*Thud!*
Back at Rean’s residence, Araujo, Dongaro, and Dristan all looked over after hearing the noise. Rean had just casually thrown Farriko onto the ground without the slightest bit of care.
Rean noticed them looking and imdiately smiled.
"Hey, Dongaro, I brought another slav— volunteer to help you with the smithing parts of the airplane."
Dongaro’s mouth twitched as he glanced toward Araujo and Dristan.
"He was about to say slave, wasn’t he?"
Dristan and Araujo both sighed helplessly.
"Honestly, we aren’t that far from it," Araujo admitted. "At the end of the day, he isn’t even paying us a single Besgolar."
Dongaro scratched the back of his head awkwardly. Unlike them, he was at least receiving Pure Astryte as paynt. In the end, though, he wisely chose not to comnt on that and instead approached Farriko to get a better look.
"And who is— Hum? It’s Farriko..."
"Oh, so you know him!" Rean looked pleased. "Good. I honestly didn’t expect to find such a hidden gem in there, you know? This guy will definitely beco a Level Three Blacksmith in the future. No doubt about it."
"What?!" Dongaro’s expression changed instantly. "Him? No way! He’s terrible!"
"Sigh..." Rean looked genuinely disappointed now. "You people seriously need to rethink your standards. He isn’t terrible. He’s simply being held back by his hybrid bloodline. His body just couldn’t properly handle the amount of energy inside him, which caused problems for his ridians. I only perford so ergency repairs to get things moving, but the real restructuring will happen over the next month."
*Ugh...*
At that mont, Farriko slowly opened his eyes.
"W-What happened...? Where am I...?"
*Bang!*
*Arrghhh!*
Unfortunately for him, the answer ca in the form of a kick.
"What kind of stupid question is that?" Rean scolded him. "You know exactly what happened. You collapsed like the delicate little flower you are, that’s what. Even if your body struggles to adapt to your bloodline, your endurance was still complete trash. I brought you to my estate, where I’ll train you for the next month until your ridians reach at least a barely acceptable condition."
As the pain spread through his body, Farriko’s mories quickly returned.
"You’re taking this way too far!"
"Says the guy who can already circulate his energy far more smoothly after all that spanking," Rean shot back imdiately.
Farriko froze for a second.
Sure enough... his energy circulation really had improved dramatically.
"This..."
Rean tossed him another one of Roan’s healing pills.
"I already gave you one after you collapsed, but take another one now as well. Swallow it and head to the workstation I prepared for you. I brought all your tools, including the one you were working on earlier. Sigh... Since you passed out, I couldn’t finish the work back at the guild, so now I’ll have to increase the amount of love you’ll receive until the end of today."
Farriko instinctively took a step backward.
Love?
Rean actually called that love?
Then what exactly counted as hatred in this man’s eyes?
*Tap, tap.*
At that mont, Farriko felt two hands land on his shoulders from behind. Turning slightly, he found Araujo and Dristan standing there with sympathetic expressions.
"We understand your pain, brother," they said while shaking their heads mournfully. "We truly understand..."
"What the hell do you an you understand?!" Farriko was about to continue yelling, but the mont he noticed Rean’s dark expression, a chill imdiately ran down his spine. Rean clearly wasn’t in the mood to wait around. "Alright, alright! I’m going already! Fuck! If I couldn’t actually feel the improvents, I would’ve paid back every single beating already."
Without wasting another second, Farriko hurried toward the workstation. Rean followed right behind him, though he still spoke to Dongaro along the way.
"Keep studying the runes with Araujo and Dristan. I’ll have you join Farriko in about a week or so... assuming he survives until then."
Farriko nearly cried on the spot.
"Don’t say things like that!"
Dongaro rely shook his head before returning to the runes alongside Araujo and Dristan. Truthfully, he was already deeply impressed by everything he had seen so far. Throughout his career, he had worked with many Array Masters due to the inscriptions required for blacksmithing equipnt. He could even craft a few basic inscriptions himself. However, what Araujo and Dristan were showing him now completely surpassed anything he had previously experienced.
At this point, he was beginning to suspect he would gain far more than just Pure Astryte from this arrangent.
---
For the next month and a half, nothing especially significant happened.
Roan, Celis, and Kentucky continuously sent Rean the Godly Crystals they earned through missions, gradually making nas for themselves thanks to their overwhelming combat strength.
The remaining Godly Crystals were naturally used for cultivation, though they were still far from enough to help anyone break into the Late Stage of the Anchor God Realm. Of course, the trio also cultivated outside the Sacred Relic’s Influence, generating their own Godly Energy in the process.
