Gray Chronicle

Chapter 8 Holy Iron

The abandoned blacksmith shop is located on the edge of the old town on the west side. Since it was swallowed up by the gray tide three years ago, no one has lived in this area anymore—the gray erosion crystals that climb all over the walls are no longer in powder form, but have grown into thin, flaky clusters that emit a sickly green light in the gray fog.

There was only one gray-etched mask. Ellie had picked it up from the junkyard; the leather edges were worn through, and the pores of the metal filter had been repeatedly cleaned but still retained a grayish-green grime. She handed the mask to Lynn.

"Take turns wearing them. Change them every fifteen minutes."

Lynn took the mask. When it was on his face, he could smell the mixture of old sweat and ash powder. The filter made breathing difficult, but at least it prevented the ash dust from going directly into his lungs.

"You won't wear it for fifteen minutes—"

“I’ve lived in the downtown area for eight years,” Ellie interrupted him. “It takes at least three hours of continuous inhalation of high concentrations of dust to start burning your respiratory tract. Fifteen minutes will only make you cough for days at most.”

Lynn didn't waste any more words. He pushed open the tilted door of the blacksmith shop.

The concentration of ash inside the shop was indeed higher than outside. The air was tinged with a grayish-green haze, and visibility was less than three meters. In the corner stood a cold furnace, with half a furnace of coke still inside—three years of ash erosion had formed a hard crust on the surface of the coke.

Old Tork's fellow apprentice, the dwarven blacksmith who insisted that "the fire in the furnace must not be extinguished," failed to keep the fire burning.

Lynn began sorting the iron materials. Those with a crisp tapping sound were broken apart, while those with a dull thud were kicked away. On the crystal slices, 3.3% were identified as metallic, and 1.4% were scrap.

But it's not the Holy Iron.

Old Torque described the characteristics of the Holy Iron: very few rust cores and naturally interconnected etched channels. Such iron should produce a sound between crisp and dull when struck—with a certain deep echo, as if the etched channels inside the iron are resonating.

He knocked on them one by one.

The sixteenth piece. A sheet of iron—

The sound when the hammer fell was wrong.

It wasn't crisp. It wasn't dull. It was a deep hum that lasted for a full beat. It was as if a wide, unobstructed pipe inside the iron was being activated by the vibration of the hammer and was now echoing.

He turned the sheet of iron over. The crystals on the surface were not chaotic clumps, but rather presented an orderly pattern: extending from one end of the sheet to the other, branching, converging, and branching again, like tree branches, like blood vessels, like a frozen network of water.

Ash-eroded flow channels. Naturally continuous.

"Found it?"

"Found it."

He put the holy iron into the cloth bag. Then he stepped on something.

A stone slab. Lay flat on the ground, mostly covered in grime and dust. He crouched down and swept away the dust—the slab was inscribed with dwarven language, not the commonly used dwarven language of today, but the more ancient runic dwarven language. One word was repeatedly inscribed in the four corners of the slab:

"Iron Vein" - a vein of iron and ash corrosion.

The dwarf blacksmith didn't carve a will before he died; he carved forging terminology. He turned the place of his death into his final lesson plan.

Lynn felt a tightness in his throat. He pulled out his tempered dagger from his pocket and scratched a line on the stone slab with the tip—as the tip touched the slab, the gray etched patterns on the dagger flashed, creating a very brief resonance with the dwarven runes on the slab. The words "Iron Vein" on the slab lit up for a moment during the resonance, then dimmed again.

On the crystal slice, the gray, ununlocked entry "[Rune Awakening - Initial]" flashed for the fourth time. The duration was half a beat. A little longer than yesterday.

He memorized the runes on the stone tablet. The layout of the rune array resembled some kind of energy guide: four runes corresponded to the four directions, with the center empty for placing iron. One day, when old Tok taught him about runes, the contents of this stone tablet would be the key.

"There are people outside," Ellie's voice came from the doorway.

