A Serpent's Tal Chapter 73: Promotion!

Chapter 73: Promotion!

"Hmm..." I heard Harmur hum, thinking to himself. I then heard the sound of him picking up the blade, presumably to inspect it.

I stopped bowing and looked up to see him scrutinizing my work. He brought it close to his eyes, felt it with his thick and callus hands. He then used it to cut his thumb.

"Ah, fuck!" He yelled as the cut went deeper than he expected. He proceeded to suck on the wound almost instinctively. He went back to examining the blade whilst still sucking on the tip of his thumb.

After a few minutes he’d stopped sucking on his thumb. He’d also finished examining my work.

"Ready fer yer results?" He asked.

I nodded with an eager smile on my face and sparkles in my eyes, literally, my eyes were literally sparkling at this mont.

"Mmm... Out of a hundred..." He paused for dramatic effect.

I waited impatiently for my results.

"... You get a ninety-nine."

A smile bead on my face when I heard that.

"Fer the blade itself, the rest of it ye got lower scores."

I stopped smiling and my mouth was left open as I rembered that I would be tested on EVERYTHING, not just the final product.

"Don’t worry, ye’ll be fine, everythin’s over ninety."

I sighed a sigh of relief when I heard that as that ant that regardless of my other scores, I would pass with flying colours for this examination.

"Fer the first phase of choosin yer tal, ye got a ninety-nine also. Fer yer ltin of the tal ye got a ninety-seven, waitin fer the tal to set in the mould ye got a ninety-five. Fer the hamring process ye got a ninety-eight, and lastly fer yer smoothin on the grindstone, ye got a ninety-four."

My beaming smile returned hearing my results.

"So overall, ye got a ninety-seven percent fer the whole thing, one of the highest grades an apprentice has ever gotten in their test to beco a novice, prob’ly the highest I’ll ever see, unless a prodigy cos by that is." He explained

’Huh, so I achieved sothing no-one else has ever been able to do, nor probably will be able to for a long ti.’ That was a thought that made

feel nice, knowing that I could achieve things beyond what I or others could ever expect.

He then went over to the wall and grabbed a blue apron and tossed it over to . I caught it and imdiately took my current red one off and replaced it with the deep blue one that I just received.

"Hmhm, ye seem excited eh?" He asked.

I nodded vigorously as this would allow

to not only help

improve my skills, it would also allow

have a proper life. It was all I could ever want in life. I was so happy that I started crying due to the overwhelming emotions inside of .

I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw that it was Harmur, trying to help

get through this.

"I know what yer goin through lass, I went through it too, though my journey here was far more difficult than yers." He said with a toughened spirit behind what he said, probably from his experience getting here.

"Well, ti te get ye to yer new station where ye’ll be workin from today onwards."

Excitent could be seen all over my face as I heard this. I would finally get to work on actually producing weapons.

I was then lead over to my new workstation which had everything a smith could ever need. It had a tool station, and anvil, a furnace and storage for tals, which was already full.

"Now, while ye seem te be good at makin daggers, ye can’t forget te make other things such as swords, spears and glaives. There’s a lot of blades ye can make so take yer ti with em kay?" He Explained.

I nodded, acknowledging that I still had a long way to go before I could take the next step in my career.

"Well, I’ll leave ye to it fer now, just place around and make so stuff fer a bit, if we need anythin made we’ll co to ye." He waved as he left

to my own devices.

"OH! One more thing, do ye want te keep yer first blade? I always ferget te ask this te everyone." He asked.

I quickly Went over to him nodding. I wanted to show my work off to Cythistia, I also wanted to keep it as a sort of sign of my journey as a smith.

Anyways Harmur gave

the blade back before heading off to do his own thing, leaving

with my little workshop. Well, it wasn’t really little, but it was smaller compared to the others that I’ve seen.

I looked at the blade that was in my hands. It didn’t have a proper handle, just a tal rod at the bottom that was too small to be called a handle. Since I had all the ti in the world, I decided to make one for it.

Going over to my tal storage, I pulled out the tals that I thought would be good as a handle.

’Hmm... I’m not going to make it out of Zenite as that would be counterproductive as it’s more of a tal ant for blades. Hmm, maybe I could use Dephonix, maybe? No that won’t work. Onzyite? No that’s just going to break. Wait, if I use Dephonix as a ld to hold the handle and the blade together... That could work...Hmm...’

As I brainstord ideas, I gathered the necessary materials and tools. All that was left was to decipher the actual tal that I’d use for the handle and then how I would slt everything together.

I grabbed a bunch of tals and laid them out on the table and began inspecting each one.

’No. Not this one. Bad. No. No. No. Nope. Wouldn’t work. No. Won’t work. No. No...’

I spent an hour combing through the tals until I found one that seed out of place, like it was put there by mistake, just looking at it gave

this weird feeling, like this was the one that I should use. I knew that this was the one I would use, the only problem was that I had no idea what in the nine hells it was. I might not use it for this dagger, but I would certainly be keeping this for myself.

There were only three tals left, those being Borine, Feiguzen and Furze. Borine was just an all-round terrible tal, I don’t even know why I was given it. Feiguzen was good but it Wouldn’t ld well with the Dephonix. Furze though, that was a rigid and rough tal no matter how you tried to smoothen it out. It would be great as a handle if I made the hilt correctly.

Furze it is then.