“A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.”

Anon

I stepped down into the boat tied up to the pier at the edge of my island. It might technically be my island but it was home to far more than simply me and trying to evict my Grandfather Arawn Silversword was an exercise in futility. Kaius my father was already in the boat waiting for us and we were soon joined by Aleera my older and sometimes wiser sister.

"Ready?" Kaius asked me before undoing their tether and pushing out onto the lake with a quick burst of speed from his oar strokes. He quickly shipped them before putting up the sail. "Time for some speed you two." He gestured at us and we knew what to do.

Aleera and I both stood up together before weaving our magic to send the wind driving into the sail. We had both learned enough to use either spellcraft or spellsong to do so. But our homegrown skills for the task still far outstripped our fledgling knowledge or rather the amount of time we had practised our new spellcraft and spellsong. Either way, it did not matter and our boat shot across the lake to the town waiting on the eastern shore, Wester Town.

It was only a minute or two later that the boat having sped across the surface of the lake arrived and docked.

"Ready?" Asked Aleera. The question once more aimed at me but from a different source.

"Yes, I'm ready," I answered.

After the experiment with unlocking their cousins’ magic, it had been decided that the cost of secrecy was not worth hiding my growth from the town anymore. We would not be showing it off on purpose but I would not be hiding anymore and the skills our extended family could offer to teach us were more than worth the risk. We had visited their places of work before but this time it was to learn and hopefully pick up a skill or two in the process. The phrase ‘Jack of all trades is a master of none.’ came to mind but what a lot of people never realized was that was only half the saying and the true ending completely changed its meaning, ‘but oftentimes better than a master of one.’ I doubted I would become a Jack of All anytime soon but we hoped to pick up a few new skills from our cousins.

We set off together through the town heading for our oldest uncle, the blacksmith.

. . .

As we stepped through the door into the smith and we were hit with a wall of heat. Our three cousins Fahroni, Fabrianna and Fabrienne looked up in surprise at the sound of the door closing behind him and his sister. After the initial shock, they sprung to welcome us to their place of work.

"Welcome, my lord." Fabrianna flattered. "I cannot express how grateful I am to you for unlocking my magic stat." it is a little awkward to have her so effusively grateful.

"Kai." Fahroni nodded quietly before being interrupted by the youngest sibling.

"When are you going to unlock my magic?" Fabrienne demanded.

"When we can," Aleera answered.

We were still in disagreement as to who and when we could do that. But I was working hard on my magic practice and skills in the hopes of helping my magic stat continue to grow.

"We need to work on our magic to raise our stats before we can do so again." I explained in a little more detail. I offered the explanation in the hopes of calming the smallest member of the Silverkin family as well as stopping my sister from promising something she shouldn’t. Fabrienne still towered over me despite the liberal use of the Elvish growth elixir. But I was catching up!

“We were hoping to have a go at smithing,” Aleera said.

“We would be delighted to show you.” Fabrianna answered, “Wouldn’t we, brother.”

“Well we could take you through the basics, we don’t have anything we have to complete urgently.” He thought it through.

“Can you unlock my magic now?” Fabrienne asked again.

“It will take a little longer than that,” I answered.

“Yes but how long?” she asked.

“When we know you’ll be the first to know.” I commiserated.

“Right, well let’s get started.” Fahroni gestured for them to head over to the forge. “You both have some form of Hammer Skill correct.” He asked.

“Yes,” Aleera answered for the both of them. “We have War Hammer.”

“A little martial but it should translate to what we are hoping to do today.” He outlined our task.

“First step assemble your tools. This here is all you will need to start, hammer, anvil and tongs. These were my first set of tools from when I was five and my father got me started. They should be small enough for you.” He handed them over carefully to me hesitantly. It was obvious that they still held sentimental value to him even if they were now too small for his large hands.

“Second step is to is to build and bank your fire.” Fabrienne stepped in eager to explain. We have one main forge in the centre which we work from but Father insisted we get used to practising our own so we have two practice forges in the corner over here.” She showed us to the far corners of the room where they had set up some smaller forges than the main forge in the centre of the room. “Can you light it with magic? How do you do that?”

Aleera answered before I could, “Photia,” she spoke and gestured a small fire flung from her hand to land in the kindling before swiftly catching.

“Will I be able to do that?” Fabrianna asked excitedly.

“Yes if you practice hard, but at the moment you might not have enough mana or control to do so yet,” Aleera answered.

