In the backyard of the Kastian manor, there was a secluded workshop usually used for storing odds and ends and repairing broken tools.
It was normally managed by Garick, the captain of the guard.
Whenever the guard team encountered slight chipped edges on their weapons or simple dents in their armor during daily training or patrols, he would perform simple repairs here.
If a job required finer craftsmanship, he would have to pay to commission a professional artisan from an outside blacksmith shop.
But at this moment, this rough, first-rank peak man stood in the shadow of the stone house, his face frozen in shock as if he had seen a ghost, staring at the slender figure in front of the forge.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The crisp, rhythmically steady sound of metal striking metal echoed regularly through the enclosed space.
A vigorous charcoal fire burned in the furnace, casting a red glow on the surrounding cold stone walls. The air was thick with an acrid smell of scorching and metal.
Ailiya had already taken off her signature maid uniform and changed into a simple, durable set of coarse work clothes, covered by a thick cowhide apron for heat protection.
Her silver-white short hair, usually combed immaculately, was casually tied back with a headband, a few stray strands sticking to her smooth forehead with sweat.
Ever since Lady Elsa had exempted her from daily tedious cleaning chores, she had unabashedly taken over this workshop and started processing the half-sack of blue fluor spar ore that Leo had dug up from the mine.
Now, she was using a heavy pair of iron tongs to pull a piece of glowing, soft blue fluor spar composite ore from the furnace and place it on the anvil.
Ailiya raised a blacksmith’s hammer that weighed over a dozen catties. [Mana Infusion] instantly enveloped the hammerhead, condensing into an extremely dense, azure-blue halo.
The hammer came down, and sparks flew in all directions.
The ore, originally full of impurities, was instantly stripped of large chunks of waste under the physical pressure of mana vibration and terrifying force, gradually solidifying.
Clang!
‘This… this force and precision…’
Garick swallowed hard from outside the door, feeling a chill run down his spine.
[Forging Experience +5]
[Forging Experience +5]
Listening to the steady system notification sounds in her mind, Ailiya’s face, slightly flushed from the furnace heat, showed a calm, unwavering focus.
If an ordinary person had to endure such mechanical, repetitive, monotonous movements, they would have long been unable to stand it.
After more than two hours of repeated quenching and hammering,
the bag of raw blue fluor spar ore, weighing fifty or sixty catties, yielded only a single ingot about the size of a kitchen knife, emitting a pure, faint azure glow.
Although the ore had many impurities and an extremely low yield rate, it was just barely enough to grind her blacksmithing sub-profession from LV.2 to LV.3.
Hiss!
Ailiya used the iron tongs to pick up the purified blue fluorescent metal ingot and slowly immersed it into the bucket of cold water beside her.
The scalding metal instantly stirred up a pungent white smoke, letting out a violent sizzling sound.
Just then, from outside the half-open wooden door of the stone house came an extremely eerie scraping sound, like some kind of mollusk dragging itself across the ground.
“Who’s out there?”
Garick turned alertly, his hand on his sword hilt.
A weak, slightly trembling voice came from outside the door.
“It’s… it’s me.”
Garick looked closely, quickly relaxed his guard, and hurried to greet him.
“So it’s you, Young Master! This place is dirty and hot—why did you come here?”
“Just… just wandering around.”
“Hiss… ouch… damn it, why is this threshold so high…”
Accompanied by a pained gasp of inhaled breath, a golden figure stumbled halfway through the door in an undignified posture.
“Young Master, are you all right? Did you strain your wound?”
Garick reached out to help, but Leo waved him off.
Leo held onto the door frame, his posture extremely awkward. His lower body was slightly squatting like a duck, legs spread apart, as he hobbled into the stone room.
“I’m fine… Uncle Garick, you go ahead. I need to talk to Ailiya.”
Leo’s originally handsome face kept twisting from the strain on his back whiplashes and the unspeakable part of his body that had been “specially attended to” last night. The pain made cold sweat bead on his forehead.
But in his arms, he clutched a heavy black lacquered wooden box as if protecting a rare treasure.
Garick glanced at Ailiya, who was forging, then at the comically postured Leo. He wisely withdrew from the workshop and closed the door behind him.
Ailiya put down the hammer, took off her thick heat-resistant gloves, and turned around.
Her ice-blue eyes swept over Leo’s ridiculous duck-like gait with a condescending gaze, and she said in a flat tone:
“Young Master, given your current physical condition, I strongly suggest you go lie on your bed and rest instead of coming to a place with such a foul smell to perform acrobatics.”
“This is… this is just normal muscle soreness from overexertion yesterday.”
Leo’s face reddened. For the sake of face, he abruptly straightened his back.
But that movement directly pulled the wound on his rear, making him hiss in pain. The cool aura he had tried to project instantly shattered, and he curled up like a shrimp.
Gritting his teeth, he hobbled step by step to the old wooden table Ailiya usually used for breaks, and slammed the black wooden box onto the table with a thud.
“Ailiya.”
Leo took a deep breath.
He put on a serious face, folded his hands on the table, and tried to initiate an equal conversation with Ailiya in a negotiating tone.
“I came today to discuss a deal with you.”
“A deal?”
Ailiya raised an eyebrow slightly.
