บท 59: Chapter 59 - So close.
Imfrim approached the door of a dwarven house. A square building with plastered walls and a triangular roof.
"Can I really do what I was entrusted to do?" he questioned himself before knocking on the wooden door for a while before he heard the sound of wood being pulled out of it before the door opened.
An old gray bearded dwarf holding a stick looked at him from the door.
"You ran away from home again? Have you finished loathing yourself?" The dwarf said.
Not being able to face him, Imfrim replied with one word "Yes"
A sigh escaped the old dwarf's lips as he felt the need to say something but decided to not.
"Come in,"
"Thank you Father."
Imfrim walked through the door and immediately started walking towards a certain direction. A certain direction that his father knew all too well.
It wasn't long before the door to the house was closed and locked.
"Will you not even eat?" he said with a serious tone.
This tone of voice made Imfrim stop in his footsteps.
His father asked again with the same serious tone "Did you not hear me? I said, "Will you not even eat?"
"How long have you been starving from your runaway and refusal to return home after every lose,"
"Every year, your mother and I are always so worried about how you will pass the annual contest so I ask you"
"Are you not tired at all?!"
"You always work towards being the best smith in the clan yet you keep going and going to the smithery and work yourself without a care for your health,"
"Are you not tired at all?!"
He could still smell the sadness that had enveloped his son, whom he had watched lose time and time again. Though he had always wanted to stop him. He knew that there was nothing else but to keep on encouraging.
But there was a saying in dwarven culture, "A child picks up a hammer and a nail and after he learns how to use it, he becomes a sculptor. If he picks a hammer and an anvil, a smith he is,"
Why did this saying exist? Because dwarves picked up their skill from young and once they had begun their journey with their skill, to convert to another one was close to impossible.
If his son were a rare talent like the legendary craftsman who learnt both the art of crafting and the art of smithing from young then he would have no problem pushing him to pick another part.
"Even if you want to enjoy your craft, can you do so without hurting yourself? Without causing yourself anguish and the feeling of failure?" Tears began to run from his eyes but they were quickly stopped when he realized that his son had now wrapped his hands around him.
"I'm sorry father, I've always wanted to make you and mother proud but every year, it seems that I only bring disappointment every year so that's why I run, ashamed of bringing nothing else but pity to you,"
Imfrim poured out his inner thoughts while fighting the urge to cry. He then made a zeal in his heart.
"Father, I promise you that this time I'll make sure that you are proud of my achievements,"
It wasn't long when Imfrim had pulled away from his father that the latter said "If that is what you want to do then go and do it,"
"You will be knocked down and broken yes, but what is important is too keep trying until you can get what you want"
Keeping those words in mind, Imfrim did not hesitate to continue walking on the path he was walking before and when he came to the edge of one of the walls, he raised the tile only to reveal a ladder leading to the room underground.
As soon as he was done climbing the ladder he reached the bare floor, covered with plastered tiles with torches at the wall and at the center of the room was a large box of metal.
"Before the anvil was made dwarven smiths used stone squares,"
He hit his knuckles gently on the surface and smiled at the sound made.
"Still in good shape," he concluded as he searched around the room, locating various metal ores, stones and gems of different shapes and sizes.
He picked one of the ores that was brown and had an uneven circular shape. After accessing it for a while, he decided to use it. "Excellent!" he said
"But first," he then closed his eyes and started breathing and imagined himself back in where Dulgol had taken him.
[Ascending to Sensory Realm] After a long while of breathing he felt his surroundings beginning to change and when his eyes opened next, he was blue in skin color and everywhere around him was white.
"I better breathe in this energy, fast"
With his lungs expanded and his breathing level larger and slower, the amount of ounces of sensory energy he absorbed was tremendous.
When he felt that he had done enough, he imagined himself back in the smithing room of his family and it wasn't long when the environment around him changed and the white dimension he was in had started to regain color.
[You have absorbed 200 ounces of sensory energy]
The voice of the system confused him about the energy he had absorbed but regardless he decided to focus on doing what he needed to.
He reimagined the image he had seen in his mind when he was in the realm of the key guardians and decided to replicate it.
With his palms, clasped against each together, he tried to control the energy he had absorbed to send to his body.
Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead as he tried to gain control of the new energy in his body.
But after hours and hours of waiting, he gained no control of the energy. He couldn't even sense how it felt when he had been breathing it into his body.
He took a glance at the ore close to him and then at his palms. "Maybe a little forging will relax my mind"
After getting up from his position, he located another ore in the room and took it before carrying it towards the furnace that he had turned on with charcoal so as to heat it up.
When the ore had been in the furnace for a long time, he withdrew the ore from it using a thong and then hammered the hot brownish red ore before making it form the shape of a sickle before throwing it into a water bucket to cool down.
Then he blew out the furnace and began breathing. But there was still nothing else that changed after an hour of constantly maintaining his breathing.
Due to this, he went back to forging and returned and after an hour nothing happened again and the air in the smithing room was choking.
"Could it be the unpleasant air that isn't letting me do anything, after all. I was out in the fresh fields when I was suddenly transported into that realm and the air there felt fresh until I breathed too much and hurt my nose."
Having made this conclusion, he went towards the ladder and climbed it to the surface before heading towards the door.
"Are you going to run?" said a female voice.
Imfrim did not need to turn to know that the voice belonged to his mother and so he faced her and said "No, just going out to breathe,"
Without saying another word, he removed the bar on the door and walked out of the house to experience the breeze of the winds and the sunlight exposing his skin.
Not far from his home was a small lake, thinking that the air there might be fresh enough, he headed there and sat down before resuming his breathing once again.
He once again clasped his hands against another and tried the technique again but this time he decided to try something different and focused on his strength gathering at the points of his palm.
To his surprise, he felt something move in his body and speed towards his hand.
With renewed vigor, he focused on the energy at his palms and imagined them appearing as an orb.
As his palms continued to separate the orb grew bigger and bigger.
[Creating skill - Body Power conversion]
[Requirement - 25 ounces of sensory energy]
"Yes!"
Right at that moment, the orb extinguished in front of him and before he knew it, his body had become weak and he laid on the floor.
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง