it as much as possible, I went down and my uncle made sure I went back into our shared room, he did not want me to go around and be exposed to more of it, me I was fine with it, I may be more mature but really, I did not like seeing so much blood and gore, and sadly I knew that my future will have a lot of it, I went to bed.

Next day I woke up and after doing my morning routine and talking with uncle finally I was going to go and talk to the soldiers and officer that I saw yesterday fight against the Goblin Warrior.

- Sir, Officer Noris and party of 2, reporting for duty – says the officer giving a salute to my uncle.

- Settle down – says my uncle – my nephew here have some question please answer with as much honesty as you can.

- I’m sorry but I’m going to ask about your status screen, but only about the level of your swordsmanship, do any of you have a problem with that, I know that generally this is considered private – I say towards the 3 people in front of me.

- No, young lord no problem – answers the officer, while the 2 soldiers also nod on agreement.

- What is your level? – I ask directing my eyesight towards the youngest of the soldiers.

- Mine is level 30, young lord – answers the youngest soldier.

- Mine is level 54, young lord – answer the older soldier.

- And mine is level 80 young lord – says the Officer.

- I see I’m very thankful for your honesty and you have helped me plenty. – I answer them and let them go.

My uncle relax as soon as the 2 guys are out of the door then turns towards me and ask me a question.

- Why you wanted to know their levels?

- Uncle you told me yesterday the classification of goblins and what one can fight 1 on 1, and with what I saw yesterday I could make some connections, these 3 soldiers stuck out to me because the 3 of them fought the goblin warrior one after the other in quick succession, and that let me see how each of the skills of each of them behave against that goblin. – I see my uncle is a bit confused.

- Uncle one discovery I made yesterday was that the goblins have an energy that protects them, and the energy I saw with my meditation when we use skills is the one thing that can damage that energy, when the youngest soldier attacked his energy was low and he did not do any damage, when the older soldier with his medium level skill did he was able to damage the energy but by the time he touched the skin of the goblin warrior there was no energy left and he was not able to wound him, while when the officer did use skill he had enough to not only go through the external layer of energy but he was able to also wound the goblin, sadly due to the strike not being on any of the vitals of the goblin, he got wounded but not fatally. – I say to my uncle.

My uncle sits and just like when we talked the first day he starts thinking about what I had discovered, after a while he gets up and tells me.

- Interesting information I cannot think how this will be useful or what you are trying to get out of this, but it seems you have gotten what you wanted right?

- Yes – I answer.

- Then tomorrow we will be going back to the household. – he says and goes inside towards one of the offices leaving me there on my own.

Stolen novel; please report.

I did not do much more that day, I was busy thinking and practicing my swordsmanship, the next day we got into the carriage and went back to the household, where I went back into my normal routine, I talked with my dad about the battlefield and what I had seen, and well my dad answer to me with some of his feeling from his first time going into the battlefield with our grandfather.

- Is grandpa alive? – I ask

- Yes Carter he is alive and living in the capital of the kingdom once he made the decision that I would be the next Duke and he had me trained, he retired from his position as duke and moved to the capital and he lives on the property we have there, most of your brothers and sisters see him when they go to the capital for their studies. – Answers my father.

- Oh that is surprising.

My days continue with all of my training and investigations, I do not know what other project I can do to help the city so at least on that front I’m stuck, but each day I continue exercising and training on all the different disciplines, Also I did not notice but my skill in several of my magics went up and got reset and the more I see this, the more I distrust what is happening and the explanation that everybody gave me, since even with the resets all my skills continue leveling up steadily.

My 9th birthday comes and we celebrate it with enthusiasm, just the same as we celebrate the birthdays of my brothers, sisters and cousins, whoever is at home can celebrate, a couple of months after my birthday I get the skill of blacksmithing, I finally made my first weapon.

