Dirk carved stone for several hours. The process of going through 8 blocks of stone wasn't quick. Thankfully, Sir Tobasden at least took care of Dirk's tongs at some point, ensuring they were finished properly.

Other than that, the dwarf went through all his classes, and when he came back, Dirk was still carving. Now, his entire front side was coated in white dust, streaks going down his abs from drops of sweat that revealed his pale skin.

When the dwarf walked back in, he peered over next to Dirk, seeing how he was halfway through this carving. He hadn't messed up yet, but there was always something that happened that would end his carving in failure. In the other seven blocks, there was always just a single chunk of stone that wasn't supposed to be chipped. And if one was perfect, it wasn't finished since Dirk ran out of time.

But this time, Dirk seemed to be at his deepest in concentration. The dwarf watched as he carved through 85% of the block, the image of a hammer being designed under Dirk's chisel.

Then, he got almost all the way through. There was only one more corner to carve out. It was here that Dirk took a deep breath though, standing upright.

*Ding!*

A clock rang out, snapping the dwarf out of his reverie. He realized that Dirk had run out of time.

Dirk pushed away the block of stone, preparing to grab another one. The dwarf wasn't having it though.

"Bah! Screw that clock! You were doing good! Just continue and finish. And don't mess up!"

"...Alright."

Dirk readily agreed. Grabbing the block of stone, he carved out the last corner inside of it. Then, with the final touches, he finally had a good product.

"Great! Now melt the ingot inside this pot before pouring it into the mold. That should be simple enough for you."

"Understood."

Dirk grabbed the pot that Sir Tobasden handed to him, throwing the metal ingot into it before walking it to the furnace. There, he dipped the pot into the bowl of fire. The ingot melted rapidly as even the pot turned red hot. Dirk was impressed by the pot. It seemed to be a much stronger metal than the others.

When the ingot was melted and turned to liquid, Dirk quickly walked it over and slowly poured it into the mold. Like that, the metal filled every corner of the stone block.

When all the metal was in, the dwarf grabbed the mold with the liquid metal inside of it. Then, he placed the block on a rack above the bowl of fire.

"We need to let it slowly cool and harden. And with this metal, the tempering process will happen naturally as it is. By tomorrow, your hammer will be ready to take out of the mold, and you'll put on the finishing touches. As for today, you're done! Go on back home and rest. You did well. Tomorrow I'll have more planned for you."

"Understood."

Dirk took a deep breath as he left the forge room, grabbing his shirt on the way out. He didn't even bother putting it back on. His dust-coated self was on full display as he walked back home. Of course, nobody in the Hall of Artisans was in the mind to care about him. They all had their own strenuous tasks to carry out.

Ava was quick to gawk though when he arrived home.

"Oh my god. What the hell have you been doing?"

"Sculpting."

"Weren't you taking a forging class?"

"That's what I thought at first too. I need to clean."

Dirk was too tired to explain as we walked himself straight to his bath. After a long soak, he came back down to see dinner on the table.

"Oh. Thanks."

"Sure."

Dirk smiled as he sat down. After Ava joined him, the two ate a large meal before sitting around for a while.

After several minutes of silence, Dirk opened his mouth.

"How's alchemy going?"

"It's... alright."

Ava lifted her head unsurely.

"The memorization part isn't too bad. Lots of ingredients and techniques and reactions to know. We aren't making our own concoctions though, so we just need to follow recipes for the most part. Still, actually making things work is difficult. It doesn't help when there's little miss genius getting all high and mighty either."

"Who?"

Drik tilted his head.

"Just some girl in the class who gets everything right. And she makes sure everyone knows she's the best. Worse yet is she has the skill to back it up. I'd try to shut her up otherwise, but she's a Tier 4 as well. And best of all? She seems to have something against me specifically."

"Did you do anything to her?"

"No! I didn't! My guess though? She likes Alec. I've heard rumors that she's been trying to get close with him, and me going on a dungeon dive with him is apparently overstepping my bounds."

Ava spoke with derision, flailing her hands to annunciate her point. Dirk scratched his cheek. Was this gossip?

"...She's a Tier 4, doesn't that mean she's older than him?"

"Yup. Guess she just likes young guys. That or her family has connections with his. Either way, she hates my guts, and I can't do anything about it. And it's not like I do anything to her! I just keep my head low, and I haven't even seen Alec in how long? Yet she has it out for me! The bitch messes with me in the middle of my experiments, and since she's kissing the teacher's ass, he doesn't do anything about it. Heh, there is one thing I got on her though."

"What?"

Dirk tilted his head as Ava smirked. She smiled at him.

"She's as flat as a board! Well, she's actually not that flat, but mine are much bigger than hers! I might be shorter, but damn if I don't have her where it counts!"

Ava smiled as he cupped her chest with her hands. Dirk glanced at her awkwardly. Was this really her measure of superiority?

He shook his head.

"Well, good luck in class. Just keep working at it and I'm sure you can get better than her."

