It was certainly not an easy task discerning the state of the iron by reading the strings of ki. He knew its general feel before the insertion but he didn't know how the ki string would look when it was ready. * One step at the time * Arun told himself as he tried to first notice in what way the string was changing. As the seconds went by Arun managed to pick up on the process. The iron's ki was being slowly mixed up with that of the flame. The two ki's however were not merging, rather they were in conflict with one another. The result was that the metal was destabilizing, making it more malleable. Good, that's out of the way, but now how to decide when enough time has passed? There should be a critical point where the metal will become too damaged to retain its properties. He should be able to pick up on when the ki from the iron started losing out, but by then, the sword would be weakened. On the other hand getting the metal out too early will not give him enough time to work on the metal before it became unmalleable again. The more he thought about it, the more one word came to mind. Experience. As with the naked eye option, that was the only way to know exactly when to take the iron out. Unfortunately, that was precisely what Arun lacked. So he opted to just approximate it. Find the moment when the clash reached his peak. Not now... not just yet... A rogue flick of flame emerged from the furnace. Now! He rushed forward and picked up the iron with the tongs. A bright yellow now engulfed the piece of iron. A bit too bright. He missed the sweet spot by a beat. Still, there was more work to do. " Good, now shape it! " Thomas passed Arun his trusty hammer. This, this step was what piqued the most interest in Arun before. As he observed Thomas modeling the iron before he could not help but compare it to a master directing the orchestra, making sure all the components mixed and settled nicely while creating the shape needed for the craft. In Arun's case the task was easier, as there were no ingredients to mix, it was just the iron. He raised the hammer in the air. It was heavy, but still manageable. Still, it would be a challenge to complete the sword before he ran out of breath. How he wished for some ki right about now. It didn't take longer than his first strike for his wish to be granted. As his hammer struck the blade part of its ki started swirling into the hammer and from there into himself. Arun nearly stopped the movement. Not only had the ki started going trough him but, when circulating it, he could feel it sticking to his damaged ki pool crystal. He knew that there might be a way to heal himself using blacksmithing but this almost seemed... too easy. Arun continued contemplating on it as the second and third blows struck. Each blow added ki which helped a minuscule amount to his condition. This was not normal though. He was pretty certain that Thomas had a different effect while modeling the metal. Sure, it didn't seem like he was implementing his own ki but it didn't look like he was absorbing any either. Talking about that, Arun was pretty sure absorbing natural ki from the environment was impossible, since many masters are said to have tried and failed before. The most that could be absorbed was in the shape of the pills, which would insert part of the energies directly into the ki pool, and breathing, which helped internal circulation to some extent. Although his mind was running in overdrive the motion of the hammer still continued, beating out stubborn imperfections until... they offered no more resistance. It wasn't just the imperfections that went away, but at a point Arun notices that the influx of ki slowed down, until, eventually, it stopped. The sword was taking a good shape, but on the last strike after the iron was wrung dry of ki however, it simply shattered into a thousand pieces. The sudden fail, which almost seemed like a small explosion, left a surprised Arun backing off with his hands bloodied by the shards. An instant after that, Thomas reacted. " #*#*, Are you okay kid? Let me see those. " He made his was towards Arun and took his hands into view. " Mostly light scratches but a few fragments sticked in. Go to Margery, now, I will handle everything here! " Arun was a bit shell shocked but he understood. What was it with the sudden interruptions thought? Did the world just love to throw him for a spin when he was in a state of enlightenment? Regardless, judging by the wrinkled expression on Thomas's face the situation and the fail were quite serious, so he hurried to find Margery. *** Thomas grimaced as he tried to take in the events. The boy failed the craft, undoubtedly and spectacularly, yet he was shamed to admit he had no idea how. He took the iron out at a respectable point, impressive for a first timer. Than he started hammering away. Now, he could not see anything majorly wrong with his form or execution, but he felt something. Like, his muscle memory telling him that what he was witnessing was very wrong. But then again he could not exactly tell why. Than there was the end result. Thomas has never seen a metal shattering like that, not even when he worked with the more sensible materials. Strengthened iron was quite forgiving and durable, this should have theoretically not happened. Plus, the shaping went well, until the end the very end that was. Taking a look at the epicenter of the mess he took a piece of debris in hand. It was nothing like iron. It was brittle, but also sharp around the edges, similar to glass. This... made precisely 0 sense. But what he saw next as he inspected the site truly struck his surprise home. The anvil, a high end piece protected by layers of ki, was damaged. Not anything substantial, just a couple scratches around the edges, but not even his best pieces would be able to go trough the ki reinforcements, not whiteout being wielded by a strong user at least. In all his experience as a blacksmith, he hasn't seen anything like this. But than again, this strange encounter with the unknown did awaken his desire for knowledge. After all, if he finds the answer of this accident, he might further his path.