The forging of my first weapons was interesting, Bart insisted that making a weapon was different, that I had to put some intent to it, that this weapon was a weapon mad to kill demons and that I had to keep that though on my head, I do not know how he could determine if I did that or not, but after 5 failures I was sure that he somehow could read my thoughts, finally on try number 6 I was able to keep myself focused long enough that I was able to make the dagger that I had been trying, and bart finally decided to explain.

- Carter, one of the secret of our profession is that weapons have to be done by hand because intention matters, a weapon cannot use divine energy if it does not have a spirit to channel it, so we as blacksmiths have to give that spirit to the weapon, that is why you have to focus so that the weapons you make can channel that energy – says Bart.

- Have you seen that energy? What color it is? – I ask excited

- No carter I have not seen that energy, but this is something that each blacksmith knows and talks to his apprentices, we do not know why, but if we make weapons with molds a soldier can use his skills but even the weakest goblin will not be damaged by those skills, they will be hit and they will suffer a pushback from the hit, but true lasting damage they won’t have, while a properly forged weapon by a blacksmith with the proper intent will be able to cut into the goblin and kill it. – says Bart and before I can interrupt or ask he continues.

- There is a skill a type of magic that let us check if the weapon is properly forged, close your eyes aqnd meditate so I can show you the spell, we call this spell weapon check – says Bart.

I sit myself and try to enter meditation, it is fairly easy, and then while I’m looking with my mana sense I can see the spell how it moves and well the spell is quite unique with equal parts nature magic and pearl energy, all the energy of the spell goes into the dagger and I see it come out of the edge of the dagger and go back into the hand of my teacher, I see how he moves and grabs one of my failures and tries the spell again and I see how the energy just does not enter the dagger it is quite frankly easy to see, one of those can channel the magics the other can’t.

- Is that dagger enchanted? Because to be able to channel magic energy… - I ask and gets interrupted by the laughs of my teacher.

- No Carter, this is not an enchanted dagger, from what little I know, if the dagger can accept natural magical energy in the pommel and it comes back out the edge then the weapon can channel divine energy, but if you try to put any other type of mana this will be rejected. – says Bart – Also boy you already know how to make an enchantment.

- I do? – I ask.

- Yeah you do, remember all the carving you did for your sewer project boy, that is how you enchant if you want to give an ice edge or a fire edge to a weapon you have to carve the appropriate circles on the weapon, most enchanted weapons are a bit bulkier and heavier since we try to compensate for the engravings we need to do on those weapons, if the weapon is too thin after doing the engraving you will end up with weak points where the weapon can break, also most enchantments are simple, remember the more complex the effect the more runes you have to use, and more engravings means more and more material that you are taking from your weapon. – Bart continues his explanation while I listen attentively.

- Well from now on you will help me make some basic weapons for the army, I will be checking each weapon as it is finished, you will have to make 5 successful swords each week, if you don’t I will be sending you extra homework to motivate you to do better. – Says Bart while smiling at me.

- Before I do that could we make a weapon with a mold? – I ask

- Why, those weapons are useless, why would you want to do that? – Ask Bart and I see that he is serious.

- I know this is going to be a waste of time, and maybe even resources but I would like to see if I can see the differences between them – I answer

- If you want to do that you do it on your own, some of my books have the techniques to make molds, since those are useful if you are making fences and other small stuff, but understand that weapon will be useless – says Bart and I can see that he does not like for me to waste my time on something he considers useless.

Over the next 2 weeks I do what I can and finally I get a weapon made with a mold and one without, I enter meditation and try to see, and well I see absolutely nothing, the 2 swords look identical, one does accept my cast of natural magic and the other rejects it from the get go, I do not have any other choice but to put these aside for now, maybe in the future I may be able to discover what is the difference between them.

Time continue to pass and once we are close to my 10th birthday my mom pulls me aside because she wants to talk with me since once I become ten I will get my own class, and for their own investigations I will get 2 classes, for some reason my dad had asked the king if he can come to my birthday celebration and due to their friendship the king has accepted, so I not only have to learn about classes but also do a whole refreshing course on etiquette, oh well.