Spirit Soul

During the last two weeks, Kyle had learned many things.
However, while he felt happy spending hours improving his knowledge, Selene was extremely bored.
The little Lohar was slowly starting to reveal her true self, allowing her personality to be built up.
All these days, she had either been scared or indecisive.
Only now was she truly beginning to open up and show other aspects of her behavior, which was great to witness for everyone around.
Kyle was not even able to compare her to the timid and helpless slave she had been before.
Selene was now much more confident than before.
The only issue was that she still clung too much to him.
It was annoying but at the same time, Kyle felt good about not being alone in the house of his teachers.
At least he knew that it was not just him being tortured with weird tasks by Gard.
The one-armed blacksmith had used various materials in order to forge several items.
These were specific items that would assist him in work while not letting his disability hinder his work progress.
Forging with one arm was still extremely difficult.
But thanks to Kyle's helpful insights, it had become less burdensome.
Gard was still trying to adapt to working with his untrained arm.
Thus, he would spend hours doing simple tasks that he used to complete minutes earlier.
The fact annoyed him as his only arm was less proficient in accurately hitting the hot ingot with the right amount of force.
Despite the frustration he had to overcome every single time he tried to forge, Gard had found a way to distract himself from his stress and anger.
This task was to train Kyle, who seemed to be an eager and curious student.
Gard had no idea that it were Kyle's memories from his past life that had allowed him to learn everything at a much higher speed.
His learning skills were far from a true genius who would absorb every piece of information like a wet sponge.
In fact, Kyle was in the belief that he was relatively normal, and only special owing to his reincarnation.
But, that was not necessary as long as he could remember the majority of things he would learn in this lifetime.
Thus Kyle spent a lot of his time studying and learning everything his teacher asked him to.
He would lose track of time while familiarizing himself with various stances that were utilized to forge ingots.
Only now did Kyle realize that shaping them accurately, while releasing as much of the metal's potential as possible was harder than he had assumed.
Unfortunately, this didn't mean that he had started to forge yet.
So far, Kyle had only held a forging hammer and tongs to help Gard in forging an extremely crude prosthesis.
It appeared more like a clump of metal with various types of 'hands' that could be fitted to the tip.
It was attached to the stump of Gard's right arm which allowed him to tighten it to a certain extent.
Meanwhile, Mell had engraved several runes into the prosthesis.
These were specific runes that helped increase the prosthetic implant's flexibility and agility.
They would also decrease its overall weight, making it less burdensome for Gard to wear.
Kyle was not sure whether they were actually well-made or just crudely forged together, but somehow he could visualize that they could turn into real prosthesis.
'If better materials and profound runes were used in creating a prosthesis, it could act as a near-perfect replacement. The energy veins inside the metals could function as artificial muscles and veins, allowing Gard to move them properly...I think?'
His assumption was spot on, but they neither had the right materials nor knew about the required runes.
One more downside was that Gard's mana was weak as well!
As such, Gard could only do his best with whatever he had in hand.
Despite his limitations, he found joy in teaching Kyle.
It provided him both respite and distraction from his work that was lately giving him more pain than happiness.
The fact that the young man was working hard on improving as much as possible made Gard feel satisfied with his decision.
Time was flying by, and Kyle's knowledge had progressed tremendously.
After making Kyle focus on theory, Gard decided to give him some practical exposure.
According to Gard and most of the blacksmiths, forging was an art.
It required a patient mind and relentless efforts to hone one's skills.
Making Kyle read through the lengthy texts had been sort of a test.
Gard had wanted to see if Kyle would be patient and read or be annoyed to think that he was wasting his time on theorizing things.
And to Gard's surprise, Kyle had passed the test with flying colors.
Because of that, it was time for him to start forging simple bar-shaped ingots.
This was the task every apprentice had to learn first.
It may sound simple, but it was everything but that.
Yet, before Gard could tell Kyle about the plan he had in mind, his apprentice came up with a plan of his own.
They were having dinner when Kyle announced his plan for the next day.
"Selene and I want to go out to hunt tomorrow. We've been inside the town walls for two weeks and haven't been able to adjust to our increased cultivation base. Selene is already at the Pryr low Fortification stage and she has yet to go hunt since her advancement.
Furthermore, we want to test our martial art techniques in life-and-death battles!"
While Kyle shared his plan enthusiastically, Selene nodded her head.
She approved everything he said through her actions as she was a bit intimidated by her teacher's gaze.
But, thankfully Mell intervened.
"The Sadorla forest might not seem dangerous around Vila town, but don't be reckless.
Stay close to the town walls, and don't go too far away!"
Mell didn't even try to convince them to change their mind.
Instead, she just told them to be careful.
However, Selene, who was too excited, blurted out,
"Teacher, this won't be a problem. Gaby will be by our side, so we will be safe from danger.
We will only have to avoid beasts at the peak Vitae stage or Krysal stage!"
Had Kyle not freed Selene of enslavement himself, he wouldn't be sure if she had truly been a slave.
Sometimes, he couldn't believe how such a blabbermouth had survived so far in the cruel world.
As such, he just shook his head for now.
He made a mental note of educating Selene on how to read the room and keeping some things to herself.
'I can already imagine Selene fighting against someone while saying out loud