I stayed and watched Shimal forge her blade. She even broke down what she was doing for me. Though I don’t think she was trying to, she mostly mumbled to herself. First, she gathered all the necessary materials. She placed a smelting cup half my size on the anvil and filled it with iron ore and charcoal. According to her, this type of iron ore is called elemental ore. This ore could only be found in the peaks of a few mountains worldwide. These unique mountains are so tall the chakra from water, earth, fire, air, lightning, force, light, and dark cumulate on the peaks of the mountains and seep into their ore, which creates this super rare iron. In other words, she was using the most valuable ore in the world for this one blade, she had been using average iron ore for all her other attempts, but my pep talk gave her some courage and inspiration.
She placed the smelting cup in the roaring forge and began working the bellows, bringing the heat up as high as possible. After an hour of pumping, she put on goggles and opened a small metal hatch to look into the furnace and check on the ore. She cursed in Scottish, “Shaeit. It’s nae meltin’.”
“Do you need a hand heating it?” I asked.
“Aye, wark th’ bellows,” Shimal commanded.
“I have a better idea,” I countered and stood before the entrance of the furnace, opening the steel door the same size as me and five times my weight. I then cycled my Inferno chakra through my body to my hands and pushed it out. A torrent of fire shot out of my hands and filled the furnace with fire.
Shimal looked into the furnace and said, “Keep gonnae. It’s startin’ tae heat up an’ melt.” I nodded and kept pouring on the fire while she ran around behind me doing something. Then she came back and began working the bellows increasing the heat further. This continued for another hour before she finally stopped and checked on the ore. With an excited exclamation, she told me to stop and grabbed a pair of tongs. Reaching in, she pulled the smelting cup out and placed it on the anvil. I stepped back and watched as she picked up a cast made of sand and poured the ore into the cast.
The cast was a simple cylinder the size of my arm, and once she finished pouring, without spilling a drop, she set the cast aside to cool. While it cooled, she handed me a glass of water to drink. What a gracious host she is. The iron took an hour to cool, even in this weather, and once it did, she broke the mold with a hammer and used the tongs to put the ore back into the furnace before working the bellows again. Once the ore was white hot, she pulled it out, returning it to the anvil.
She grabbed the hammer to her right and banged it against the anvil, flipped it, and banged it again before raising it high over her head and bringing it down on the steel cylinder with a loud clang. As she hammered, she looked at the furnace and then at me. “Oi, wark th’ bellows,” she commanded.
I got up and did as I was told, pumping the bellows as she pounded on the ore. After a few minutes, she returned the ore to the furnace to reheat. After another half hour, she pulled the iron from the furnace and repeated hammering the iron. This process continued for several more hours. The sun had set, bathing the land in darkness, not that it wasn’t already dark from the blizzard. It was just darker now.
Shimal pulled the iron from the furnace for the twentieth time. It was finally starting to take shape into a long curved blade a meter and a half long, but this time instead of hammering it, she folded it in half using the horn of the anvil before hammering it again. Soon after, she put the folded piece of metal back into the furnace and let it reheat before folding it and hammering it again. The next time she pulled it out, she kept hammering the iron to make it thin again.
Repeating the process of hammering and heating for another several hours, she was right back to something resembling a blade, but this time it was a meter long instead of a meter and a half. Shimal looked pleased with her work and began heating it again before pulling it out and hammering out any dents or bends in the blade that would make it imperfect. Then she heated the blade until it glowed red, pulled it out, and set it to rest on a steel table behind her to cool.
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After an hour, she put the blade back into the furnace and repeated the process of heating and cooling two more times. After the third time, when the blade cooled, she took a sheet of sandpaper and began sanding the blade until it was smooth and clean. Once finished, she put the blade back into the furnace and picked up the metal jug of oil, pouring it into the bucket of water. The snow had melted in the bucket, so no ice was in it.
“Oi,” Shimal said, getting my attention, “Ye said we needed ice water an’ oil, reit?”
“Right,” I confirmed, still working the bellows. I was getting pretty tired of it by now.
“Hoo much ice?” Shimal asked, walking over to the deep snow on the other side of the wall.
“Um, let me do that part. You work the bellows,” I said, and Shimal came over to work the bellows. I went over to the quenching bucket and used my Ice-claymore chakra to make an ice sword the size of my arm. It wouldn’t work as a sword, but it should still cool the oil and water. I put the blade in the bucket of oil and water and smiled as the blade made a small layer of ice on the surface of the water and oil. “That should do it,” I said, and Shimal nodded, still working the bellows.
The blade soon became red hot again, and Shimal pulled it out with the tongs and brought it over to the bucket of oil and ice water. Dunking the hot blade into the bucket, the liquid boiled on contact, and a hissing sound pierced the air. Shimal let the blade rest in the bucket and closed the furnace smothering the flames within a few minutes. Once the blade cooled and hit room temperature, the coals within the furnace were glowing red but ceased to burn. She placed the blade within the glowing coals, only working the bellows enough to keep the coals hot.
After a few minutes, she pulled the blade back out and placed it on the anvil. Shimal stared at the blade in awe and wonder. I walked up beside her and stared at the blade, revealing its beauty. The blade was a meter long with a slight curve like a katana. Along the length of the blade were hundreds of black lines, and between each line was a rich, dark blue at the bottom of the blade, then faded into a dark red at the tip of the blade. The blade still needed to be polished, sharpened, and given a handle and sheath, but this blade was … it was beautiful, gorgeous, and had a stunning visage of perfection.
Shimal collapsed to her knees, tears running down her cheeks as she covered her mouth with both her hands. I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and whispered in her ear, “You did it.”
“Ah did it!” Shimal screamed as she burst into uncontrollable tears of joy. I wrapped my arms around her in a hug, and she leaned against me as she cried herself out. Years and years of hard work had finally yielded results, and years of stress had been washed away in a moment as relief and joy flooded her.
She cried for half an hour before wiping away her tears and saying, “Ah still hae some wark tae dae. Ah need tae finish it afair Ah properly celebrate. Thenk ye, Zeana. Ah can finish tak’ it frae haur.”
“Shimal,” I said, not taking my eyes off the blade, “I have no idea what you just said.”
Shimal laughed and shook her head before speaking without her accent, “I said I still have some work to do. I need to finish it properly before I celebrate. Thank you for your help Zeana, but I can finish it from here.”
I shrugged, “Okay if you say so. I’ll be heading to bed.” I then walked out of the forge and trudged down the road through the raging blizzard to our cabin, which I could only find because of the sheer number of rodent and bird corpses and the all too proud and bloody Yuki sitting among them. I shook my head and used the snow on the ground to clean the blood off Yuki before opening the door.
“I still don’t know how you could forget about the twins,” I heard Cami say once I opened the door.
“Cami. Right this very second, I am trying to forget that you exist so I can leave you behind,” came Haze’s reply. Then the wind and snow blew the door open wide, letting in all the cold air. “AH! Close the door!” Haze yelled.
I quickly did as I was told after letting Yuki in, and Xiao asked, “Where were you for so long? You’ve been gone for hours.”
“We thought you died!” Cami exclaimed, looking like she was on the verge of tears, then changed her expression to look more quizzical, “Why are you grey?”
“Who are you again?” Haze asked.
I sneered at Haze and said, “Haha, very funny. It is a long story, and I am going to sleep before I say anything.” Then I walked over to my bed and collapsed. Yuki hopped onto my bed and curled against me as I quickly fell asleep.
***