Waking up earlier than ever, I sprint down the corridor to Mom's bedroom.

“Mom! Mom! Wake up! It's my birthday, wake up!” I yell as I sprint into her arms, shaking and poking her to wake her faster.

“I know, sweetie. I am waking up, stop,” she says as she hugs me to stop my pokings. “Happy birthday, my baby! Let's go get something good to eat.”

Today is my first birthday in this new world. I've finally learned this weird language.

My body has gotten a lot bigger. I am now two meters tall and three and a half meters long. My scales are as hard as rocks, my horns are four inches long. Thanks to all the running and playing that I do all day, my body is extremely fit.

After pestering Mom to teach me how to forge and proving my intelligence by learning everything that she has tried to teach me so far, she promised to teach me how to become a blacksmith when I turn one year old.

As Mom puts down my plate of food, some kind of fish that tastes really good, I devour it as fast as I can and sprint to the forge.

“I finished, let's go!!” I yell.

“Wait for me, you rascal!” Mom yells back.

“Come closer; let me explain this to you,” Mom says, after entering the forge, taking out some metal ores. “This is where blacksmithing starts. There are thousands of different ores in this world, and thousands more alloys, combinations of different metals, but today we are going to talk about the two most common ones.”

Taking two unrefined ores in her hands, she passes me one; it is black and heavy.

“This one is durba, the most common metal used to make everything, from forks to gates, shields, and arrows. But it's not the strongest for powerful weapons; any good weapon can cut through it.

Changing the ore for the other one, I can feel it's a lot heavier, with a silvery color.

“And this one is kravla, the most common for blades. It's good at keeping the edge of blades strong and flexible.

“Both have a melting point of 1300 Celsius degrees. But outside the purifying part, you don't want to melt it, so it’s important to keep the forge below that.

“Today we are going to focus on durba. We will do the whole process, from start to finish. Now, let's go check the forge's temperature.”

Getting closer to the forge, with its always-burning flame inside, Mom points to ten crystals on its side.

“These are heat crystals. Each one of them is tuned to a different temperature, going from right to left, from a thousand degrees to increments of five hundred. Whenever the forge is close to that, they will glow; with practice, you will be able to read them.

“Now, take ten kilograms of durba, place it inside the crucible, and leave it in the middle of the forge.

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“See these patterns on the side of the forge? Those are runes; we shall talk more about them in the future, but for now, all you need to know is that they manage to control the amount of oxygen injected into the fire, which makes the fire hotter.

Place your palm there and push a little bit of Ki inside.”

Looking for the runes, I found a twelve-runed circle array.

This year of meditation was fruitful. After 6 months, I managed to feel energy inside me, in my abdomen.

After some more months, I was able to move it around my body.

And today I finally have an opportunity to put it to good use.

Bringing some energy out of my dantian, up my arm and out of my palm. The array lights up, the runes being projected out of the surface and moving in a circular motion.

The connection with the array was like a slippery, second thought. But thanks to these months of meditation, I managed to grab it and not let it slip.

Turning the oxygen injection to ten percent, I look at the crystals to read the colors.

The first and second are already completely white, and the third is almost completely full as well. Turning down the oxygen, I watch for the color on the third crystal, leaving it half full.

“Make the third one completely bright as well; we need to melt the ores, so the heat needs to be above its melting point,” Mom explains.

Injecting more ki inside the array, I did as she said.

“You did well; now take the metal and place it in the forge,” Mom says.

Taking big chunks of durba ore and putting them inside the crucible, I leave it inside the forge for some minutes.

“Take the crucible out of the forge, but be careful not to hurt yourself nor let it slip on the ground. Scoop the impurities from the liquid. Then put it in this mold,” she says, pulling out a mold in a rectangular format.

Doing it step by step, as she described, we wait for some minutes as the molten metal goes back to its solid state in the format of a nine-kilogram, five-centimeters in width and depth, and thirty centimeters long rectangle.

“It's completely solid again, and extremely hot as well, so it's the perfect temperature to hammer it to any shape you want. What do you want to do with it?” Mom says, looking at me.

“A knife!” I yell excitedly.

Taking the smallest hammer, which is still pretty big for me, I start hammering the red metal into the shape of a chef's knife.

It turns out pretty misshapen, with bumps all over, but I know the next process can clean this up.

Taking it to the sanding belt, I inject a little ki on the array to turn it on. This one is made of different runes, but they act the same. Accepting my ki, lighting up, and being slippery to grasp, but I manage to do it.

As the belt spins, I place the knife near it and start to correct the bumps the hammer made.

In less than twenty minutes, the knife was perfectly shiny and shaped the way I wanted.

“Now the heat tempering. Make it red hot, then dip it into this bucket of oil.”

Finishing this last step, I just take a small wooden block, turn on the sanding belt again, and make it the perfect shape for my hands.

To the side is a machine with the same runes as the sanding belt, but instead of a belt, it has a drill. Using it on the wood to carve the hole that the handle will go into, and the stoppers on the sides.

Now it's just a jigsaw puzzle; I assemble everything together and finish with an oil tempering on the wood.

“I did it!” I cry as I show Mom my masterpiece.

“Yes, you did it, baby. I'm proud of you,” she says with a big smile.

The years passed as she taught me a lot of things. Most related to blacksmithing, but some related to the world.

She taught me their math.

Two other well-used languages.

The fact that our language can only be spoken to our race, due to our bodies.

Also that our race is called Durkan; our population is low, so we don't have a country of our own, but we are still pretty powerful as a race. Some of the best crafters and warriors of this continent are Durkan.

She also taught me all of the little she knew about cultivation.

This continent that we live in, named Gutre, is but an eternal cloud floating in the sky of this big world. Held together by the laws of this planet.

As you go deeper into the core of the planet, the amount of ki in the atmosphere becomes denser, and the number of cultivators becomes endless.

But here in Gutre, ki is so scarce that you can rarely see someone talented enough to cultivate to a high level.