Miila practically danced her way to Jiran and Mayalyn’s table. Her childish smile, as infectious as always, brightened Jiran’s already good mood.

“Good morning, Miila. This is Mayalyn. She doesn't talk much. Well, to be honest, she doesn’t talk at all. She’s from a, uh, remote village in the south where they don’t speak imperial.”

“Wow! That’s amazing! Hello Mayalyn, I’m Miila. It’s so nice to meet you. We never get any girls around here, I hope you like it and come back. Please come back!”

Jiran couldn't help but chuckle at her exuberance. Mayalyn just looked and Miila with a confused expression. Unsure of what to do.

“Mayalyn, say: Hello, nice to meet you too, Miila,” Jiran said slowly, walking her through each syllable.

“Hello, nice to meet you too, Miila,” Her thick accent and difficulty pronouncing the words gave her an adorable quality that left hearts in Miila’s eyes.

“Miila, can we please have some breakfast? I’m pretty sure Mayalyn will be around quite a bit for the next few days. I know she would love to talk to you whenever you’re not working.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry. Yes, breakfast, coming right up Mr. Jiran.”

“Thank you so much Great Grand Elder Milla the Magnificent!” Jiran teased as the girl dashed into the kitchen.

Mayalyn pouted as Jiran watched the girl retreat with a wide smile on his face.

“What’s with that face? Don’t tell me you’re jealous of a little kid.”

She didn’t respond. Her pout remained as she pushed a speck of dust across the top of the table. Only when the food arrived did her mood recover.

Drool leaked from her mouth as she did her best to match Jiran’s slow eating habits.

He could tell she wanted to devour the food instantly, just like the creature in the bush the previous night.

With an amused shake of his head, Jiran fetched another coin and waved Miila over.

"I think she's going to want seconds."

"Coming right up!"

Mayalyn’s pretty face was shocked when the second round hit the table. When Jiran slid the plate in front of her, tears filled her eyes.

Jiran watched as she ate every bite, thoroughly enjoying her blissful sounds of satisfaction.

By the time she finished eating, her stomach was so extended she could barely walk. Feeling partially responsible, Jiran helped her waddle to the front door. As they neared the exit, Alatha poked her head out of the kitchen.

The only warning Jiran was given before her vicious attack was the wicked grin that spread across her face.

“It’s so nice to see a young man take responsibility. You had better protect that food baby, Jiran.”

“I will certainly embed your words into my heart, until the day I can return the favor, Alatha.”

A chortle of amusement was the last thing he heard before the door closed behind them.

Thankfully Mayalyn recovered before they arrived at Krikk’s shop. He did not want the irritable old-timer to have another reason to rag on him.

Jiran wasn’t sure Mayalyn would want to watch him craft, but he wanted her to know where he would be in case she got herself into trouble again.

“Good morning, Master Krikk,” Jiran greeted as they entered through his open door.

“Go awey,” He snarled with a shooing motion.

Shaking his head in amusement, Jiran led Mayalyn into the underground smithy.

He was surprised when she began poking at everything, mumbling in her lilting and guttural accent. She looked excitedly at the forge and anvil but was disappointed at just about everything else. Especially Jiran’s pile of precious gray ash.

She gave him a disgusted look as he stood over the small pile with glee. When he scooped the dust into the air with his aura and started playing with it, she completely lost interest and started messing around with the forge.

Jiran ignored her. He chose a spot on the floor and sat cross-legged, preparing for the intense crafting session ahead of him.

He began by using a fresh sheet of parchment and wiping it clean with mana. After placing all of the gray-black dust into a single pile on the clean parchment he separated a small amount for his first experiment.

He needed a new shaping, something that could be used to separate the dust into its base materials. He focused on the image of a kidney. In particular, he needed the filtering abilities of the organ, with that thought in mind he pushed mana through the small separated pile of dust.

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Two attempts later, he was able to achieve the proper image and mana quantity for the shaping to work without blowing the tiny pile into the air. Soon after, he had five separated piles of distinctly different dust.

Okay, filtering was a success. These should be the base minerals of the amalgamations. Since they were all created with heat hot enough to turn iron into dust, they are hopefully as pure as I can get them.

Phase two. Operation, start!

He selected a pile at random and, as gently as possible, transferred the ultra-fine dust to a new sheet of clean parchment. Using only his mana, he spread a small amount of the dust into one super-fine layer over just a few centimeters of the paper.

His next shaping would be the most important in the entire process so he spent extra time getting the image just right.

Thanks to Brandon’s random memories, he knew that hydrogen and oxygen were chemically bonded inside the body.

