Affinity: Chaos

Chapter 266: Forgemastering II

“Now, each of you, pick a furnace.” Instructor Dunstan ordered.

Grey and the other students went on to stand in front of different furnaces. The one Grey picked was on the right side of the room.

There were damaged ingots of low quality close to the furnace, as well as coal. Instructor Dunstan’s example wasn’t long, only about five minutes or so. He explained the process of regulating the temperature, and when and how to know when to increase, and decrease the fire.

Grey placed the ingots in the furnace, before placing them in coal.

“Too much.” Instructor Dunstan’s voice sounded beside his ear.

“If the amount of coal placed in is too much, it would increase the difficulty of the heating process, of course, given your Plane, you shouldn’t have any problems with controlling the intensity of your flame.” He added.

Just like Grey, Instructor Dunstan was still in the Origin Plane, although he was in the Ninth stage, he couldn’t compare himself with Grey. From Grey’s appearance, he guessed he wasn’t over twenty.

He had never seen anyone Grey’s age that was already in the Origin Plane, much less in the Fifth stage.

‘He must have been one of those who went for the special training.’ He thought to himself.

There were rumors around the Academy that all the students who went for the special training and came back were all in the Origin Plane, but the one with the highest stage was a Fire Hall student who came back in the Fourth stage of the Origin Plane.

“I’m not really proficient in regulating the intensity of my flame, I’ll still need your guidance, Instructor.” Grey said with a light bow.

Instructor Dunstan nodded slightly before heading over to assist the other students. Of the twenty others, three were Earth Elementalists, so they had to use the more traditional way in the heating process.

Grey took out some coal, before lighting up the furnace. His rare blue flames once again caught the attention of everyone in the room.

Instructor Dunstan was dumbstruck when he saw Grey’s flame. This was the first time he was seeing a special flame, and he felt overwhelmed by the difference between it and normal flames. He was further left speechless when he recalled how effective special flames were in forging.

There are three grades of special flames, and Grey’s blue flame was surprisingly in the mid grades. Seeing something like this, to a blacksmith like Instructor Dunstan was a dream come true.

He didn’t go over to Grey though, rather, he urged the other to continue what they were doing. Giving Grey a special treatment because of his flame was not something someone of his character would do, it was not something that was allowed in the Lunar Academy. In the Academy, all students must be treated equally by the Instructors.

Oliver places this law in the Academy to improve the courage of some of the students. There are some people that naturally have low self-esteem, seeing others getting special treatments would further decrease the already low self-esteem, this will in turn affect their cultivation life.

Grey and the others stayed in the room, practicing their flame control as well as the intensity of their flames.

After staying in the room for almost three hours, only one student made substantial improvements, and it was unsurprisingly not Grey.

In the aspect of learning, Grey couldn’t be said to be the brightest, this was proven with his time learning arrays. His advantage was his dedication and inhumane hard work.

The student was a young lady called Aella. Grey didn’t know her full name, just the name she was called by her friends. This motivated Grey to trying harder so he could make some improvements, but even after staying two more hours, his control only increased by a little.

‘This is good, at least there are some improvements.’ He thought to himself.

Luckily, Void wasn’t here, or else he would have laughed him to no end. Of the twenty-one students, Grey could be said to be average in terms of improvements, this was with the fact that he had a higher Plane, and a better fire.

Instructor Dunstan was flabbergasted by how small Grey’s improvement was. He didn’t expect that he would make such small improvements.

But seeing the look of determination on Grey’s face, he could only encourage him to try harder. It wasn’t like they wouldn’t come again, so no need to pressure them.

When the students were walking out of the room, Grey called out to him.

“You want to stay a little longer?” Instructor Dunstan was stumped by Grey’s request.

Most students want to leave this place as soon as possible, yet, Grey wanted to stay longer.

“Yes, you see, I feel I could improve a little further today. So I plan to stay longer.” Grey nodded with a determined look.

He noticed this practice not only increases his flame control, but the intensity of his flame also saw an increase. This would make his fire more lethal.

He wasn’t only learning to forge, but also training himself. If he went home now, he would only continue his training, so why not stay here a little longer?

Instructor Dunstan looked around still not sure of what to say, the materials in the room that were prepared for their training were already finished. He could only get a new batch the next day, getting more today would be difficult.

“I can cover for the cost of the materials.” Grey suggested when he saw Instructor Dunstan’s look.

“Hmm, it’s okay, no need to. Stay here, I’ll go get more materials. But there’s a limit to how much I can bring.” Instructor Dunstan said.

To him doing this was already giving Grey special treatments, but since this was Grey’s request, he couldn’t deny it.

He left Grey and headed to the forge, he came back with some materials, but not really enough to last Grey for long.

“This is all I can get my hands on, from tomorrow, you can prepare your materials.” Instructor Dunstan said, since Grey could get the materials, there was no need in taking the risk of getting them for him.

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