After exchanging pleasantries, Adrian came back to the guild. The moon was glowing with a nice white radiance and there weren’t many people in the guild reception hall. Most of the hunters had retired for the night and the only few who were loitering around the halls, had come back from missions or hunts.

The smell of alcohol permeated the hall as he made his way to Ceaser’s office on the upper floors. After discussing the happenings of the day with his father, he went to sleep thinking about what Aero had said and how much he had idolized Carl. ‘There are many faces to a person huh’,  Adrian thought as his mind drifted off to sleep.

The next morning Adrian immediately made his way to Carl’s shop after freshening up. Carl was working on the head of a spear and he turned around when he heard footsteps. “Oh, ‘ey there kid. Ready for another day in the forge?”

“Carl, you never told me you were a legendary blacksmith!”

“Did ya hit yer head or somethin? I am just a humble ol smithy”.

“Well, Aero told me about you and a bit about the history of blacksmithing.”

“Sigh. I won’t question what that church dog said lad. But remember one thing, titles are in the end, just titles. An expert swordsman whose blade has dulled holds no value. A scholar whose ink bottle has dried is no longer as he used to be”. 

Carl turned towards Adrian to meet his eyes, as he walked towards him with an apron and gloves in hand. “Titles are useless unless one can consistently live up to them. So never pay attention to titles or fame. The only thing that matters is giving it your all. Fame and power follow themselves. Now enough of that, let's get to making yer blade.”

Carl helped Adrian put up his forging attire as they both got to work. Adrian brought out the unfinished sword that was placed on a rack in the forgery. As Carl took the blade from his hands, he instructed Adrian to go start rotating the handle of the grinding wheel at a consistent speed.

Adrian headed towards the grinding wheel, which was almost as big as him. As he took a good grip of the handle and felt the heft of the giant stone, he started rotating the wheel. He observed as Carl carefully placed the edge of the blade on the wheel while firmly holding on to the tang of the blade.

Sparks started flying around as Carl carefully grinded off the excessive material off the rough blade on the coarse whetstone, Adrian was amazed seeing how the dull black blade slowly started turning into a lustrous purple.

After Carl had finished grinding the sword into a sturdy shining blade he took the blade and dipped it into oil, then he went ahead and started coating it with some shiny silvery powder after which he headed straight for the forge again.

Perplexed Adrian asked what Carl was doing after almost completing the blade, “Heh, it's nowhere near finished kid, what we will currently do is called faux tempering, basically melting this manasteel powder into the blade and then shaping it again joining both together.” Carl explained as he plunged the sword straight into the red hot furnace.

After leaving the blade in the furnace for a few minutes, Carl drew out the hot blade which was now glistening from the glow of the manasteel coating, as he headed straight towards the anvil beating the sword into a proper shape as sparks flew out from the weight and force of his hammer landing on to the red hot steel.

After the blade had cooled down, Carl headed back to the whetstone wheel with Adrian, grinding the newly tempered blade into proper shape and also adding a fuller in it to help make the blade lighter. After they were done, in Carl’s hands was now a glowing purple blade, gleaming with the shine of the manasteel.

“Well that's enough for today I guess son, now I don't have much left for ya to do today as I need to arrange for the more intricate parts of this blade, like the guard and pommel” Carl said to an exhausted Adrian, who was now sweating bullets.

“Can I help a little with that?” Adrian asked hopefully as he was too excited to stop working on his weapon just yet.

“Heh, I guess not lad, after all this work is way too intricate for a non-blacksmith to be getting his hands at” Carl explained to a disappointed Adrian, who now had a slight frown

Carl let out a slight smirk, “Well, I could still use yer help in choosing the materials for the handle I suppose” he said to Adrian.

Upon hearing this, Adrian’s face lit up again, seeing which warmed Carl’s heart to the core. ‘Guess that bastard of a paladin was at least useful for something, by letting him spend time with his nephew like this’ Carl thought to himself. As they both headed to the upper rooms where the materials were stored.

After some time, Adrian had finally selected the materials for his handle and sheath, which were two blocks of rich mahogany dark wood and a few straps of clean azure purple bindings, giving the overall blade a nice black and purple aesthetic.

“Well I guess that's it for today lad. I will see ya back tomorrow” Carl said.

**************************

Adrian revised the steps of forging as he lay on his bed looking out the moonlit night through his window. Adrian was happy with how his time had been spent. He had learnt a lot about forging and how blades were made. Thinking back he had also grown a lot closer to Carl as they forged his sword together. This had been both a productive and fun day after a very long time.

The next day came and Adrian arrived at the forge to find a tanned lady of about six feet tall standing near one of the armory shelves with a notepad. She had long black hair with slight curls at the end, and one of her alluring eyes had been hidden behind a line of hair in front of her face. A beauty in every sense. The tanned woman caught sight of Adrian and exclaimed,

“Oh Adry, is that you? Oh look at you, now with a mana core of your own. To think you used to play with wooden swords all the time around here. How nostalgic!”, she said as she caught Adrian by the cheeks.

“Ow hey. Nice to see you too, Aunt Jess?”

“Ah you little lad. It’s nice to see you too. Come sit down and have some tangerine juice”.

Saying this she pushed Adrian onto a nearby chair and rushed off to the back room. Jessica, or just Jess for short, was Carl’s wife. Despite the overly-contrasting heights, they made a really sweet couple. As Adrian reminisced about the old days when he used to play in her lap, Jess returned holding a glass of bright tangerine juice.

