The nights were never silent in Edge town; the dizzying sound of metal blades thrusting each other woke up any smith lazy enough to sleep. However, what woke up Leonard was much more attractive…
Leonard woke up hungry, the hungriest he had ever been. He attached his hammer onto his waist, speeding through the wooden stairs.
“What’s for breakfast mom,” he asked nonchalantly.
“You shmuck, have you have ever eaten something other than bread and beans?” Theresa spuked.
Leo let out a heartwarming laugh while gobbling through 4 pieces of humid bread and a can of beans.
“I don’t recall mum”
“By the way honey, have you taken a look at the paper today? There is a surprise waiting for you”.
Leo grabbed the paper sitting boringly on the table.
“FORGING SCHOOL OPEN FOR WARM BLOODED YOUNGSTERS - TEST DAY”
Leo’s eyes opened bigger than tuna cans, “ Mum why didn’t you wake me up right away!?, I could’ve started training sooner!”
Leo sprung up from his chair, almost hitting the old chandelier balancing on top of him.
“A future smith needs rest before the start of his career right? Besides, I want you to try this”
Theresa took out a dusty box from her compartment ring.
Leo trembled slightly. “Is that d-dad’s equipment?”
Theresa chuckled - “ Of course it is. You think if Grood was still here he would rather it sitting in a box all day?” Theresa said with a “mom’s knows best tone”.
“Besides, it was smelly enough when he was using it, now 15 years have passed Leo, if you don’t use it now I will have to burn it”.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Leo inspected the equipment. “Firefox gloves, whale pearl helmet, sting wasp honey coat, and a pair of trousers. Pretty neat dad” Leo whispered.
“Hm, Besides the trousers, nothing will easily burn mum”.
“Well try it on then if you are so eager on it”
“You know I will”
Leo was in many ways, similar to his mum. Mostly because of his woman-like long auburn hair, which cost him many laughs of his male counterparts, but her strong chin and warm smile were also mirrored on him”. They would mistake Leo for a clone if it wasn’t from his golden stary eyes, which were much different from his mother’s, which were brown and thin. They said to him that they were his father’s eyes. Although he would have preferred to have inherited his fathers big and muscular figure.
“That’s why all the items looked clownishly big on him,” Theresa thought, preoccupied with whether Leo would be disappointed or not.
Leo was silently inspecting with discerning eyes the fit, staring at the mirror intensely.
“...”
Theresa sighed. “Leo, if we sell them we could bu-”
Leo smiled. “ It looks perfect mum, dad must’ve been my size too when he was 15”
Theresa chuckled. “ On a bad day maybe…” she said, diverting her eyes somewhere in the shabby room. “Anyway, you have 5 hours until the test. Have you started refining your core and hammer yet?”
“No, but-”
“What are you doing then? Start training right now you schmuck”
Leo hurriedly grabbed his hammer and went outside. A soon as he opened the door he was forced to squeeze his eyelids”
“I sometimes forget how bright Edge town is” Leo frowned.
The small town was nowhere to be found on any map, as it was way on the border of the silver communion. On top of it all, it was very upon the mountains, the icy winds and constant snow made it very difficult for aspiring smiths to refine their weapons and cores due to the low temperature.
“The sun is up, and I am with a full belly. What a lovely morning to train”. Leo thought to himself.
He unsheathed his hammer, which was more of a “massive chunk of rock tugged on a piece of cloth”, than a hammer.
‘Mmm, Mom said that I had to clean the edges first…”
Leo then grabbed an even larger rock than his hammer and started pounding it on the hammer’s blunt edges. He continued until he was drenched in sweat and couldn’t even lift a pebble if he wanted to.
Even if he was exhausted, the result of his work wasn’t very promising. After 1 hour and a half of merciless rock clapping, only miserable little dents were made on the hammer.
“The outside is done, let’s go with the inside, mmm, how had mum put it? Yes, move the spirit around”.
Leo sat on the soft grass and concentrated. Normally you can move your spirit, your soul, without assistance, but with a core, you can manipulate it.
Eventually, Leo’s spirit listened to his command and moved a little faster, little by little the freezing wind he had accustomed to became more bearable, but that was it.
Leo’s spirit felt to him like a heavy boulder, that just can be moved with overwhelming force.
“Tsk, Just like my hammer”
Leo concentrated further and looked deep inside of him, he was feeling it move, he was pushing the boulder centimeter by centimeter when he heard a familiar voice.
“Leo, Leo!”