I used my Fire Control to my full advantage. With Temperature Gauge, I could see the change of temperatures, and with Heat Immunity, I was in no threat of being getting heat exhausted. In fact, it felt like a cool day for me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the one doing the work. That all fell to Sapphire. I knew how to blacksmith as much as my job allowed, but my methods would never be as refined as someone with actual practice. I hadn’t spent a single day in the forge, so while I theoretically could figure it out, I’d look sloppy to anyone with any skill.

Furthermore, I had only seen a silvthril sword made once, so whatever special techniques were needed to work with silvthril, I didn’t know them. I had to depend on Sapphire, and while she was a dwarf resistant to heat, she wasn’t as practiced in front of the blistering forge as her uncle. The forges she worked in on the surface typically had a lot of ventilation, and so it never got too hot. Yet, this room seemed to keep in a lot of heat, and even Pait sitting in the stands was sweating uncomfortably over the heat.

Sapphire who was directly next to the flames was being hit the hardest. She also didn’t necessarily have the physical strength of her uncle. Thinking about it, she would do well with a second job that had a lot of strength perks. Her stamina seemed to be weak, and by the time she had heated the metal and started striking it, she was showing signs of her stamina waning.

I felt I was at fault for this. This was far different from her time when she had made the silvthril sword. Besides the different environment, she had made that sword after a long time of training under a blacksmith and working the forge regularly. It had been nearly a month since she last touched a forge when she made her journey to the deep, and then an additional month where her soul and body were allowed to atrophy within Twilight. Then, already in a weakened state, I had forced her to level up her Blacksmith. I had been treating her like she possessed my stamina, and few truly could keep up with a god soul.

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As Gabbro reached the end of his forging steps, he glanced over at Sapphire as she hammered, her technique starting to slip, her cheeks flushed and red as she gasped for breath. He made a dismissive snort. I wasn’t sure if Sapphire noticed his look, but I hoped that she didn’t. I began to realize that going on like this, we wouldn’t be able to win.

That led me back to the Soulsmithing job. Ever since I had unlocked it, I had become fascinated with it. There was another name it could potentially have been called. Lorecrafting. It was the ability to refine, alter, and create lore. You could manipulate the story… wasn’t that nearly equivalent to altering the state of something?

Soul merging was one of my new skills as well. If I could use a Slaves skill, then there had to be a way a slave could use mine, and if they could use my slave skills, then why couldn’t they use my other skills as well.

“Ahh!” Bang

Sapphire had made the most embarrassing of mistakes. She had accidentally hit her finger, causing her to drop her hammer. Even over the roaring sound of the forge, I could hear the disapproving sounds. Doing such an act was something even an apprentice wouldn’t do. Sapphire shook, looking like she was a second away from breaking. I left my post and walked around, wrapping my arms around Sapphire’s body.

“I-I can’t…” Sapphire shivered, even though her body was covered in sweat.

“I told you, you don’t have to do this alone,” I whispered in her ear. “We’ll do this together. Soul merge!”