The Nine Lords Of Order - Chapter 53

The clanging sound of Mars’ forging ring striking Jill’s head was quite loud and soon everyone had turned their attention towards them.

Some more observant people had even seen the ring smash against her head and were gasping in astonishment.

Feeling many hostile gazes suddenly fall on him Mars couldn’t help but get nervous. Although he was almost unbeatable in ascension city, up here his strength did not amount to much! If these people suddenly jumped at him, he would stand no chance!

“You are new here?” Sobbing her own head Jill was still angry. She was a respected core disciple and was quite famous as well. To be smacked behind the head mid lesson was quite humiliating.

After she arrived here she had been told by her maid that a new apprentice had joined her class. At first she was pleased, after all each new apprentice would lead to obtaining more merit points.

She needed the merit points she earned by providing lessons to afford her blacksmithing practices in the Blacksmith School.

She was planning to offer him some guidance after she finished giving pointers to the girl behind her, but who knew that even before she had the chance this moron would almost knock her unconscious?

“Get back to your spot and don’t do a thing! I will soon guide you through the basics!” Breathing heavily she ordered before calming down.

“Alright! Alright!” Raising his arms Mars quickly apologized and returned to his spot with his forging ring in hand. ‘How was I supposed to know that this was going happen?’

After sitting down Mars began to think about what went wrong just now. Apparently randomly injecting energy to the ring was a bad idea.

Soon Mars heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Raising his head Mars noticed who it was and smiled apologetically while he said, “Senior sister Jill, I’m deeply sorry about what happened just now. I swear it wasn’t my intention”

Considering that he was going to learn blacksmithing under this person he couldn’t afford to offend her. What happened previously was a complete accident. Since that was the case, it was only right to apologize. Since Mars noticed her face was still cloudy he put up the most charming face he could muster and apologized once again.

Jill who was still considering if he should kick him out of her lessons ended up just snorting. “The ring of forging is made from a crystal which reacts very strongly to energy. When you inject your energy into it randomly then it will just spin out of control. What you need to do, is to slowly inject your energy to every part of its body simultaneously, that way you will be able to keep its balance. Then you only need to manipulate your energy to lift the ring up to a height you can comfortably work with.”

Nodding his head Mars couldn’t help but think this senior sister Jill was quite considerate and forgiving.

He slowly injected energy into the forging ring and it soon started to levitate off the ground. He was trying to be careful however the ring was still spinning and tilting all over the place.

Jill who was watching said with a stern voice, “Once your energy is inside the forging ring try to not circulate it around.”

“Once I inject my energy into this thing it just circulates automatically! What the do you mean by not circulating it?’ Mars was beginning to feel that he was losing control of the forging ring once again. He was afraid of causing another accident so he quickly severed the flow of energy and the ring dropped to the floor.

Shaking her head Jill said, “The energy you are injecting automatically flows around the ring to fill out gaps, when this happens it circulates. However what you need to do is to fill every gap simultaneously. That way you will be able to create an equilibrium. Levitating the ring is not that hard either so you keep practicing until you get the right feeling. Once you get it levitate at chest height then I will teach you the next steps.” Then she left to give pointers to other people.

Mars thought about her words carefully and quickly went to try once again. The third time he tried he failed once again however he lasted longer before losing control and being forced to severe the flow of energy. The seventh attempt he finally managed to get it levitate without being forced to severe the flow of energy, however the forging ring still kept tilting unsteadily. The tenth time he managed to levitate the ring with steadiness but once he tried to raise it to chest height he lost control. It was only until the twentieth attempt that he finally managed to manipulate the ring so it levitates at chest height without instabilities.

With a smile on his face Mars wiped some sweat from his forehead. He was not tired because of the energy expenditure, but because he had been in a focused state for too long.

Looking around he could tell most people were finishing forging their spears. Looking back at his progress he couldn’t help but feel a bit discouraged. Looking around he saw that Jill was busy and hadn’t noticed that he had completed the first step.

He had the intention of waiting for further instructions… but after waiting for 30 seconds he grew impatient and decided to try the next step on his own. ‘Through my previous experiences I noticed several things The ring tilts if the energy within an area is higher. When the energy within an area is greater then the energy flows down the concentration gradient, it’s exactly this flow which causes the ring to spin. What I need is to make the ring spin without tilting…” He decided to make a few rounds of testing to prove a few theories. However he used very little energy in his tests since he didn’t want to cause any other accidents After all, it would be very embarrassing if he was kicked out from the lessons on his first day because he pissed off his instructor.

After a few attempts he discovered that in order to get the ring to spin at a constant speed and avoid the tilting he needed to inject his energy in one end of the ring and extract some energy from the opposite end. This way he would be able to keep the ring balanced while the flow kept going. Several attempts later Mars could already make the ring spin without much trouble. To make the speed of the spin faster he only needed to fasten or slow down the flow of energy. However as soon as there was surplus of energy, the ring would tilt.

Throwing a piece of ore inside the ring the noticed that as soon as it reached the epicenter of this ring it was automatically held in place. However as the ring spun only the sides of this ore were heated. The top and the bottom were not affected by the changes in temperature. Mars guessed that as the ring spun a wave of heat would be emitted in a stream from its body. If he wanted for the heat to reach every place of the ore he had to make the ring tilt around.

“There are four types of spins that can be applied to the ring. The side-spin, reverse side-spin, top-spin and under-spin. The side-spin and reverse side-spin is when the disc rotates around its vertical axis. The top and under spin is when the ring rotates around its horizontal axis. The side-spin is what we use to manipulate the temperature and the top and under spins is what we use to get the temperature everywhere.” At some point Jill arrived beside Mars was standing with her arms crossed and started to explain.

“You already figured out how to make the ring side-spin, which is by injecting your energy in one end of the ring’s body and extracting it from the opposite end simultaneously. However to perform a top-spin you need to”

Like that she started to explain several detail regarding the use of forging rings and factors he had to keep in mind.

In the next following days Mars quickly mastered how to control the ring. Although it was hard and confusing at first, once he got the hang of it, the difficulty decreased. Mars lived under the belief that there weren’t easy or hard things in this world. Easy things were the ones he already learnt how to do, and the hard ones were the ones he had not mastered yet.

After a week Mars started working with simple materials and began forging simple things. The hammering process was complicated, especially because he had to divide his attention between hammering and spinning the ring. Another issue was controlling temperature and memorizing how fast he had to spin the ring to get the temperature he desired.

Throughout the next week he tried shaping metals in whatever form Jill required. It was only after three weeks that he began attempting forging weapons. As he practiced he used many pieces of ores and he even broke two forging rings. Just when he was starting to worry about not having enough merit points… the new month arrived and he received his ‘allowance’. After two months passed, Mars could already forge most of the basic weapons.

Even Jill who was initially displeased with him was surprised because his fast progress. At some point she even began to spent more time with Mars than with any other apprentices. She could tell that Mars would be soon be ready to pass the Blacksmith School admission test. She couldn’t help but feel proud at herself. Although she acknowledged that Mars had worked very hard, she still felt satisfaction when she saw that one of her apprentices was so outstanding and would soon enter the Blacksmith School.

Mars had been satisfied with Jill’s lessons as well. Although they were quite expensive, he acknowledged that they were worth the merit points!