A loud commotion started in the forge, spreading out to the streets.

“Have you heard? A boy who don’t know how to start the furnace is taking a test at old Edgar’s place!”

“Are you serious? Who have such impudence?”

“Whoever he is, he sure is courageous.”

“A poor brave fool.”

“I feel it’s rather odd that Master Edgar would give him a try.”

“Hah, that’s because I heard he presented some real good mead as a present.”

“Mead? I thought it was spirits?”

“No, I’m a hundred percent certain it is ale.”

“If a master would relent for a drink, it must taste like rainbows.”

“Oh how much I will give for a try.”

“If that fool failed, let’s pay him a visit.”

“I’ll only pay him a visit if he gets accepted by Master Edgar, in fact I’ll even buy his first blade.”

“You think we don’t know that if he succeeds that first blade will be worth a fortune?”

The conversation in the dwarven city, like always, ends up about drinks or blades. This time, it was both and the news of Kairos’ test spread like wildfire.

Leo, Linda, and Relestia soon arrived with great haste. They pushed through the crowd the take a look, but the moment they saw Kairos, the three of them calmed down.

Outside the forge, the students were on the verge of turning into an angry mob, many are determined to remove Kairos from the place. Fortunately, the master Edgar held them back on account of the ale he received.

Amidst all these chaos, a teenager remained undisturbed, fanning a tiny spark to life. The fire started slowly, but as the heat rises a strong wind was funnelled into the furnace by the new wind tunnel.

Kairos started turning a strange knob on the side and the sound of the wind rushing in to fan the flames became louder.

He threw in the coal piece by piece while slowly adjusting the furnace’s internal pressure. Under his care, the fire grew fierce and robust, as stable as something created from a spell.

The ores started melting and soften, and at this time, Kairos took out pieces of twigs and heated them in a chamber adjacent to the wind tunnel.

By now Edgar’s disciples had turned silent. Even as students they understand when they are looking at something amazing.

The master blacksmith started explaining softly to his students, “The wind tunnel he made to fan the flames created a pocket of vacuum and the well-controlled flames will turn the sticks into high-quality charcoal.”

At this time, Kairos did a very strange thing. He started dropping random items to the ground around the furnace.

No one except Relestia could understand what was happening. Kairos is now setting up a natural stratagem, but for the locals of Axis Mundi it only looked like he is making a mess by randomly throwing about things in his way.

“What is he searching for in his item box?”

Glittersprout spat, “He is cluttering the forge up with his trash, and he’d be a real joke when he trips on one.”

Linda who was in earshot immediately spoke up for Kairos, “My big brother is not a joke!”

Relestia chimed in, “Big brother Kairos is the best!”

Leo looked at the two girls and the rowdy disciples that are quickly turning purple with rage and said, “Kind sirs, please do not mind. The girls are young and didn’t mean to speak out the truth.”

The outside of the forge nearly exploded, but before a bigger commotion can be created, everyone turned their eyes back to Kairos, almost instinctively.

They looked with incredulity as Kairos unhinged some contraptions he created on the furnace and the flames inside started pouring out with deadly heat. The abnormal pressure within found release and almost exploded.

Yet, just as the temperature threatened to burn everyone to cinders, it disappeared as if the door had been closed.

They couldn’t believe their eyes, they can clearly see the flames covering the forge room. If someone just reach forward with his hand, it will be cooked instantly, yet they could not feel any heat at all.

The Stratagem of Entropy Adjustment.

Those items cluttering the ground had formed a strange pattern that contained the heat.

Stratagems, simply put, is energy manipulation using natural phenomenon. Like the river channelling water down its stream, or fire raising into the sky. In nature, there are many examples, the two oceans that never mix that is found on Gaia is a natural kind of isolation stratagem, and the river that flows uphill is a type of illusion formation.

Using the energy flow found in objects of power, Kairos created a barrier without using any Ki in a place devoid of Heavenly Energies.

People getting lost in forests only to find themselves walking in a spiral is a result of chaotic natural energies.

By harnessing the theory, Kairos managed to keep the heat in the room.

Of course, those objects he placed are all magical artefacts found from the Jarl’s treasury.

However, all these are nothing noteworthy compared to the fact that Kairos is right now standing nonchalantly in a roaring blaze.

No one can understand how he is unharmed, to the point that even his clothes remained intact, but they believe that magic is at work here.

