Smith's Spirit

Fascinated by the rich history and culture of this new world she had entered Kayla decided that she would spend the entire night immersed in the Link's world to learn as much as possible, so that she wouldn't feel completely useless and uneducated when she eventually went out to experience the world.

Time passes quickly when you are doing something that you find fascinating, and in this way the entire night passed and when her father walked in the next morning she was still frantically scrolling through innumerable fiction and non-fiction texts. Kayla had discovered that all the stories in this world were much more interesting than in her previous one, especially the ones concerning Sen and Ma, who where now prominent figures in her mind.

He coughed lightly and Kayla allowed her Link to fall softly into her palm. Unaware of how long she had spent in the Link's world she just smiled brightly at her Father, instead of feeling exhausted and drained she felt reinvigorated as if she had just slept for 24 hours straight.

With a slightly amused but sorrowful look in his eye, as if he had guessed what she had been doing all this time, he placed the book from the previous night in front of her and gently turned the first page. This is was the technique that could make or break her life here in Senma, would her incompatibility with the arms decrease if she adhered to this technique or would it not help her at all?

Determined to succeed and motivated after reading so many books she dove straight into the text.

The first page was a shortened version of the main legend regarding Sen and Ma and briefly gave one insight into how the world came to be, this was presumably to humble those that read the book, in the face of overwhelming power who wouldn't be shook to the core. As she began to look up to alert her Father to the fact that she had finished her first bit of reading the insect-bird flew over and using its tiny claws, delicately turned the page.

The first chapter was titled: Smith's Spirit. To her surprise it wasn't as wordy as she had expected, with tiny diagrams and notes dotted all over the pages. Quietly masking her surprise she carefully read the first paragraph.

It was clearly written by someone who regarded themselves as an expert in the subject because each word was written with precision and absolute faith. It explained how each piece of metal that had been forged and tempered by a Smith would gain spirit essence, although this was similar to magic it should not be confused with it.

Magic was generating power by controlling the elements that exist around a person and abiding by certain laws, but the Spirit of a Smith was something completely different. When a Smith was forging a tool he put a remnant of his life force into creating it and this is what the Smith Spirit was; a life force remnant.

A lot of people had very weak spirits and consequently were not able to forge powerful tools consecutively and had to rest in between forgings to recuperate. However those with exponentially strong spirits did not need to rest at all, and in some myths people could forge for eternity without rest.

There were even some records of people with exceptionally strong spirits that did not even need to learn techniques for forging tools and instead, guided by intuition and the will of the heavens they could forge tools that were of extremely high quality.

There were many herbs, mysterious spells and techniques that could be used to nourish ones spirit but they are quite rare and such spells would affect the Magicians vitality enormously. Consequently the strength of someones spirit was pretty much decided at birth and therefore the amount of high level Smiths was rapidly declining.

The stronger spirit you had, the higher affinity you would have with tools and your compatibility when using them would be significantly higher than any warrior.

This explanation inevitably lead Kayla to the conclusion that she had an extremely weak spirit, so weak in fact that even though the arms were physically an extension of her body she couldn't move them at all.

Wanting to share her thoughts with her Father she looked up to see him immersed in a strange task.

He was sitting at her small desk and his arms were outstretched in front of him with a small piece of metal was floating in between his palms. It seemed to be slightly moving each time he changed the position of his hand, it was beginning to form a different shape. However the process seemed excruciatingly slow and each hand formation lead to another drop of sweat emerging on his brow.

Looking down at the diagrams in the book before her the only thought that rushed through her mind was: could this possibly be Smithing?

Unwilling to allow her first experience of one of the mysterious arts she had yet to learn much about go to waste, she swung her legs out of the bed and unsteadily took her very first steps in this world. Although she wasn't able to lift her arms resulting in them feeling, mentally, very heavy, they weren't actually much of a burden when she stood up, she just couldn't move them at all. She carefully walked over to her Father.

However, the Gods could not have predicted what happened next.

As she came within a certain distance of the metal she felt a small tug on her mind, as if her very spirit wished to reach out and grasp it, that it believed the Smithing method being performed was unable to bring out the metals full potential.

Suddenly, it was as if a mysterious power within her suddenly burst forth, her eyes turned completely silver as they had when she was in the darkness and when she first tried the Link. It changed her presence completely as if she had been possessed by some unfathomably wise spirit.

The silver energy flowed into her arms, the mysterious glow they emitted intensified many times over and her body lifted her arms up as easily as if they were her own flesh and blood. She reached her arms around her Father and placed her hands either side of his, with the piece of metal still in the middle.

Her hands began to dance to a mysterious unsung rhythm, shifting and shaping the metal, silver dots similar to those that she experienced in the darkness floated out of her fingertips, infusing with the metal and giving it strength and power far beyond her imagination. Without her realising, her Father's hands had dropped away and he sat there, silent and in shock. What was going on?

When the final hand formation was completed the metal slowly drifted down onto the desk, it was no longer just an insignificant lump, it now resembled the insect-bird machines that were very popular in this world. Nevertheless it seemed to posses a great, unyielding power, as if it was a special artefact.

As her Father turned around to look at Kayla to ask her exactly what was going on, the silver light in her eyes extinguished and they returned to an ordinary grey-blue. She blinked once as if she had come out of a trance and her arms dropped back to her sides, back to being useless, before she ungracefully fell to the floor and lost consciousness.