After the conversation at the foot of the volcano concluded, things progressed far faster than expected.
Tōtōsai agreed to teach him the art of sword forging, but on one condition. He would learn it here. Inside the volcanic cavern. Using Tōtōsai's own furnace. Burning Tōtōsai's own fire.
"This old man is not setting foot outside this mountain." The short old yōkai shouldered his hammer, his stance resolute. "If you want to learn, you'll stay here. This old man won't go running around outside for anyone. I've been chased for centuries. I finally found a quiet place to settle, even if it's temporary, I'm not stepping out that door."
It was reasonable. Shinji didn't press him, nor did he refuse. After all, now that he had finally found Tōtōsai, he was determined to accomplish everything he needed to in one stroke. If he missed this chance, finding this old codger again would be anything but easy.
Even setting aside all the altered "original knowledge" he had known before transmigrating, just from the scene moments ago, he could tell this old man was one of the foremost yōkai smiths in all the Western Lands, perhaps in the entire realm.
Yōkai and humans alike sought him out, so he fled everywhere, hid everywhere. A rootless existence was his norm. He wouldn't stay in one place for long. Shinji could not miss this chance.
But before that, he needed to escort Imagawa Yoshimoto's procession back.
A provincial ruler spending three or four days in the wilderness was already the absolute limit. The administrative affairs of Suruga were piled mountain-high.
The province of Tōtōmi was now firmly in Imagawa Yoshimoto's grasp, and Mikawa was gradually falling into line. These three regions, nominally and practically under Imagawa control, were not vast by the standards of the whole realm, but they were hardly small.
Taigen Sessai could manage things in her stead, but the Black-Robed Chancellor's health, her allotted span was perhaps half a year, maybe less. Every extra day of labor was an overdraft on her life.
That very night, he escorted Yoshimoto's column to the main road in eastern Tōtōmi. From here back to the Imagawa capital, the entire route lay within Imagawa territory. There were waystations and garrisons all along the way. Forty ashigaru and six mounted samurai were more than sufficient to ensure safety.
At their parting, Yoshimoto sat within her palanquin. The curtain was lifted a corner, revealing half her face. The collar of her deep blue kosode kimono fluttered faintly in the night breeze, and the lantern light traced the pale curve of her throat.
"You're not coming?"
"Not yet. I'll stay a few days. Learn something."
"Learn what?"
"Blacksmithing."
Yoshimoto's expression froze for a single breath. Then her fan folded shut, covering half her face. "Is there anything you don't learn?"
"How to be human."
"..."
The curtain fell. The palanquin, surrounded by its cluster of ashigaru, proceeded down the main road and faded into the distance. The long serpent of torches gradually shrank until it vanished into the depths of the night. Motoyasu trotted beside the palanquin.
Before leaving, she glanced back one last time at the gray figure standing by the roadside seeing them off. She pushed the round spectacles up her nose and muttered something under her breath. It was too faint to hear. Probably nothing complimentary.
After sending Yoshimoto off, Shinji did one more thing. Through the force-field of osore, he contacted the tanuki spirit in Suruga. He instructed the tanuki, now risen to the Fourth Transformation, to carry a letter back to Kaede's Village and deliver it to Kikyō.
The contents of the letter were brief. I've found Tōtōsai. Need to stay a few days to learn swordsmithing. I'm leaving the rear in your hands. Also, I miss you.
The last words were added after a moment's hesitation. Honesty was an essential quality in a demon's life. The great tanuki dashed off with the letter clenched in its jaws, its tail a fluffed-up explosion of fur. The speed granted by the yōki accumulated through four transformations was, in the night, remarkably swift.
From Suruga to Kaede's Village, it would arrive within the night. The letter also carried a trace of Shinji's osore. Through it, they could later communicate directly, face-to-face.
His affairs thus arranged, Shinji returned to the volcano.
The days that followed, he spent them learning to forge.
Though, in truth, Shinji wasn't entirely certain he possessed any so-called talent for smithing. He also had another purpose in mind.
Tōtōsai's volcanic cavern was far larger than it appeared from the outside. Entering through the crater and following a lava tube downward for roughly three hundred paces led to a natural smithing workshop.