“If you are here looking for Carl, he had gone off in the morning to buy some materials. The miners apparently brought in a lot of high quality orichalcum so he couldn’t help himself. He should be back in a……oh there he is”

As Adrian looked back to where Jessica’s eyes were turned, he saw Carl hauling a huge heavy looking sack on his back. Carl walked in and dropped the sack on the floor which landed with a loud thud.

“Thanks for watching the shop Jess. Oh hey there kid. Ready for the final day? You’ll finally get your sword finished today.”

“Oh you are making a sword for Adry? My my, so grown up now isn’t he?” Jess exclaimed as she hugged him.

“Well I’ll get going now. See you around Adry. Don’t hurt yourself with the new sword”, with these words she left the shop as Carl called out to Adrian to get back to work.

As they both got to work Carl smiled and said, “well we are almost done, but we will need to make two things first” he explained as he pointed towards two small molds.

“What are they for?” Adrian asked, puzzled.

“You will see soon.” Carl said as he headed towards the forge.

“Also, bring that bucket of crustadium powder here will ya” Carl said to Adrian while preparing the kiln.

Adrian brought over the bucket filled with dull yellow powder which Carl poured all into the kiln, letting it melt down completely.

After the metal was completely liquid, Carl took it out and poured it into the two molds equally, letting them cool down.

After a few minutes had passed Carl broke open the molds revealing two dull yellow plates of metal, about, one-fourth the thickness of a sword, which Carl took to the grinder and started shaping into two elongated hexagonal shapes.

After he was done with the two pieces, what he had in his hands were two golden yellow plates with simple geometric engravings in the shape of elongated hexagons.

“Well now that's over, we get to the important part.” Carl said out with a sigh, as he headed over to the rack to get the blade that they had made.

He put the blade in the furnace, just leaving the tang outside, causing the entire edged part to heat up. Carl beckoned Adrian to come over near the furnace as he stepped back and faced him.

“Now what I need you to do kid, is to take that blade out of the furnace once it's red hot, and pour as much mana as you can in it, to imprint it with your own mana” Carl explained sternly while looking at Adrian. “I know this might be lil scary holding a burning blade with your bare hands, but this is something you must do”

Adrian nodded firmly as he stood in front of the furnace, he saw that the blade was glowing red with heat. He grabbed it by the tang, still burning hot to touch, as he swung the sword out of the furnace.

He held down the sword firmly with both his hands, his palms burning from the heat of the blade, as he took a deep breath, and started pouring all he had into the blade.

To Carl’s surprise, the blade immediately turned from the lustrous appearance it had to a pitch black color, after which it let out a screeching sound, deafening to the ears.

Carl, in shock from his ears about to burst from the screech the blade was emitting, immediately rushed over to Adrian, grabbing the blade from his hand plunging it straight into oil, making a hissing sound as the hot metal touched the cold liquid.

As the sword was left in the oil to harden, silence returned to the room, “well, now that's something new” Carl said breaking the silence as he wiped the sweat off his brow, “I have seen my fair share of mana reactions, but that's a first” He said looking over at Adrian.

“You are a special one, aren't ya kid” Carl said while laughing as he took the sword out of the oil. Meanwhile Adrian was still gasping, kneeling down near the forge, looking at his hands which were now singed from the process. “Is it done?” Adrian asked, panting as he looked over to Carl, who was now cleaning the oil off the blade, which had returned to its lustrous purple appearance.

“We are almost there” Carl said while smiling, “now all that's left is assembly” he explained as he walked over to a table now carrying the clean blade in his hand.

Carl put the blade down on the table along with all the other parts, as he went to put on a pair of white leather gloves. Adrian hurried over to the table to see what Carl was doing as he started the assembly.

Carl carefully picked up the blade inserting the tang into a straight engraved guard piece cut with sharply aligned features. Then he placed the tang inside the handle of black mahogany he had prepared, after which he set them all in place together by screwing a round engraved pommel at the end of the tang.

He then proceeded to take the two golden engraved crustandium plates and inserted them into the two slots in the guard, placing them on each side of the blade after which he screwed them both in place. Finally, he took the fine violet leather wrappings and wrapped them firmly around the handle, creating an exquisite grip pattern.

“At last, this beauty is complete.” Carl said as he proceeded to hand over the sword to Adrian.

The blade was a stunning purple in color, adorned with two intricate golden crustandium plates on either side, its handle, weaved with an intricate yet simple pattern of purple leather wrapping, and engravings on its guard and pommel. The blade, even though adorned with such intricate and so many different pieces, was still quite light and easy to handle, because of the fuller and its design.

It was honestly more like a work of art, rather than a weapon.

“Well you will also need this” Carl said as he tossed Adrian a sheath made of black mahogany decorated with purple wrappings and silver accents, just like his sword.

Adrian slid the sword into the sheath as it locked into place with a satisfying click. “Fits like a glove” Adrian said with a satisfied grin on his face.

“I’m glad you like it, kiddo. This blade is really one of mah finer creations I’d say. How’d you like the forging?”

“I loved every second of it. I learnt a lot of new things and it's all thanks to you Carl. You really are an awesome ol’ blacksmith”

Carl laughed and shrugged it off, “That aside, this blade is one of its kind in the world, I’m tellin’ ya kid. It needs a name. What do you think?”

Adrian looked at the blade intently as he felt its subtle vibrations every time it moved and the extreme sharpness that felt like it could cut anything.

“I think I’ll call it……….Borde Vacio.”