Hero of Darkness

After Venessa's declaration about Kahn… both of the saint retainers were stunned and dumbfounded.

The first stage fireborne saint was completely confused.

The third stage saint on the other hand facepalmed himself as his shoulders slumped down and he let out a sigh of helplessness.

"She really messes up her words when she's riled up." he said.

"Princess… Please be careful. Those words can be misleading." he spoke in a gentle tone.

"What do you mean?" asked Venessa curiously.

"I simply meant that I'm going to make that ungrateful bastard into my slave and make him regret rejecting my offer." she explained.

"Yeah, but your words suggest that you want him to become your man." said the first stage fireborne saint.

"Eh?"

Suddenly, Venessa came back to her senses and remembered what she spoke just a minute ago.

"Heh?!" her eyes widened as the shock hit her mind.

As soon as she herself understood how those words would be perceived by others… her entire face turned red like a ripe tomato.

"No! That's not what I meant!" rebuked Venessa and grabbed her head with both hands.

A visible red tinge appeared on her cheek as she shook her head in denial.

She was thoroughly embarrassed at the moment. And tried to hide her blushing face from the two saints.

"I need to take some rest. That rascal ruined my mood!" she exclaimed and started running towards the door that led to her living chambers while hiding her flustered expression.

After she left in a hurry like a charging duck… both of her retainers let out a defeated sigh.

"May God Hetrax have mercy on his soul…

Knowing how her highness never gives up on something after she sets her mind to it…" said the middle-aged fireborne and continued in an empathic tone.

"He's going to get dragged into a lot of trouble."

At the Oakenshield company premises… the main building's largest area was filled with noises and constant echoing sounds of hammers clanging against metals and object like sound of raindrops falling on the ground all at a single moment.

"Speed up ye lil buggers! We don't have an entire day just prepare one part of the set.

You call yourself dwarves? Even a newborn pup can do a better job than all of you, you useless bums!" he shouted.

In the main forge of the Oakenshield company, Throk was overseeing over two thousand blacksmiths, all of whom were dwarves that they hired while paying a hefty sum.

Because of the demand for arms by both Hector and Venessa as well as the great feedback they received from their respective trading companies and deals made with their followers for the weapons supply… Throk was burdened with even more work.

And now, he was guiding others in the production line while giving them instructions on how to efficiently perform shaping and fit the parts in a way that won't drag down the wearer and hinder the physical movements while fighting.

The biggest challenge for them was that the armors weren't made just for a single species but too many varying species and that too with different physical builds and body measurements.

So every single one of the dwarves was tasked with preparing one set of armor that included many different parts for one individual each.

Hence, Throk himself had to overlook their work because a messed-up measurement or slight mistake would ruin the entire set.

It wasn't a task like mass producing and copy-pasting the same set like some fictional story where every soldier was a human and everyone would wear the same type of armor regardless of the difference between their physiology.

But in the evening after their work for the day ended, Throk called Kahn and Blackwall.

"Today, we will start with hammering." he said and handed down two hammers made for novice blacksmiths.

He told both of them about how to hammer down the hot metal ingot and how to distribute their hits to flatten it out.

"You both will be doing it without using mana or world energy.

Use only your physical strength." he ordered.

Bang!!

Suddenly, a shockwave was released in the room as soon as both Kahn and Blackwall made their first strike.

Crack!

The hot metal ingots were cracked open in multiple pieces while the hammers in their hands were mashed like potatoes themselves.

"You idiots! I didn't say you have to use all of your physical strength. Just enough to broaden the ingots!" shouted Throk as he reprimanded both of his students.

"But this is our normal physical strength." replied Kahn casually.

Blackwall also nodded in affirmation because neither of them was using even 1% of their power.

Throk was completely taken aback. Because if this was them using their minimal strength… then how powerful would they be if they used mana and world energy infused in their strikes?

"What kind of freaks are you two?!

Even I, a second stage saint can't flatter an entire ingot in a single strike just with pure physical strength!" he exclaimed in denial.

However… little did he know that the two disciples of his were walking-talking calamities themselves.

Kahn had the War Deity Body and Blackwall was a Primordial Titan. Even if both of them didn't want to… they were simply too strong in terms of physical strength alone compared to others of their rank.

After another earful of scolding, they began the practice again.

Throk then told them how to angle their hits based on the type of part of the armor under the forging procedure or the type of hammer they're using.

Kahn understood that these little details actually saved a lot of time, effort and shaped the sample at hand at a much faster pace.

So in other words, Throk was indeed sharing his decades of experience if he could guide them this effectively even in the novice level training.

Both Kahn and Blackwall slowly started hitting the ingots carefully as if using 0.1% of their strength.

Hours passed and finally, both of them were learning to control their physical strength and how much force they had to deliver in each strike of the hammer.

Kahn and Blackwall had a smile on their faces after they too started enjoying the process.

Because for both of them…

This was the beginning of their real training.