The surrounding rock walls, baked by centuries of unimaginable heat, glowed a deep, translucent red. Through the fissures in the floor, molten orange magma flowed in sluggish rivers. At the very center stood a forge built of stone.
The furnace chamber was enormous. The color of its flames was not the ordinary red of common fire, but an incandescent plasma-like blaze with a blue-white core.
This was yōkai-fire, sustained by Tōtōsai's own demonic power, a flame no natural environment could produce. This was Tōtōsai's core Essence Transformation, a Flame Transformation that surpassed the ordinary.
Besides the furnace, an array of forging tools lay arranged around it. And there was Tōtōsai's iron hammer. Its head was larger than Tōtōsai's own, pitch-black across its entire surface, coated in a bluish-gray patina left by countless cycles of quenching.
The handle was made of some unknown hardwood, wrapped in coarse hemp rope. The entire hammer exuded a steady, profound yōki. Not ostentatious. Not outwardly radiated. Like compacted earth, the accumulation of centuries of smithing had settled entirely into this single tool.
The System panel flickered into Shinji's vision.
[Iron Hammer Used by Tōtōsai] [Quality: Demon Artifact]
[Description: A forging hammer used by Tōtōsai for several hundred years. The hammer body has absorbed the will and forging dedication of its master through tens of thousands of swings, and has naturally formed the embryo of an artifact soul. It knows nothing of battle, only smithing. Every mark upon its face is the memory of a quenching.]
[Current Affection: 0 (Indifferent)]
[Note: It only responds to the act of forging. Mere infusion of yōki is meaningless to it.]
As expected. A demon artifact. And one that had naturally become a yōkai through the accumulation of time, unlike Muramasa, which had been forcibly catalyzed by the Affection System. This hammer's soul was purely natural. Like aged wine. Wine that had been brewing for centuries.
Yes. This, too, was Shinji's true objective.
Shinji studied the note on the panel, his mind already made up. This hammer didn't feed on yōki. It didn't feed on osore. It didn't feed on words.
It fed on only one thing: smithing. You had to actually strike iron for it to acknowledge you. Simple. Straightforward. Refreshingly so.
So he had to learn. But learning was merely the process. Using the hammer in the process of learning, letting it see that he was seriously forging, that was the goal.
Once Affection reached 30, the First Talent would unlock. If that talent was related to forging, then with this hammer in his hand, he could go from a complete novice to an expert carrying the accumulated experience of a centuries-old master smith.
He wouldn't need to truly learn. He would only need to complete its Affection. With the System in hand, the world was his.
"Tōtōsai."
"What?"
"Let me borrow this hammer of yours for a few days."
The short old yōkai lifted his wrinkled face, his bulging eyes staring at him. "You want to use this old man's hammer? Do you even know how? Don't come crying to me if you smash your own foot, fool… ahem, fine, borrow it if you want. Hold it steady, boy!"
The hammer was tossed over. Its head weighed over fifty kilogram, flipping twice through the air. Shinji caught it one-handed.
The instant his palm met the handle, that steady, profound yōki rippled faintly. A single pulse. Very brief. Like someone long asleep turning over in their slumber.
But in that single pulse, the System panel flickered.
[Tōtōsai's Hammer: Affection +1]
[Current Affection: 1 (Aware)]
From zero to one.
Shinji tightened his grip on the hammer handle and walked before the forge. He crouched down. Picked up a piece of scrap iron. And began to strike.
The seven days that followed passed in the blink of an eye. Within the volcanic cavern, there was no division between day and night, only the eternal, undying light of the furnace.
During those seven days, Shinji scarcely left the stone forge. What he did was simple: strike iron.
Tōtōsai's teaching was brutal.
"Your wrist on that hammer grip, don't lock it! Let it turn alive! You're forging iron, not chopping someone down—!"
"When you quench, watch the color! Cherry-blossom red means it's soft. Loquat yellow means it's brittle. Tangerine peel, that's the right color! Are you colorblind?!"
"Your folding rhythm is off! What are you hammering, mochi?!"
The short old yōkai crouched by the furnace, his bulging eyes round as saucers, his wrinkled face undulating with the cadence of his scolding.