"Of course! At the very least I'll become more powerful. Then I can knock that arrogant bitch off her pedestal."

"...A good goal to pursue."

Dirk just gave her a thumbs up. This vengeful side of Ava, it was new and a bit surprising. Had she been hiding this all this time? Dirk didn't know if he needed to hear more gossip, but it wasn't bad hearing about her challenges.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like she was done.

"There's also this girl in my water class. Yesterday she snorted when I first came back to class. Now, I don't know if she was being mean, but several weeks ago before we had gone on any dives, she always liked to have a bit of attitude when she talked to me. And I heard from my friend that she was one of the people I beat during the tournament. But then I heard from someone else that she had a crush on a guy who was apparently staring at me, and she didn't like that, so now she's mad at me for no reason..."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"..."

Dirk was quiet as Ava began lecturing. At first he just listened, remembering the information she told him. He began building a large web in his head that connected points of conflict between all the names she threw out. But when he found out that there was no point to anything she was talking about, he began to zone out. Gradually he became unable to understand a word she said as the web grew to unfathomable proportions.

Before he knew it, an hour passed, and they were still sitting at the table with dirty dishes in front of them. He stood and began cleaning, and Ava went to join him. But she still talked as they settled the house for the night.

Even as he climbed in bed, she was still talking. When she jumped under the sheets next to him, he planted his hand over her mouth, silencing her.

"Sleep."

"..."

Ava nodded meekly as he looked at her with tired but sharp eyes. With that, Dirk sighed and buried himself in his pillow. He quickly fell asleep afterward. First he had a day of strenuous sculpting before getting his ear talked off at the dinner table. He made a note to watch out for this in the future as his consciousness slipped away.

............

The next day, Dirk was back at Forge 8. Upon arrival, Sir Tobasden had him extract his hammer from the stone mold.

With that, Dirk had his own hammer and tongs. Those two tools were really the only ones he needed. At least, that's what Dirk thought until the dwarf started another lesson.

"Today I'm going to have you make a knife! This time though, instead of using the filthy grinder in the classroom, you'll be shaping it by your own hand! This will finally stress your control over metal and fire mana, putting it to the true test! Of course, I don't expect you to pick up on this quickly, but I do expect the barest results. You should at least be able to affect the knife using metal mana and magic. And remember, this isn't basic magic like what you've been learning. This is elemental manipulation! The sooner you start learning it, the greater you'll be later on! Now, here's your ingot and design. Start forging!"

With that, the dwarf tossed the ingot and paper at Dirk. Dirk didn't ask questions and immediately got to work. After heating the ingot, he began shaping it with his new hammer.

*Ting!*

"...Ouch."

Dirk grimaced a bit when he brought down the hammer. Yesterday he had hit the anvil so many times that his palms were bruised from the reverberation through the hammer. Today he woke up feeling relatively fine, but now even the slightest vibration hurt his tender fingers.

Of course, that didn't stop Dirk from slamming down the hammer anyway. His hammer was just as heavy as the dwarf's, if not heavier. This meant he needed to use anima to wield it correctly. His muscles were sore just like his hands as well. Still, he pushed through the pain. At the very least, the skin on his hands wouldn't break due to his skin destruction cycles, and sore muscles were never something Dirk minded.

All of this was making him stronger. For almost an hour, the violent clangs of metal on metal shook Dirk's ears. And when he was done making the general shape of the knife, he stopped.

"Now grab the knife. When it's hot, it's easier to mold with your mana. That means you must use fire and metal mana to keep it soft and shape it. Of course, there's a balance between the two, but I'll let you find it."

The dwarf spoke these words as Dirk grabbed the knife. The red hot metal warmed Dirk's hands considerably, almost too much for his liking. After a few seconds, he felt pain on the skin of his fingers. The metal was burning him.

"Activate your mana, and get used to the heat!"

The dwarf shouted, prompting Dirk to infuse mana into the knife.

First came fire mana. With that mana protecting him, Dirk was no longer burned by the red hot metal. However, the metal started to cool the longer he held it. He couldn't have this, but even after filling the knife with his fire mana, he wasn't entirely sure how to heat it.

Dirk had only generated fire with fire magic before. He had never directly increased something's heat with just his fire mana. At the same time though, Dirk had controlled things like rocks and dirt with earth mana directly. He wondered if it was the same concept.

With that in mind, Dirk started to try and activate the mana inside the knife. He didn't form any runes, just attempting to garner a reaction from the mana while it sat inside the metal. However, nothing came to him.

Then, he thought of something.

'Wait, I have resonance. It's probably not the same thing... but I don't know how to interact the mana with the metal otherwise. Let's try it.'

Thinking that, Dirk activated his skill. His AI also kicked in, and the fire mana began to fluctuate inside the metal.

When Dirk enchanted, he had planted a rune onto a piece of leather using resonation. However, he didn't shape the fire mana into a rune this time. So when Dirk finally found the correct frequency to resonate at, there was no enchanting.

Dirk was able to feel something though. He could feel the fire mana touching the metal. After that, he began thinking of how he wanted to heat the metal.

