MASTER ARTISAN CORIN'S LECTURE: "FORGING & INFUSING STEEL"
Selection of Ore & Alloying
Steel begins as a blend of iron and trace metals (mithril, quicksilver, starmoss ash). Corin held up two ingots: one dull grey, one mottled with silver veins. "That silver‑veined ore carries natural Uud resonance. It's why Starsteel blades sing."
Heating & Hammering
Ores are melted in a Uud‑heated forge (burning both coal and channeled Uud). As the metal reaches a pale gold glow, it's poured into a mold, then immediately hammered on the anvil to align the grain. "Hammer with purpose," Corin intoned. "Each strike embeds strength."
Quenching & Tempering
The red‑hot billet is plunged into a bath of water infused with runic salts and a single drop of Uud‑tainted oil. This rapid cooling "locks in" the structure; tempering afterward tunes flexibility. "Too brittle, and it snaps. Too soft, and it bends. Balance is everything."
Rune Etching
With the blade cooled, students chiseled runic glyphs, each a conduit for Uud. Corin demonstrated carving the "Steel's Heart" rune along the fuller (groove). "Every line must be precise. A wavering rune leaks power."
Enchanting: Infusing Uud
Finally, the blade is laid upon a leylines circle and the wielder channels Uud through their staff. A steady stream of violet‑tinged energy flows into the runes, causing them to glow. "Watch the rune glow reach the steel's edge," Corin said. "That's your warning—stop before it burns through the metal."
Rain's First Attempt
Ore Selection: He chose the silver‑veined ingot, feeling its cold hum in his fingertips.
Forging: With three deliberate hammer‑strikes, he shaped the glowing steel into a dagger blank.
Quench: He knelt, plunged it into the rune‑salt bath, steam hissed as runes on the anvil glowed bright blue.
Etching: His first rune wobbled; Corin's nod of approval followed once he corrected the second pass.
Infusion: Rain raised his staff; violet sparks gathered along the rune, then settled into a steady glow that traced the dagger's full length.
When he finally held the completed blade, it thrummed with power, light enough to dance in a duel, strong enough to cleave stone.
Corin's Parting Words:
"That is the beginning. True mastery comes when the steel becomes an extension of your will and when your will is as unbreakable as the blade you forge."
As Corin moved among the students inspecting their first forged works, Rain worked with practiced rhythm. The sound of hammer against steel was a familiar song to him, one Enoch had taught him in secret during their quiet evenings in Midgard.
"Breathe with the flame," Enoch once said. "Let it tell you when the metal is ready. Then strike not with force, but with faith."
Rain's muscle memory took him through the motions, choosing the silver-veined ore, heating it, shaping it into a long dagger with a curve in the spine, like the blades of the southern coast. He tempered it perfectly, and when he etched the runes, they gleamed true and deep.
But then came the inlaying, the moment that always defeated him.
This was where most students channeled their Authority, a guiding hand that shaped their Uud into harmonized flows, infusing the runes without rupture. Rain had no such aid. His Uud was pure power.....untamed, like a river without banks. The moment he tried to push it into the blade, it rejected him.
The steel began to shiver under the force.
"Tch... not again..." Rain whispered, steadying his breath.
Memory stirred, Enoch's voice: "Don't push. Flow into the steel, not through it. Imagine your Uud as water, not striking the blade, but soaking into its grain."
Instead of channeling a stream of energy, Rain placed one hand on the blade's spine and allowed his intent to lead. He whispered inwardly, not to the steel, but to the spirit within it. His Uud trickled like morning dew over dry roots.
The runes flickered.....once.....twice...and held.
Corin's eyebrows lifted, "Interesting... I've never seen an inlay like that before."
Rain didn't look up. He was still trembling slightly, not from fear but from holding the wild beast of his Uud back from breaking free.
"It's not elegant," he muttered, "but it works."
Corin nodded, "More than that. It's raw, but... honest. You're not forcing your will but you're meeting the metal halfway."