What Kairos is wearing is certainly fire resistant, but they cannot imagine that it is his physique, even in his wounded state, such temperatures are unable to harm him. Moreover, he had trained in the pill furnace that he created for the Snowdrifts’ army. The harsh elements within his training device are far more dangerous than this fire.

He coolly took the melting ore from the blasting furnace and started oxidising it or adding charcoal by hand.

The next day, pieces of very shiny metal were produced.

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The dwarven master blacksmith looked with enthralment as he nodded his head every now and then. His racial traits allowed him to judge the metal composition well and he could tell that Kairos had refined very choice pieces of metal with excellent carbon content.

The first step, and the most important one, was perfect.

Yet, the forging is not yet ready to begin.

Heating up the metal to red hot, Kairos started the hammering process in wind and fire. He starts by adjusting the right amount of carbonisation for the weapon he wants to make. Each part of the blade needs a different hardness. The softer ones for withstanding impact, the harder parts for cutting.

It took a while for him to refine a few flattened metal pieces. When there is a suitable amount extracted, he placed them according to their carbon content and reheated the metal till its red hot and welded into one.

Now it is finally time to forge the blade.

Edgar’s eyes grew wide the moment Kairos struck the metal.

Despite the noise of the roaring flame, the master smith can hear the difference as the hammer pounded the metal.

“Look, look carefully! This technique is in the realm of gods! If anyone dares to disrupt me, I will throw you out right now.”

His students that had spoken out against Kairos turned pale. For their master to be engrossed, their previous attempts at insults and ridicules now seemed so pale.

Edgar, however, had been completely drawn in by now.

“Look how the pattern, rhythm, and location of each strike is calculated. He is adapting perfectly to the ever-changing internal structure of the metal.

The bonds within are moving according to the temperature changes and the shockwaves that travel through the iron from every hit.

Whenever we take the ore out from the flame, the metal already started oxidising and cooling. The hammering must be really quick and accurate before it hardens and become impossible to mould.

Between fire, hammer, and water, there is always an interval for cold air and charcoal dust to touch the metal and it is in this few seconds that the bonds within are thrown into disarray.

Now he have all the time to do it perfectly.

“Many blacksmiths tried to reduce the oxidising by covering up the metal with paper, clay, and ash while welding the metal pieces, but it is never perfect! In the back of my mind, I always had a wilful thought to enter the furnace myself to forge my blades.

Yet this boy… he brought the flames out and did it! Hahaha! Can you believe it? How wild and ridiculous are the thoughts in his head?”

No one dares to speak. Not when their master is obviously trying to resist the temptation to join Kairos’ side and forge this blade.

Yet, Kairos had a frown on his face. The time of day wasn’t ideal. The air is far too humid for his liking but the same will happen if the wind is frigid or dry. There needs to be a balance, according to the metal he is working on. It may be impossible for the other blacksmiths, but Kairos can see the condition of his material clearly.

His glowing golden eyes shows him everything that is happening. Even illusions cannot fool him, much less the makeup of a piece of metal.

His ears can hear more than the voices of things. It allows him to accurately judge the tiny differences in sound between each hammer and make detailed adjustments.

The hammer technique passed down to him by Siegfried is indeed masterful like Edgar believes.

Each hit sends a shockwave through the metal to change the bonds and forcefully expel impurities and excess carbon.

As Kairos strikes different spots of the metal at varying speeds, the shockwaves will converge at one spot at the same time, causing that specific part to endure an intense amount of compression.

At the same time, he took out the freshly made charcoal, and with one hand turned it into a black coloured dust with a silvery gleam. He added a pinch on the metal to replace the lost carbon as he continued hammering.

Very soon, the red hot metal is ready to be quenched.

There are in fact three quenching liquids he prepared. The first is magic-created water, allowing the impurities to be minimised. The second is hot purified oils that can cause the temperature to drop slowly for the metal to turn into a softer variation and fast oil that can rapidly harden it uniformly.

The third is molten salt which makes the resulting material extremely soft.

Following that, Kairos repeated the heating process to refine the metal.

Kairos masterfully dipped it in the different buckets. The molten salt, heated oils, purified water, and fast oil, each provides a different cooling effect and tempers the weapon differently.

Between cooling and heating, the metal is tempered.