What is this bond called? Covalley or something? Dang fuzzy memories. The name shouldn't be important, just the image.

He imagined the atoms coming together to form a perfect honeycomb bond. Each atom would link up with exactly three others. He forced the image to be flat. He didn't want them stacking vertically, only horizontally across the parchment.

He fueled the image with mana and ran it across the thinly spread pile of dust. He could tell the mana wanted to make his image into reality, but wasn't strong enough yet. So Jiran did what any good scientist would do.

More power!

He had to put a staggering five percent of his mana into the tiny three-by-three centimeter layer in order for it to finally conform to his wishes.

“Yes!”

Mayalyn nearly hit her head on the ceiling when Jiran victoriously jumped up with an exultant shout, pumping his fist in the air.

He wasn’t sure if he had selected the correct pile of dust. Even if this wasn’t graphene, it would be a similar enough material that its strength should be like nothing this world had ever seen.

His heart was racing as he lifted the impossibly thin translucent material into the air. With trembling fingers, he poked and prodded it.

It bent under his finger but didn’t immediately break apart. He pulled a piece of hair from his head and pushed it against the edge of the sheet which easily sliced the follicle in two.

I did it! I really did it! Mana is such a ridiculous cheat.

If I make this even fifty layers thick, how strong of an armor would it form? If I make it only a few layers thick and form it into a blade, what wouldn’t it be able to cut? What would happen if I took those and further enhanced them with mana?

A shiver ran up his spine at the possibilities in front of him. With an expression of pure euphoria, he dug into making layer after layer of the material.

This time, instead of a perfectly square sheet, he made thin rectangular shapes that could fit inside of a dagger to replace the blade. He made twenty layers, which used a majority of his mana.

Now it was time to forge the dagger that would house the material.

He heated up every ore he had into a single molten globule. Once melted, he continued increasing the heat while adding oxygen and a small pinch of carbon dust until two of the metals combined and most of the impurities were burned out.

He then separated the metal that refused to combine and set it aside in the forge. With his still-molten combination, Jiran formed two perfectly matching molds and split the slag between them.

The molds were in the rough form of a half-dagger, split down the middle lengthwise. Like two palms that would come together to catch the true blade between them. Once formed, he gingerly placed one on each side of his translucent super-material.

For the final step, Jiran needed to utilize the offensive aspect of his fifth mana channel. The tip of his finger gave off a brilliant white light as he placed it on the side of his nearly complete dagger’s blade. He began to use the light to drill small holes straight through all the layers of metal and super-material.

After the second hole he ran out of mana. Not having the patience for another trip out of town he opened his gate for the first time in several days and refilled his mana from the vast reserves beyond.

With ample mana to finish, he resumed methodically piercing each layer of the weapon.

Once there were twenty holes, each smaller than a nail hole, he filled them with the set aside molten metal leaving tiny protrusions on both sides. Flattening out the protrusions created something similar to a nail with two heads, one on each side of the dagger.

Those are not going to be good enough to hold everything together. This is just the prototype though so it doesn’t need to be perfect. I’ll figure something better out later.

It was crude, appeared to have no cutting edge, and looked like the work of a complete amateur.

It was the most magnificent weapon he had ever seen.

For the first time in hours, Jiran looked up from his work. Mayalyn was banging on a piece of metal at one of the anvils. She had the forge piping hot with a second piece of metal resting inside slowly growing hotter.

I didn’t even hear her banging on that thing a minute ago. Wow, I was really into it there for a while.

Jiran was surprised to see her so engrossed. She obviously had experience with forging and was enjoying herself immensely. Sweat glistened on her forehead and the wiry muscles in her arms were on full display.

Her sleeves are even folded up, she looks like a real-life canary girl. Canary mouse-girl? Never mind, not going to climb down that rabbit hole.

He walked over and noticed she had already made the blade of a short sword which was in a shallow stand near the quench bucket.

When he reached over and picked up the blade, she paused in her hammering and looked at him quizzically.

When she glanced down at his other hand and saw his awkward makeshift dagger, she released an adorable giggle.

He had to admit, she was right. Where there should have been the edge of a blade was an extremely thin gap that was barely visible.

It was obvious at a glance that it would never cut through anything. Two dull pieces of metal, crudely nailed together, with a gap between them, was hardly an intimidating sight.

When Jiran brought his dagger up to her well-made blade and cut through the metal as if it wasn't there, her jaw dropped. He continued to slice his blade through hers like he was chopping a carrot.

Piece after piece of hardened iron fell, clattering against the floor.

“Cool!” He gave her a toothy grin.

“Malabrada yol rostuka sharafa paka op kurr rapanada?”