Peeking through the crack in the slanted door, across the alley, two men dressed in the grey robes of the Temple of Nox were knocking on doors. They were novice priests, carrying parchment and quills. One of them drew some kind of mark on the doorframe.

"The registration clerks for the Judgment Stone Experience Tickets," Ellie whispered. "They're registering everyone in the Lower City who's close to awakening age."

One of the priests knocked on a door and went inside without waiting for a response. As he went in, he drew a mark on the doorframe—the shape of which matched the scribe's description of the half-elf boy being taken away.

It's not registration. It's marking.

"Did they see us?"

No. Go in the other direction.

The two emerged from the back door of the blacksmith's shop and returned via the patrol route of the central district. As they passed through the outermost edge of the central district, it felt like another world compared to the lower district—the cobblestone streets were clean, the walls were painted white, and purification runes from temples stood at street corners, their pale blue runes glowing faintly in the gray mist.

A woman selling baked bread pushed her cart past them, glanced at them, said nothing, and continued on her way. Her expression wasn't indifference—she had seen something that made her uncomfortable but she didn't want to get involved.

A transparent but solid wall.

When we returned to the old irrigation canal, we found that there was new firewood in the hearth.

Old Tok sat by the fire, a ceramic cup in his hand. He didn't ask "Did you find it?"—he knew as soon as his eyes swept over the cloth bag Lynn was carrying.

Lynn placed the holy iron plate on the anvil.

Old Tok stared at it. Not just looking—he stared. In the firelight, his eyes were no longer the reflection of the iron ingot, but the dark red surface of the molten iron in the furnace, slowly flowing. He reached out and ran his rough thumb along the natural gray-etched lines on the surface of the iron sheet. The movement was light, a stark contrast to the force with which he struck iron with his runic hammer.

This is not a piece of iron. It is something left to him by his fellow disciples. Separated by three years of silence and ten years of not seeing each other.

"His name is Balin. He was expelled from the Federation three years before me. When he left, he took all his forging notes and a piece of holy iron with him. There are only thirteen pieces of holy iron, passed down from the time of Hephaestus—not forged from iron ore, but 'grown' by the first generation of rune masters. Each piece has a name. This one is called 'Iron Vein'."

The dwarf's voice was very low.

"Bahrin has never forged a single Holy Iron weapon in his entire life. It's not that he lacks the skill—it's that he dares not. Once a Holy Iron weapon is created, the Hephaestus Federation will hunt him down to the ends of the earth, because the very existence of Holy Iron is a denial of the Federation's guild's 'Three-Step Method.' The Temple of Nox will also hunt him down, because a weapon that can sever the flow of magic can cut to the root of divine magic."

"Then why did he leave the Holy Iron to you?"

Old Tork did not answer. He simply picked up the runic hammer from the fire pit and placed it in front of Lynn.

"We'll begin forging holy iron tomorrow. But before we start—I'll teach you rune awakening."

He gripped the hammer handle. As he pressed his thumb against the runestone, a faint, dim red light appeared deep within its core, like embers trapped in amber. The gray-green patterns in the groove at the hammerhead began to glow faintly, and then the entire handle illuminated Lynn for a fleeting moment.

"To awaken a rune, the first step is to activate the rune stone. It sounds simple—but you have to feel the flow of the patterns before you can control it. Most blacksmiths never get past this hurdle in their entire lives. There are two types of blacksmiths who can: one is an old blacksmith who has practiced for more than twenty years, whose ability to sense the pulse of ash is etched into their bones; the other is someone with an innate sense of perception that is different from ordinary people."

He paused.

"Place your hands on the holy iron. Focus on one thing—feel the flow of etched crystals within the iron."

Lynn placed his left hand on the surface of the Holy Iron. The iron was cold.

He recalled what old Torque had said—"Ash crystals in iron are not dead impurities. They are alive. They are just asleep."

