Author's Note:
There was a small mistake in the previous chapter, where I stated Kai's level to be 180 or something. That's wrong. It's 220 now. Sorry. It's been changed in the original chapter.
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I stopped my mediation bright and early, intending to grab some food before heading out the forge while it was still empty. I was looking forward to getting lost in my own thoughts, and continuing my relaxation after the ball. I really dislike being around large groups of people, and the ball was taxing for me in several different ways.
Alas, it was not to be.
Bea was waiting right outside my door, even though the sun hadn’t yet risen.
“How in the holy hells did you know I would be up? Were you waiting here the entire night?” I asked, perplexed as to how she had known when I would wake up.
She smiled broadly at me.
“Please, I’m a member of the Black guard, specializing in intelligence. I probably know your habits better than you yourself do.”
“I sincerely doubt that you know that much about me. How long were you waiting here?”
She wilted, knowing that I could see past her brave front.
“Only an hour or so. Geez. If you knew I was bluffing, then why couldn’t you just let it be?”
“It would give you false confidence.” I said, ruthlessly cutting her down.
I let her walk with me to the kitchen to make up for this a little, though. As expected, the ovens were on, and the cooks already hard at work making enough food to feed this half of the palace. There was a pile of rolls set off to the side, gently steaming in the morning air. I grabbed a plate from a nearby rack, and a few of the rolls. Then, dodging all the people working, I nicked what I could from the baker’s pans and cutting boards. The servants recognized me, due to the frequency in which I was down here for an early breakfast. They smiled upon seeing me, greeting and wishing me a good day.
They also knew Bea, since she normally came down here with me. We set down our plates at a small table off to one corner of the kitchen, and started eating.
While I was spreading butter on one of my rolls, Bea started a conversation.
“So, I heard you had a good time at the ball yesterday?”
“No. I’m going to stop you right there—because that is one subject you really don’t want to touch right now. I’m still bitter, so try again in a week or so. Or, ask you informants in the Black guard about it. I’m sure they know exactly what happened.”
Bea sulked.
“Aw, but I wanted to hear it from you. All Joan would tell me was that you are liable to be fairly angry today.”
“I am.”
…
…
…
“Aw, but, can’t you just…”
“No.”
Bea sulked even more, due to the fact that I wouldn’t tell her what had happened at the ball. I decided to derail her direction of conversation, by throwing in another topic.
“Say, everyone calls you Bea, but I remember that your full name was something different, right?”
Bea looked confused, but still went along with the question.
“Yeah. My name is Samantha Usinger, why?”
“I was just wondering where you got Bea, from Samantha. Sam, I would understand, but your nickname is Bea instead. Why?”
“Ah, it was something my little sister called me, and it just stuck in the end.”
“Your sister was just calling you Bea? That doesn’t make much sense.”
“Well, she was young, and couldn’t pronounce the letters she wanted to.”
“Then, what was she trying to call you?”
…
…
…
“Now, what happened at the ball, Kai?”
Ah, she dodged the question. And, now we’re back to the original subject.
I resolved myself to eating in silence for the rest of the meal, unwilling to answer Bea’s question. Joan’s willingness to laugh at my misfortune was bad enough, and I just wanted to spend this morning in relative peace. Besides, it’s doubtless that Bea would be able to figure out what happened sooner or later, and have a good laugh at my expense.
After finishing breakfast, we went down to the forge. Bea had also made a habit of watching me smith weapons, saying that it had a much-needed calming effect on her in the mornings.
I will admit, it was equally—if not more—calming to be the one doing the smithing. Something about watching stuff shape itself into the thing you had envisioned was deeply satisfying on a spiritual level. This is why most people pick up a hobby of some kind, I guess.
And I was no different. Smithing was deeper than meditation to me, more powerful in a way. In fact, I felt like gathering mana while smithing happened quicker than simple meditation, speeding up the leveling process somewhat.
