There was another bar of metal in the forge right now, the flames eating away at it while Stanis stood a metre away rubbing his hands.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't excited. When he had last been here, all he had really done was heat up the metal and hammer it, which was the forging process, as well as heating it up and quenching it in the water, which was the hardening process and tempering when done repeatedly.

But even with that, just by supporting his skills with mana, he had managed to make better swords than Rikkey then. Clearly her blacksmithing skills had come a mile since then. But his mana manipulation and mana pool had come more than a mile, meaning if they added his skills with her knowledge of the craft, well, the possibilities were endless, weren't they?

The simple process Rikkey had shown him was a six-step process. The first step was forging, where you heat the metal in a forge before drawing it out by hammering it. This was used to draw out the desired shape, and the metal had to be repeatedly heated in order to get the entire shape right.

Stanis's metal was now done and he picked it out with his gloved hand. He had put on the protective equipment like everyone else here. Forging was quite easy to improve with mana since all he had to do was apply mana onto the hammer. And that was exactly what he did as sparks brighter and hungrier than Rikkey's blew off, each strike bringing a whole another cohort of sparks. Due to his increased strength, he could hammer each section into shape in about 10 strikes, much less than Rikkey had done.

Stanis's arm was buzzing as Calu, who was watching him alongside all 5 of the others, took the piece of metal and put it back into the forge.

It was about 10 minutes later, after each section had been heated and hammered, that the shape was well done all the way around.

The next step was annealing where you would heat the sword and allow it to cool. This was to make the sword softer and easier to grind in the next stage, and would take around a whole day of waiting to finish. Stanis didn't have that time and didn't need that time as he put his raw hand onto the red-hot steel.

There was no sizzling sound or burnt flesh smell as he had applied mana all over it. When Rikkey had shown him how to make a sword properly, she had largely skipped over the annealing due to being stuck for time. He, however, was going to skip over it because he had thought of another way to soften the metal.

He sent a good bit of mana inside the blade-shaped metal and began to massage it, each of the molecules stretching and softening with each push.

He had started with an idea of ten minutes in mind but soon realised being thorough would take much longer and instead spent thirty minutes on this step, thoroughly softening the blade.

Giang went and turned on the grinder as Stanis walked over to the spinning metal. He had thought up some ideas how to improve this step and went about it straight away.

"Don't look at it directly" cautioned Stanis just before applying the blade against the grinder. He concentrated and formed a small cone-shaped cloth out of mana. The smaller end of the cone went onto the part of the grinder he was about to use. The blade then went inside the cone, both ends of the cone open. The cloth was semi-visible now but it was going to become brighter than day as he finally pushed the blade against the grinder.

*SKRKTKR*

Countless sparks blasted out, suddenly finding themselves restricted by the cone. Stanis wasn't standing directly behind the blade and it was a good job he wasn't as the ground below the cone burned with lava-like intensity, the destination for all the sparks.

If Rikkey grinding her blade had grated his ears, he doing it himself was like capping a bullet in his own. However, he didn't mind and instead focused on keeping control of the blade and cloth.

This process took about 15 minutes but it was well worth it as Stanis came out with a blade with edges shining brighter than even the sparks. The next step after grinding was hardening, where the sword was cooked with intense heat before being quenched.

Stanis didn't have any abilities to do with fire or much clue about air-flow circulation so that part was quite out of his control. But not the quenching. Calu once again took the blade and put it back into the forge, only this time the fuel was upped massively. The flames were roaring loud and yet all eyes were still on Stanis, who stood over the quenching tub. Out of his arm formed an ice crystal, and another one, and another one. He formed a layer of mana over the crystals so that they wouldn't freeze the water and poured the water on top. Even then, the water partially-solidified into a slushie-consistency.

The sword was red-hot when it came out, Stanis taking it by one hand before casting it into the freezing cold water.

*SHHKARRRRRH*

The open Smithy instantly filled with steam to the point of unbearable heat, with only more coming out as the water continued to evaporate while simultaneously cooling down the blade.

It was at this time that Jayesh walked in, silently standing by the corner as he waited for Stanis to finish. Stanis noted him but also largely ignored him as he went back to his work.

The last step was tempering, which was essentially hardening but heated at a lower temperature and also repeated a few times based on the metal. Rikkey suggested three times and Stanis followed, the blade iron-hard by the end.

It had quite a dull look to it but the edges gave away its strength, shining beyond bright in the light. Stanis asked Rikkey to hold up her previously made blade, before cutting into it. His blade went through hers like butter with no resistance whatsoever.

Not hiding the smile, he then asked for Rikkey's best sword, which he had already broken, but not with his sword yet. She picked it up and he cut through that as well, this time the noise of a screeching blackboard as it faced quite a bit of resistance. But not enough to stop it as it slid through after 3 seconds.

What followed was cheering so wild that Ruun peeked over the gate to make sure they hadn't gone mad. The night-sky was out and thus it was the perfect time for them to part ways for sleep as the five blacksmiths and Kevin excitedly thought of what tomorrow would bring off now that Stanis was here.

Stanis himself swung his sword a few more times before finally acknowledging Jayesh, who stood grimly by the entrance. Jayesh stood silently before speaking a few seconds later, "You up for drinks?"

"Sure" said Stanis, now following Jayesh as he led the way. The went to the storage hall not open to the public and grabbed a few drinks, before walking all the way back out of the village and towards the stream.

It was then that Jayesh broke the suffocating silence for a second time.

"I was surprised when I saw you leading the Jaguars".

He got no response.

"I thought you had died".

He got no response once again.

"We left you for the dead".

"I know" replied Stanis, breaking his personal silence.

"But you lived."

"No help from you though."

The dam finally broke.

"I'm sorry. That's all I can say now, isn't it? We thought you were dead then and there, you had been knocked out by a massive bolt. Two enemies appeared, one as strong as the one you had just killed then and another who looked worse."

Jayesh felt a need to explain himself further:

"We fought him later, you know? The Zelts decided to commit a large-scale attack, all of them in it. We were losing and it was the more dangerous-looking of the two leading the Zelts. But then you destroyed the teleporter and they just crumbled, losing most of their fighting spirit within a single second.

If we had stayed there, to fight against those two, I know all of us would have died there."

"I guess you would have" replied Stanis, his expression blank while gulping another bottle down.

Jayesh sighed before carrying on.

"That's really it. I don't know what you went through to get this strong, but I doubt the Zelts treated you well---"

"Yeah, they didn't" cut in Stanis, his speech slightly slurring.

"--but now it's all done with. I just wanted to make sure that you understood that we had thought you dead straight away. We thought we had left a dead body behind, not an alive one."

"That's fine" responded Stanis while standing up, giving the aging Indian man a bear-hug before half-stumbling, half-walking away. His mind was ready to forgive, he knew what Jayesh had said here was the genuine truth. But the crux of the matter was that no matter how forgiving his mind was, his body couldn't forget, and thus his body wouldn't forgive either.

His palm was white under the moonlight as he had clenched his fist so hard that his nails had dug into his skin when he had been listening to Jayesh. Perhaps he had already forgiven Jayesh for what he and the others had done, but Stanis doubted they could ever go back to what they had before.

It was as he reached the village that he realised that he didn't know where Sil was staying. He cleared the alcohol out of his system in about a minute and then began thinking.

It was fine, he was too tired to fuck today anyway. In all truth, there was no real romance between him and Sil, just a base lust between the two that both of them embraced. He liked her and she liked him and that was enough for him. Both he and she knew that they would have to part ways one day but the temporary comfort they found in each other's arms was fine for the time being.