He focused all his attention on the ground beneath his palm. The sound of the firewood burning in the hearth faded, Ellie's breathing in the corner disappeared, and the distant chimes of the temple bell tower ceased. Only the extremely subtle pulsations beneath his palm remained—the ash crystals moving slowly, continuously, and directionally along natural channels within the iron.

Then he opened his eyes.

His right hand gripped the runic hammer almost instinctively. It wasn't that he reached out to hold it—the handle of the hammer found its way into the mouth of his hand.

The runestone at the end of the hammer handle lit up.

It wasn't just a fleeting, half-beat glow. It was a steady, continuous, dark red light that spread from the core to the entire surface of the stone, like a piece of thoroughly heated iron breathing slowly. Gray etched lines flowed from the runestone, along the hammer handle into the groove, and converged at the hammerhead.

Old Tok paused for a moment.

Lynn gently placed the hammerhead on the holy iron—not to strike, but simply to place it on.

At the moment of contact, the etched lines on the hammerhead seemed to be drawn by some kind of gravity, automatically and continuously seeping into the natural channels on the surface of the iron. The two lines—the natural etched lines on the sacred iron and the etched lines transmitted from the hammerhead—intertwined, branched, and then converged, spreading outward at a speed visible to the naked eye. There was no hammering, no quenching, just contact.

On the crystal slice, the [Rune Awakening - Initial] flashed for the fifth time. Then for the sixth. Then for the seventh.

It's not that the gaps are shortening. It's that the light is continuous and uninterrupted.

His vision suddenly went white. A flood of information rushed through him in an instant—he seemed to see the entire lattice arrangement inside the iron and the gray particles flowing within it according to some kind of pattern, but his consciousness could only grasp a very small part of it. One hand was still gripping the hammer handle, while the other hand braced against the edge of the anvil to keep from falling.

Old Tok reached out and steadied him on the shoulder. He was strong enough to steady him.

"From the first day a rune blacksmith learns forging to successfully awakening their first runestone—it takes an average of five years. Balin took four years. I took seven. How long did it take you?"

Lynn did not answer. He looked at the crystal slice.

The grayed-out unlockable entries no longer flash. Solid light blue text has replaced the original gray:

[Rune Awakening - Beginner] Class-Specific/Unmastered (17%) | Main Attributes: Intelligence +3, Perception +1 |

Not 100%. But it's no longer gray.

"You haven't taken on any apprentices all these years, so why are you teaching me?"

Old Tork looked at the runes on the holy iron.

"Because you still don't know fear," the dwarf said. "Three years ago, before Balin died, he sent me a message saying, 'The Iron Vein is still there.' Not 'forge it out,' just 'it's still there.' He just wanted people to know that the Holy Iron was still there. Now it recognizes you too."

Ellie stood up from the corner of the sewer.

"I'm forging the sword tomorrow. I need help," Lynn said. "Keep an eye on the entrance to the tributary. Rice won't wait until three days later."

Ellie nodded. "I'll go to Rice's place. Not to fight—just to watch."

"What should I do if I run into Kirk?"

"Don't fight. Run," Ellie said. "When a halfling runs, Kirk can't catch her."

Old Tok sat back down by the fire pit and used the fire tongs to pick up a piece of firewood and add it to the fire.

"Forge the sword tomorrow. Tonight, put the sacred iron by the fire pit to heat it. Don't heat it up—just let it come into contact with the heat radiation of the fire. The natural etched channels become more active when they are close to body temperature, and I feel that you will be easier to communicate with tomorrow."

Lynn did as he was told. He placed the holy iron on the edge of the hearth—the iron immediately felt a residual warmth slowly seeping up from its bottom.

Outside the window, gray mist seeped from cracks in the ground. Further away, the bells of the Three Temples rang out in sync. But tonight he couldn't hear those bells. He could only hear the crackling of the firewood in the hearth, the heavy snoring of the dwarves, and the constant warmth emanating from the holy iron beside his hand.