Reborn as an Adventurer: I Gain a Skill From Every Monster I Eat

Chapter 141: Chapter 141 — Kellan Deepforge

The Smith’s District sat a fair walk from the Foxglove, close enough to the guild’s western wall that Arlen could hear the distant clang of hammers on his approach well before he’d properly found the street.

Dallin had given him the recommendation over breakfast that morning, blunt and confident in the way only someone from a mining family could manage. "Kellan Deepforge. Best smith in the district, if you ask anyone who actually knows steel instead of just admiring the shine on it. Bit particular about who he takes on as a customer, but he won’t shortchange you once he does."

Arlen found the shop exactly where Dallin had described — a squat, sturdy building with a forge visible through the open front, heat rolling out into the street in waves even at this hour of the morning. A dwarf stood at the anvil inside, broad-shouldered even by dwarven standards, beard bound back with iron rings rather than simple leather, and didn’t look up from his work as Arlen approached.

"If you’re here to browse, browse quiet," the dwarf said, hammer falling in a steady, unhurried rhythm. "If you’re here to buy, wait till I’ve finished this line before you start talking prices at me."

Arlen waited, watching the work with genuine interest rather than impatience — the dwarf’s strikes precise, economical, each one landing exactly where the last had prepared the metal to receive it. It took perhaps five more minutes before he finally set the piece aside to cool and turned his full attention outward.

"Kellan Deepforge," he said, wiping his hands on a leather apron already dark with decades of the same habit. "New face. Haven’t seen you through here before."

"Arlen. Transferred in recently, from the Ashen Frontier."

"Figured as much from the sword." Kellan gestured for him to draw it, studying the blade with a critical, unhurried eye. "Decent bones to it once, but it’s degrading faster than ordinary use should account for. You channel Aura through this regularly?"

"Since I first trained under an Aura instructor, yes."

"There’s your answer." Kellan tapped the blade’s edge with a calloused knuckle. "Ordinary steel takes Aura infusion poorly over time — microfractures build up along the grain that a swordsman without a smith’s eye wouldn’t think to look for. Nothing wrong with your technique. The metal simply wasn’t built to carry what you’ve been asking of it."

"I didn’t know that was even possible."

"Most people don’t, until a blade fails them at the worst possible moment." Kellan set it down. "What are you actually looking for? Full replacement, or simple maintenance on what you’ve got?"

"Full replacement, I think. I’ve outgrown what I started with, by every measure that matters."

"Good answer. Most people cling to their first blade too long, out of sentiment rather than sense." Kellan moved toward a heavy rack along the shop’s back wall, weapons of every length and style arranged with careful, deliberate order. "Before we go further, I’ll need to understand what I’m actually building for. Pure Aura, or something else layered underneath it?"

"Both, if I’m honest," Arlen said, the answer arriving easily, without any particular weight behind it. "Aura swordsmanship mainly, trained properly under an instructor. Some Mana alongside it."

"Dual-Affinity, then." Kellan said it the same way he might note a customer’s dominant hand — useful information, nothing more. "Changes what alloy actually serves you best. Pure Aura conductors don’t always carry Mana as cleanly, and vice versa. Show me your stance. Can’t fit a blade to a swordsman I haven’t watched move."

Arlen drew the practice blade Kellan offered and worked through a few basic forms, Edgeline Strike and Aura Ward both, the movements settling into him with the improved crispness his Novice breakthrough had already lent them. Kellan watched without comment until he’d finished, then nodded slowly, something like genuine approval crossing his weathered features.

"Clean work. Whoever trained you knew what they were doing." He selected three swords from the rack, laying them out for comparison. "These’ll suit your build and your form reasonably well. Try each. Tell me honestly what feels wrong, not what you think I want to hear."

Arlen worked through the first — well-balanced, though heavier than he was accustomed to — and set it aside for the second, lighter and quicker but somehow less certain in his grip. The third settled into his hand with an ease that reminded him, faintly, of his very first blade from Torv’s shop, though considerably more refined in every measurable way.

"This one," he said.

Kellan studied his grip a moment, nodded again. "Good instinct. Dual-conductive alloy — carries Aura and Mana both without favoring one over the other, which is rarer stock than you’d think. Superior grade, solidly made, though not yet enchanted. We’ll discuss that separately, once I’ve seen how you actually use it under real strain."

"How much?"

"Four gold, unenchanted. I’ll want a full day to properly finish the fitting regardless — balance work, grip adjustment, nothing you’d notice missing until you actually needed it mid-fight and found it wasn’t there."

Arlen did the arithmetic carefully. Four gold was steep against anything he’d spent on the road, but manageable against a year and more of steady quest earnings, especially with the capital’s higher pay scale for confirmed Novice work already factored in. He counted it out without hesitation.

"Tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow." Kellan set the chosen blade carefully aside. "Come back midmorning. We’ll finish the weapon properly, and then we’ll talk about the rest of what you’re actually going to need before I let you walk into that dungeon carrying only half a proper kit."

"The rest?"

"Armor, lad." Kellan gave him a look that suggested the question answered itself. "You didn’t think I was letting you walk out of here with a fine new sword and the same worn leather you arrived in, did you? Given your build and how you actually fight — quick, mobile, closing distance rather than holding a shield line — you’ll want something considerably better suited than plate. I’ve a fresh batch of Ridgeback hide in the back, off a boar-type creature out of the mid Depths. Tougher than it looks, flexes properly, won’t slow you down the way iron would." He waved Arlen toward the door, already returning to his forge. "Midmorning. Don’t be late, and don’t go swinging that blade around loose on your way back to wherever you’re staying. It’s not properly settled yet."

Arlen left the shop with the promise of tomorrow’s fitting still ahead of him, the heat of the forge fading behind him into the Smith’s District’s ordinary afternoon bustle, and found himself, walking back toward the Foxglove, doing the quiet, careful math of everything still left to buy — a proper set of hide armor, boots, whatever else Kellan judged necessary — and genuinely looking forward to seeing exactly what kind of adventurer his exacting craftsmanship intended to make of him.

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