Burgin leaned forward in his seat, just a few short seat from Ozlo's face. "Alright boy, what do you know about mithril?"

"Uh" Ozlo replied and then started to think on what he really knew about mithril. "It's expensive and hard to work with?" Ozlo replied.

Burgin cleared his throat with a long drink from his mug, before responding. "Yes. It is. And it is. But what is it? What do you know about the metal itself?" Burgin inquired rhetorically.

"Mithril is... Mithril is alive. Well, it was alive. It's a type of rare living metal that needs to be carefully infused with mana and treated properly lest it lose it's properties. Theoretically you could get mithril from a common shard. But not enough to do anything with and definitely not the best way to use it."

Burgin walked over to the front area behind the counter and bent over. Grabbing a long, well used and dusty tome, he returned to the table and plopped it down for Ozlo to see.

"Here boy. See this?" Burgin inquired after flipping through the pages and stopping on the one titled Mithril. "Here, see this line? Read it. Out loud now boy, not in your head."

Doing as his master asked, Ozlo read the battered book, starting with the sentence beneath Burgins hand aloud. "Mithril, while notoriously difficult to work with, is one of the most receptive types of metal currently known. While other types of metals tend to hold enchantments for specific elements or attributes *see firesteel or demonsbane* mithril is known to be receptive for any and all current enchantments." After finishing that sentence Burgin closed the book and laid it flat on the table.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"There boy, see? Now how do we process mithril?" Ozlo opens his mouth to try and answer, but much to his relief, is soon cut off by Burgin. "Ahem, it's not a secret boy. We get it red hot, we beat it into shape, and we keep it stabilized with shards. Any questions?" Burgin asked with a small grin.

Ozlo, reeling from the sudden onslaught of new information, had none on hand and Burgin continued once again as though he had never asked. "You need a special device to attune a space with mana. Theoretically if you had sufficient mana control you could do this yourself... But it's highly recommended to not do it that way. Unsafe and could lead to impurities in the metal. That gets me to my point. You don't have any mana, well, all things have mana. Ahem, you have very little mana. So you're perfect. I'll control the device, attune the area with mana, and otherwise handle all the hard bits. You on the other hand, need to be available from the time we remove the mithril from the storage to the time we quench the blade, to feed the device shards. Understood?"

Ozlo shook his head up and down to Burgins question. "Good lad, now go upstairs and get some rest. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow and we need to be in tip top shape."

Trudging up the stairs, Ozlo went over what Burgin told him. "I'm going to be feeding the device shards..." Try as he might, the details of Burgins method were fleeting when he tried to think on them. "Feed the device shards... I can do that". Ozlo slipped into a restful sleep, to prepare for what his master promised was going to be a *big day*.