Not to be outdone by my sister I used my skill Ignite and poured enough mana into it to make the mini forge burst completely into flame. Skipping back after my demonstration from the explosion in heat. The whole place was very hot despite the windows and doors being wide open.

“Wow!” gasped Fabrienne equally excited. “Then I’ll be able to do that too?”

“Yes, in time.” I doubted there would be any patience demonstrated anytime soon.

“Right,” coughed Farhoni drawing our attention back to him. “Step one assemble your tools. Step two build your forge up. Step 3 dress appropriately!” he pointed out the difference between us and his family. “You’re not wearing anything appropriate at all.”

His family were all wearing leather aprons, trousers and long-sleeved tops. We on the other hand were not. He then reached into his apron to pull out a pair of heavy leather gloves.

“Come on we have an old spare set or two in the house, girls watch the fires we will be back once we are properly kitted out.” He led us out of the smithy towards their home next door.

“Never leave a fire unattended.” He said as we walked across. Before he gave us a word of warning, “Be careful adding any magic to what you are doing until you know what you are doing. Smithing is a dangerous job, fire burns as does metal once you’ve heated it. It is easy to hurt yourself so let’s keep it simple for now, Aleera and Kai.”

“Yes, cousin.” We answered suitably chastened.

“It’s exciting too but just keep a calm head on your shoulders.” He nodded opening the door to their home.

“Welcome, welcome.” Uncle Aaron boomed as we entered. “My favourite nephew and niece are here.”

“You say that to every cousin, Dad.” Fahroni critiqued his father.

“Yes, but I don’t mean it for them.” He laughed back. Before beginning again in all seriousness, “Truly thank you for what you have done for Fabrianna. Farhoni was always going to inherit my forge,” he held a hand up to stop his son from interrupting, “that is if he did not go and build his own. But what you have given Fabrianna has given her options I never could. Thank you again. What can we do for you two today?”

“They wanted to have a go at blacksmithing. I thought I’d take them through the basics of heating, holding, hitting and shaping.” He explained why we had visited. “But first we need to get them some suitable clothing.”

“Fahroni will be able to take you through your basic beginner exercises. If you get the skill or develop any talent for it I will be happy to take you further.” He praised his son. “But you do need to get dressed properly first.”

We followed Fahroni into what was clearly his room where he proceeded to pull out old clothes from an even older chest. “These should fit you Aleera and these should fit you, Kai. My very first set of leathers.”

We put on the clothes over top of our clothes. Mine were ridiculously big but with a little bit of rolling fit well enough in the end.

As we walked back through the main room Uncle Aaron laughed to see us walking through in the oversized clothing. Aleera’s did not look too bad but I was waddling a little. But at least I was fully protected from the fire, sparks and metal.

“Good luck,” he raised a glass, “and drink plenty of water.” was his last comment as we headed over to the smithy once more.

“Have a mug.” Fahroni put actions to words filling a mug from a barrel outside the workshop and drinking it before passing it to Aleera and then me. “Smithing is thirsty work.”

We re-entered the smithy to find Fabrianna and Fabrienne had laid out the tools for us to use next to the two mini forges we would be using. Along with a pair of leather gloves each that we worked our fingers into.

“These are where we learned to work.” Fabrienne boasted.

“And still work for the most part.” Fahroni poured a little water over her boasting. Before turning to his two new students.

“Let’s reorder those steps a little. Step one get your leathers on. Step two assemble your tools. Step three build your forge, now normally it would take a little longer to build up your fires to be hot enough but if you are careful you can use your magic for this and only this stage. You want the coals to be burning well before you put the metal in.”

Having received permission from our cousin we applied mana to our forges till they were burning bright, a hot dry heat pushing against our skin.

“Good enough, cousins.” He stopped us from burning through all the coal too soon. “Now that the fire is going well you need to start the first stage of blacksmithing, heating.” He handed us a rod of metal each.

“Place them in the centre of the fire and watch them. You will have to wait until it is hot enough to hammer. It will begin to glow a warm orange and then you know it is ready to hammer.” He explained the next step in the process.

It was at this point that I wondered do I need to use a forge. Could I not just pour mana into the metal until it was hot enough to be shaped? Tempted as I was to try it. We had promised our cousin to follow his directions and there was a joy in watching the metal heat in the roaring fire. Maybe an experiment to try out later. Smithing without all the fire and coal would certainly be a lot cleaner although maybe not as magical to me.

