Chương 65: Limitless Path Chapter Sixty-Five

Beth just waved over her shoulder in response, the group quickly heading southward. They skirted around the eastern edge of the neighborhood, quickly moving across the highway into the fields to the south. They had to kill a small number of lower leveled wolves as they made their way to the wolf dungeon, the beasts natural aggression leading to no care given to the overwhelming difference in power. They cleared the dungeon rather quickly, Beth more concerned about the money than the experience.

She did give some time for the others to fight wolves without her interference, but they were soon at the boss room, which didn't pose her any challenge. They exited after a short rest and headed to the CRA Hall, jogging inside right away. Beth gave Tazeen a nod as the group passed by, and they made their way down to the basement of the arena, entering Beth's room and shedding their equipment. They took turns using the bathroom to shower again, running through the remaining supplies of clean towels in the room.

Beth had showered first, and she left with a big pile of laundry after reattaching her belt and pouch, heading over to the laundry room. She spent twenty minutes washing and drying the towels and clothes she had brought before heading back to the room, finding everyone but Soph had finished. Her youngest sister was a well-known bathroom hog, and often got into fights with Kim over use of their shared bathroom, so it was no surprise she was taking a very long shower.

Beth turned the large screen on the far wall and brought up one of the matches she had previously watched. It didn't take very long for the other two to be enthralled, only Blood not as interested, having seen it all before. They wound up watching quite a few videos before Soph deigned to emerge from the bathroom, finally showered and ready for the rest of the day. It was a good thing too, as the day was passing by, and they only had so much time with their instructors.

Beth let the others out of the room, but didn't leave herself, instead staying to read the book on smithing again. She remembered Elana's warning that she needed to not just read through the book but comprehend what she was reading to be ready to answer pointed questions. She spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working through the book another time before skimming different sections and making notes.

She was determined to do well at this, especially since she'd already been made to experience the pain of equipment prices via Jaq numerous times. If she could get access to raw materials, she could make herself and the others armor and weapons for much cheaper, and even make pieces that were custom fitted to the user. She studied fairly meticulously before sitting back with a sigh and rubbing her eyes.

She checked the time on her phone, seeing that it was starting to get a little late, before standing up and shutting the screen off. She threw her gear on before motioning to Blood, leading the way out of the room and up to the lounge. She found Soph already there waiting for the rest and joined her sister at the table. They didn't have to wait more than a few minutes before the other two showed up at practically the same moment, both looking dog-tired from the long day.

The group made their way out of the lounge and down the hall before traversing the lobby to leave the building. It was already into the evening outside, and it was mostly dark as they started making their way back to the neighborhood. In just a handful of minutes they made it home, encountering nothing unexpected on the way, and trouped in through the back of the Bell house. They shucked their equipment in the mudroom before splitting out into the rest of the house.

Most of them had eaten at the CRA Hall, so they proceeded into the living room first to sit and rest, as well as discuss the day. It didn't take long, however, for weariness to win out, the younger sisters and Blood trooping upstairs while Beth turned to Sabs.

"So, uh, you wanna stay here tonight?" she asked, shifting a little on the couch while glancing downward briefly.

"Y-yeah, sure. I let my mom know that I wouldn't be back tonight," Sabs replied nervously, shifting back on forth on the couch herself as she rubbed her hands together unconsciously.

"Well, come on then. Let's head upstairs," Beth replied a bit more firmly, finding her courage as she leaned forward and took Sabs' left hand in her right, getting up and leading the older girl out of the living room. They headed to the back of the house and up the stairs, hooking a hard left to head down the hall to Beth's room. Beth let Sabs in and the two, a little to her chagrin, took turns in the shower before curling up in bed together.

The next morning, Beth woke some minutes before a groggy Sabs, noting the shorter girl had produced a fair quantity of drool during the night. Sabs was embarrassed, as usual, but Beth just shrugged it off, getting them, and then the others, ready for the day before heading out. The first half of the morning was back on the standard routine, making their way through the two dungeons and heading to the CRA Hall.

The only slight difference was the three low level girls gaining a level most of the way through the ant dungeon, but they distributed their points quickly and kept fighting. When they were at the CRA Hall, they split up to work with their instructors, with Beth working with Baelvyr that day. Several days of fighting weak enemies and studying had left her with an itch, one that only some serious combat could scratch.

So, she set to it, diving into match after match on the arena floor against the same swordsman she had been using to hone herself. She didn't develop any grand new insights or breakthroughs, but she hadn't expected to, either. She merely put her nose to the grindstone, as it were, and worked hard. After close to eight hours, not including a small lunch break, Baelvyr had seen enough and headed off to do, well, whatever he was occupying himself with in his free time.

Beth headed down to her rented room, ready for a good shower and some easily made food. The next morning, she headed to the lobby bright and early, finding most of the instructors there already. Her target today was not Baelvyr but Elana, and she approached the dwarf, waiting for her to finish what she was eating, after which Elana spoke. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"So, you read the whole book?" Elana asked her.

"Read it twice through; took some notes as well," Beth replied with a nod.

"Alright then, I told you this was coming; I'll ask, and you answer," Elana said in a serious tone.

"First, what temperature does mana copper ore melt at?"

"Depends on the mana infusion amount. Regular copper is just under two thousand degrees; mana copper is around twenty-two hundred, but can need twenty-three hundred."

"Good," Elana nodded before going into rapid fire mode.

"Melting point of mana steel?"

"Hammer type to use making scales of mana copper?"

"Swing rhythm when striking mana steel?"

"How can you tell the difference between mana silver and mana platinum ore?"...