Maybe it had something to do with the rate in which I was pumping mana into the blades I made? A normal person would have likely collapsed from mana exhaustion long ago, and I was only able to smith the way I had been lately due to the depth and compression of my mana pool. Still, that power is not endless, and required that I take in more mana while smithing. I think it’s this endless ebb and flow that allowed me to deepen my mana pool, and carve my way towards the next level so quickly.
And, truth be told, the weapon’s I created, were definitely worthy of all that mana I had pumped into them. I had nearly come close to perfecting the mana circuit that I had tested a while back—the one that had nearly blown the underground nukes. And, there were others in development, with various stages of completion. I had figured out one that would make a sword softly glow in certain situations, providing a convenient lamp in the darkness. If I managed to affix a lightning circuit to it as well, then I would have a lamp to decrease the local bug population.
Yeah, it’s not very impressive when considering battle applications, but there would be no pesky mosquito bites during the night. I would just need to figure out a way to power the thing without having to rely on the wielder’s own mana, because nobody wanted to be constantly holding a glowing sword that attracted, and killed insects. Just the smell alone would be awful.
I was holding off on using the various rare metals in the smithy for now, only creating full-sized swords from the high quality steel they have. Every now and then, I would forge out a small knife from a particular rare metal, or form using a fusion of several different metals, but that had been the limit so far. I hadn’t even tested my mana circuits with those daggers, since all the good ones would require a full-sized weapon.
So, as a result, there were quite a few powerful steel weapons lying around the smithy, waiting to be given a guard and handle. Most of them were somewhat incomplete, due to the fact that I was only testing various mana circuits on them. The complete ones were more danger….No. Never mind. The incomplete ones were worse. I feared even touching some of them, and had since melted them into slag, not wanting some poor apprentice smith to jolt them the wrong way.
This is why I missed my private forges; since I could have just left things were they were—partially as an antitheft measure. Can you just image some poor thief picking up a fine looking weapon, only to have half his body disappear? Something like that happening to an apprentice would be bad, though, so I made sure to clean up the worst blades.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I felt like I was quickly approaching the level where I could start using the rare metals here, and forging them into blades with embedded mana circuits. I had made a good weapon with Starsteel, but since half of it had been hacked off by that damn lich, it hadn’t been the same weapon. I would need the other half before making it fully usable again. That is, if it was still worth it to fix such a weapon. Who knows, I could make a blade that completely surpassed it soon.
But, until I was totally confident in the mana circuits I’m developing, I wasn’t going to mess around with the other metals.
So, for now, I’ll keep experimenting with in steel, and continue making scary blades.
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When I left Kai, she was bending a bar of steel in half with a scary expression.
I think she looked the same as Overseer Joan, when she got really involved in a new project. You could tell that she was pouring her entire being into her work, even if that smile told you that the work wasn’t exactly a good thing for the world.
Really, it was fun to just watch Kai make weapons. She looked so carefree and happy while doing that—A sharp difference to her usual self. She wouldn’t even tell me about the ball! Neither would Joan, who simply dangled tidbits of information in front of me! Gods, they should have never met. Horrible, the two of them are.
Anyway, I had gotten my fill of Kai’s smithing for today, and had other things to do, besides. One of which was to find out what had happened to Kai during the ball. All Joan would tell me, was that it involved a boy, and that Kai needed to cool off for a while.
It was infuriating, not knowing in what context to take this.
So, the first thing I did, was go to the Commander of the Black guard, and my direct superior—Colonel Usinger.
Except, as soon as I stepped foot into his office, I saw a shameful display.
“Ah! Bea, my Beautiful daughter! Please, help me!”
I shut the door, and walked away, aware that gaining knowledge from him this time would come at a price I wasn’t willing to pay. I ignored the pleading cries coming from behind me. Your sacrifice will be remembered, Father.
Next, I checked with a woman named Nadene. She was just an account in the palace, but seemed to have a scary grasp on everything going on here. I blame the servant’s gossip network.