“The next step is holding with your tongs and hitting. We are going to work on a basic beginner exercise of turning your rod into a bar. Nothing more nothing less. You need to carefully grasp the hot rod with your tongs and move it out of the forge onto the anvil before hitting it with your hammer. Remember it isn’t about how hard you can hit it but how accurately always keep in mind what you are trying to make. In this case a block. Have at.” He signalled that our rods were hot enough now that they were glowing orange and we pulled them from the forge to begin hammering.

Wrapped up as I was and still a lot smaller than everyone else it was awkward to pull the rod out of the forge but this one was half the height of Aleera’s and had been made with the intention of Uncle Aaron’s children getting a head start in forming their skills once their status unlocked at the age of five so I could do so.

I carefully pulled the rod out of the forge and placed it on the anvil before using my child-sized hammer to start striking it.

“Careful Aleera, take your time. It is not a race.” I heard Fabrianna cautioning her while Fahroni watched over me.

“That’s enough, put it back to heat up again.” He pointed out the cooling rod. It felt like I had only got a few strikes in.

“Heat, hold, hammer and shape.” He repeated.

We continued to heat, hold, hammer and shape, as the rod gradually took the shape of a rectangular bar in front of me. My stats enabled me to achieve more than my years would suggest.

“Heat, hold, hammer and shape,” I repeated Fahroni’s mantra. The sweat dripped off my brow and ran down my back as I used the tongs to move the former rod, back and forth from the forge. Until, finally, slowly cooling on my anvil, sat a suitably shaped bar of metal.

Ding! Blacksmithing (Lv1)

I gave a silent dance for joy in my mind but didn’t let anything show outwardly. My family was fully aware of how quickly I picked up skills my cousins, not so much.

“Now you can quench your work. Use the tongs to place them in the quenching bucket. Don’t drop them otherwise we’ll put you in to fish them out.” He laughed. “And if you don’t think I’m serious ask Fabrienne.”

“It happened the one time.” She confirmed the tale crossly with her defence.

After we had quenched our bars we put them side by side and compared them. Neither of them were perfect but they were good enough for the system to award me the skill. I would wait till later to find out if Aleera had managed to get one too.

“What do you need the bars for?” I asked. It was not immediately obvious what they could be used for.

“Nothing,” he replied deadpan before he added, “Now you can turn them back into rods again. But have a drink of water first.”

Rather than groaning we shrugged and started up again. Already used to far more unusual training methods that Lady Acacia or Grandfather had us complete. Though turning our bars of metal into rods once more proved far harder than the initial task. It was significantly more challenging to round the surface equally and draw it out again from the solid cuboid we had both created. Hard enough that the system rewarded me for my efforts with . . .

Ding! Blacksmithing (Lv2)

“That will be all for today.” Fahroni stopped us from attempting more today. “Stats are wonderful and you both lasted wonderfully but you will have used your muscles in different ways than you usually do and the rebound off the anvil adds to that. Come back in a day or two if you would like another lesson.”

“Thank you Fahroni, Fabrianna and Fabrienne.” We thanked our cousins as we handed back their tools and stepped away from their practice forges.

They helped us out of our leathers and after another mug or two of water, we left a little sodden in our sweat-drenched clothing that quickly started to dry in the sun.

“Thank you again, and come again soon,” Fabrianna called from the doorway

“I’m waiting,” Fabrienne shouted after us to remind us of her request while Fahronie just raised a hand and nodded goodbye.

We waved goodbye and headed back to the family pier.

“Did you get the skill?” Aleera asked.

I nodded in confirmation.

“Little monster.” She jokingly complained.

“Not so little anymore.” I stood up tall.

“You’ll always be my little brother Kai.” She said ruffling my hair before sprinting off but I was only a step behind her.

Ding! Running (Lv52)

Dashing through the streets I drew level with her.

Ding! Sprint (Lv3)

I made it to the boat a step ahead of her. Had my vessel finally grown enough to keep up with hers? I raised my hands turning in triumph only to be pushed from behind by my sister into the water. No matter how big my head grew I could always count on her to cut me back down to size. I sat up in the water looked left and right saw that we were alone and shouted, “Nerano!”

Sitting in a body of water the spell had no difficulty materializing and I had the pleasure of watching my sister’s eyes widen in shock as a torrent of water blasted my sister off her feet in return.