"Reinforcement, despite its name, does not actually strengthen anything. It may seem useless—well this specific application is, but once you start to master it, you will be able to use other types of reinforcement. Oh, I won't be teaching you guys those advanced techniques because you guys aren't ready for that stuff yet." Scarlet put the rod back into the forge and took another one out.
"You guys probably don't really understand how it works yet so let me show you guys a basic technique of Dwarven blacksmiths." She grabbed the hammer before saying, "oh, I'm not teaching you guys blacksmithing. This is just so you guys can better understand how it works and other applications of it."
She first propped the glowing part of the rod on the anvil before smashing down with the hammer on the middle part, as if wanting to smash the rod into two separate rods. I didn't really know what she was trying to make by hitting straight down the middle of the rod, but then again, I wasn't a blacksmith nor an expert in the field of metallurgy so I shouldn't be judging. Seeing it myself in person, I could confirm that sparks were being scattered with every strike which I thought would catch things on fire, but they didn't.
After a couple seconds of hammering, she had gone from a rod, to a wedge shape at the edge, all the way to a spike. The rod was now looking like a glowing javelin. She suddenly got a large brush from the tool cart and aggressively scratched the metal everywhere. Was there such a thing as combing metal? The more you know I guess?
"I'm going to use reinforcement now. Watch." She said, raising the javelin toward us. The metal was still glowing like the rod before it, except it was a bit of a darker color: an orangish red color I would say. It could be because it had been exposed to the room temperature air for a while.
In a moment's time, the javelin returned back to its former metallic color. "A lot of Dwarven blacksmiths use basic Reinforcement like this to quench the hot metal, or in this case, the taper. Some dub it as mana quenching."
'Taper?' For the first time in a while, I felt my vocabulary was lacking which shouldn't be since I was technically a man in his late twenties—someone pursuing a scientific career to add.
"The basic theory behind this, is that the mana you exert from your body tends to be the same temperature as your body temperature which is roughly 310°X. So what Reinforcement really is, is moving your mana throughout an object. Do you guys know why I'm teaching this to you three?" She propped the javelin-like "taper" against the anvil.
Before I or the other two could respond, she cut back in, "mana control. It is all to improve willpower. Right now, you all are only touching upon the surface of the magical world. The pure destructive power of a higher leveled spell may seem to be the most important thing to focus on for you newcomers. But having enough willpower to manipulate mana and magic as you see fit tops all of it. With the right amount of control, you can utilize a simple Wind Blade to cut through an infinite amount of Fire Balls. Control is the variable that affects the winner of a battle. No matter how disadvantaged, if you have control over your opponent, your chances of winning are many times higher. A similar rule applies in physical bouts where the more agile warrior will control the pace of the battle. There are also a lot of other cool things you can do with a higher level of willpower or control. But focusing on developing it is the most crucial step right now."
'That does make a lot of sense. Controlling the pace of the battle huh? Isn't that what I've been doing in Battle Class whenever we had sparring matches?'
"Alright, you three try it for yourselves." She passed a new rod fresh from the forge to me—wait, how the f*ck is she holding it from the glowing side?
'Had it all been a magic trick all along?' Not believing my eyes as I watched her hand the other two rods the same way to Rachel and Melissa, I decided to try it myself. Whenever one enters a hot bath, one must test the waters first. I unhesitantly put my pointer finger on the... FFFFUUUUUUU—
A cool sensation suddenly enveloped my burned finger and returned it back to normal.
"You shouldn't do that even if you love chicken fingers. Death from roasted fingers is a great darwin award and all but I don't want any corpses in my workshop." Scarlet warned.
'Dar... well at least I now know she's definitely a reincarnator like me. But can she really say these otherworldly things out in the open like that?' I stared at her thinking that.
Anyway, this shouldn't be too hard if it's just inputting my mana into it. I'm supposing I just circuit through it as if the rod were a part of my body? Yeah, something like that I'm guessing. I consciously told my mana to circuit through the rod and it felt pretty natural. I couldn't help but notice how similar it was to when I performed the Dragon Fist. It rushed through my arm and out, except it was much smoother and calmer, akin to a calm breeze. In a moment's time, I could feel the mana returning, and going: back, and forth, and back, and forth. To me, it was a second nature. I didn't even have to think about it now, but it was still circuiting through the rod as if it were only natural.
"Two seconds..." a sound came from in front of me.
I snapped out of my concentration and opened my eyes to be met with Scarlet's dropped jaw as she continued to mumble to herself.
I felt two gazes coming from the side, so I turned only to see Rachel and Melissa, both with still glowing rods, looking at me. Their rods were still glowing, albeit a much darker tone, suggesting that they were still undergoing Reinforcement at the current moment.
Then.
I looked at my own rod.