Chapter 3: Studies
Shi made sure he got a good night's sleep that night to prepare for his lessons the next day. In the morning, his father gave him directions to Oshieru's house, it took Shi a while to get there and he was worn out, it was about 5 miles away and he was 4 after all. When he got there and knocked, Oshieru immediately opened the door.
As a friend of the family he was the natural choice to teach Shi and he had of course been immediately notified of everything that had happened. "Please, come in." Oshieru said politely, as they both went into a large room that was sparsely furnished with the middle of the room completely devoid of any furniture.
Oshieru sat down in the middle and motioned Shi to do the same, "Magic is an extension of your will," Oshieru started, "if one's will is strong, then so will be their magic. What you can do with magic depends on your understanding of magic and the world around you as well as your mana core.
The more you understand magic, the easier it will be to shape it to your will to do with it what you desire. But that is mostly useless if you don't at least partially understand what it is you're trying to affect. These things take a lot of mana, and your mana core provides that. Your mana core passively sucks in mana from the surrounding area and you can take in more if you focus on it.
Mana cores have many stages, each signified by a different color, whenever you move up a stage or get to a bright part of a stage, the amount of mana you have available increases as does your physical strength, vitality, and brain functions. This extra mana is needed to do higher-level magic but the more mana you use, the slower the casting process.
This can be somewhat mitigated by increasing your understanding of either magic, or what you're trying to affect. That is all for today, try to digest this throughout the next week for the 10 hours that you're learning magic." Shi pondered this as he walked back home, if it all came down to understanding, did that mean he could do anything as long as he understood something and had the mana available?
His thoughts were still whirling about as he finally made it home. His dad brought him over to the forge, which was about a mile away from the house as Kea hated the noise. "Son," Toishi started, "for a few days I just want you to observe what I do and try and memorize the process." Shi already knew what he was doing in the forge so he only pretended to study his dad's movements as he started to digest what Oshieru had said.
If what he said was true, then anything was possible with magic, he could even become immortal if he understood the nature of death! A week passed like this, with Shi spending his days pondering the nature of magic throughout the day and experimenting with it to try and understand it better. After the week ended he returned to Oshieru's house and sat down with him on the floor.
"Today, I'll teach you how to improve items." Oshieru said, "It works best with something you've made so instead of you practicing it here, I will teach you what to do and you can practice on something you make at your dad's forge. It works best with something you've made because you understand how that item was formed, so you understand the item itself better.
You have to keep the nature of the item in mind as you will it to become better in the aspects you want it to improve in. If your will is strong, it will improve. How much it improves by is based on your understanding of the item and magic, and your will to make the item better.
Use a month to forge a basic knife and improve it via magic. The quality doesn't matter here, what matters is your ability to get this done, good luck." Shi returned home after this and told his dad what was required of him, "Alright," his dad said, "you've been watching me work for long enough, it's your turn now. From now on you have full access to the forge." Toishi said handing Shi and dull copper key.
When they made it to the forge Toishi grabbed a bar of steel off the shelf. "This steel is softer than the high-quality steel and the tool steel we use here." Toishi said, "Thus it is easier to forge but it makes a weaker blade, it is perfect for a beginner to use for his first weapon."
Shi took the steel bar and grasped it in the metal tongs sitting on the anvil. He pretended to have to fiddle around with the forge to turn it on even though he had done so a million times in his past life and he put the bar in there. He purposely took the steel out a bit early and started hammering it flat.
After a few hours of this repeated process, Shi was dead tired. He took an hour-long break to rest and his father came over. "You're a natural, son" Toishi said, "you're taking the steel out a bit early and hammering it too much after it cools down a bit, but other than that you're doing great. Keep it up and you'll be a better smith than me one day, I'll leave you to your work now, good luck."
With that, Toishi left the shop and returned home. Throughout the next couple of days, Shi worked tirelessly and forged a knife that he had made look a bit ugly and purposely quenched at the wrong temperature to make it a bit too soft. After showing it to his dad, who nodded his head and ruffled Shi's hair, exclaiming his pride in the boy, Shi gave his all to improve the knife, focusing on durability and sharpness.
His dad had given him the all clear to forge whatever he wanted as long as he used the softer steel, so he immediately started forging a proper blade. He first expertly started to flatten out the steel, making it a bit thick so that he had a little wiggle room when he started grinding his blade and made the tang longer and thicker than usual too.
After he quenched, this time at the right temperature and when he pulled the blade out of the oil, fire ran along the whole thing, even dripping onto the floor and burning out. When he tested the hardness with a file, it skid right off, meaning the blade was hard and there were no warps or cracks, so it was a perfect quench.
He then ground down the tang to where it would still be strong, but he could make a handle that would easily fit a hand. He made the handle out of ash wood, to help absorb the shock because of its flexibility, and wrapped it with a long strip of leather that he had dyed black until it covered the whole handle, making it so even if he slammed the knife into the anvil, the shock wouldn't affect his hand too badly.
He ground the knife until he could cut flesh with the barest pressure on any point on the blade. The blade itself was straight along the shaft and had a slight re-curve when it came to the point on the side of the blade. On the spine of the blade, there was a slant towards the point at the top to make it slide into flesh when stabbing.
The blade was about 12 inches long (0.3 meters) and the handle was about 7 inches long (approximately 0.18 meters) and was so light and balanced that it took nearly no time to recover from an attack thrown out with it. Shi then focused even harder than he had with the other knife on improving its sharpness and durability and when he was finished, he could use the knife to chop through an oak log with about 50 strikes with no damage to the blade at all.
He then made a sheath out of some more leather that he had dyed black, concealing it under his pants where he could still access it in a time of need. While the first knife was done in only a few days, this one took the rest of the month to make. He still kept this knife secret from everyone as it was his only weapon and he didn't want to reveal one of his hidden cards unless absolutely necessary.
Shi returned to Oshieru's house bringing the first knife he had made, "Interesting, well done." Oshieru congratulated, "This is a good knife to make as a beginner and the same could be said about the improvements made via magic. Now, it's time for you to learn elemental magic."
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