Though his own hammer was in Shinji's hands, Tōtōsai clutched a smaller backup hammer and periodically rapped Shinji's knuckles to correct his posture.
Shinji didn't talk back. He was seriously learning. Though his goal was to raise the hammer's Affection, the learning itself held meaning too.
The fundamentals of smithing. An understanding of metal properties. The coordination of heat and force. Even if he later acquired a shortcut through talents, having a foundation of true skill would never go to waste.
And he didn't learn slowly, either. After all…
[A Piece of Iron of Outstanding Quality tells you it feels very good to strike here.]
[Tōtōsai's Iron Hammer tells you to hit harder. This force is completely insufficient!]
[The Makeshift Volcanic Furnace tells you this level of heat will melt the iron above. It's wanted to do that to that piece for ages!]
Myōga huddled in a crevice in the corner of the furnace platform, only his two tiny bean-like eyes peeking out as he watched from afar. "How rare… Lord Tōtōsai, actually teaching someone to forge. The first time in centuries."
"Shut up, Myōga! One more word and I'll toss you into the furnace!"
Myōga retreated.
The hammer's Affection climbed slowly over those seven days. From 1 to 5 took two days. From 5 to 10, another two. From 10 to 20 took a day and a half. Not fast. But it was accelerating.
Because this hammer's personality was different from other artifacts. It truly didn't feed on yōki at all. Didn't feed on words. Didn't feed on emotions. It fed on one thing alone: the act of smithing itself.
The more earnestly you struck, the happier it grew. The more skillfully you forged, the more excited it became.
Shinji's forging skill had progressed from smashing his own foot on the first day to, by the seventh day, being able to hammer a piece of scrap iron into the rough shape of a blade.
His improvement was astonishing. And his attitude was sincere enough. The hammer could feel it.
On the seventh day, the furnace fire lit the cavern bright as day. Shinji gripped the hammer and brought down one final blow upon the iron blank he had been repeatedly folding before him.
The force was neither too great nor too small. The angle was just right. The rhythm seamlessly matched the forty-plus strikes that had come before. The instant the hammer's face met the iron, a tremor traveled up his palm. Different from before. This tremor ran along the hammer handle, up his arm, flooded into his chest, and finally converged into his mind.
The System panel flickered.
[Tōtōsai's Hammer: Affection 30, First Talent Unlocked]
[First Talent: Hammer Sense]
[Effect: By swinging this iron hammer, you can perceive the internal structure of an object, as though gazing directly upon the sinews and bones of iron with the naked eye.]
As expected.
It was related to forging. And its effect was terrifying. Though it didn't directly provide experience itself, the greatest difficulty in the craft of smithing had never been strength or technique, it was the clarity, or lack thereof, of a material's internal structure.
Even with the ability to communicate with materials, this was not easily accomplished. Just as people found it hard to truly know themselves, materials, in truth, were no different. This was what they called the "feel of the hand", something those without talent could only acquire through decades, even centuries, of accumulation.
And now, Shinji had talent, too.
Shinji closed his eyes. He tightened his grip on the hammer once more and brought down another blow upon that iron blank. The instant the hammer fell,
"Huh?" A grunt escaped Tōtōsai, who was crouched nearby. His bulging eyes fixed on the spot where the hammer in Shinji's hand had landed.
"That strike…" The old man's wrinkles tightened. He could see it. This demon warrior, who had only been learning smithing for seven days, that single hammer blow had already surpassed the work of the vast majority of human smiths who had labored for decades.
"You brat…" Before he could finish, Shinji was already in motion. He knew the moment had ripened. Decisively, he pushed the iron blank aside and drew out those fragments from within his robes.
The remnants of max-Affection weapons. The broken tip of a nameless katana. The fragments of a rusted naginata. The remnants of a rusted offering blade from an abandoned shrine in Kaede's Village. Varied in size. Different in material. But each piece still carried the residual trace of a maxed Affection of 100.
He placed all the fragments into the furnace. The yōkai-fire devoured the metal. The iron hammer rose. Fell. This blow was guided by the feel of the hand brought by his newfound talent, and those fragments were cooperating as well.
