There was no discussion.
We just worked.
I stood by the furnace, my eyes narrowed against the blinding glare, monitoring the shifting colors of the metal. I became the brain.
Fergaer stood before the anvil, the muscles in his arms—as thick as a human's thighs—tensing like coiled springs. He became the machine.
"Now," I whispered the exact moment the metal hit a straw-orange hue—roughly 1,000 degrees Celsius.
Fergaer pulled the metal out with his tongs.
And the dance began.
CLANG—CLANG—CLANG.
The rhythm was entirely different. These weren't mere strikes.
There was a rebound. The hammer bounced, utilizing the kinetic momentum of every fall. Every hit was surgically precise, reshaping the metal without compromising its internal lattice.
I didn't need to shout.
I pointed to the carbon powder. He understood.
I made a hand signal: fold. He folded it.
I signaled: hold. He paused, letting the internal temperature equalize.
We reached the final stage. Quenching.
Oil, not water. That was my directive. Water cools too rapidly, causing this specific alloy to fracture. Oil is slower. Gentler.
Fergaer hesitated for a fraction of a second. Dwarven tradition always dictated the use of pristine mountain spring water.
I met his eyes. Nodded once. Trust the physics.
Fergaer plunged the glowing blade into the barrel of oil.
SHHHOOOOSSSHHH...
Thick white smoke billowed upward. The acrid yet deeply satisfying scent of burning oil filled the room.
Flames licked the surface of the barrel, illuminating both our soot-stained faces in the dark forge.
A Nameless Birth
Three metallic forms lay on the workbench.
Cooled.
They were not polished, gleaming silver. They were a dark, abyssal gray—almost black—bearing a faint wave pattern along the edge. The result of the clay-based differential tempering technique I had applied prior to the final heat.
No crystals. No magic. No runes.
Just the pure, unadulterated manipulation of atomic structures.
Fergaer picked up the katana.
The geometry was entirely alien to him. Single-edged, with a slight, deliberate curvature.
He flicked the flat of the blade with his thick thumbnail.
TING...
The sound was long. Pristine. It hummed in the air like a small bell before gradually fading into the quiet.
The auditory signature of a dense, uniform molecular lattice.
"Cold," Fergaer muttered. He wasn't talking about the temperature. "This thing is... hungry."
He looked at me, then back down at the blade. There was a profound respect, mingled with a sliver of innate dread, in his aged eyes.
"You've created something unnatural, boy. This metal has no crystal soul... but it has a will. A will to cut."
I picked up the combat knife—a simple, utilitarian tanto.
The weight was exactly right. The point of balance sat perfectly at the intersection of hilt and blade.
When I gripped it, it didn't attempt to siphon my energy. It simply became a direct extension of the bones in my arm.
"Thank you," I said.
Fergaer scoffed, turning his back to clean his hammer, hiding his quiet pride.
"Take that scrap and get out of here before I change my mind."
Departure
The gates of the dwarven village groaned open.
The outside wind brushed against my face. Cold. Dry. A sharp, welcoming contrast to the stifling humidity of the forge.
A black spear was securely strapped to my back. The katana rested on my left hip. The knife on my right.
The physical weight was comforting. It was a burden of my own choosing, not one forced upon me by some arbitrary fate.
Fergaer stood at the threshold of his workshop, far in the distance. He didn't wave. He simply stood there, watching, ensuring his masterwork had properly left the nest.
I didn't look back.
The finest farewell among men of labor isn't found in sweet words or lingering gestures. It is found in the sight of a retreating back, marching firmly toward the next job.
My boots pressed deep into the dirt. My thigh muscles contracted.
BOOM.
The ground beneath me fractured into a spiderweb of cracks.
I launched into the air, clearing the massive granite walls of the fortress in a single, parabolic leap.
Gravity felt lighter. Or perhaps, I had simply become stronger.
The forest sprawled out far below. Dark. Expansive.
Two years.
It had been exactly two years since I arrived in this world.
Roughly six months alone in the wilds. A year and five months in the elven village. And one month in the dwarven fortress.
Time was just a number.