Across the forge, a few students looked over, surprised that the one with no Authority had completed an enchanted blade before some of them. Pam furrowed her brow in interest. Julia raised an impressed eyebrow. Even Basil paused his chant to observe the faint glow along Rain's blade.
Corin stepped away from Rain's workbench, his voice cutting through the clatter of hammers and murmured enchantments.
"And with that....." he raised a thick finger and pointed to the finished blade still faintly pulsing with Rain's raw Uud, "the first week's forge points go to the Starsteel clan's Rain of Midgard, 800pt in total"
The room froze for a moment.
A few scattered claps echoed from the back of the class, Luke and Basil gave each other a nod, while Pam's eyes narrowed in a calculating gaze. But most of the students shifted uncomfortably. Starsteel was supposed to dominate combat trials, not academics.
Corin turned slowly to face the rest of the room, voice now like sharpened flint.
"Your clans specialize in theory, in supernatural arts, in Authority construction but you let a combat clan take points in metalworking and enchanting?" His lips curled into a half-grin. "Mediocre disciplines, eh? That's what some of you think. But you're not understanding the battlefield."
He tapped the board behind him with a bit of Uud-infused chalk, drawing symbols that briefly glowed red-hot before fading.
"You think you can conjure spirits and manipulate realms, but you don't even know how to bind Uud to iron. You think you'll out-think the Starsteel clan in the midterm finals when they take to the battlefield?"
He let the silence stretch, then added with a growl:
"Wake up, Wickertomb! Get serious, Oakwood! And Starbound! your whole identity's on the line."
His gaze swept toward Rain, then flicked to Grey and Tev both seated at their workbenches, casually observing.
"Rain of Midgard made it work with raw Uud and no Authority. What's your excuse?"
The air thickened with a quiet tension. Pride was struck. Rivalries ignited. And just like that, the first battle lines of the academic year were drawn, not in combat, but in craft.
And Rain, quietly wrapping his newly enchanted blade in cloth, observed Corin. As Corin's words still echoed through the hall, Tev quietly stood from his bench. He didn't walk to the forge. He didn't reach for tools.
He simply raised his hand.
A faint tremor passed through the raw materials on his table...steel dust, alloy fragments, an unshaped core of elderwood, and powdered crystal. They began to rise, slowly at first, then swirling like a miniature storm caught in an invisible vortex.
The class turned in silence as the pieces spun faster and faster, bending to an unseen rhythm. Tev's Authority flooded the room, not in a violent surge, but as a deep, primeval force, like tectonic plates shifting far beneath the earth. His aura didn't burn or blind.....it rumbled. Ancient! Massive! Inevitable!
The metal began to warp and meld midair, glowing red from within as runes carved themselves across its surface. Cracks of luminous heat spiraled down the forming shape until it solidified into a dagger no longer than a handspan, shimmering with an inner pulse and humming with etched with his family sigil.
He lowered his hand. The dagger hovered down and settled gently on the table, still hot to the touch, steaming slightly against the stone.
A beat of stunned silence.
Then Corin chuckled. A low, dry sound.
"If you'd done that at the start," he said, gesturing casually toward the masterpiece, "your clan could've gotten the points."
The students didn't laugh. They barely breathed.
Rain looked at the dagger, then at his own enchanted blade, still glowing faintly with raw, imperfect Uud. He felt a strange tug in his chest. Not envy… not yet. Something deeper. Like watching the tide from shore, knowing the wave could swallow everything.
Around him, other students looked on with mixed expressions.
Grey stared, eyes alight, not with awe, but with curiosity, almost hunger. A challenger sensing another apex predator.
Basil's usual ease was gone, replaced with a subtle tension in his jaw.
Pam and Julia were whispering to one another behind raised hands. Vanilion looked openly annoyed.
And Rain… Rain felt small. Like a side character in someone else's legend. He clenched the cloth around his blade, trying to hold on to his pride, to the reminder that he had still forged something from nothing. That he'd done it with no Authority at all.
But the Leviathan didn't just bend the rules.
He was a rule all by himself.