They, too, yearned to be tempered. To be fused. Yearned to return to the battlefield. A faint light seeped from within the metal. Not yōki. Not reiryoku. It was heart. The heart Tōtōsai had spoken of. The perception and will that he had poured into each of these fragments, bit by bit, in those earliest days.
The iron hammer fell again. The fragments began to fuse within the furnace fire. Metals of different compositions merged and reorganized under the extreme heat.
The residual heart from their Affection became a unique binding agent, uniting iron, steel, and rusted remnants that should never have been compatible. Within Shinji's eyes, violet veins emerged. Thunder poured forth. Yōki surged from his bones, flowed along his arm, and poured into the hammer.
From the hammer's face, it was conducted into the molten metal. The hammer fell like rain. One blow. Two. Three. Ten blows. Thirty blows. Each strike carried different force, angle, and rhythm, all guided by the instinctive perception of the hammer's awakened heart.
The iron hammer in his hand began to hum. This hum was entirely different from before. Before, it had been a dull, passive vibration. Now it was an active, trembling excitement. Like a dog that had been starving for ages, finally catching the scent of meat.
The System panel flickered rapidly.
[Tōtōsai's Hammer: Affection +5]
[+8]
[+12]
The numbers climbed. Climbed at speed. Because the hammer felt it, a demon blade being born. Though its material was mediocre, the density of the heart it carried surpassed the vast majority of works it had ever laid its face upon.
Tōtōsai had said it himself: the finest vessels were never judged by their material, but by their heart. The hammer that had worked alongside him for centuries believed the same.
[Affection 50 — Second Talent Unlocked]
[Second Talent: Read Intent]
[Effect: While forging, the wielder can clearly sense the purity and completeness of an artifact's heart, and determine the progress and deficiencies of the coalescing blade-soul.]
The Affection did not stop. Because Shinji did not stop. The fragments within the furnace fire fused completely into a single metal blank, dark crimson throughout, radiating a faint glow.
He removed the blank from the furnace, placed it upon the anvil, and continued the folding and hammering. The hammer fell. Sparks scattered. Every blow compressed and forged the heart within, denser and denser.
Muramasa's sword-soul, roused by the vibrations of the folding, bled dark crimson light from the sheath at his waist, it was responding. It could feel the heart within those fragments being hammered into a new form. It was waiting. Waiting for that heart to merge into itself.
[Affection 80]
The iron hammer's trembling reached its peak. The entire cavern shuddered faintly. The veins of lava upon the rock walls quivered, seeping glowing orange light.
Tōtōsai stepped back two paces. His bulging eyes stretched to their very limit. He felt it. He didn't need an Affection System like Shinji's, didn't need a panel.
As a yōkai smith who had forged blades for centuries, he knew his own hammer more deeply than anyone. That hammer, was excited. An excitement it had never once shown before. More excited than when he had forged Tessaiga.
"This brat…" The old man's voice trembled. He saw it. Upon the metal blank formed by those fused fragments, an exceedingly faint pattern, nearly invisible to the naked eye, was emerging on its own.
That was the mark of a blade-soul coalescing. Normally, the soul of a demon blade required years, even decades, to take shape naturally. And yet this demon warrior before him—
"Is it about to be born?!" Myōga launched himself out from the crevice, his flat little body flipping twice through the air. "This quickly?!"
[Affection 100 — Third Talent Unlocked: Furnace and Flame Made Whole]
[All Talents Unlocked. Can now be fused into the self.]
The System panel made its final jump. But Shinji didn't rush to fuse. He was still hammering. Every mark upon the hammer's face was burning. The weight of centuries of smithing memory traveled from the handle into his palm. Now, it was willing to entrust everything it had to him.
"Lord Tōtōsai!" Myōga bounced onto the old man's shoulder, all six spindly legs shaking like sieves. "That hammer of yours, it's never been this worked up over you, has it?!"
Tōtōsai ignored the flea. He stared at the blank in Shinji's hands, his aged eyes reflecting the dark crimson light. The pattern emerging upon that blank, he recognized it.
It was the characteristic mark that appeared when a demon blade's soul was on the verge of being born. And the density and purity of the heart this demon blade carried....
"It's possible," the old man murmured. "In terms of potential, this demon blade about to be born… will not lose to any of those famed swords of old." Even including Tessaiga.