Chapter 12

  Elias focused, channeling the thin thread of mana more carefully now. He brushed it across the Ghost Iron and Mirror Nickel again, feeling the slight shifts, the subtle adjustments as the metals aligned themselves—not perfectly, but enough to accept each other.

  Under his hammer, with careful strikes and slow, steady heating, the two metals fused into a rough but stable billet. It wasn’t flawless. There were slight imperfections, uneven layering in places—but it was bonded. A usable foundation.

  Lee nodded once, gruffly approving.

  "Not bad for a first real try. You’ll get smoother with time."

  Elias wiped his forehead, his body aching slightly from the unfamiliar effort of weaving mana.

  "It feels... different," he admitted. "Like the metal wants to work with me now."

  "Exactly." Lee leaned against the side of the forge, crossing his arms. "Mundane metals don’t fight you unless you really mess up. Mana-reactive ones? They're stubborn bastards. Without weaving, you’re just asking for cracked blades, shattered armor, and wasted materials."

  He picked up a scrap of the leftover Mirror Nickel, twirling it absently between his fingers.

  "Now, since you’re getting the basics down, it's time to explain something more important. Affinities."

  Elias straightened, paying full attention.

  Lee gestured broadly.

  "Every mana-reactive material naturally leans toward a type of magic. Fire, water, wind, earth, light, dark—you know, the basics. That lean is called an affinity."

  He picked up a rough chunk of deep blue metal from a nearby shelf.

  "This here? Riversteel. Water affinity. Excellent for water mages or enchantments that need flow, flexibility, even healing properties."

  He set it down and grabbed another—a jagged, rust-red ore.

  "Flamecopper. Fire affinity. Holds heat stupidly well, great for forging enchanted weapons or magic circuitry."

  Elias nodded slowly. It made sense if only based on his limited knowledge.

  He said with a smirk “Alright,now time to do it all over again.”

  ___________________

  The next hour passed in a blur.

  Lee ran him through a few basic exercises—simple bonding, mild mana-weaving—nothing too dangerous, just enough to get Elias comfortable with the feel of living metals.

  Lee simply warned him: "It’s not about strength. It’s about respect. You fight the material, it fights you harder."

  By the time Elias finished the drills, sweat was pouring down his back, and the forge’s heat felt oppressive. His hands ached from maintaining the delicate balance between physical force and mana guidance.

  Lee clapped him on the shoulder as he packed up.

  "Not bad. Come back tomorrow. We'll push further."

  Elias only nodded, gathering his things.

  He left the guild forge as the sun began dipping low, the streets awash in a lazy, golden light.

  Walking back to the smithy, Elias felt an unfamiliar mixture of exhaustion and excitement burning low in his chest.

  For the first time in a long while, he wasn’t just working.

  He was learning.

  And somewhere deep inside, he hungered for more.

  _______________

  Later that evening, Harren was doing his rounds through the workshop when Lee stepped through the forge’s open doorframe, arms crossed, expression neutral.

  “Gave him the gauntlet commission,” Lee said simply, cutting right to it.

  Harren blinked. “Already? That’s a bit quick, isn’t it?”

  Lee shrugged. “He’s sharper than most apprentices I’ve met. You said it yourself—his work with mundane materials is practically master-tier. It’s high time we tested how he handles pressure. Plus…” He reached into a leather satchel and drew out a cloth-wrapped bundle, handing it over. “I’m giving him these.”

  Harren unwrapped the bundle on a side table and whistled low.

  Inside were dozens—no, hundreds—of small labeled ingots and crystal samples, each one shimmering faintly with mana. A rainbow of affinities and mixtures: aurasilk-bound silver, echo glass chips, trace lumium, mythic brass, even a fleck of divine-cast bronze.

  “He has to pick the right ones on his own,” Lee added. “No hints. It’s part of the test.”

  Harren raised a brow. “You’re giving him light-compatible metals and letting him sift through this buffet solo?”

