"How did you get such a good metal, Aadit?" Alex was curious.

Aadityapal smiled and replied, "I have a lot of friends in the blacksmithing field, and they all have small quantities of Divine Iron in their repositories, I simply purchased it."

"These...seem too expensive, I'll refund you." Alex wasn't mistaken about the value of the metal.

Aadityapal waved his hand and sternly stated, "Master, nothing is more important to me than getting the throne, if you can help me attain that, a few scraps of metal aren't anything."

"I promise I will, Aadit," Alex slowly nodded.

He then said, "Good night, meet me at the courtyard at the same time as today."

"I'll look forward to it."

After that, Alex enthusiastically went back to his guest room and found Hermes smiling while reading a letter.

"Alexei-boy! Marzia sent me a letter, and she's currently in Olympus, with Crista!" Hermes exclaimed.

Marzia was Hermes' lover.

'Oh, Crista did tell me she was also back in Olympus, I can't wait to see her...'

Hermes read the letter repeatedly, and even his eyes formed a smiling arc. He then started writing on a blank piece of paper, and he crumpled the paper every time and started writing again.

Alex didn't interrupt his lovey-dovey moment, and instead, he laid down on the bed and began reading through some of the ancient forging books Aadityapal had given him.

After skimming through the entire collection, he slightly frowned.

'Beyond the folding technique, there's not much innovation in these documents.' Alex was a bit sad that he didn't gain any further insights, but on the flip said, he earned a sizeable chunk of Divine Iron, and he already had ideas in his mind for a weapon.

Suddenly, a bookmark fell from one of the ancient documents.

It was tattered and old, and the language the text was written in was extremely archaic, but because deities had universal linguistic understanding, Alex immediately grasped the contents.

It was a simple line.

"Tvastar, the glory of all the tool-builders of Sindh, attained the epitome of forging when he incorporated the reverence of his followers into his creations."

'Interesting.' Alex fell into thought.

'What could the author mean by 'reverence'?' Even though gods had incredible linguistic abilities, that didn't necessarily extend to understanding context and translation.

Alex only had one idea in mind, and it was that the author spoke of 'Faith Energy', which fit the description of 'reverence of his followers'.

'Incorporating Faith Energy during the forging process? How would that even affect the end result?' Alex grew perplexed. Hephaestus did use Faith Energy, but only after the end of the process, and as a way to bless the creations.

However, using Faith Energy during the forging process was practically unheard of.

'Gaah, It doesn't help that there are so few forging gods...' Alex sighed.

Whatever that meant, Alex was determined to test out all of his hypotheses tomorrow.

With that, he went to sleep, while Hermes was still struggling to write a letter to his beloved.

___________________________________

*Chirp*

Fortunately, he wasn't woken up by the sound of stomping this time, but by the harmonious melody of birds and the bright sunshine of the eastern hemisphere.

Alex took care of his hygienic needs and dressed up.

The palace was quite empty at this time, but Ashoka woke up quite early, so he should probably be at one of the courtyards.

Alex navigated through the palace and, in fact, he found the ex-emperor meditating under the heart-shaped leaves of a Bodhi tree.

The latter instantly detected his presence and opened his eyes.

The air was fresh and the humidity was still high enough that the grass of the courtyard was wet.

Ashoka was wearing loose clothing, and he somehow seemed younger today than he did yesterday.

"Good morning, Alex." He calmly greeted the 'intruder'.

"Good morning to you, Ashoka, you look great today," Alex commented on the ex-emperor's relaxed demeanor.

"Being liberated from the duties of a ruler does remove a toll..." Ashoka chuckled.

Alex rubbed his head and his curiosity overwhelmed him.

"Does meditating even do anything at all?"

Ashoka immediately responded, "Probably not, at least for most people, in the past, I actually used meditation as an excuse to escape from official duties, but today, it felt particularly great."

Alex nodded in understanding and sat down in a lotus position, trying to meditate.

5 minutes later...

"I don't think this is doing anything for me," Alex just felt sleepy and he yawned.

Ashoka simply giggled in response.

"Do you have a forging room in the estate that I could use?" Alex had passionate and bright eyes, awaiting an affirmative reply.

Ashoka grimaced and replied, "It's in the underground floor, but it's unused, do you want me to ask some servants to clean it up? I think there are even some metals that you could use there."

"No, it will be alright."

After that, they discussed for a bit, and it turned out Ashoka was going to retreat to a temple in Nepal after the end of the competition.

It also turned out that Padmapani invited him to the very same temple, so Alex proposed to Ashoka if he wished to come with them on the fast chariot.

The latter gratefully accepted.

Then, they had a filling breakfast and parted ways, as Ashoka was going to meditate again.

Alex inconspicuously climbed down into the underground floors of the palace.

This place was dim and only a single corridor with many doors greeted him. Fortunately, lighting wasn't an issue for Alex, and he simply searched through each door before finding a large forging facility.

"This even has a proper furnace...!" Alex exclaimed.

With a furnace like this, he should be able to reach the requisite temperatures for folding metal.

Alex ignited a coal fire and blew air into the fire with a large fan.

The flames blazed and rose in temperature.

Then, he took a piece of scrap weapon alloy he found lying around and started experimenting on his newfound techniques before he would attempt using the Divine Iron.

The alloy swiftly melted and even started smoking under the heat, so Alex took it out carefully and started handling it.

He was making a sword, and the blade was the part where he would fold the metal.

Alex followed the method from the book he read in the library and it was successful.

The blade was thin in shape and a magma-like red from the heat.

Alex then infused his Faith Energy into the blade.

*Kssss*

Alex was astonished.

The sound of glass breaking reverberated throughout the forging room, and when he looked to the blade, a strange event took place.

Like an emulsion of oil and water separating, the alloy separated into its constituent metals and there was no way it could be used to make a weapon anymore.

'This is a failure...'