Chapter 79- Master Rook arrives
Within the forge dimension, Hugh was practicing the flame art from the scroll.
The black flame finally manifested before him. He could almost control it now and move it according to his will.
Almost..
He focused on bending the black flames, trying to shape them the way the scroll described.
Just as he started to gain a better grip....
Leo suddenly teleported right in front of his face.
The sudden appearance scared the hell out of him. The black flames died out at once. Hugh staggered back and fell hard on his ass.
"Brat, are you trying to shorten my life? Can’t you pop up normally?" Hugh looked up at Leo and saw two small cubs with him.
Hugh asked, "What’s with the cubs?"
Leo held up the gray-patched one. "New tenants."
"Tenants?" Hugh got up, rubbing his backside, and squinted at the two little black balls of fur. "You stole them? What are they, wolf cubs?"
"Dire Fang Wargs," Leo said.
Hugh paused. "The one you..."
Leo nodded. "The one whose soul is in my boots. When I was forging the boots I saw the memory of the soul. I saw their mother was just looking for food for her cubs. She attacked me on instinct. I..... kind of feel guilty, so I brought them here to take care of them."
Hugh’s anger from the jump scare faded as he watched the cubs. He looked into their watery eyes and felt his heart soften. He spoke in a quieter voice. "Then you did right, brat. One should stick to one’s principles."
Hugh’s hair stuck out in places from the previous fall and it kept twitching every now and then. The cub that had charged at Leo earlier watched the twitching hair. Its pupils, which had been narrow points, suddenly expanded as it eyed the twitching hair strands.
Then..... it lunged from Leo’s shoulder straight onto Hugh’s head.
"Wha—!"
The cub sat there and purred.
Hugh stood frozen...
A tiny Warg cub perched on his gray hair like a hat, growling in an attempt to sound terrifying. The second cub peeked out from Leo’s arms with wide ash-gold eyes and ears half-flopped.
"Heavy little bastard," Hugh complained as he reached up carefully and pulled the cub into his arms the way one might hold a small child.
The one still in Leo’s arms suddenly scratched him as she climbed up to his shoulders.
"Ouch, ouch!" Leo shouted while the little cub scratched him without meaning to.
"Hey, hey, that hurts." He pinched the cub’s chubby cheeks. After a moment she rubbed her head against his face.
Leo fell silent....
Hugh burst out laughing.
Hugh raised a brow. "If you plan to keep them here, better name them. Or are you going to keep calling them ’hey, hey’?"
Leo thought for a while. "Then let’s name the male Ash and the female Ember."
Hugh nodded.
He set the cub he was holding down near the hearth. It curled into a ball and looked at them. Leo set the other one down nearby.
Seeing how Ash kept watching, Hugh muttered, "Little watchdog."
He turned back to the scroll and told Leo, "Watch over me."
The black flame rose again. It coiled around Hugh’s forearm like a living thing and covered his arm like a second skin. The band of pale ash-gold where the old injury had been pulsed slowly and steadily, keeping time with Hugh’s breath. Leo had noticed it earlier and thought it was only a trick of the firelight.
But, It seems he was wrong....
Surtr’s voice came, low and warm, for Leo’s ears alone. "Now he must prove the fire can be carried. Watch him, boy. You will not see this again soon."
Hugh controlled the flame and practiced with it.
With every breath he exhaled, he folded the flames. He tried hard to draw the diagrams from the scroll using the fire itself. Leo watched the whole process. The black flame changed shapes. Sometimes it bent into a hook, sometimes a curl, sometimes a leaf. Hugh tried to form an animal shape with the fire.
Then.... the injury erupted.
It came without warning.
The gray scar beneath the ash-gold mark went black in an instant. Hugh’s forearm started to change color to match the injured area. Leo saw it and moved to help, but he did not know what to do.
"Surtr?"
"No. He must do it himself. He needs to understand the fire and suppress it on his own."
