Year 2, Winter, First Month, Second Week.

The fuzzy image slowly took form as the enticing smell of fresh-baked bread brought Karl out of his morning daze. He stood up and stretched himself before exiting the tent, he would like to say that the preferential treatment bothered him, but having a private tent did wonders for his sleep and consequently, for his efficiency through the day. He followed the mouthwatering smell to the communitarian cooking fire and happily received his breakfast portion.

Waking up a little later had its perks as he didn’t have to face the long line to get the food. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sit and enjoy it quietly, he had been spotted by the disciple trio who moved towards him with visible anxiousness, his long list of tasks seem to grow longer by the days. Karl savored the breakfast together with his last moments of quietness, the bittersweet taste of the wild berries mixed on the porridge was his new favorite. The foraging group organized by his father already started to yield results, every day a new flavor would appear in their meals, but how the Farming Department checked if the plants were edible was a mystery to him.

“Master! Master woke up even later than yesterday… We have so many things to do… Arnold is waiting for us, let’s go. I already picked the crystals with Chairwoman Reiner… I got some ideas for the construction tool, does Master wants to hear it? Wein is late on his tasks again… Can we start learning Runes now?”

Karl felt a headache spiking, the girl was too energetic. Didn’t she get tired? Of course he woke up late, yesterday when they finished work most people had already gone to sleep, how could she wake up early and still be like this? He could finally understand why Wein felt like he was lagging behind her. Thank the Origin he had Master AI or she would soon take his place as the teacher.

“Anya, slow down. One question at time… Arnold isn’t gonna leave before winter, we don’t need to run… We can talk about your ideas later and Wein can take his time, he earned enough credit by creating the magic re-drawer… Let’s leave the Runes for next month…”

She tried to protest but he had already decided on it. For now, they helped more focusing on their tasks. After the Council meeting, Karl decided to divide his most pressing tasks among his direct disciples according to their personality. Anya was more pragmatic, so she would take the constructing tool's task. Wein, on the other hand, was a lazy-driven creator, so he should take the job of improving their drawing techniques. Finally, the new direct disciple, Oliver, was more likely to come up with crazy and bold ideas, so he would be assigned to the special scouting team’s tools. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to create and design the tools by themselves, so they only had to focus on the subject, ultimately, Karl would be the one the either polish their ideas or dismiss them completely.

Karl stopped and held back the talkative disciple as two men carrying heavy wood planks passed them, he let out a helpless sigh. He dreamt of the day they would have enough magic tools to use in all tasks, a well-positioned Lightness Rune would make the men’s work much easier. A soft smiled appeared on Karl’s face as he imagined what Diana would say about it: “Let them carry some weight, they need the training”, but how could he accept that? If they had to train, they should just put more planks until it was heavy enough even with the lightening effect. Their energy was a resource to be used efficiently.

“Hey, Karl! Thanks for the magic carving, it makes working on this magic-infused wood as easy as common wood…”

Karl smiled and explained that creating the tool wasn’t that difficult. Alfeur nodded and proceed to supervise the crafters’ work. Talking with him was much easier than talking with Katlyn, the man was easygoing and dismissed the whole Chairman addressing. Unfortunately, the encounter brought memories of Old Bill and dampened Karl’s mood. After grandma Marlen, the man had been his favorite elder, he loved discussing Alchemy when Karl had time and even gave him some good ideas.

The sounds of metal clashing pulled Karl out of his sorrow, without him noticing they had walked half of the way and were now passing by the training grounds. He looked through the different training groups trying to locate his friends. Karl missed them, they had become so busy that rarely had time to get together and talk like old times. Among the hunters, one group was particularly odd, standing still with closed eyes.  But as soon as he spotted Lew, he understood the Fighter was teaching them how to feel their spiritual energy, which probably was the first step of the Martial path, much like for Alchemy. Maybe understanding spiritual energy was basic for all the techniques that used magic energy.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to search for long before sighting Toni waving at him vigorously. He waved back while trying to identify who was the defender acting especially intimate with his friend.

The encounter improved Karl’s humor, but soon Toni had to go back to his training, it looked important, the defenders seemed to be training a new group approach where they blocked from three different positions to lock the enemy between their shields, probably something to deal with stronger beasts.

