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After getting back to the academy, I grabbed some dinner, got a bath, and finally crashed into bed. And as I lay in bed, I thought back to what I saw when I was sensing mana in direct contact with the hobgoblin shaman.

What I saw was mana was circulating in its own body. Now most people would think, “Bid deal… mana circulates in all living things.”, but not as much as what I saw. This mana was not the slow-flowing mana that passively circulated in everyone, this mana was flowing like raging rapids.

But that was not the only crazy thing, the other thing I sensed was that the mana flowing in its body was very clearly earth element mana. I have only ever seen elements of mana manifested externally, never internally, and I am starting to wonder if the earth element mana flowing through its body was the reason I failed to dismember its arms.

Thinking about it further, that may also explain how its hands still had the ability to form a fist to punch after burning in its own fire for so long. Could infusing its own body with earth mana slow down the burning of its hands into useless nubs? Who knows, I might need to give it a try, but not today… sleep now, experiment later.

***

The next day, during a break after the mandatory classes, I was fetched by one of the assistant instructors from my Advanced Combat & Tactics class to go pick a weapon for my prize.

From there, we went to the other classes to get Dave, Sam, Henry, and Arabella. After following the assistant instructor to collect our prizes, I found myself arriving at a place I was familiar with, it was the crafting section of the academy where I have my blacksmithing lessons.

We then entered the same warehouse-like building where I had my blacksmithing lessons to be once again bombarded by the sounds of metal beating against metal.

To negate the din of hammers, the assistant instructor chanted a Silence spell that created a bubble of air blocking out all sound, the only thing we heard as we traveled through the workshop was the sounds of our footsteps and breathing.

As we went deeper into the workshop, we went past a bunch of men and some women, who looked too old to be schooling, working at their own workstations. I recently found out that these people were on some kind of vocational training.

When we finally reached the back of the warehouse, there was my dwarf of a blacksmithing teacher, Haldor Steelbeard.

When the assistant instructor was close enough to Haldor to include him in the Silence spell, he seemed to notice the sudden lack of hammering and looked up at us.

The assistant instructor greeted Professor Steelbeard, handed over a writ for Professor Steelbeard to read, and said, “These five are here to choose a Mana Steel Weapon of their choice.”

After scanning through the writ, he passed it back and looked at us. “I see there are two mages among you, but unless you use battle staffs to do your casting, or a heavy metal wand, I think you will have more realistic choices for spell-casting tools next door to where they are made.”

Then he turned to me, “And I see one of my blacksmithing students managed to earn one too, good on ye lad.”

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As I thanked Haldor for his praise, Henry said, “Wait, you are learning blacksmithing? Isn't that a commoner’s profession?”, this was followed by Arabella pitching in with a “Yeah, that's like, menial work.”

The moment they said that, there was dead silence, and I could see the assistant instructor pinch the bridge of his nose, and I felt like doing the same because what they just said was like spitting on the heritage of all dwarf kind.

“What d'ye just say?” Haldor’s voice rumbled out, and with each word, his already accented common speech became even more accented as he glared at Henry and Arabella, his bushy beard bristling with every word he spoke.

“Whit d'ye think ye're sayin' here, ye wee dafties?” he barked, eyes blazing with anger. “Ye think blacksmithin' is jist a job fer commoners, dae ye? Well, let me tell ye somethin', ye pampered wee gits. Blacksmithin' isnae jist a job, it's a bleedin' art! And you lot widnae ken good smithin' if it stuck ye in the bum!"

Henry and Arabella shrank back, but the Haldor wasn’t done. He jabbed a thick finger at them, punctuating his words with sharp gestures. "Every sword, every shield, every piece o' armor ye see yer fancy knights wearin', it’s crafted wi' skill, sweat, an' blood. It takes years o' trainin', hard work, an' a lot mair intelligence than ye've got in yer thick skulls!"

He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous growl. "Do ye think ye can pick up a hammer an' make somethin' worthwhile? Ha! Ye'd be lucky if ye didnae bash yer own heids in. Ye nobles think ye're better than us, but without us, ye'd be defenseless babes. Why, I ought tae challenge the baith of ye to a duel for besmirchin' the honor of all Dwarfs by insultin' our sacred craft! Feuds huv been started for less!" Haldor bellowed as he threw down his hammer, its head embedding into the stone floor.

This was when the assistant instructor stepped in, “Professor Steelbeard, I think it would be best to leave it at that.” he then turned to Henry and Arabella, who now looked smaller, and got them to apologize, Haldor said nothing but a grunt.

After placating Haldor for a while longer, he then left Dave, Sam, and me with Haldor and went with Henry and Arabella to the wand and staff crafters next door.

After they left, Haldor took a few deep breaths, then turned to us, “So, you lads be wantin’ some Mana Steel weapons.” his voice going back to his accented but still understandable common. It honestly took me a while to catch up to what he said when he was chewing out Henry and Arabella.

“Follow me.” he said, and so we did.

He led us to a corner of the workshop, opened a cellar door, and went down. When we got to the bottom, there was barely any light. That was until I heard a large switch being flipped, and some mana-operated lights fixed to the ceiling gradually lit up like the old fluorescent stage lights back on Earth.

When I turned to the sound of the switch, there was an industrial lever switch with a mana crystal embedded at its base, and when I looked around at the increasingly illuminated room, I shed a manly tear at what was on display.

It was rows upon rows of weapons and armor of different designs, it was like looking at the physical manifestation of the websites I use to purchase weapons and armor back on Earth, and it puts the weapon shops I have been to and my father’s armory to shame.

“Luke, are you crying?” Sam asked.

“No… just got some dust in my eye.” I replied, maybe just a bit too defensively.

“All right, lads. Stick to the first three rows, those are Mana Steel, pick out what you want, and come find me if you have any questions.” Haldor said as he went to the side and started polishing a pile of equipment.

After going up and down the aisles and test swinging a few weapons, I ended up choosing a Bastard/Hand-and-a-Half Sword. I was tempted to go with a two-handed longsword due to its longer hilt I could use for more leverage, but this was the sword I used the most in my previous life.

By the time we all left the blacksmith, Dave had himself the two-handed longsword I passed over, saying that he was going to follow in his old man’s style from his mercenary days, and Sam got himself an Arming Sword to pair with a shield in the future.

With a smile on my face for my new toy, I went to store it in my room and got back to my classes for the day.