Hugh struggled and gave everything he had to suppress it. He shouted, pouring his full will into the effort. His focus sharpened as he tried to tame the fire and push the injury back. The black flame covered Hugh completely, wrapping him like a cocoon. Heat rose inside the forge.
From deep within the dense black flames, Leo saw an ash-gold fire pour over Hugh like water. For a moment Leo thought he saw the shape of folded wings inside it.
Then the fire came apart.
Hugh knelt at the center of it, head bowed, gasping for breath. The injury had retreated and been suppressed.
A system notification appeared.
[Ding~]
[New Skill gained: Ashen Flame Control — manipulate your flame]
[Evolution available]
[Class Evolution: Blacksmith (Common) → Ashen Phoenix Forgesmith (Epic)]
[The black flame has found its smith. From the ashes of a dying body, the phoenix takes up the hammer.]
[Requirement for evolution: Forge an Epic-grade item using the black ashen flames.]
Hugh saw the notification and shared it with Leo. "Heh, brat, I’ll soon be able to forge Epic-grade items too." He gave a smug smile.
Leo stared at the notification in shock, but he was genuinely happy for Hugh. "Great. I have some Epic-rank materials in stock. You can choose any you want and forge an Epic-rank item quickly so you can promote to the new rank soon."
Hugh nodded and began preparing for the Epic-rank crafting. At that moment a message from Master Rook arrived for Leo.
"Brat, I have arrived at the coordinates you gave me. Why are you still not here?"
A second message followed right after. "If you make me wait even in the game, I’m going to beat your ass."
Leo smiled wryly at the messages and quickly opened the external view of the forge. He saw that Master Rook had arrived outside.
Hugh noticed and asked, "Another one from the previous fights?"
Leo shook his head. "Another tenant."
Leo exited the dimension and went to meet Rook.
Outside, Rook sat cross-legged on a large stone with his eyes closed. Leo waved. "Master Rook, here." He walked closer.
When Master Rook opened his eyes, Leo felt as if a sharp wind had cut across his skin. He dismissed it as imagination. When he finally stood in front of the man, Leo was stunned. Master Rook was already level 8.
"Haha... don’t tell me you haven’t logged out since joining the game," Leo said.
Master Rook just grunted.
"Come, I’ll take you to my smithy." Leo pulled him toward the stone.
Now it was Master Rook’s turn to be stunned. "Hey, you brat, what are—"
Before he could finish the sentence, Leo had already dragged him into the glowing stone. When Rook opened his eyes again, he was inside the forge dimension. He looked around the place the same way Hugh had on his first visit, his expression shifting several times.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"It’s my smithy," Leo answered with a smile.
"Hugh, this is Master Rook. He is a swordsman. Master Rook, this is Hugh, a blacksmith. He can be considered my first mentor in this world."
The two older men exchanged nods. Rook suddenly noticed the two small cubs curled up together near the hearth. He eyed them for a while but said nothing.
"Oh, I have discovered that I can use qi in this world too," Master Rook said excitedly.
Leo looked confused. "Qi? What’s qi?"
Master Rook remembered he had never explained it to Leo in the real world. "Sigh... I was going to teach you about qi if you had come to the salle, but you never came. Qi is similar to mana here. It is a type of energy reserve. Mana is drawn from the environment, while qi is internal energy. You gain it by honing and training your body. I think they call it body cultivation or something similar in this world."
As soon as he finished the explanation, Master Rook drew his sword and wrapped it in a strange energy. He swung once. The tiles in the dimension, which were hard as diamonds, were cut cleanly apart.
Leo stood frozen at the sight. "Can you show me your attributes?"
Master Rook displayed them.
STR +150
VIT +200
DEX +160
Leo was stunned again. "What the fuck, old man? What kind of stats are those? How is a level 8 player supposed to have numbers like that?"
Master Rook chuckled. "Of course it’s because I am a great genius..."
Leo eyed him. Master Rook coughed lightly and continued, "It said I awakened some kind of ability."