Chapter 278 Your Father is... So Short
Logically speaking, this small village with less than a thousand people should not be very big.
Moreover, Haina's home is not located on the edge of the village, but in the most central and best environment of the entire village.
Aiwas and the others followed Haina and it didn't feel like they had walked very far... But when they arrived at Haina's house, they looked up and found that the moon was already high in the night sky.
——Before I knew it, it was already late at night!
Aiwass and Sherlock looked at each other, then looked at Lily who also looked surprised, and confirmed in each other's minds the chaos of time sequence here.
But at present, they could only confirm that this chaos was inevitable, but they could not analyze the specific patterns within it. The only thing they could be sure of was that Haina, a local, could not sense any abnormality at all, but they, the outsiders, could feel it...
As they approached, they could see light spilling out from Haena's blacksmith shop. It was brightly lit, but no conversation could be heard from outside.
"Mom, I'm back."
Haina pushed open the tightly closed door of the blacksmith shop. Her voice became somewhat tired, not as excited as when she first came home.
The lights were on outside, but no one was around. Only a few forged weapons hung haphazardly on the wall, while large pieces of pliers, kitchen knives, iron hooks, scissors, saws, sickle heads, and other tools, along with their fragments of iron, lay scattered on the table or hanging on the shelves, like harvested wheat.
Some of them were already covered in rust, but instead of removing them, they were left with the other tools.
Pieces of pig iron were piled messily in a corner, while cast iron ingots were neatly stacked in a pyramid shape in another corner of the ground.
Haena led them through the front desk and prepared to go to the back room.
But as soon as he entered the door, Sherlock felt something was wrong.
...Why is it so cold in this room?
Then he looked around and his eyes widened in surprise.
——Why is your furnace placed indoors?
This made Sherlock stand there in a daze, and he didn't react for a long time.
Therefore, when passing by the drying oven and furnace, Sherlock reached out to test the temperature inside.
Ice cold.
Not only was there no fuel at all, even the ash had been specially cleared out - Sherlock touched it, but didn't feel much ash.
Sherlock raised his eyebrows and secretly made a note of this.
Nowadays, there are very few blacksmiths on Glass Island. Blast furnaces and steam hammers have replaced blacksmiths. Not only are they more efficient, but the quality of the ironware they produce is also better and more stable.
The only blacksmiths still active today are the extraordinary craftsmen who can forge extraordinary weapons, and the rural blacksmiths who make cheap farm tools for farmers.
The rarer the profession, the more it piqued Sherlock's interest. He had specifically researched this area.
——It’s okay to bake the furnace, but can the melting furnace be extinguished?
These craftsmen are not traditional blacksmiths, but rather "blacksmiths" from the extraordinary profession of the Dedicated Path. They can summon fire spirits that accompany them - extraordinary creatures raised by the Flame Heavenly Master of the Dedicated Path.
These fire elves, who possess the intelligence of children, can help them perform extraordinary forging - melting some difficult-to-melt materials, or adding some mystical materials that cannot be integrated into the embryo through conventional forging techniques.
Because even if you become such a "blacksmith", you will not be able to obtain the corresponding formula, and a blacksmith without a formula is a useless person.
Therefore, the profession of "blacksmith" and its upgraded version "magician" are usually passed down from one generation to another - and the magician who forged the elven dagger in Avalon was an elf from the Theocracy, and his disciples for generations were all native Avalonians.
This was also one of the aids sent by the Theocracy when Avalon was founded.
But even if Sherlock didn't understand blacksmithing... he understood logic.
He realized something was wrong logically—
Since there is pig iron in this room, it means that the blacksmith here does not use finished cast iron purchased from the city. Instead, he uses pig iron smelted from iron ore himself. In other words, this furnace is not just for decoration, but is actually used.
But if the furnace wants to produce high-quality iron, it needs a high enough temperature.
This civilian furnace is not the blast furnace in the factory, and these mortal blacksmiths are not extraordinary people - they cannot summon fire spirits. Therefore, if they want to raise the temperature of the furnace to a level that can produce iron of the required hardness, they need to preheat it for a long time and gradually increase the temperature through heat accumulation.
And that requires a lot of fuel—in other words, a lot of money.
Once the furnace goes out, getting it back to a usable temperature requires a lengthy preheating process, which again costs a lot of money and time.
Therefore, the forge inside the blacksmith shop and the furnace outside are generally kept burning. So as soon as you enter the door, you can immediately feel the surging heat.
This is why furnaces are placed outside - the temperature of the furnace is too high, and placing it indoors would not only cause severe discomfort but also pose a fire hazard.
Seeing this scene, an idea immediately popped up in Sherlock's mind -
Haina’s father... is a transcendent?
Only those who can call upon the spirit of fire would not need such a crude method of heating up...
But this made Sherlock confused.
—Your family is a family of blacksmiths. Why did you travel all the way to Avalon to learn this?
Isn't the magic recipe in your family more worthy of inheritance?
and……
Is Haena suited to the path of devotion? Why didn't I see that?
Or is she not her parents' biological daughter?
Sherlock was full of doubts.
As soon as Haina entered the inner room, the middle-aged man's rude scolding was heard immediately: "Your mother asked you to go and meet the guests, why are you still out playing at night and not coming back? Don't you know what happens in the village after dark?!"
Haina pursed her lips in a somewhat aggrieved manner, leaning against the wall near the door without saying a word.
She also felt very unhappy, but she couldn't refute it - because from the results, she did feel that she had done something wrong. But she also felt a little confused... because she really didn't know what she had done to cause this result.
Following Haina, Aiwas also walked in.
This was the first time Aiwas met Haina's parents——
But after just one meeting, Aiwass was immediately surprised.
Aiwass's words stopped abruptly: "Hello, uncle..."
...so short.
Lily was also stunned for a moment, and Sherlock couldn't help but exclaim "Huh".
——Because Haina’s father is actually a dwarf!
He had skin like gray marble, a pure white beard, and curly hair. He had a large nose, large ears, and small eyes. He sat on a beautiful crimson sofa, his legs swinging like a playful child.
...This is a very standard dwarf.
This was also the first time Aiwass saw a dwarf in person.
The only slight incongruity is the extremely bad relationship between the elves and dwarves. Basically, elves won't approach a country dominated by dwarves, and in a country dominated by elves, dwarves are rarely seen either.
Avalon is clearly the latter - the Avalonians, who have benefited from so much, are too attentive, even more extreme than the elves themselves.
The elves simply despised and were hostile to the dwarves, but the Avalonians went a step further - they directly expelled all the dwarves from the country as a gesture of friendship towards the Theocracy.
Anyway, there are not many dwarves in Avalon, so it is totally worthwhile to do this.
Currently, a large number of dwarves have gathered in the Everfrost Empire north of Avalon. Eagle Point Village is located in the northwest corner of Avalon, so it's possible that dwarves might sneak in...
This also explains why Haina, despite having the heritage of a "blacksmith", still chose the official path of a transcendent.
Because the old blacksmith who could pass on the inheritance to Haina was not a regular blacksmith from the Church at all, but an unlicensed extraordinary person who was even a stowaway. Not only was the inheritance he held illegal, but he himself was illegal!
——That is Haina’s father!
I couldn’t sleep, so I got up in the middle of the night and finished a chapter, then I felt sleepy... I’ll post it first!
Chapter 2 I will write it after I wake up from my afternoon nap
(End of this chapter)
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