Spirit Taming

Chapter 685: Lift The Sword

When the last slam of the seven flame hammer hit the heaviest of the training swords that General Green had crafted at an incredible pace, there was nothing but awe in the air. The very feeling of amazement that came from everyone that had witnessed the skills of the general was easy to grasp.

Ralph felt that he had watched a lot of motions foreign to him. He had studied forging as his own teacher. He had learned from a few people here and there, but never a mentor that put him as the main source. As the main receiver of their knowledge.

Therefore, he had not had the chance to be able to see them all in action. With every movement refined not to waste energy of time. With every single skill being trained to the peak of what it should be. These techniques were much higher quality than what he could perform.

Therefore, as he had watched, he had compared himself and general Green. He had looked at how he would open his elbow out when he would slam the hammer down. How he would channel his energy with additional energy to ensure that he made his goal when hitting the metal.

These two were just parts of what he had done wrong consistently. Timing or cooling , timing of additional heating, and judgment of materials was also a huge part of his self failures. He had lacked the experience and guidance that came from a mentor. Right now, he saw that general Green was able to judge all of this at a glance.

Grace also noticed this. She noticed the focussed eyes that Ralph had. How he was absorbing every single second of this experience like a sponge. She also took note of how the metal cooled. How the energies influenced the changes that they were all witnessing.

Due to her partner having wind and ice affinities, Grace knew that she could cool the metals easily. She could also add fuel for the flames using wind as the source. This would just help Ralph more. But, she did not take in to account how they had to be cooled.

The way that the metal cooled and remained hot could alter how it was forged. Because she and her partner did not thoroughly guide the cooling of metal using ice energies, then the metals would definitely be unbalanced. The heat would cause certain portions to be hotter asn bend more when hit with the hammer. Other potions would be too cool and potentially cause cracking within the metal.

Damage to the overall product.

Ralph had needed to fix this constantly. But in his lack of experience, he had not considered it Grace's errors. He had assumed this was normal. That he was supposed to take all of this in to account. Coincidentally, this had greatly improved his learning since he consistently had to handle odd situations that required a high thought process.

He began to understand the materials he used more than a normal young blacksmith would.

"This is it. Take these and start your training. I will keep these two here. They won't want to train right now anyways." General Green didn't even break a sweat as she showed the different weighted, yet same sized, training swords.

Each had a slim design and were a basic gray color with silvery lines through them. The handles were made so that they could be held in either hand so that Reese could easily switch movement without stress. That was a touch that he appreciated the more. Especially since he might be grabbing the swords from their air in odd ways.

"Thank you very much for these. I will try to learn how to use them as fast as possible so that we can wield more dangerous real blades." Rees Made a point of this since he was certain that he did not have any of the skills necessary to wield multiple real blades. He and his partner could not make the swords all float at the same time. That was beyond them right now.

With a nod, General Green waved everyone watching off. Isa just stood there wondering how she could further train herself if she stayed here. However, she did not want to focus on just sending small bursts of wind energy from her body due to her melded state with partner in a cocoon.

The focus that she had, needed to be on the fact that she had to manipulate the wind energies with care and precision. That would be the only way to further refine how she might be able to guide arrows just like Grace was training, and also how she would meld energies together.

The ice and fire combination were things that Isa was already used to. That was why she fell deep in to thought as she followed Reese outside to the open training space around the forges just for this reason.

The fire and ice combinations were easy to use since she could freeze and heat things causing them additional stress. If she forced the energies together, it would create an awkward explosion of energies because they were opposing. But it could also create a misty steam that made it harder for others to see. Ella had enjoyed this since her cloud sprite could use that to its advantage.

If she were able to master the ability to mix wind and flames, her blaze elemental's energy would be saved much better. They would not have to use so much of it since the wind would greatly increase the heat of flames. The same for the winter witch. The wind could add a cooling effect that froze things much faster.

But there was a chance that the opposing wind and earth energies could be mixed. There were sandstorms in deserts. Therefore, if Isa were to make a unique crystal sand storm, there could be some devastatingly gruesome attacks that they could perform together.

"Let's do this, Isa, please try and use your wind to make my partner and I lose our focus on making the sword float." Reese decided to change the way he would train. Make himself and his partner focus on this much simpler.

He had managed to gain some of the spiritual energy that was lost through forging from General Green. That had been built up by his partner and pushed towards improving their strengths. The spirit steel sasword was already able to use the spiritual energy to float much more easily than what it had when the two first began training these methods. But extending that energy was troublesome.

Especially since it would require consistent usage of these energies at a trained degree. Therefore, when Isa used the wind to add an outside factor, the two would have to adjust themselves accordingly. With their minds split on also making another of the training swords float, then they would have to adjust their bong sharing energy, along with latch on to another item. Something they had yet to do.

As Rees reached out with his energies and found hsi bond with his partner, the sword aura between the two appeared. They had kept this in hold for now since they did not need to fight, but now, with their strength, it naturally existed even when they just channeled more energy than usual through their bonds.

This made the air feel heavier and put pressure on Isa who was trying to focus on making smaller gusts of wind that would buffet Reese and the spirit steel sword. Finding that the energies might dissipate, Isa quickly threw down some wind and spiritual energy crystals. The idea to make the area better for their training a simple one that many people used.

When Reese and his partner managed to send out their spiritual energy, they found that they could sense the willingness of the training sword. The lines of spiritual metal within them allow for the two to feel the transfer of spiritual energy. To feel the weight of the sword, even though light, to weigh on their bond.

Therefore, they had to extend a lot of their mental energy to be able to make it shakily move. A success that many would be proud of. Yet, when Reese realized that neither him nor his partner could make the training sword move further than a foot off the ground, they understood. They had lost half of their energy and focus to this task.

While they had fought greatly with just the two of them, they now had to use more energy to do the same actions.

This required better control and more energy. It also required the spirit steel sword to absorb or metal energy and understand its bond with other metals. Reese had to give it more.

When a small burst of wind hit them, it shook the training sword floating in the air. Then the sword collapsed. Isa felt that she was pushing a little too hard, however, Reese's determined gaze proved that she had done exactly what she needed to help while she trained her own understanding of wind energy.