"Having some problem finding a mentor now, Noah?"

Hearing the voice, Noah's mood instantly shifted gears. His face became hollow in a blink. Someone would probably get scared just by seeing his empty eyes. They were completely blank showing no outward emotion.

Inwardly Noah was thinking which adult was so free to harass him for entertainment.

Turning around, Noah became surprised seeing three kids around his age looking at him playfully.

He recognized those three as the ones snickering at him before and then shut up by the master. They must have been pretty incensed about that.

"What happened? Cat got your tongue." The leader chuckled turning to his two buddies who joined him in laughter.

Seeing their idiotic behavior, a small smile came upon Noah's face.

"What's so funny? Did everyone ignoring you made you crazy?" The main guy didn't seem to like his smile.

"Oh, it's nothing. Just-" Noah paused for a moment glancing at the gang of three before continuing with an impish smile.

"You must like me quite a lot."

"What! You really got a loose screw." One of the underlings blurted out baffled by what he heard.

Noah realized his words seemed to have confused them. Well, he couldn't blame them. He should have been more clear.

"I meant that you must have liked me a lot since you are risking serious punishment for every second you stay with me. Master did say he was keeping an eye on me. I don't know what he would say to your behavior."

The trio faltered and finally showed hesitation in their movement while their faces were gradually becoming more scared the more they thought about their actions.

Not wasting up his momentum, Noah followed up on his attack.

"Come on, we are all apprentices here. You also have been dropped here without knowing. We should help each other instead of wasting time doing this."

The three flinched when he mentioned the teleportation. Finding an opening, he moved in for the final blow.

"Let me tell you something, the Inn we are staying at serves quite a delicious smoothie. Maybe we can hang out sometime. We may even become good buddies. What do you say?"

He even patted the leader's shoulder letting them consolidate his image as a non-aggressor.

The leader eventually snapped out of his dazed state and shrugged his shoulders to shake off Noah's hands.

"Let's go. We are done here." He then headed away with his two underlings in tow.

Watching the two go away, Noah's face slowly turned from a smiling to an indifferent one. He waited for some time to confirm it was finally over before his face turned back to his usual carefree one.

'Phew'

Noah heaved a sigh of relief at being able to deal with the problem relatively easily. They should leave him alone now. The trio just seemed to be scared being alone this far away from home.

It was after all human instinct to try to vent your frustrations at someone else. He may have done something similar if he was in their place. Had he been 10 years younger.

He couldn't blame them for targeting him either. He was standing out quite a bit.

Let's just hope that they stop this pointless behavior. He didn't want to resort to measures like publicly humiliating them to stop their behavior. That had a great possibility of backlashing and they may do something rash in anger.

'Sigh, It's so tiring overthinking all of this. Why can't the world just be black and white.' He would have dealt with the three right now and be done with them but then, he would break his promise to her. He would give them a chance.

Thinking about her, he just hoped she would be fine.

Noah continued his trek towards the guy. He spotted him sporting a welding mask and using a blow torch to weld pieces of metal.

Moving closer, he waited for him to finish and then greeted him.

"Hi, my name is Noah. I was told by master Ralvol to search for a Senior Blacksmith mentor. I was hoping if you would accept me as a helper." He bowed slightly to show his respect and was desperately hoping that this guy would be flattered and accept him. There was no one else he could go to after him.

Maybe that Vyld guy. But he didn't even know if he was a Blacksmith. He seemed more like a manager.

The guy pulled up his mask to show his face. He looked to be around thirty. His facial appearance resembled slavs. The thing that stood out to him first was his huge physique. He looked quite intimidating with his hulking over 7' body. That's why his bright eyes and goofy smile caught Noah off guard. Just looking at his face, he seemed like an approachable guy.

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"Yeah, mate. You have become quite infamous here. Must be wondering why all the fellas avoiding you. Well, they are so scared by the master that they didn't want to come under his notice. The only thing they could think of was scurrying away like rats from you. Tell you mate. That was one hilarious scene." He gave a hearty chuckle talking about his situation. It may have looked amusing to an outsider but to Noah, it was more like a pain in the ass.

He now knew why every blacksmith was running away from him with tails between their legs. Well, he couldn't really blame them for this. He also doesn't want anything to do with someone who could bring him trouble. Plus, with this trouble being Master Ralvol, he would put a ten feet pole between them.

Though learning the reason behind that fiasco was all well and good, he had another more important thing to confirm.

"About my apprenticeship?" Noah still hadn't heard him accept his mentorship.

"Oh, It would be fun to have you here. So yeah, you would be under me from today. Everyone was too stuck up and grumpy here. No fun at all. Your appearance has livened up the atmosphere quite a bit. I would be looking forward to our future, mate." The teddy bear turned human smiled brightly and offered his hand for a handshake.

"I am also looking forward to an apprenticeship under you, master ..." Noah responded with enthusiasm. He then gazed at his new mentor with the obvious intention to get him to cough up his name.

