Refining the Heavens 5 (炼天五)

Chapter 28: The Five Masters (Part 1)

Kairos sat in front of a furnace, tinkering with the fire spell when suddenly his door was knocked open.

He lifted his head to see who had barged in when an old dwarf with the pointiest beard he have ever seen shoved his face right over.

The chin hair was split in two and made into sharp cones. It was huge and magnificent but hilarious.

Just as Kairos jumped back in surprise, or perhaps to dodge the beard cones, the dwarf loudly asked, "What are you doing lad?"

"I... I'm starting the furnace fire," Kairos hurriedly answered while terribly confused.

"Wrong!" the dwarf exclaimed.

"I'm not...?"

"You're making a bomb!"

Kairos looked at his magic circle again. Sure, it is a little flashier than the textbook spell circle, but its firepower should not be elaborate.

The dwarf shook his head and traced a finger at the diameter of the spell then said, "Your heat timer overlaps each other, this makes it try to start a fire multiple times at once. The spell will be taking in excessive amount of air and everything will go boom! Kid, you almost flew away together with this room! Just what is old Edgar teaching?!"

Just as Kairos was about to defend Edgar, the old dwarf pointed his pointy beard over and barked, "Rub this part away!"

Without a word, Kairos did as instructed and carefully removed the fine stray lines and the tiny blobs of spilled ink, however, his mouth still twitched involuntarily. He was in the middle of cleaning this spell when the strange old dwarf appeared.

Kairos is not clumsy nor careless by nature, however, his control of the brush is still lacking. Regardless how he practices, the lines seemed to have a mind of their own and will stray from his path.

"Over here as well. Boy, there are twelve-year-olds with better penmanship than you."

Kairos rolled his eyes and cleaned up the magic circle. At least, the ink to conduct spells is made of mana crystal dust and some kind of adhesive and is easy to wipe off with a wet cloth.

In his heart, he secretly grumbled that if he had used Breath of the Ancients to control his brush, his spell circle will be perfect.

But that way, he will not be able to practice.

One must understand that the Origin Cultivation will only improve one's innate talent according to the person's desire.

This means that not only must one be passionate in the pursuit, but years of practice cannot be forgone.

As a result, the cultivation method will keep raising one's limits, allowing the person to reach as far as desired. In a way, this works in accordance to Kairos' philosophical belief.

The dwarf continued instructing Kairos on the different spells that a blacksmith will use, including metal control spells to extract refined ores, water purification for cooling the metal, and compounding spells that can increase a metal's density.

Kairos was astonished by the dwarf's knowledge and carefully heeded every word. As he followed the instructions, he quickly improved.

Pleased at the aptitude that this student shown, the dwarf suddenly said, "Observe," and he suddenly tapped the blocked of practice metal bar.

Kairos watched in disbelief as the object liquefied.

Looking at his expression, the dwarf laughed, "I had the same look on my face when I first saw Metalwork."