"Where is raw adamantine most commonly found?" Beth answered every question to the best of her ability, extremely glad she had studied the book thoroughly the last two days. She was pretty sure at least the very last question was a ringer, not remembering anything being mentioned about Adamantium in the beginner's book. Elana took some notes after she was done with her questions, and Beth heaved a sigh of relief. When Elana was done with her notetaking, she turned to Beth to discuss where they were at.

"You did surprisingly well. The list I just went over comes from a bigger set of standard questions to ask a potential apprentice smith. Even for an instructor with high standards, you would have passed," Elana explained.

"What about that adamantine question? Is that something in the starter guide?" Beth asked with a slight frown.

"No, you're right, it's not in the basic book I gave you, but it is still considered part of the apprentice information. There's a lot of information that you might not use starting out as an Apprentice, but you're not going to be a great smith without a great foundation," Elana answered.

"There's other resources that you should study to improve your knowledge before you advance much as a smith."

"So, I have to read more books?" Beth asked with a sigh.

"I was hoping to actually, like, hit some metal at some point."

"Trust me, the more you spend time learning now, the better you'll be later," Elana answered.

"A lot of smiths get stuck at Expert rank their whole lives and don't understand why they can't go any further. It's because their foundation isn't solid enough; they don't understand enough information, including having a firm enough grasp of the basics. Not only that, but another big barrier is understanding materials and magic. You can research things later, but understanding more now means you'll understand more of what you're doing later.

Harder to get trapped down wrong paths or find yourself not really understanding something important."

"Just tell me what else I have to study," Beth replied, propping her head up with her right cheek resting against her right palm, her elbow on the table and forearm extended upright.

"Don't look like I just robbed you, this is important," Elana replied with a frown.

"And I have the other two books here," she continued, pulling two more books out of nowhere and handing them to Beth.

"You can keep all three of those and mark them up with notes if you want."

"Thanks," Beth said, grabbing the books and briefly checking the covers." A Study of Metals and Their Properties. A Guide to Expert Armor Refinement. These don't sound dense at all."

"If you want to be a smith, you can just go beat some metal into a shape," Elana said, crossing her arms under her rather ample chest.

"If you want to be a good smith, then you'll learn everything you need to know to make excellent equipment in the best way possible."

"Okay, okay. I got it," Beth replied, holding up her hands.

"More reading for me."

"Come on," Elana said immediately afterwards, uncrossing her arms and standing from her chair. She turned and started walking to the far door of the lounge.

"What?" Beth said, a blank look on her face.

"Follow me," Elana replied with a slight snap in her voice.

"Oh, right," Beth said before scrambling up and hurrying to catch the surprisingly swift woman. They headed out of the lounge and down the hall with Blood in tow, moving into the arena section of the building. Their destination was deep in the heart of the underworks, Elana taking them on the elevator down to the lowest floor available. When they stepped out on basement level five Elana immediately turned left and headed down the long outer hallway.

After walking for five minutes, they arrived at a room that must have been near the back of the arena, if the back were opposite the side where the front building with the lobby was located. Elana used her Emblem to open the door to the room, stepping inside while motioning for Beth and Blood to follow. The first thing Beth noticed was that the room they entered was massive, stretching at least fifty feet back from where they were standing and likely being close to a hundred feet wide.

It also must have taken up that section of the fourth basement floor as well as, even though there were no doors there; the wall above where they entered was likely the outside of the back hallway wall of the floor above. The room was filled to the brim with just about everything Beth could imagine was required for smithing, and she really had a feeling of being a kid in a candy store.

There were smelters, forges, anvils, workbenches, piles of ore and ingots, and racks upon racks of tools scattered throughout the room. It once again shocked her how wealthy the CRA must be, especially considering this was all readied quickly and transported instantly to Earth when it joined the Path. Elana led the way over to a forge and anvil set on the far side of the room.

There was a workbench of some kind of dark metal with thick legs pushed against the wall to the forge's right, and above it hung several tools on pins and mounts bolted to the wall. To the left of the forge was a stand-up rack filled with more tools, as well as what Beth guessed were some forms for molding metal into pre-configured shapes. In front of the forge was an anvil, also made of the same dark metal, and set on what looked like a thick stone pillar.

The pillar clearly had more to it than met the eye, as Elana pressed her left hand against it twice and it adjusted its height slightly, moving the anvil along with it.

"That's pretty crazy. Is that an enchantment of some kind in the pillar?" Beth asked.

"Yes," Elana answered.

"The pillars we use in CRA smithies have a number of inscriptions carved in that allow them to make adjustments to height. Look down at the side here at these two symbols." Elana then pointed down to where she touched the pillar, showing Beth how to raise and lower it. The symbols needed to be touched once for a second to activate, then let go and pressed again one second later to move the pillar.

This 'double-press' was used in several inscriptions, mainly in work areas such as the smithy, to prevent a single accidental bump from interrupting a crafter while they were mid-work.

"Alright, aprons first," Elana said then, moving to a rack to the side with heavy aprons hung on it.

"Until you can withstand the sparks and metal bits with your stats alone, an apron is always a good idea. Plus, if you have decent clothes on, it's better to wear one to preserve them. Though, you shouldn't really be forging in nice clothes." Beth put on a heavy leather apron made of some kind of dark hide that had multiple large pockets on the front.

She looped it over her head and tied it around her torso, able to accomplish the task with ease without being able to see what she was doing thanks to her new high Dexterity stat. Elana had copied her and tossed on an apron before signaling her to move over to a smelter next to their chosen work area.