As we finished our meal, Father took us to a huge building made of black stones, settled far away from the people. A lonely building sat on the edge of the town.
Its inside was structured like a gigantic hall rather than a building. Anvils, fire pots, hammers, tongs, water troughs, hearth, and other things commonly found in a forge were scattered around, some neatly placed while some were on the floor or hanging on the wall. We glanced around and there stood shelves of well-kept weapons. Weapons of any kind, swords, spears, lances, knives, axes, maces, hammers, and at the dark corner of this gigantic hall were piles of failed pieces like blades with deformed edges, or crippled handles. At the end of the room was a wide stair, heading to an altar made of steel with delicate carvings of flame trails around the pedestal tablet.
"Pa, what is this place?" I asked.
"My forge."
"Forge?"
"So we're here to make a weapon for me? Like like a magic sword? Or a laser shooting bow?" My brother asked as his eyes sparked in excitement.
"Not really, you are the one who will make it."
The old man strolled to his storage while humming a weird sound with a disjointed melody, and pulled out a lump of shiny, amber-like steel and two more iron ores around the same size.
"Put these chunks in the center."
I looked to the ground and noticed chalk-drawn circles in the middle of the room, gigantic circles enclosing one another in an ordered pattern as if it were some kind of a map with many lines pointed out. I looked up to the ceiling above that circle and found the vast blue sky clearly from where I stood. There was indeed, no ceiling. Instead, its top was covered by a glass dome.
We walked to the center, put those iron lumps down, and sat there as Father ambled to us.
"Nereus, move outside the circle."
I moved out of the circle in the center.
"No, like, the big one."
He pointed at the largest circle covering this whole area and every circle in it. I moved as he ordered, sitting just outside of its line.
"Aeneas, sit on the line."
My brother sat down on the middle circle, the smallest yet most detailed with many letters from a language we couldn't read, written along its line.
"Pa, what's the amber-ish steel thing?" I questioned.
"Gaias. It's a magic conducting steel. We're going to make an alloy out of it."
He then sat down. "Now, pick it up with both hands."
My brother lifted the ore as Father reached out his hands, putting them over my brother's.
"Now, unleash the heat from both of your palms."
Aeneas' hands started to heat up like blazing hot steel before being engulfed in amber-hued flames.
"Slowly move your hands away."
He slowly, carefully, released the ore from his palm and as his hands hung in the air, the rock started floating between his palms.
"And now, the Rite shall begin. Your fire can't melt things down and reshape it so I'll lend you mine for now. Nereus, pay attention closely. One day, you'll be sitting in your brother's place, and by then, he would be sitting here, lending you his fire, like what I'm doing, like what we had been doing for centuries."
Father set his hands ablaze. His fire was different. It was an intense azure flame so hot that I could feel the burning heat even though I was at a great distance. The heat was channeled into my brother's hands, melting the ore into a liquid state like molten amber-like iron.
"Now, reshape it, weave them into a form that suits your will. Control the heat with great focus, you might get knocked out from tiredness or worse."
Our father walked out and stood behind Aeneas, watching his son closely. The other three ores slowly melted down and its liquid levitated upward, forming a ball of liquid metals of amber and gray of steel.
"And how do I-"
"Just pull it without touching."
"Huh?"
"Try it yourself."
My brother stood up, grabbed the air around it, and pulled horizontally, stretching out the alloy, and shaping it into a long liquid with the form of a cylinder. Right after, he separated it down into three parts, determining the size by casting out the excess steel and dripping it down to the floor. Having to balance the amount of liquid steel he had to hold and let go back and forth, he started taking heavy breaths and soon after, began to pant. Sweat covered his face as it was turning paler and paler, so pale he was about to faint for a moment yet he kept pushing on. With such effort, he created three metal bars, one was the shortest yet most compact, and the others were longer but thinner. His face started turning red as he slowly snatched the inside of the metal out of the two parts. He then honed the tip of the longest rod by slowly pressing down on its end, creating a sharp edge. After that, he assembled all the pieces by forcing every part into each other. That thing he was building up was kind of completed. He handed it to our father and right when the liquid metal floated aloft our father's hand, Aeneas collapsed to the floor. Father looked at his son with pity as he walked to the end of the room and took a couple of steps up to the altar. He grabbed it hard, so hard that we thought he crushed it in his palm and something in the form of golden powder essence was drained from his body as the altar absorbed it before he placed the liquid cylinder on it. The molten alloy levitated and spun slowly. The liquid metal's texture started condensing, solidifying the whole cylinder into the form of a liquidus spear. It spun faster and faster, so quick that its color started heating the steel to bright red, and some part of the liquid even splatted out, some of which hit my arm. Father urgently rushed down from the altar to me.
"Boy! You good?" Pa asked.
At the time, I didn't know the molten metal was on me. All I felt was just some sort of gooey liquid splashed on my arm so I flinched in response, shedding it out of me.
"Yes? What's wrong?"
"Wait, you don't feel it?"
He said as he held my arm up close and looked with his eyes widened and his pupils dilated. So I glanced at my arm and there was a burnt mark not particularly too big to cause severe injury yet not too small to not be concerned.
"Oh, is there anything wrong with that?"
"YES! Molten iron that just burnt your arm." My brother screamed at me.
"Oh ok?"
"How he didn't feel any pain?" My brother turned to our Pa and questioned.
"Hang on, I'll find something to cool the wound off. Aeneas, take care of your brother."
Our father rushed to his storage in panic and searched it, I'd say, quite violently. I saw him throwing things off the box until he finally grabbed a burn gel, a bandage, and water.
"Aeneas! Hold his arm out for a second."
"Aye Pa."
He stretched my arm off.
"This will cool off the wound."
He poured the water down on my wound and applied the burn gel on my wound before covering it with a bandage.
"You should go home," Pa suggested.
"Wouldn't ma be mad about this?" I supposed she would.
"I'll deal with her," Pa responded without any concern.
"Then let me watch until it finishes."
Aeneas then interrupted. "Are you stupid? It's too dangerous, don't you see! What if the molten iron splattered into your face-"
"Nah, it won't kid. After this, the weapon will be formed completely. The ritual is nearly complete."
"So I can stick around right?"
"If you want to."
"Cool."