  Lee grinned. “If he chooses wrong, the piece won’t respond to enchantment at all. Or worse, it’ll repel light magic completely. But if he gets it right…”

  Harren folded the cloth back up, thoughtful.

  “You think he’ll manage?”

  “I think,” Lee said, glancing toward the back of the forge where Elias was working in quiet concentration, “if he trusts his instincts—and that weird metal sense of his—he just might surprise us both.”

  _______________

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The door creaked open.

  Elias stepped in, his boots trailing fine soot, his eyes as unreadable as ever.

  Harren looked up from the cloth-wrapped bundle. “Back already?”

  Elias gave a short nod. “Yeah. Lee wanted to speak to me.”

  Harren arched a brow but said nothing, waiting.

  Elias reached into his coat and pulled out a folded parchment, laying it gently on the worktable. “He gave me a commission. From a Guildmember. Ceremonial gauntlet. Has to be functional, too—and compatible with light magic.”

  Harren’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Guild work already?”

  “Deadline’s a week,” Elias added, voice calm but tinged with the faint edge of pressure. “And there’s a test built into it.”

  He glanced at the cloth-wrapped bundle on the table and carefully unwrapped it.

  Harren stepped aside as Elias unfolded the layers, revealing the same dazzling array of mana-reactive metals and materials. The air itself felt faintly charged, as if the forge had suddenly filled with a quiet static.

  “He gave me these,” Elias said. “Dozens of options. Hundreds, maybe. All with different affinities. Elemental, spiritual, artificial… some of them I’ve only read about in passing. My job’s to pick the ones that’ll work best with the gauntlet’s intended function—and its magic.”

  Harren gave a slow whistle. “He’s not making it easy.”

  “No,” Elias agreed. “Some of these would outright repel light magic. Others might look nice but would fracture under impact. I have to balance visual appeal, structure, enchantment potential… and make sure the piece doesn’t explode if someone tries to cast through it.”

  He crouched, running a hand a few inches above the spread-out pieces. His fingers twitched slightly, a barely perceptible reaction to some internal signal.

  “Affinity,” Elias muttered. “Resonance. Conductivity. Color and grain structure. Some of these might have hidden properties—sensitive to touch, heat, or mana exposure.”

  He was talking more to himself now, like slipping into an old habit. Harren recognized that look. Total focus. Calculating everything.

  “Light affinity metals usually glow faintly under mana exposure,” Elias continued. “But not always. Some are muted. Some only respond to certain frequencies. It’s not just about brightness—it’s about how they channel.”

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you,” Harren murmured.

  Elias nodded once. “Yeah. But it’s doable.”

  He reached for one of the lighter ingots—a pale metal with iridescent veins that shimmered faintly like morning mist—and held it up to the forge light, studying its reactions with narrow eyes.

  “I’ll start testing tonight.”

  ______________

  The forge quieted down as Harren left him to work. Elias laid out a few ingots he suspected had some form of affinity—starting with those that shimmered or glowed faintly in natural light.

  From his bag, he retrieved a small clay vial filled with pale golden fluid. The magical testing oil. Lee had explained how it worked just earlier—“Neutral to touch, reactive to mana. It’ll show you what’s buried under the surface.”

  Elias uncorked the vial and poured a few careful drops onto a flat ceramic dish, then placed the first ingot in the center—a pale, brushed metal with blue-gray undertones.

  He funneled a tiny bit of mana into the metal through his fingertips, enough to rouse any reaction without triggering instability.

  The oil remained inert.

  “No affinity.”

  He repeated the process with another—this one faintly speckled with gold.

  The moment it touched the oil, the liquid began to shimmer, and the ingot warmed in his palm. A faint glow crept across its surface, a soft, steady gleam—not sharp or flickering like fire, but warm. Consistent.

  It wasn’t hot enough to burn him. Just warm, like sunlight caught in metal.

  Light affinity.

  Elias carefully scratched a mark into the side of the ingot and set it into a new pile.

  “The oil heats for fire. It buzzes faintly for lightning. Water dims it. Earth thickens it. But Light…” He glanced at the faint gleam still radiating from the metal. “It shines.”

