Anna nodded. It seemed that she was still a beginner to mana.

The platforms around her started disappearing out of nowhere, with only a few footholds left to stand on. This was the challenge that she was dreading. Anna, like her brother, wanted to end things quickly, meaning that her stamina on mana wasn't the best as she would usually just do one big attack over and over again, but in this challenge, the platforms would disappear until there was no platform left and Anna would try to keep afloat or risk dying.

The good thing about this challenge was that she could use anything she wanted. For now, she just stayed standing, a good strategy as she was saving her energy for when the platforms all disappeared on her.

As time went by, the platforms disappeared one by one until at the 10-minute mark, they were all gone, and Anna would need to keep herself afloat for 50 minutes to pass the challenge.

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"She sure is taking a while," Tai said, looking at the time.

Bored, Tai decided to walk through the marketplace. The marketplace was unique with all sorts of beings having their own stall.

One particular stall caught Tai's eye. A stall that was being operated by a short, but muscular man with long orange beard. The short man was wearing a leather apron and was swinging his hammer onto an anvil as he created a sword.

Looking at the stall, Tai noticed that it was much larger than the rest, most likely meaning that this stall was pretty successful. In fact, it shouldn't even be considered a stall with how big it was. That's not what caught his eye though. It was the forging of the sword. There was something weird about it too.

As the short man, who he had labeled as a dwarf swung his hammer at the sword, normal sparks would appear, but then there were also blue sparks, and the sword would glow blue. There were also lines on the sword, and over time as the dwarf swung his hammer, the lines would become blue.

After a few minutes of being mesmerized by the forging of the sword, the dwarf was finally done. He held it up, and placed it on a rack, pricing it at 1000 AC.

The dwarf wasn't oblivious to Tai's staring. He had noticed it when he was forging and didn't mind. Looking Tai up and down, the dwarf nodded. "Ye look like ye got talent. Come here, I'll teach ye."

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Tai shook his head. "No, no, I don't want to be a bother."

"Ain't nae bother here. I just know ye'll make a great blacksmith."

Deciding that it was fine, Tai went into the shop. This would also be a good way to pass the time until Anna finished her trial.

The dwarf smiled as he introduced himself. "Name's Valgrek Brownfoot, nice ta meet ya."

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In the trial, Anna kept herself afloat with her mana. It was already 30 minutes and she only needed to keep this up for 20 more minutes, but her mana was already very low, and by the rate it was going at, it was going to run out in about 5 minutes.

'Think, Anna Think!' she said in her head. The good thing about this challenge was that she really had to push her limits. If she used too much mana, it would run out very fast and she would die, and if she used too little, she would slowly fall down and die. The risk of dying and carefully controlling how much mana she used leveled up her mana quite a bit, and she spent those points on Intelligence, hoping that it would be enough to keep her afloat for 20 more minutes.

"She seems to be getting low there..." one of the women said to the other.

The other woman nodded and leaned towards the other to whisper something, "She seems to be forgetting that you can use anything here."

"That, or she's saving it for when she runs out of mana."

As 4 minutes passed, it became increasingly obvious that her mana would run out at any second, and fail the trial.

'No, no, no... What did they say again?' Anna's eyes went wide when she realized what they had said. 'Right, I can use anything, but the only other thing I can use is Darkness, but how would I use that to fly?'

As Anna was thinking of a solution to her mana problem, the thing that she didn't want to happen finally happened. Her mana ran out and she was falling. If she kept falling, she would die, and fail the challenge.

"WINGS!" she yelled out as she gathered the darkness to form wings on her back. The wings were giant, easily spanning the entire trial space, and one flap of the gigantic wings instantly raised her up. Since the wings were so big, Anna didn't have to flap much as she stayed in the air, ever so slowly gliding down.

The wings were similar to a bat's wings, and were crude, but it would do for now.

"What do you know, she did it."

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"Like this?" Tai asked as he swung the hammer down on the red hot metal, shaping it with every hit.

Valgrek nodded. "Perfect, now shape it into a rectangular shape. This here will be the head of your hammer."

Tai didn't expect it, but he was enjoying swinging the hammer and shaping the metal. It was... relaxing.

"Nice, an' good muscles ye have. Ye better nae be tired yet."

With each hit, the metal started to look more like the head of a hammer, and by the time he knew it, he was done.

You have learned a skill: Crafting

+1 status point