She glanced at the well-crafted black wooden box, then at Leo’s face covered in cold sweat from pain but still forcing calm, and a hint of mockery flickered in her eyes.
“If you mean using this kind of childish game in exchange for me teaching you hand-to-hand combat or magic techniques, I already explicitly refused you in the garden earlier.”
Ailiya turned around mercilessly, ready to pick up the tongs and handle the cooled blue ingot.
“Also, that childish condition you proposed yesterday—that I ‘follow you like a friend’—I’ve already agreed. According to the principles of a deal, you can’t make any more demands of me.”
“Wait! Look at this first!”
Leo panicked, afraid she would pick up the hammer and ignore him again. He flipped open the lid of the black wooden box.
Ailiya turned her head, her eyes falling on the contents of the box.
A ripple stirred in her calm heart.
It was a fist-sized raw ore, pure silvery-white in color.
Under the vision of [Appraisal] , the line of text that appeared made Ailiya’s gaze sharpen.
[Raw Mithril Ore]
It had high mana conductivity. If she used this as the main material and combined it with the purified blue fluor ingot as a supplement, she could forge a decent dagger for her current assassin class.
“Young Master.”
Ailiya crossed her arms, her eyes sharp and scrutinizing as she stared at Leo.
“If I’m not mistaken, mithril ore of this purity has no acquisition channel in a border town like Fengyue City. This must be a collectible from Lady Elsa’s potion storage room, right?”
Ailiya curled her lips in a sarcastic smile.
“Are you planning to use stolen goods from home to present me with borrowed plumes? I don’t want to be kicked out of the estate for covering up the Young Master’s theft.”
“Nonsense! Who stole anything!”
Leo jumped up like a cat whose tail was stepped on, but he ended up pulling his rear again, making his mouth twitch in pain.
“This was originally something I pestered Mother to buy for me! It just sat in her storage room collecting dust. Now I’m taking back what belongs to me—how is that stealing!”
Leo stiffened his neck, enduring the pain, but his eyes were firm.
He stared into Ailiya’s ice-blue eyes, which seemed to see through people’s hearts.
Then he pushed the wooden box hard toward Ailiya and shouted:
“Teach me how to get stronger! Is this enough of a bargaining chip?! If not, I’ll think of another way!”
Looking at this blond young man who was grimacing in pain—even a little ridiculous—Ailiya fell silent.
She had to admit that this rookie Young Master, who used to scream with his head in his arms at the first sign of danger and throw tantrums when things didn’t go his way, was finally starting to think like an adult, using the rules of interest exchange.
“I refuse.”
Ailiya coldly spat out three words.
“Huh?!”
Leo was completely dumbfounded.
This woman still refused?!
What the hell did she want?!
Did she really want me to…
Before Leo could imagine any horrifying scenario involving selling his body, Ailiya calmly added the second half of her sentence.
“I mean, teaching you is fine. It’s just a simple favor. When I teach and what I teach depends entirely on my mood. There’s no need to measure or buy it off with objects.”
Ailiya slowly extended her gloved hand.
Without any courtesy or hesitation, she pulled the black wooden box directly in front of her and snapped the lid shut with a crisp click.
“But I’ll take it.”
Ailiya said with utter confidence.
“As a condition of exchange, when I’m in a good mood, I can also agree to a few additional reasonable requests.”
Hearing this, Leo’s tense nerves finally relaxed completely.
He let out a long breath, a bright, relieved smile spreading across his face. Even the pain in his rear seemed to lessen.
“Really?!”
Leo excitedly slapped the table.
“Then put the stone away safely! As for what requests I want to make, I haven’t thought of them yet. I’ll bring them up slowly when we go to the royal capital.”
“Now I want to ask, when can I start learning from you?”
“Not now. I still have something to make.”
Ailiya carefully stored the black wooden box, then turned and walked back to the furnace.
She used the iron tongs to pick up the cooled blue fluor ingot, preparing for the next step of forging.
“If there’s nothing else, go practice swinging a stick in the training ground.”
“It’s fine, I’m not in a hurry!”
Leo was in a great mood now, completely unbothered by Ailiya’s cold dismissal.
He curiously sidled up, circling around Ailiya and the furnace, watching her extremely skilled blacksmithing movements.
Then, to express his sincerity in “respecting the teacher,” he launched into a forced, awkward string of compliments.
“Wow! Ailiya, you’re so amazing! How do you even know how to forge? You know so many things!”
Ailiya paused mid-swing, turned her head, and shot him a contemptuous look.
“I suggest you shut up immediately and not disturb my work. This exaggerated and meaningless flattery doesn’t suit me—it sounds like mockery.”
“It’s fine, it’s fine!”
Not only was Leo not angry, but he cheerfully sat down on a low stool nearby.
“I’ll just watch quietly, I absolutely won’t disturb you. You’re really a hidden master—you look exactly like the kind of reclusive expert written about in novels!”
Ailiya’s mouth twitched, then she restrained herself and raised a faint, barely perceptible smile.
“You’d better talk less nonsense.”
Ailiya turned her head back to the furnace, a hint of threat in her tone.
“Otherwise, in a moment, my hand might slip, and a spark will jump straight into that nonstop chattering mouth of yours.”