Karl continued to survey the hunters until he saw Tael, extremely concentrated in shooting moving targets. He laughed at their creativity. To simulate the movement, they used wooden plates that slid through a suspended rope, some plates moved slower and others faster. The two hunters holding each end of the rope probably controlled the target’s speed. After a few seconds of embarrassing waving, he decided to give up on getting Tael’s attention and returned to search among the hunters.

And soon, he located the last of his targets, Diana. The girl, or should he call her woman?, seemed to be training attack and block stances with a group of sword users, which now also had fire enhancements in their swords. It was unfortunate that they couldn’t find any fire beasts and had to commission the crystals. For now, it worked, but what would they do when the crystals stopped working next year? Diana seemed to be even faster than Karl remembered, the gap between her attacks shouldn’t last much longer than a second. The red glow around the dancing sword made Karl gulp, he could only pray to never be in the receiving end of those attacks. Was it just his impression or her hair was a little more.. red?

Unknowingly, Karl had stopped walking, but Anya wouldn’t allow this delay. She pushed him forward while grumbling some complaints that made his face heat up.

“Why try to flirt with someone from this distance? It isn’t like she could see it… At this pace, Arnold will die from old age!”

Karl dismissed her unfair comments and finally put some effort into getting there quickly.

***

“Thank the Origin! Chairman Karl, I thought you had forgotten me…”

“I wouldn’t… I just took a little more time to adjust the barrier than I planned to, but now we can finally work together…”

“I’m relieved, Chairman finally has time… How should we go about it? I’ve been looking around, everything you create is very practical and needed… ”

“You’re right, most of the magic tools were created out of necessity rather than by our creativity… And that’s how we should proceed with blacksmithing too… It’s difficult to grasp the reach of what we could do, but we could start with your highest challenge or something that takes most of your time. It has to be something simple, though…”

Arnold was a little confused, maybe the process was a little more abstract than he expected. Anyway, he should just explain how he usually did things, or better, he could show it. He quickly became excited again, but then he remembered where he was, his forge wasn’t here.

“I wish I could show you how I work, but I don’t have my forge… I tried to build something simpler early but I barely have enough materials to craft a few weapons…”

“Hmm… Interesting… We could start from there. What would you need to transform metal into something, like a knife for example?”

“A forge... I mean, I would need to heat it to a high temperature and then work on it. I would also have to polish and fix a handle for it…”

“I see… Besides heating, do you need the forge for anything else?”

“Ehh? Not really, but heating is the most important part of the process…”

“What if we could heat the metal without using the forge?”

Without waiting for an answer, Karl started to discuss a design with his disciples. Anya passed him the magic ink and he searched for a stone flat enough to hold his drawings. While he focused on the central Array, the disciples didn’t stay idle, each took the task of drawing a simple Array that would help the final design work. Oliver drew the Extraction Array (pentagon), Wein the Activation Array (square) and Anya the Property Extraction Arrays (outlined pentagram). Arnold was shocked by their synchrony, in less than ten minutes, they finished the drawing. Anya took out two crystals, one dark red and another purplish, before placing them in the Array.

Then, Karl urged Arnold to place a piece of iron in the center of the Array. He was a little skeptical, but could hardly hide his curiosity. The magic glow traveled through the Arrays until it reached the metal, it didn’t take long for the metal to start changing colors. Arnold's eyes couldn’t go wider, he circled the heated piece checking all of its surroundings. Surprisingly, he could barely feel the heat coming from the metal, it was beyond anything he had imagined.

He made a few suggestions and Karl continued to work on the design until they were both confident of its function. Thousands of ideas popped on Arnold’s mind, he already had enough to consider for days, but he was sure on something, he wouldn’t be leaving them until he tested everything.

***

Through the snowing Path, a group of fifteen mounted figures traveled at high speed. At the lead, the slightly smaller and thinner noble didn’t care to leave the others behind. Although they struggled to keep the pace, the strong snowing wind pushed them back, which apparently, didn’t affect their Mistress.

Johann finally gave up on saving his spiritual energy and cast a spell to help him move faster through the harsh climate. He couldn’t help but curse his luck.

“Couldn’t we wait for spring before coming here? Argh… I don’t understand why Master thinks the other elemental houses are involved… Either way, those villagers are doomed…”