The searing heat of the forge and Taylor's flames swept through the entire smithy, heating it up.
Taylor didn't notice the increase in the temperature around him as he hammered the two pieces of Ufnir Iron to turn it into one.
This was not further difficult because their temperature was maintained at the melting point through Taylor's flames, which engulfed them.
A reeking stench filled the air and it forced Taylor to avert his focus after some time when the intensity of the reeking stench increased drastically.
It was almost unbearable and he stopped shaping the Ufnir Iron to take a look at what was going on.
'What is this stench?' He first wondered before he got a clear look at the glowing Ufnir Iron. Understanding dawned on him after a few seconds and he nodded his head, smiling faintly.
'The impurities within the metal are being pushed outside… which shouldn't happen in the normal forging process. I'm not using any forging technique…' Taylor understood that some impurities within the Ufnir Iron were being expelled but he was oblivious about the reason for a while.
He looked intently at the Ufnir Iron that lay unmoving on the anvil, engulfing by his blazing flames. It was not difficult for him to notice several details, which was why he moved his flames aside after a few seconds.
'A blackish membrane forms around the metal?...No, those are impurities!' Taylor was baffled when he realized how much mass of impurities he didn't see once it had been expelled from the Ufnir Iron.
He could only see everything inside the Ufnir ore. Once something was expelled from the Ufnir Ore, it was impossible for him to detect anything.
Taylor intended to burn the impurities that reeked even worse than before not that they've been exposed but he halted in his tracks. There was something that attracted his interest.
"The impurities stopped moving, all at once? Weird…" He mumbled before he combined the dots.
When he had stopped striking the searing hot Ufnir Iron, which had been engulfed by his flames, the impurities had slowed down. It was almost as if the impurities were not trying to be expelled from the Ufnir Iron.
But this was not all, because Taylor noticed that the impurities had stopped moving after his flames stopped touching them. Even striking the hot Ufnir Iron didn't make a change anymore.
Taylor heat up the Ufnir Iron in the forge to test if it was possible to remove more impurities from the Ufnir Iron just by striking the hot iron. However, even after it had been reheated, the impurities didn't move.
"My flame causes a reaction with the impurities inside the Ufnir Iron…" Taylor realized when he moved the flame he had manifested to the Ufnir Iron once again.
The impurities reacted with the flame and by striking the metal some of the impurities were pushed outside.
Taylor continued to look at this as he completed shaping the first bar after more than 30 minutes.
Once he was done, his flame dispersed, and he noticed that droplets of blood trickled down his cheeks. His eyes had begun bleeding a moment ago and Taylor just noticed that his entire body felt extremely weak as if he ran seven marathons in a week, without a single hour of sleep.
His legs gave in, Taylor slumped to the ground and he began to breathe heavily.
In the next few minutes, he didn't say a single word. Taylor focused on regulating his breathing and to lay on the ground, trying to stay conscious.
"I never thought that this would be so difficult…" He said out loud when he saw that Eris leaned over to take a look at his condition.
"Obviously it's difficult and exhausting if you use your Ancient Power the whole time. You are wasting your precious energy and your time by not working efficiently, you know?" She asked, acting as if she spoke about something perfectly normal, the fact that Taylor wasn't doing a good job.
"It's my first time, you know? How was I supposed to be good at controlling my Ancient Power while trying to do something as profound as purifying a metal?!" Taylor complained about Eris' inconsiderate attitude, feeling that she was completely ignorant about the fact that he Awoke his Ancient Power a day ago.
"You know…there are many people who are good at their first time~" Eris spoke in a seductive tone, licking her lips in thirst while staring down at Taylor's pants.
It was obvious that they weren't speaking about the same topic but Taylor didn't mind that much. Instead, he started to smile sneakily.
'Eris, you know that you should never challenge me!' He just thought as he exposed her shamelessly.
"You act like a virgin, you know? Don't try to act as if you have lots of experience," Taylor said all of a sudden, while he kept lying on the ground.
He glanced over to Eris, who gasped, before she turned silent. The temperature in the room dropped but Taylor kept smiling as he stared deep in the Demon Queen's purple eyes.
She was speechless and had no idea what kind of answer she should give him. Precisely, Eris felt like punching Taylor, but she held back.
'I'm the bigger person of the two of us…I have to act more mature than he does…calm down Eris!' Eris thought, releasing a deep sigh at the end before she turned her head away.
"Looks like the Air conditioner is working fine," She suddenly said, coughing in the attempt to change the topic.
Taylor smiled in return before he looked in the direction of the air conditioner that had started to work wonders.
It would only activate when nobody was smithing and when harmful substances were in the air.
The impurities Taylor's flames had burned were such harmful substances, which was why the air conditioner was pretty helpful.
"Yep, it's working," Taylor merely answered, without thinking of hiding his smile.
Eris' lip twitched when she saw this but she was glad to have successfully averted answered his question.
"How about you keep practicing forging Ufnir Iron bars? You should use your Ancient Power less and focus more on accurately using it, and only when it's really necessary…" Eris proposed, and Taylor nodded his head.
He had a bit less than five hours left in the smithy, and it was quite important to make use of that time. He didn't want to be wasteful, and Taylor would rather strain his body to improve than to spend more than necessary time and money for something.
Taylor got up from the ground after a short rest. His gaze turned to t
"That seems to be the highest degree of purity I can reach…for now. Maybe I can repeat the same process as before without using my eyes or fire so excessively…it should be feasible because I didn't use any kind of technique to purify the Ufnir Iron, right?" Taylor asked himself slightly confused.
He didn't use any purification technique but hammered on the Iron in a rather clueless manner.
Taylor was able to move instinctively and do many things correctly but he also knew that there were quite a few things he was lacking.
And that was something he wanted to fix, or at least improve in the following hours!
[Author Note: Please comment how you like/dislike the novel! I accept every type of criticism]