The morning soon came after we talked late into the night. When we eventually made the pelt into armor some of us would need to find a new place to sleep, but that was a problem for another night. None of us got attacked so I considered it a very uneventful night. We all woke up and began our normal morning rituals again. I slowly practiced sword movements while mindful of accidentally hitting someone, again. The saintess rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she sat up later than everyone else. Logan was counting coins and valuables of questionable origin, and the prince was putting on his shoes as if prepared to go somewhere much earlier than he usually tried to do things.

  “Louis, I need you to come with me to the blacksmith. I’m trying to keep my flame concept untainted and would like to take steps into the change and creation aspects of fire to ensure that happens.”

  The prince didn’t even look up from putting on his shoes while speaking about concepts I knew nothing about. Standing up, he headed for the door without checking if I agreed. Begrudgingly, I followed.

  “So what do you mean by a flame concept? I understand that paths can follow concepts. A swordsman will be great with the sword, but not with an axe. A warrior has a broader concept so they are good with both weapons. A butcher has some blade skill because it falls under the edge of their concept. What makes fire need a blacksmith?”

  We were out of the front door of the inn by the time he decided to answer. “Obviously paths help shape who we become”, he slowly began, “a warrior would likely begin to feel naked without their weapon and draw their blade at problems far faster than a butcher with the same problem.”

  We passed by a few guards who were talking to a merchant.

  “Normally the mental changes are minimal, but not with elemental concepts. Philosophers argue over it practically daily, but elemental concepts have a positive and negative side to them. Perhaps you might side with Dohner and believe it is because the elements are the origin of people. Maybe you believe in Reinbardt and his belief that when combined the five elements counter darkness. Regardless, I want to keep to the positive concepts of fire if possible. Positive fire concept users lead to explorative, creative, spontaneous, and transformative people. Negative fire concept users become self destructive, uncontrolled, and get fits of mania. It’s not pretty.” He paused for a moment as if remembering something. “I’ll continue later, we’re almost at the blacksmith. Just know that we will do something many apprentices do and it’s quite common.”

  I walked alongside him in silence as stores began to open and pairs of guards appeared more often. I was now an earth mage, if only partially. I wasn’t certain what concepts I was showing, but I cared far more about continuing on my path to knighthood.

  An older blacksmith stood in front of a forge, his clothes embedded with soot from the forge, not even looking at us. “Begin breaking up the charcoal to use in the Moor forge. You’ll help to help smelt some ore like all apprentices wanting help starting their paths.”

  I grab a hammer and start to crush the charcoal into bits and put it into the small forge. I begin to blow air into the fire from the bottom with bellows, pondering about the positives and negatives of our elements. Air can feed a fire, but I’m not sure how that affects its positive traits. I would say the wind is usually… positive? Air and wind can carry music and warmth so maybe air is positive like that? You can’t really hold air down, so that has to count for some positive trait.

  Eventually, the prince switches in to use the bellows for me, using fire magic to make the flame even hotter. I grab iron ore and begin to put it into the forge. I then dump even more charcoal on top of it. We switch off who is on the bellows, with the prince eventually mostly fueling the fire with magic once his arms get too tired. Sweat drenches us with the heat within the smithy as we work. More charcoal kept needing to be added by whichever of us wasn’t on the bellows.

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  The blacksmith eventually goes away from whatever he was doing at an anvil and stands behind us. “You two are doing well enough, now you need to remove some of the slag from the bottom.”

  I listen to his instructions and break open a part of the bottom, pulling out the molten slag. It deformed and moved with the poker as I tried my best to get it out of the forge. It then hit me that slag was likely considered my element, so I began trying to pull it towards me with magic, which wasn’t easy considering how terrible I was at magic. I gave up and used the poker to remove more slag again. More sweating, more charcoal, more slag removal, more bellows. More sweating, more bellows, more charcoal, more slag. After hours of this, we stopped and let it burn down.

  The slag that I had removed had flowed like a liquid, but it was a rock. Yet it still acted like water. Was ice a rock then? I shook the thought from my head. I doubt any philosopher could get me to consider ice a rock. The slag was cooling and now solid again anyway. That was how I always imagined the earth to be. Solid. Strong. Stable. Stability in every sword form came from your stance on the ground. The earth might have many positive or negative concepts that I would later learn about, but to me, it would always signify a strong foundation.

  The blacksmith looks over at us two and says, “Crack open the forge and take out the iron. Hammer it while it’s hot.”

  I grab a shovel and smack open the forge, pulling the burning charcoal out.

  “Careful”, the prince warned, “The insides are very hot, even with me trying to dampen the heat of the charcoal you pull out.”

  Sweat poured down my face from both the heat and the hours of work I did. “Mind saying something a little less obvious.”

  We finally uncovered the bloom at the bottom of the furnace, I still got a face full of extreme heat as I reached over the forge with tongs despite the prince removing heat with fire magic, something I never knew he was capable of before today.

  The blacksmith came up from behind the prince and grabbed his shoulder. “Don’t take out too much heat with your magic, kid. We still need to hammer it if you want your path to consider this completed.”

  I take a hammer and begin to smash the bloom to remove impurities. The more I hit, the more slag came off of it. I wasn’t too sure about how it all happened, but it made enough sense to me. I swung a sword repeatedly to get rid of my mistakes when swinging, this seemed like a nice metaphor for getting a good swing learned.

  The prince occasionally reheated the bloom as I pounded it. We eventually stopped when we were too exhausted to continue. I put the billet of metal down, which was now a fraction of the size of the bloom.

  “Would you say this counts positively towards both of our paths?” I ask the prince while taking deep breaths.

  “From the number of apprentices that do this to begin their path, yes. It has an impact.” We got a response from the elder blacksmith instead. “Now I need to perfect this billet and can’t give away all the secrets, but you guys did a great job and should be proud of yourselves.”

  We walk away from the store and I begin to ponder about water, free flowing, it fits inside anything, it could heal, it could hurt, it freezes and boils. It could be anything. Too much to think about. Instead, I asked about something else. I didn’t have much to think about for my element. I was certain what I wanted it to be to me.

  “What are the positive and negative traits of the element that the saintess has?”

  He pauses for a second. “Light is joy, hope, and connections between companions. It heals selflessly and the light goes on forever in whatever direction it shines. For the negatives… I am not allowed to tell you, pray we never see them in Alice.”

  We get to the inn, having walked in silence. I wasn't certain how to talk after a warning like that.