Ray looked down at the hammers in his hands. Each one had a sturdy handle about a third of a meter long and a cylindrical head that felt solid and cold to the touch. He braced himself, expecting them to be unbearably heavy, but to his surprise, they felt manageable.
'Are they hollow?' Ray wondered, glancing in Gilbert's direction. 'Uncle Gilbert looks scary, but maybe he's actually kind.'
With that comforting thought, he raised the hammer in his right hand and brought it down onto the metal lump.
Bang!
The sound echoed sharply through the room, startling him so much that he nearly jumped. At the same time, the soul machine screen flickered to life, displaying the number "1."
Encouraged, he raised the hammer in his left hand and struck again.
Bang!
"2."
His heart leapt. 'This isn't that hard!'
Soon, Ray found a rhythm. Alternating hands, he swung the hammers down one after the other, the steady clang of metal filling the room. With each strike, the number on the screen climbed higher and higher.
By the time he reached one hundred strikes, sweat had begun to form on his forehead. At three hundred, his arms started to ache, the muscles burning with fatigue.
'I have to keep going,' he told himself. 'Dad said perseverance is important.'
He pressed on, ignoring the growing discomfort. By five hundred strikes, the ache had turned into deep pain, spreading from his forearms to his shoulders. His breathing grew heavy, but he refused to stop.
'I need to learn forging,' he repeated in his mind. 'I need to earn money. I need to help Mom and Dad… and protect Vivienne.'
As he passed seven hundred strikes, his arms felt numb, as if they no longer belonged to him.
Each swing grew slower, more difficult, and his uniform clung tightly to his body, soaked through with sweat. Drops fell from his chin, splattering onto the metal table. His entire body trembled, and a strange sensation spread up his spine, like a faint electric current.
Then, something changed.
The pain dulled. The heaviness in his arms seemed to ease, and the hammers felt lighter in his hands. Though exhausted, he felt a strange surge of strength well up inside him.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
The final three hundred strikes came faster and smoother than before.
"One thousand!"
Only when the final number appeared did Ray finally lower the hammers. He stood there gasping for breath, his hands trembling uncontrollably.
His arms were swollen and sore, his palms burning, yet beneath the exhaustion was an inexplicable sense of vitality, as though something inside him had been tempered along with the metal.
Unnoticed by him, faint golden vein-like patterns briefly flickered along his spine before disappearing once more.
After several minutes, Ray finally recovered enough to move. He searched the workshop until he found Gilbert in another room, quietly adjusting some metal components.
"Uncle Gilbert," Ray said between breaths. "I'm done."
Gilbert looked up, startled. He checked the time and frowned. Only half an hour had passed.
"You finished?" he asked slowly.
"Yes!" Ray nodded vigorously.
Gilbert said nothing. He simply stood up and led Ray back to the previous room. His eyes went straight to the soul machine screen.
"1000."
The number glowed steadily.
Gilbert's heart sank. He had personally calibrated the screen. Cheating was impossible.
Each hammer weighed a full five kilograms.
Even an adult would struggle to swing them a thousand times, let alone a six-year-old child, and certainly not in such a short amount of time.
This test had been meant as a polite refusal.
Instead, reality stood right in front of him.
"Pick up the hammers again," Gilbert said in a low voice. "Keep striking. Don't stop unless I say so."
"Yes," Ray replied, gripping the hammers once more.
He began to strike again. There was no technique in his movements, no clever use of leverage or rhythm. Each swing relied purely on raw strength and stubborn will.
After only a few strikes, Gilbert's eyes narrowed. With his experience, he could tell immediately.
This child truly had the strength to forge.
Gilbert stared at Ray, disbelief slowly creeping into his expression.
'Is this… a monster?'
Genius was never measured by a single standard. What counted as extraordinary for an adult might be ordinary for a child, and what seemed impossible for one age could be a miracle for another. For a six-year-old to swing a heavy metal hammer a thousand times without stopping, that alone was enough to earn the title of genius.
Gilbert understood this clearly.
Yet, he did not tell Ray to stop.
Instead, he stood to the side with his arms crossed, his sharp eyes never leaving the boy's trembling figure.
Ray continued hammering, his movements straightforward and forceful, without any technique to disperse the rebounding force. Every impact traveled straight through the hammer and into his arms, pounding bone, muscle, and sinew alike.
Fifty strikes passed, then eighty, then a hundred.
Sweat began pouring from Ray's body once more, soaking his clothes and dripping onto the floor.
The soreness he felt now was far worse than before. His arms burned as if set on fire, and each time he raised the hammer, a pressure swelled inside his head, making his scalp feel tight and hot.
Still, he clenched his teeth and refused to stop, striking the metal again and again with stubborn determination.
By the time he reached one hundred and fifty strikes, Ray's body began to sway. His vision blurred, and the world seemed to tilt slightly with every breath. His arms were swollen, aching so badly that they no longer felt like his own, yet his hands continued to rise and fall, guided by nothing but will.
I can endure.
I must endure.
I am a man.
These thoughts echoed endlessly in his mind, pushing him forward whenever his strength threatened to give out.
He lost track of how many times he had struck the metal, existing only in the rhythm of hammer and impact, until a firm voice finally cut through the haze.
"Enough."
Ray froze.
If Gilbert hadn't stepped forward and caught him, Ray would have collapsed onto the floor. His entire body sagged as the hammer slipped from his hands.
When Gilbert took it from him, he immediately noticed how swollen and battered Ray's palms were, the skin red and raw from the repeated impacts.
For the first time, the stern blacksmith felt his chest tighten.
It was not just Ray's strength that moved him, but something far rarer. Strength could be trained. Endurance could be cultivated. But such unyielding determination in a six-year-old child was precious beyond measure.
When Selina arrived to pick her son up, she was startled by the sight before her. Gilbert's usual cold demeanor had softened considerably as he handed her a small bottle of ointment.