“Hey, Nadene. I have a small favor to ask, if that’s all right with you?”
“Sure, go ahead.” She said, barely looking up from the ledgers she was in the middle of balancing.
“Right. I just want to know if you’ve heard anything about the ball last night? Particularly involving a girl named Katariah?”
Nadine looked up briefly in surprise, and I noticed her face paling ever so slightly.
“Sorry, but I don’t know anything about that. I think anything that’s happened hasn’t had the time yet to get around.”
I thanked her and left, knowing that something was wrong.
After all, gossip travels faster than anything else. Everything that had happened during that ball had likely already circled the palace a few dozen times.
I went to a reliable informant on the happenings among the nobles, and got much of the same answer, but with a little warning.
“Ya might want to stay out of this one, lass. There’s been a gag order put on that bit of news.”
“What? Who put out a gag order?”
“Can’t say. It’s a gag order, after all.”
I groaned, and thanked the man for what little information he had given me.
I went to the library for a little while, to check up on Kai. She normally finished her smithing around this time, and went to study there. She was certainly a diligent creature, immersing herself in those subjects that normal children avoided like the plague, like history, or math.
After making sure that she was alright and didn’t need anything (As well as plying her again for answers about the ball), I went to the big event I planned for that day.
It was a dinner with my family—a rare chance to be taken while Mom was still in the capital, while Dad wasn’t too busy, and when my little sister not training hard.
We had decided to rent a table in a famous restaurant near the capital. I was the first to arrive, and sit at the table we had reserved in a quiet corner of the restaurant’s loft. Soon after, Dad came—likely running from the pile of paper work I had seen him buried under earlier today.
“Are you sure that you can afford to leave that alone for the night, Dad?”
“Yes, yes. It’ll be there tomorrow, and most of it is just papers approving pay raises or various promotions.”
“Hey! One of those might be mine, you idiot of a father!”
Thankfully, he escaped a brutal tongue-lashing by the arrival of Mom, who had gotten back the night before—she had been off inspecting the quality of the farming fields near the border.
“Ah, are you two getting along?”
“Honey, Bea’s bullying me!”
“Eh? You’re the one slacking off. The only reason you have to do so much paperwork is because you’ve neglected it for a few months again, right?
Ooh, critical damage. Only with the support of his loving wife does Dad escape death by my berating him.
Finally, Gabriel showed up, still wearing leather-training gear, and sweating slightly. For some reason, people were always mistaking her for a man, even though she’s so pretty. I really don’t get it. Are all boy’s now-a-days idiots or something?
“Did you run here right after training, Gaby?” Asked Mom, who was well aware of Gabriel’s habits.
“Sorry. I forgot the time, and ended up cutting it really close.”
“Were you training with Joseph again? You’ve been sparring him for a while now.”
“Yeah, along with the Second Prince. It’s really helped me improve, having a strong opponent.”
“Ah, that sounds great.” Said Dad, who approved of Gaby’s fierce training methods. “And, what have you been doing lately, Bea?” He added.
“Same thing I have been for the past few weeks. Watching over Kai, and helping her out.”
“Kai?” Asked Gabe.
“Yeah. She’s a new ward in the other half of the palace. She arrived due to unforeseen circumstances, and was taken under the Overseer’s wing.”
“What’s her full name, and what does she look like. I think I might know who you’re talking about, but I want to be sure.” Said Gabe, looking curious, and eager for some reason.
“Uh, right. Her full name is Katariah Silver, and she’s short, with white hair, golden eyes, and black horns. She also happens to be ridiculously cute, but don’t let her know that.”
Gabriel gaped at me.
“Wait, so she was the one at the ball last night?”
My attention snapped back onto Gabriel, and I practically shouted back at her.
“What happened at that ball?! You know, don’t you?!”
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2nd Author's Note:
Yes, I realize it's been slow going lately.
Trust me, it's necessary at this point, but not for much longer. At most, only three or four chapters remain until this new arc really gets kicked off.