With the letter of recommendation from Thabon in hand, Marcus bid his master farewell before going back out into the main forge area.
Once there he met back up with the new apprentices he told he would give a few pointers to, but another person he was not expecting nor wanting to deal with was waiting for him as well.
Jerrard the apprentice that had been bugging him in the past had somehow heard that Marcus would be giving these kids a lesson, and using his seniority had weaseled his way in.
"Jerrard is there something you wanted from me?" Marcus asked concealing the annoyance he felt.
Smiling Jerrard said, "I heard that you would be instructing these new recruits and seeing as how this was a golden chance, I had to participate as well."
Sighing Marcus thought about what to do. Jerrard had been persistent about becoming his apprentice even though he had his own master who was a member of this forge.
And what was worse was that Marcus himself was still considered an apprentice to Thabon.
No, he had already figured out the real reason Jerrard was so interested in him, and it was not only for his forging skills.
"Listen Jerrard I only agreed to help these new apprentices out this one time, and any advice I will be giving is stuff you already know. I do not need you here to get in the way when I am trying to help them out." Marcus said obviously upset.
"Please Lady Irene, I feel I am close to reaching the next level, I only ask for a bit of you time." Jerrard said practically begging.
At this point the new apprentices who were all fifteen or sixteen years old were beginning to get uncomfortable.
"Fine you can stay and watch, but if you disrupt me or the others, you will leave alright."
Furiously nodding his head Jerrard said, "Yes thank you lady Irene, I will be sure to be as quiet as a mouse."
With that settled Marcus turned towards the new apprentices and asked each of them to show him how they made iron swords which was one of the most basic things that were made at the Blazegram Forge.
Keeping a close eye on the new apprentices' work, Marcus was impressed with their skills, and it was apparent that each of them had worked hard to get accepted here.
However, they did occasionally make mistakes and Marcus would come over and help them.
"Stop, your last swing was too light, and you did not shape the metal properly. If you continue like this the blade will be uneven."
"Your iron has cooled down; you need to reheat it, or your metal will become brittle, and the sword will easily break."
Of course, he also made sure to praise the apprentices when they did well, but one person was starting to get frustrated that Marcus had not paid him any attention.
Clang!
Jerrard purposefully hit the iron sword he had been working on with too much force to get Marcus' attention.
Seeing this Marcus moved over and said, "Jerrard I am sure you know better than to not hit the iron that hard, you ruined the sword."
Naturally Marcus knew what he was up to and told Jerrard to get his act together before going back to the others to teach them.
Unfortunately, Jerrard continued to make loud mistakes every now and then, causing Marcus no end of a headache.
And to make it worse Jerrard would start apologizing and looking pitiful like he truly regrated his mistakes so that Marcus would have a harder time kicking him out.
'Okay I have had enough.'
"I will be taking a break for a moment, continue on your own."
After saying that Marcus went to find Jerrard's master who also happened to be his father.
He was a skilled man who was the only other person in the forge beside Thabon and his apprentices that knew how to work with celestial platinum having learned from his own master.
Knocking on the door to Jerrard's father's private room, Marcus waited for an answer and soon a man opened the door.
He was a fairly young-looking man seemingly only in his early thirties, but Marcus knew he was actually closer to sixty and only looked so young because of his high level which he achieved early on in life.
"Oh, Irene this is unexpected. I figured it would be Thabon or Gurrom. Is there something I can help you with?"
Luckily unlike his son who was kind of a pest, Conall was a good guy who Marcus got along with well enough even though they had not had many interactions.
"Yes, if it would not be too much trouble could you do something about Jerrard. I am trying to teach some of the new apprentices, and he is making a nuisance of himself."
Hearing this Conall's expression turned into a frown, and he said, "That boy is supposed to working on an order of steel, and enchanted bronze swords."
It was obvious that Conall was upset since he had been expecting his son to be working right now.
Of course that was Jerrard's biggest problem. He had inherited his father's talent and because of it he did not need to work hard to excel. But as soon as he hit a roadblock he started to fall off and get lazy.
Telling Conall to come out and get his son in a few minutes Marcus returned to the area where the apprentices were and began giving out advice like nothing had happened.
Then around five minutes later, Conall came in with an angry look on his face, and when he saw Jerrard fiddling around with an iron sword clearly messing up on purpose, he stormed up to him.
"Jerrard what are you doing here. You have an order of twelve steel swords to get done by next week along with three enchanted bronze swords. You have had two weeks already to work on this order but last I checked you had only finished four steel swords and one bronze. It is time to stop playing around here and get back to work." Conall said sternly to Jerrard.
Jerrard for his part looked hurt and said, "But father this is a rare chance to get some insight from Lady Irene."
Jerrard had practically whined this pretty much like a spoiled brat even though he was already twenty-four, and as far as everyone knew was younger than Marcus in his guise as Irene.
Groaning his father grabbed him by the arm and began dragging him away as he said, "As far as I can see this is just a beginners' class, and you already having a forge skill level of three have no need for it. Now get back to work before I decided to cut you off."
Jerrard's face went wide in shock hearing this, since currently he was still receiving a large amount of financial support from his father, and without it would not be able to keep up his lax lifestyle.
Though Marcus thought that might be better for the guy as it would hopefully light a fire under him, but who was he to get involved.
Now with Jerrard out of the way Marcus was able to direct his full attention to the new apprentices helping them along with their forging.
It brought him a sense of joy to see them smiling at him as he helped them, and it made him recall the times he thought about being a teacher, though he ultimately pursued law instead.
"Well now that everyone has gotten down the basics of working with iron, how about I give you all a demonstration of how I forge."
Everyone of the apprentices looked at Marcus with bright eyes hearing this since they were going to get to watch a display from someone whose skill was one of the best in the entire forge.
Obtaining an ingot of bronze, Marcus got to work showing the kids how he used fire magic to heat of the ingot and then began to shape it expertly with his hammer strokes.
Soon he had formed a bronze scimitar, and once he had let everyone take a quick look at it, he went to work on putting a few enchantments on the sword.
"I am going to show you one of the most necessary skills that any striving forgemaster should have. Just being able to shape ingots very well will not get you to being at the top. For that you must also be well versed in enchanting weapons."
After saying that Marcus pulled out his mana etcher that was for when he was not working with celestial platinum, and along with it the core of a level twenty or so monster before getting to work.
He quickly imbedded the core within the blade first before channeling his mana with precision and etching a few formations into the blade.
They were just basic formations such as sharpening, strengthening, and mana conductivity enhancements, but to the new apprentices it was truly something spectacular.
Once he was done, he handed the scimitar back around for them to look at and for many of them this was actually the first time they had held and enchanted sword.
Of course, this sword was pretty basic as far as enchanted weapons went but it would still fetch a price of around twenty-five gold at least.
With his demonstration over, Marcus said, "Now I want to give all of you a bit of advice. Make sure to keep up with studying and listen to your seniors here at the forge. And I must tell you that if you wish to truly excel, learning fire magic is a huge boon, and once you have gotten your skill level to three to practice on precise mana control. This will help you when making enchanted weapons like the one I just did. And finally make sure to take some time to level up every now and then. If your level stagnates so will your skill forging."
Saying those finishing words Marcus wrapped up his lesson with the new apprentices and bid them all good luck, before leaving the forge and finding that he had spent more time than he thought there, as the day had already turned to night.
Th𝗲 most uptodate novels are published on free(w)ebnov(e)l.𝒄𝒐𝙢