  He worked in silence for the next hour, sorting. The forge’s heat washed over his back as he coaxed reaction after reaction—burn marks for unstable fire types, slight tremors for metals aligned with earth, a wavelike distortion of the oil for water.

  Three more metals joined the Light-compatible pile. Two glowed steady and warm. One produced a faint halo effect over the oil’s surface—not heat, but something more… radiant. Subtle.

  “That one’s special,” Elias muttered. “Maybe useful for channelling.”

  Eventually, he sat back, rubbing the back of his neck.

  Five candidates.

  All Light-attuned, stable, and aesthetically pleasing. But only one—maybe two—would actually fit the final gauntlet. One had poor malleability. Another might flake under repeated enchantments. He’d need to test further—refine, forge small samples, maybe try minor enchantment simulation if he could convince Lee or Harren to help.

  But this was a good start.

  He marked each one, packed the rest of the rejected materials back into the cloth, and sat down to record his observations.

  “Light,” he whispered under his breath. “Not just about glow. It’s about clarity. Focus. Intent.”

  And if he could shape that into metal—

  He might actually pull this off.

  He laid out the five chosen ingots on a fresh slate of treated iron, each one already marked with its affinity test results. The forge’s ambient heat kept the room comfortably warm, but Elias barely noticed. His focus had narrowed to the task ahead.

  “First: hardness,” he muttered, reaching for a precision scribe he had personally asked Harren to buy. It wasn’t the diamond tips he was used to but still useful.

  He dragged it across the first ingot’s surface, applying a steady, measured pressure.

  A clean line appeared. Deep—not overly so, but enough to confirm a moderate resistance.

  “Surface scratches under low duress… not great. Might need surface reinforcement or a lamination layer.”

  He made a quick note, then moved on. The second metal resisted entirely, the scribe skating across the polished surface with a faint screech.

  “Too hard,” Elias grunted. “Might crack under shock.”

  He tapped the ingot lightly with a small steel hammer. A high, ringing tone echoed back—and then a delicate chip flaked from the edge.

  “Yup. Brittle.”

  Next was the halo-glow sample, the one that had shimmered with something deeper than mere warmth. He held his breath and scratched it.

  The scribe left the faintest line—barely visible.

  “Hardness… high. But not excessive.”

  Then he flipped it onto the anvil, adjusted a thin testing wedge beneath it, and struck it cleanly with the hammer. The piece absorbed the blow, deformed slightly—but didn’t fracture.

  He exhaled slowly. “Tough and hard. That’s rare.”

  He tapped it again. Same result.

  “This one’s a frontrunner.”

  Over the next hour, Elias repeated the process—scratch, strike, measure deformation. Two of the metals proved too soft to retain ceremonial detailing over time. Another held up well but had an annoying tendency to spring back unevenly after pressure—bad news for something that had to hold shape precisely across a gauntlet’s intricate segments.

  By the end, only two ingots remained viable.

  One was the radiant, halo-glow piece that passed all his tests with flying colors.

  The other was a slightly duller ingot with a subtler reaction to the oil—but its resilience and even flexibility under duress made it an ideal candidate for hidden supports or articulated joints.

  “A core and a shell,” Elias said, fingers tracing the curve of both metals. “The glow for the outer frame… the duller for the understructure. A functional skeleton and a ceremonial face.”

  He leaned back, rolling out his shoulders.

  Now came the hard part: design.

  Not just in terms of appearance, but enchantment conductivity, mana-channeling veins, movement fluidity, magical insulation for the inner layers…

  Elias sighed.

  “This is gonna take all night.”

  He stood up, stretched, then reached for a fresh roll of parchment and a charcoal pencil. As the forge's quiet heat radiated behind him, the first loose lines of a gauntlet began to take shape under his steady hand—arched knuckles, segmented plates for force displacement and easy removal.

  The ceremonial aspect had to show. But beneath it, Elias was building a tool and it had to be functional and he was going to make damn sure it was.

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