Fortunately, Rean wasn’t losing much by remaining behind. Roan continuously shared his mories regarding everything he experienced and learned in the higher realms, allowing Rean to study them as well. Naturally, Rean still lacked the physical experience and muscle mory, but catching up later would only take him a few days at most since he already had the normal mories.
Overall, everything was progressing smoothly, and Rean could already begin seeing the rough outline of the airplane itself.
Besides training everyone else, he also had to continuously create new blueprints for both runes and alloys while simultaneously working alongside the Aura Gods. He pursued near perfection, sothing fundantally impossible, which naturally resulted in a trendous amount of beatings as well.
To any outsider watching from afar, the entire place would absolutely look like so kind of slave labor camp.
The only difference was that the ’slaves’ were free to leave whenever they wanted.
They simply chose not to.
The benefits they were receiving were too absurd. Compared to that, enduring so pain was nothing.
"Araujo, take these blueprints. Dristan, you’ll work on these ones," Rean instructed while handing over several rune diagrams. "These two sets are connected and designed to function together toward a single objective, so make sure to constantly compare your work and openly discuss any doubts during the crafting process."
By now, Araujo and Dristan were already very familiar with Rean’s thods, so they imdiately noticed sothing unusual.
"Hum? These runes..." Dristan frowned slightly. "They’re new?"
Even though Rean’s teaching thods were unconventional, most of the runes he previously assigned them were still existing runes available in the network, albeit heavily optimized or modified. However, these blueprints were completely unfamiliar.
Rean nodded.
"Yes. They’re an entirely new type of rune designed to improve concealnt while flying through the Godly Creatures’ Territories. Anyway, you’ll understand better once the airplane is assembled. I’ll check your progress from ti to ti, so get started."
Afterward, Rean moved toward one of the two Smithing Workstations prepared for Farriko and Dongaro.
Standing beside Farriko, he quietly watched as the Devil Beast completed the final touches on the Astryte Alloy he had just forged. Rean had nad the alloy Astralium. Pure Astryte alone wasn’t sufficient for his purposes. Not to ntion, using pure Astryte by itself would simply be wasteful.
"So, you’ve gotten used to forging Astralium already, huh?"
Farriko let out a long breath.
These days, Rean still occasionally struck him during training, but it was nothing compared to the absolute nightmare of the first week. More importantly, Farriko barely recognized himself anymore. What he could accomplish now felt utterly absurd compared to his previous self.
"Yes..." Farriko looked down at the alloy almost reverently. "This Astralium... it’s practically a work of art. Where did you even get the idea for this alloy?"
"Oh, nothing too complicated," Rean casually replied. "The Astryte itself already contained several minerals mixed within it. The vein where it was found had existed for who knows how many years, so naturally the surrounding materials developed compatibility with it over ti. I simply explored those synergies further and added a few traces of other common tals to improve the final result."
Rean took the Astralium piece into his hands before nodding in satisfaction.
"I suppose this is about as good as it gets when I’m not the one forging it. Oh well..."
*Bang!*
*Ouch!*
Out of nowhere, Rean kicked Farriko straight in the backside, launching him flying toward the estate’s exit.
Farriko hurriedly got back to his feet, glaring at Rean in outrage. This ti, he knew perfectly well the attack had absolutely nothing to do with training.
"Why?!"
"That’s my question," Rean imdiately replied. "What are you still doing here? Our agreent was that I would show you actual results, so why haven’t you gone to take the Level Two Blacksmith Exam yet? At this point, you’re already more than capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with anyone else at that level."
Then Rean waved his hand dismissively.
"Shoo, shoo. Don’t co back until you’ve earned your promotion."
Farriko blinked in surprise.
He had genuinely forgotten about the exam altogether.
Mostly because he no longer needed any official certification to understand just how much he had improved.
"Ah... right... I’ll... I’ll be back soon."
Once Rean said sothing, there was absolutely no changing his mind. Farriko knew the only way he would be allowed to continue learning here was by obtaining that promotion first. Because of that, he imdiately rushed out in a hurry, unwilling to waste even a single extra second away.
anwhile, at the other Smithing Workstation, a bruised Dongaro could only sigh helplessly. He also received quite so ’love’ from Rean, just not as much as Farriko.
After spending this much ti here, he already knew the truth.
Rean hadn’t been exaggerating at all.
Farriko would definitely surpass him in the future.
"What a monster..." Dongaro muttered quietly while thinking about Farriko.
Then he glanced toward Rean.
"And the person who created that monster as if it were nothing..." He shivered slightly. "Now that’s truly terrifying."
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