Agatha The Legendary Guild Master

I gritted my teeth trying to withstand this excruciating pain, however I ended up screaming again, but I didn't withdraw. 

Instead, I pushed my hand further, so nearly half of my arm was totally inside this fire, and my pain increased several folds till I couldn't feel my arm anymore. The pain stopped, but I knew my arm was gone.

"Wow, you managed to partly familiarize with the fire in your first attempt, you are brave honey, I like you more."

I glanced at the screen where Nada's voice was coming from, my face was drowned in my sweat, and I was panting crazily like I ended a one mile marathon.

"Are you calling losing my arm a success?" I asked with extreme anger, as losing my arm meant losing a lot of my fighting potential, and this was all for just partially taming this wild fire.

"Losing an arm? Your arm is fine girl, check it," Nada's voice came instantly with a faint laugh like she heard an interesting joke. I checked my arm with doubt that turned into extreme surprise and shock, my arm was fine. 

I tried to move it and it responded to my orders. The only thing was that I couldn't feel it anymore, so I turned to the screen again as I asked:

"Will the feeling return?"

"Of course it will, once you remove your arm away from the fire, it will regain its senses again," she replied with a laugh. She seemed to have fun, at least one of us was enjoying his time here. I took a deep breath as I checked my arm again and this fire was attached to it.

When I tried to move my arm, that fire followed suit, and that was weird. I felt like it was attached to my arm.

"Try to reach out to the fire with your thoughts… tell her to burn fainter," Nada suddenly said. her words made me realize something, so I tried to test reaching out to this fire.

This wasn't the first time for me to reach out to an object, I just did this with my spear, so I closed my eyes first. I calmed down my thoughts, and then tried to connect with this fire. 

At first I didn't feel anything, but I didn't give up as I continued to try and order the fire to burn weaker. Minutes passed without feeling anything unusual.

"Open your eyes honey, the fire has followed your orders," the sound of Nada came abruptly interrupting my concentration. I opened my eyes at once, and that fiercely burning orange fire wasn't fierce anymore, even its color became more like a dark yellow. 

I looked strangely towards the fire, then I figured out why I didn't sense its changes, I totally forgot my arm couldn't feel a thing at all.

"You are something, to tame this fire in this time, that's a talent, yes indeed your talent is extraordinary."

I listened to Nada's praise and kept my previous experience with the spear to myself. It felt great to listen to these encouraging words, especially from someone who saw many blacksmiths like me before.

"You have a good start, so let's keep going and try to increase and decrease the fire intensity. These trials are very important to tighten the infant bond between the two of you," she added.

I was taken aback from her words, as I asked with doubt:

"Should I keep manipulating the fire so I can make the bond stronger?"

"Yes, you need to keep doing that daily for one month at least, or else you will face the same problem when you try using it every time," she replied casually, but her words made me feel numb. 

The same rules applied on my spear trick too, so that meant I mustn't ignore using it every day as well. I also realized one important thing, I needed to have 10 gold coins daily at least to be able to practice here, and that was very hard to achieve.

"Don't worry about the money, if you are half good as I expect you to be, you will be able to gain more than that."

I smiled involuntarily, this Nada was really something. I then asked:

"How can I control the fire temperature?"

"This needs practice, but until you can control this part on your own, I will guide you and notify you by the fire temperature at any moment. Right now your fire is burning with 2500 degrees, which is its lowest degree," she replied.

I started to play with the fire as she told me, one time I raised its heat intensity to reach maximum, and then I decreased it.

I also tried to control the pace of raising and decreasing the fire intensity, which yielded good results as the fire followed my orders perfectly. After I played with it for quite some time, Nada said:

"I feel you are ready, you can start making your sword now."

I stopped playing with the fire, which wasn't looking awful like before. I looked at the design and then towards the materials. I took a deep breath, as the real test was about to begin now.

The first thing I did was to check the materials and read the design again. After I finished organizing things in my head, a metal sound attracted my attention, as a ready mold for my sword was ready on the table. 

Beside it, there was a small thick metallic pot, with a long narrow neck that I could control to make the melted liquid inside to flow into the mold.

"Don't waste more time and start now my dear," Nada said.

I just nodded as I took out the first material and put it inside the pot, then I picked up the second one, and the third and fourth, up to seven different materials.

"Can you guide me with the fire temperature, please?" I asked as I directed the fire on my arm to ignite fiercely under the pot. Seven materials, three would liquefy at 3300 degree, two materials would melt at 3500 degree, and finally the last two materials would liquefy at 4200 degrees.

"It's 3000 degree now," the sound of Nada came notifying me of the current temperature. It wasn't optimum yet, so I ordered the fire to ignite more.

"It's 3200 degree now."

'Not enough, I need just a tiny bit of increase in temperature.'

"It's 3300 degree now," Nada said while I abruptly controlled the fire to be steady at this degree. I looked at the pot with anticipation and interest, after all this was my first time ever melting any material. The solid ores, bones, tooth, and other forms of materials began to be heated up. 

Even those who didn't melt at this degree, but three materials began to change shape gradually. The process didn't take long, as in just one minute these solid materials turned into extremely hot golden red liquid. I didn't stop there as I started to increase the temperature of my fire again.

'This time I need to increase it slightly to hit 3500 degrees.'

I thought to myself as my eyes were watching the marvelous changes inside the pot, this was really fun and not boring as I feared.