Chapter 13

  Elias set the two ingots—halo-glow and dull-flex—onto the prep table beside the forge, wiping his palms on his apron. The preliminary tests had narrowed things down, but nothing was ever certain until the first heat cycle.

  He moved to the back shelves, pulling out a bucket of quenching oil he’d set aside earlier

  Expensive stuff, much more expensive than back home

  Lee had begrudgingly lent it out, muttering something about “don’t set yourself on fire.”

  Elias set the bucket down carefully next to the quenching trough. “You’ll save me a few ruined batches. Hopefully.”

  He took the halo-glow ingot first. With practiced movements, he placed it in the forge’s crucible, slowly raising the heat until the surface shimmered with liquid light. The metal didn’t warp or hiss—just pulsed, like it was breathing.

  “Good,” he muttered. “Real good.”

  He shaped it into a flat plate, then quenched it quickly in the oil. The bucket hissed, spat smoke, and calmed—no violent reaction, no cracking. The plate cooled clean and intact.

  Encouraged, Elias grabbed the second ingot—the duller but more structurally resilient one—and set it into the fire.

  It didn’t protest. In fact, it seemed eager to heat, softening quickly, too quickly. That was the first red flag.

  He removed it from the fire with tongs and began hammering it into a structural rod. At first, it took shape beautifully. But when he quenched it—slowly, to minimize stress—the metal folded under its own weight, slumping into a warped curve.

  Elias frowned. “What the—?”

  He yanked it out, split it with a chisel.

  The cross-section told him everything.

  The outside was dense, firm. But the interior was like cold butter—not just soft, but inconsistently structured. A clear forge trap: what looked strong was only a shell.

  “Son of a—” He hissed and dropped the ruined bar into the scrap bin.

  He had a gauntlet to build and only one structurally viable material now. And that wouldn’t be enough for full articulation.

  He turned back to the table, eyes scanning the remaining pile of rejected ingots. Somewhere in there had to be a backup—something he’d overlooked.

  Thirty minutes later, elbow-deep in cloth bundles and notes, he found it: a pale orange-tinted ingot with faint feathering at the grain lines. He remembered marking it “unreactive” during the mana test—but not because it repelled Light.

  It simply hadn’t responded much at all.

  “Maybe it’s neutral,” he muttered. “Or maybe just dormant.”

  He dropped a fresh sample into the testing oil and added a spark of Light mana. The oil turned clear but there was no other reaction. But then he felt it, instead of warming the oil, it was warming itself up. Interesting.

  “…That’ll do.”

  A few shaping tests later proved the stuff was stronger than he’d guessed—an alloy with high tensile strength and good flex. Not flashy. But perfect for the gauntlet’s inner skeleton.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Elias exhaled through his nose, tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he dropped it into the approved pile.

  “Crisis averted.”

  Still, it had shaken him.

  One hidden flaw. One false assumption. If this had been a job which deadlined tomorrow, he would’ve had no time to finish it. He needed to be more careful and thorough.

  He made another mental note: Never trust the shell. Always test the core.

  Now, with the outer Light-aligned halo metal and the newly-approved inner alloy ready, he could finally move to the base forging stage.

  Design? Done.

  Materials? Confirmed.

  Deadline?

  He checked the small sun-clock in the corner of the forge.

  “Six days left.”

  He pulled on his gloves and reached for the tongs.

  “This better be worth the effort, Lee.”

  ________________

  Elias adjusted the forge’s airflow and locked the bellows into a slow rhythm. The temperature was perfect—high enough to work the halo-glow metal, but steady enough not to overstress it.

  He gripped the first ingot with tongs and eased it into the crucible. It softened gradually, surface pulsing with a faint inner glow. No warping, no discoloration.

  Once it reached the right consistency—pliable but not runny—he moved it to the anvil.

  This wasn’t brute-forging. It was coaxing. He used light, even strikes with a wide-faced hammer, shaping the plate across a shallow forming die. The halo metal responded well, spreading cleanly without tearing or folding, like it wanted to become armor.

  Every few strikes, he paused to reheat. Light-attuned metals cooled inconsistently; if the edges dropped below working temp, they’d become brittle fast.

  After each shaping pass, he quenched the plate in the oil. It hissed and frothed but held. No cracking. No warping. The “designs” he had made on the surface stayed intact—though he assumed they weren’t really designs since Master Lee had been very strict on making sure they were perfect-far stricter than normal.

  He repeated the process for the finger plates—thinner, trickier to manage. He used tongs with custom-fitted grips to keep them steady while hammering over a rounded mandrel. One slip here, and the curve would buckle.

  Next came the internal alloy—tougher, less responsive. He used a narrower hammer, working it slowly into the articulated supports: finger skeletons, palm bracing, wrist socket. The metal resisted shaping at first, then gave with a slow, smooth flow that reminded him of molding clay laced with steel.

  He didn’t bother polishing—he would ask one of the others to do it later.Each piece was dry-fitted into a wooden template to check alignment. No gaps. No overlap. The internal frame sat flush, ready to support movement and channel enchantments without strain.

  By the end, he had a dozen parts laid out on the table: a light-reactive outer shell and a quiet, resilient inner skeleton.

  They didn’t gleam. They weren’t flashy.

  But they were right.

  Elias rolled his shoulders, fingers aching.

  Base forging: done.

  _____________

  Elias set down the final piece with a clink of metal on wood.

  It was done.

  The plates had been shaped, fitted, and aligned with precision bordering on obsession. The inner framework moved smoothly, supporting motion without stiffness. The outer halo-shell shimmered faintly even in the low forge light, its Light affinity resonating with a subtle warmth.

  He ran a gloved hand over the gauntlet’s backplate, feeling the faint mana hum beneath the surface. Functional. Ceremonial. Beautiful. He hated to admit it, but this might be the cleanest work he’d ever done.

  Six sleepless nights. Dozens of failed tests. And one unplanned near-meltdown. All worth it.

  Elias reached for the glove to hand it over for polishing,

  but paused.

  His eyes fell to the small, empty tab at the gauntlet’s inner wrist. The final step. The signature spot.

  Every smith knew it: you didn’t sign junk. You didn’t mark apprentice work. You didn’t leave your name unless it meant something.

  And he never had.

  He had never market any of his work back home and even in this new world, everything he had done was under Harren’s banner.

  But this?

  This was his.

  He stood slowly, walked to the far corner of the workshop, and took out the backpack he had arrived in this world with, he had always wanted to create something that changed the world back home, made it a better place and that’s why he carried this around.

  A die.

  He stared at it for a long moment, then went to the engraving station.

  It wasn’t elaborate. He didn’t want anything ornate or self-important.

  He etched it himself.

  A globe—stylized and round, not detailed, just a suggestion of something massive and rooted. Underneath it, a single looping letter: e, drawn with a smooth curve that wrapped beneath the Earth symbol like a foundation.

  Earth. And Elias.

  His name, and the place he’d come from. Grounded. Honest.

  He heated the stamp over a clean flame until it glowed soft orange, then pressed it carefully into the inner wristplate of the gauntlet.

  A small hiss. The scent of singed oil.

  When he pulled it back, the mark was there—simple, elegant, and unmistakably his.

  Elias Varnen stepped back and exhaled slowly, his face unreadable—but his hands didn’t shake.

  For the first time in his life, his name meant more than lineage or obligation.

  It meant work worth signing.