The cheerful guy smiled widely at his gaze and said.

"Gul. Just Gul. No need to add master. Think of me as your best friend from now."

Noah just heard that and retorted instantaneously.

"Sorry, but I can only consider you as my friend at most. The best friend spot is already taken." Mentor or not, he wasn't going to let him belittle his actual best friend's status. Noah could be stubborn like that.

Gul blinked repeatedly at his odd outburst. He didn't expect him to show such a strong reaction. He eventually burst into a boisterous laugh.

"You're interesting, mate. I was right. The next months are going to be fun." He hugged Noah's shoulder and brought him closer.

Noah wasn't too excited about it seeing the overly enthusiastic attitude. It would have been much better even if he was lackadaisical towards him. His types tend to be very annoying to deal with.

However, his thoughts would have to be stopped abruptly because of Gul's next words.

"That was one scary face, mate. Lucky for you I didn't feel any killing intent from you. Things would get quite ugly if you try to bring harm to the employees here despite how much of an asshole they are."

Gul's tone had completely changed with all the cheerfulness nowhere to be seen. His voice was indifferent, but he was dead serious about it if his bright eyes were to be any indication.

Noah's entire body became rigid immediately. He could feel the danger he was in very clearly. He tried to think fast of something to defuse the situation but Gul acted before him and loosened his grip. He then patted his shoulder with his normal goofy smile and said.

"Of course, It was just a warning. Though I must admit it was quite fun seeing you all scared like that."

Noah didn't relax in the slightest. How could he, this guy was clearly mad.

Gul increased the strength behind his pats noticing Noah was still stiff.

"Don't worry. You'll get used to me just fine in a few weeks. What do you think?"

"Sure," Noah said and backed away at once from him. He wasn't too keen on the whole overly friendly attitude. Especially with a homicidal maniac he just met.

"Now, let's get to work. I could use a hand here. Too much work for one fella. You have a tough body. You should be able to handle that much stress." Gul acted like he didn't just threaten him a moment ago.

"What do you mean by that much stress?" Noah had a bad feeling about the way he worded the sentence.

Gul had a grin on his face as he spoke softly.

"Oh, it's just basic striker work. You'll either hate it from the start or just grow to hate it."

Noah felt his bad feeling turning into a certainty. He just hoped he would be able to handle whatever this striker work was.

....

"I HATE IT!" It didn't even take an hour before he grew to hate this work from his very being.

"Yeah, that's the spirit, mate. Strike here now, Medium" Gul tapped at the middle of the red hot metal with his hammer. He was using tongs to hold the hot iron steady on the anvil.

'Clang' A hammer struck near the same spot a moment later.

"Position is starting to get a bit off. That was clearly a Light. Put some force." He again tapped a spot lightly to indicate the hitting mark.

'Clang' The hammer struck even more fiercely than before.

"Yeah, that's a bit like that."

The constant ringing of hammer strikes on metal continued.

....

"That was good practice," Gul said wiping his sweat with a towel.

Noah was lying down on the ground completely spent.

"Yeah, I would describe it more of a torture and you as the executioner with how you were all smiles seeing me gasping for breaths." Noah wasn't mincing his words at all. He would have tried to keep up appearances but the sheer exhaustion he was feeling wasn't helping.

Gul's gaze intensified for a moment there but then he beamed at him.

"You make good jokes. I was just being the caring mentor teaching his apprentice the basics."

"If by a caring mentor, you mean just ordering me to continue to strike at metal using a big ass hammer for two and a half hours straight. Yeah, no shit. With no breaks in between. Just a few minutes to lower my heartbeat in case it accidentally bursts." Noah was clearly not in his best mood.

"I was just prepping you up. This kind of work is required daily here." Gul's smile never faltered as he replied.

"If you have rested enough now, it is time for you to grind the blades. Here, take these." He said to Noah while throwing a pair of thick leather gloves.

Noah tried catching them only to fail miserably with both the gloves striking his face. He uttered a pained groan in response and slowly stood up.

"You saw how I was grinding the blades, right. I won't expect you to do that good but remember not to mess up too much. You will have to stay with me to make up for every blade you wasted." Gul reminded Noah while putting the tools used back in their respective shelves.

Noah nodded in understanding and got to work.

Picking up the dozen blades they had made in the past couple of hours, he stashed them in a crate and headed to the grinding machine with the crate in his arms.

Sparks erupted as he got to grinding. He had to be very careful with this. Noah had no desire to stay any longer than necessary with that murder bear.

Fortunately, basic grinding wasn't that hard to do. Gul had shown that to him. What he needed were just patience and steady hands.

The whirring sounds of the grinding belt he was working on dissolved seamlessly into the growing cacophony of machines and hammers working in tandem at the forge.

Noah put another finished blade back in the crate after he was satisfied with its look.

He was almost done with his work when a commotion started from the other side of the forge.