Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 261 - Forgemastering

Grey watched on for a little longer before leaving the forge, now, he wanted to check out the forgery classes. For someone who woke up every morning to train his physical body, before doing his normal elemental training, and then cultivating later in the day, he didn't see the process of forging to be strenuous. He actually looked at it as another way of practice.

The man watched on as Grey left the forge, but didn't even say anything. Over the past two years, only five students had stayed in the forge for longer than a week. They all had the same excuses, 'How could top experts become blacksmiths?'.

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The building where the forgery classes take place was close to the actual forge. Grey walked in and was surprised by how few the people taking the class were. Doing a headcount, there were only about thirty plus people, and most of them had uninterested looks.

'If they aren't interested, why did they bother to come?' He couldn't help but ask himself.

The instructor was a middle-aged man who had shoulder-length blonde hair, he stood at around six foot two and had a burly build. He had a mustache which was the same color as his hair and was dressed in brown loose clothes.

"Come in, the class is just about to start." The man said when he saw Grey standing at the doorway.

He thought the reason Grey didn't enter was that he felt the lessons had started, and barging in without invitation was rude.

Grey was surprised since he originally didn't plan on coming in today, he only wanted to take a peek at the class then go back home to contemplate.

'Oh well, it's not like I have anything to do anyway.'

With a shrug, he calmly walked into the class while being watched by the over thirty people in the class. He wasn't really bothered by the looks they were giving him, finding an empty seat at the front, he took it without much deliberation. Since he came here to learn, then of course he would be at the forefront so he could hear every single thing the instructor says.

"Hello students, my name is Instructor Scott Dunstan, and I will be the one who will teach you all you need to know about forgery before you go for the practicals. Usually, forgery classes are mostly practicals, but there are some things you should be aware of before going."

"Firstly, there are two branches of forgery, which are forgery, and forgemastering. The difference between both is simple, arrays. A forger can forge weapons which are used by those in the Collection and Fusion Planes, they also forge tools used for daily activities."

"Forgemasters on the other hand, create elemental weapons. Unlike normal forging, a forgemaster will have to inscribe arrays in the object, while forging it."

"I presume most of you should know about this. Also, this class only accepts two kinds of Elementalists, Earth and Fire Elementalists. Since some of you are still in the Fusion Plane, the class will be divided as those in the Arcane Plane, and above will need actual practicals. But for now, I'll distribute these books to you all, you have thirty minutes to go through the first three chapters."

The book was surprisingly smaller than what Grey expected, being someone who enjoys learning new things, he quickly dug into the new world of forging that he had discovered. Luckily, he left Void with Alice, or else, he wouldn't have been able to focus with him around.

Hearing about forgemastering excited some of the students, every single one of them here is either an Earth Elementalist or a Fire Elementalist, a few of them is actually both.

They all enthusiastically took the books to study their content. The first three chapters only contained the basics of forging as well as the types of forging.

It glossed a little at forgemastering, and some of the mistakes to avoid.

Arrays can only be inscribed in the weapon just before the start of the tempering phase. It is a very fast process that only those that are proficient in arrays can do due to the small timeline given.

Thirty minutes later, Instructor Dunstan stood up, "Students above the Fusion Plane should step forward."

Grey and about twenty more youths stood up, of the other twenty, eight of them were ladies.

"Hmm, come with me. As for the rest of you, continue studying the book, I'll send someone over."

Instructor Dunstan led Grey and the twenty other youths to another room that was on the upper left side of the class. The room was bigger than the previous one, and as soon as Grey stepped in, he recalled the forge he saw earlier, only, this one only had furnaces. There were at least fifty furnaces in the room.

"Forgery is all about practicals, without sufficient practicals, you can't actually do anything." Instructor Dunstan said as the group entered the forge.

"Here, you all will be tasked with different practicals, of course, the materials you will be using are only cheap metals which the Academy has in tons."

"There are different steps in forging, but for now, we'll focus on the heating step. Here, you will all be tasked to regulate the temperature of the furnace to the required intensity to be able to melt the items inside the furnace."

"Because of the properties of each material, they all require different temperatures. Since you're all students, we can't use actual high-end materials, for now." Instructor Dunstan said with a smile.

Grey listened intently as Instructor Dunstan continued speaking on the temperature needed for melting. Instructor Dunstan further went on to give them an example, he was surprisingly a Dual Elementalist, being a Fire and an Earth Elementalist.

After he was done with his example, "This process is better for Fire Elementalists since it's easier for them to regulate the flames. Of course, the others are allowed to give it a try."