Dirk concentrated. His concentration went deeper than it probably should have gone. He viewed all the fire mana that was inside of and around him, as well as the mana inside the knife. He wanted it to follow his will, to heat the metal like fire mana was supposed to. And he didn't want to do this with runes. Suddenly, Dirk had a thought.

'Would this be considered silent casting? It's not exactly magic.'

Dirk pondered for a split second before refocusing. In his mind, he imagined the knife heating up, the fire mana transferring its property of heat unto the metal. When this happened, Dirk felt something.

The knife that had been cooling down suddenly stopped cooling. Dirk held the dark red knife in his hand, staring holes into it. His fire mana constantly resonated with the metal, and it sucked energy out of him. But to his joy, the metal no longer dropped in temperature.

The dwarf saw this as well from the side. At first he wanted to tell Dirk to focus on shaping the knife with metal mana first because that was much easier than heating the knife. But when he saw Dirk so concentrated, as well as the fluctuating mana inside the knife, he thought Dirk might have something.

And now, seeing how the knife maintained its temperature, the dwarf's eyes widened.

"You did it... You did it! Haha! I knew you were a genius! Oh, you can stop now!"

"Agh..."

Dirk let out a rough exhale as he stopped resonating the mana. His head now throbbed in pain. It was just maintaining the temperature of the knife, but it took all his concentration. Still, Sir Tobasden smacked Dirk on the back.

"Boy, you're a true talent! You were only supposed to shape the metal. I was going to teach you heating metal with your fire mana later since I thought you would fail that part. But look at that! You actually took the first and most crucial step all by yourself! Do you know how difficult what you just did was? I consider myself a genius, but it took me months to even figure out how to affect the metal's heat with my mana! Hey, if you don't mind me asking, what's your fire affinity?"

"It's 71%."

Dirk answered without much hesitation as he rubbed his temple. Sir Tobasden was helping him a lot, and how could he possibly use that information maliciously? Dirk didn't particularly care either way.

The dwarf was shocked though.

"Only 71%? How?! I'll tell you what, I've got a fire affinity of 97%, and I actually performed worse than you! Bah! I thought you had perfect affinity! Are you sure about that percentage? You're not lying to me right?"

"No, I'm not lying."

"Hmm... I don't believe it! You are either the luckiest person in the world to be able to cross a significant magical threshold so easily, or your affinity is actually perfect! Whatever. Either way, you did well. Now you just need to shape the metal. Until you become able to actually heat the metal with your mana, just heat it in the fire. Now go on. This should be easy for you."

The dwarf waved Dirk off to the furnace. Taking the knife, Dirk dipped it in the flame before taking it in his hands. After protecting his skin with fire mana, he infused metal mana into the knife.

After a short amount of time, Dirk was able to affect the shape of the knife with his mana. It truly was easier than heating metal with fire mana. After resonating his metal mana, he felt like the mana became the knife itself. Then he just needed to move the mana how he wanted to, the metal bending with it. Like that, he was able to sharpen the blade of the knife and refine some odd imperfections.

But although he figured out how to do it, Dirk found that actually bending metal was a black hole for his energy. It took nearly an hour to refine the shape of the knife, and by the end, he was totally exhausted. After Dirk collapsed against the anvil, Tobasden took the knife.

"Hm, good! Really, you are a little genius. But don't get cocky! This is still far from satisfactory! For instance, you ruined the internal structure of the knife while shaping it. You think you can just brute force the shape? It takes delicate technique in order to shape the metal and maintain its strength! For now though, this will do. I'll scrap this garbage. As for you, go on and go home. Your performance today was well above expectations."

Tobasden nodded approvingly as he casually tossed the knife into the fire pit. Dirk didn't mind this. It truly was ruined by his shaping, something he noticed as it happened. But Dirk had only cared about being able to shape the metal, not doing it well, so he didn't care about ruining it.

And since he was done for the day, Dirk grabbed his shirt and walked out. Before he did though, Tobasden waved.

"Hang on! Take this for the day. When you begin to recover, go ahead and read the fire theory section some more. You won't get much further in skill without knowledge like this. The runes that you had been looking at a couple days ago contain elemental knowledge on fire manipulation pertaining to directly heating materials like what you were doing. It gets more complex the deeper you go, but just worry about trying to comprehend the runes. Analyzing runes is an important skill for any skilled mage. But I want this book back! So don't lose it."

With those words, Tobasden handed Dirk a book. It was the one he gave Dirk during class only two days prior. After feeling the cover in his hands, Dirk smiled. Now he could trace more runes.

"Thank you, Sir Tobasden."

"Sure, sure. Now go on. You need rest."

With that, Dirk left the forge. After putting the book into his pocket ring, he slung his shirt over his shoulder and walked out of the Hall of Artisans. Cool air graced his sweaty skin as he emerged outside.

"Oh, that reminds me. I should probably speak to Garel."

"Yes! I am right here, my prodigious student!"

"Ah!"