Choosing what kind of quenching liquid and when to do so is an art that many blacksmith does instinctively, but not Kairos.

He could tell the exact moment to execute the next action.

Of course whenever Kairos took out the material from the oil bucket, he must carefully remove the dripping golden fluid using the fluid control spell he learnt. He had to cast the spell with perfect timing to prevent the oil from bursting into flames and changing the temperature. The smooth sequence of his execution was like an art form. Even Edgar Silverforge let out a breath he did not realise he was holding.

Right after quenching he reheated the metal. Kairos bent the soft metal and hammer out the impurities while evening out the carbon.

A smile slowly appeared on Kairos’ face as he saw that an oval-shaped egg slowly appearing right in the centre that is much softer than the rest of the metal.

The composition of the material had also changed greatly. He had used more than one type of ore for his creation, and finally they are combining as he wanted, forming a new type of alloy.

He continued quenching, heating, and folding the metal, and that egg within became more refined. At the same time, by creating alternating layers he combined hardness with ductility that will increase the blade’s toughness to exceptional degrees.

By now, hours had went by and many of the crowd returned home to rest.

They could not see the difference and therefore to their eyes Kairos is merely repeating the process tirelessly. It continued for an entire week.

As the days turned, Kairos adjusted the amount of coal according to the changing temperature and humidity.

Throughout all this, even Edgar’s disciples grew bored and tired. Relestia had went back to the inn many times, had her meals and also bathed. She did not remain here the entire time because she have unshakable faith that Kairos will succeed. Instead, despite not understanding anything about forging, she returned each time with great curiosity sparkling in her eyes.

Perhaps there is something attracting her besides the blade forging that is the charm Kairos is giving off when he became completely attuned to his art. The seriousness in his eyes, the absolute concentration he is in, and the air of confidence he is giving off had taken her breath away.

Of course, Kairos who had started taking off pieces of clothing because of the heat, until he became completely topless, is also a plus point.

Kairos continued ceaselessly, removing any air pockets and homogenizing the alloy by folding it.

A hundred times at first, then by the thousands, and tens of thousands of folds as the days passed.

He repeated it again and again, until the metal’s internal structure became completely uniformed in the way he wanted.

When he is satisfied, the weapon’s shape is more or less hammered out with four different metal hardness for his weapon.

If someone could see what Kairos’ Veritable Sight, they will see that now, there is a single ball of metal extremely soft and right in the centre where his blade will balance on.

This soft metal ball is the core of his weapon that will help absorb the impacts of battle.

Surrounding that sphere is an elongated flattened oval with pointed ends in the body of the blade. This is soft metal that helps transfer any force of impact across the weapon.

A thin layer of metal with medium hardness outlined the soft metal, and lastly, at the outer most edge for the weapon and the pointed end is extremely sharp and hard metal.

The transition from hard to soft metal was smooth and well-meshed together. It is almost as if the divine blacksmith, Hephaestus himself have appeared.

The most famous sharp blades that Kairos had seen had three types of metals, although some are a mixture of two. The combination of hard and soft metal allows the weapon to remain sharp but not shattering when chipped.

However, Kairos made his weapon with four types of metal, using molten salt to create an extremely soft centrepiece.

This orb is the heart of the blade and can absorb excessive force, and Kairos made this true to the Bagua formation.

The combat stratagem is meant to combine the strength of many to attack and defend, and Kairos had hammered out the bonds of the sword to become the Bagua itself.

Now, this blade can cut with the strength of its entirety and its toughness is the summation of every part of its body.

By this point the blade already has a beautiful shape with very little parts needing trimming.

Instead of shaving off metal, it is more accurate to say that Kairos left enough excess metal at the edge for the blade to be sharpened.

Kairos closed the contraptions on the furnace and the room quickly cooled. As the temperature dropped, he started grinding out the edges and polishing it. Just as the sword edges are perfected, Kairos summoned a pot of his purest alcohol from his Time-space ring.

In the exact moment when the metal is just cool enough to prevent the alcohol from turning into flames, Kairos spit a mouthful of the drink along the blade. The weapon sizzled, and hummed beautifully as it rapidly cooled.

At this moment, the fifth type of metal hardness appeared. An exceptionally sharp edge that would be too brittle if not for sword’s the Bagua formation.

“The sword sang,” Edgar Silverforge muttered in awe, “in such a beautiful voice, pure with delight of its birth.”