The steady rhythm of the forge was comforting. Behind the blacksilver mask, Cane—once again donning the persona of Jonas Ironfist—worked with quiet focus, hammering out simple gears for a new traversal system. Slide-swivels, elevation joints, locking plates—each piece was a question in metal form, and the forge would help answer them.
"Once I've got the platform sorted," Cane muttered, wiping sweat from his brow, "I can worry about the encased shells."
The first three sketches were fed to Chimi, who hummed contentedly as they vanished into the living flame of the forge. On the fourth, Cane added a mounted gunner seat—adjustable, angled to give one person full control over aiming and elevation.
"That's the goal," he said, voice low. "One person, one weapon. Clean adjustments. Precision fire."
It wasn't the primary project—not compared to the ship—but with the alloy shipment still two weeks out, this would keep his hands busy and his mind sharp.
The next morning, Cane steered a custom-built wagon down toward the Academy's private harbor. The structure creaked slightly under the weight of forged parts and bundled blueprints, but the design held.
By the time he arrived, both the Advanced Metallurgy and Water Element classes were already waiting. Brammel and Selena stood near a drafting table, heads bent over a set of plans. Most of the students milled about in small groups, their conversations buzzing with half-hushed excitement.
"Cane!" Dhalia called out, waving as he hopped down from the wagon seat.
He waved back, then motioned to a few students nearby. "Some of this is heavy—grab a partner and help me unload."
Bolts, gears, and scaffold frames clattered gently as the students worked. Brammel and Selena waited as Cane approached, another blueprint tucked under his arm.
"Got something new?" Brammel asked.
Cane unrolled the schematic on the table. "Take a look."
Brammel let out a low whistle. "How long is this barrel?"
"Two meters telescoped," Cane explained. "Add another meter for the breech assembly. It's tight—especially if we can make an encased round work. It'll need to fit perfectly."
Brammel rubbed his hands together, grinning. "Leave the encased round to me. Brass is the way to go. I'll take what you've drawn and turn my class loose on it."
"Perfect," Cane said. "How are we on the sails?"
"Come see." Selena led him over to a second table where patterns for three sails were carefully arranged and pinned. The design was light, elegant—beautiful even in its raw form.
"We wanted your input before placing the order," she said. "We're leaning toward silk?"
Cane studied the pattern for a long moment. "Yeah. Silk's ultralight—should counterbalance the added weight once we interweave metal thread."
He tapped his chin. "I was thinking aluminum, but the conductivity's too high. If we hit a storm, we're a floating lightning rod. I'll have to use tungsten again."
Selena raised a curious eyebrow. "Worried about lightning strikes?"
Cane chuckled. "More like overly cautious. My mum used to say I had a head full of questions and nowhere to put the answers."
"You talk like someone with a formal education," she said, half-teasing.
He grinned. "Not quite. Whenever I got in trouble, my mum made me read. Big stacks of books."
Selena laughed. "I take it that happened often?"
"I admit nothing," Cane replied. "But she had a lot of books."
**
Cane sat comfortably in the metal seat, hands resting on the twin traversing cranks—left for elevation, right for horizontal movement. The cannon mounting platform moved smoothly with each adjustment, but it obeyed. It felt right. Balanced.
It had been nearly two weeks since he'd last checked in with Brammel, who had vanished into the metallurgy workshop with his students and a pile of half-finished ideas. Meanwhile, Selena's class had spent their days experimenting—mostly splashing through elemental techniques, waiting on the promised shipment from the capital.
Today, that shipment had finally arrived.
Dhalia trudged over, hair plastered to her neck and shoulders, eyes bright despite the soggy state of her robes. "Not even a laugh?"
Cane shook his head, smiling. "That was actually pretty impressive. You made it halfway through before the water tunnel collapsed."
"Progress," she grinned, wringing out a sleeve.
Selena turned her head at the sound of creaking wheels. An approaching wagon lurched under the strain of its cargo, its suspension practically flattened under the weight.
"That has to be our stuff," she said.
Cane's face lit up. "Beautiful, right?"
He waved the driver in, guiding the wagon to a halt before unhitching the draft team and helping maneuver the cargo into position for offloading.
Selena arched a brow. "It's metal, Cane."
"Exactly!" he said, placing both hands reverently on the top sheet. "This one's titanium. Two meters by three. Pure. The other's tungsten. I'll purify one of each, then meld them using metallurgy. Gonna call it... Tungtanium."
Selena blinked. It was impossible to tell if he was joking.
He wasn't.
Cane pulled one sheet of each metal onto the dock. He knelt before the tungsten first, pressing his palms flat against its surface.
The world fell away.
Suddenly, he was deep underground—a mining shaft miles below the surface, echoing with the rhythmic strike of pickaxes against ore. Cold. Still. Black as pitch. The vision faded, replaced by the boundless, mirrored world within the metal.
Cane focused, sinking deeper.
He began to trace the natural layers and imperfections—currents of elemental memory that flowed and pooled. He felt the drift of carbon, the sharp taste of copper, the grit of steel. With a subtle mental nudge, he flushed them away, like surf sweeping sand off stone.
When he opened his eyes, the immediate area around him had cleared.
The impurities had bled out, trickling into the surrounding sand like oily runoff. The stench hit hard—something between sulfur and rotten cabbage.
"Should've warned you guys," Cane said casually.
Dhalia staggered back, pinching her nose. "What is that?"
Selena narrowed her eyes, suspicious. "You did that on purpose."
"One down…" Cane said, flashing a wink at Dhalia.
Cane used the same technique to purify the titanium. Once finished, he carefully slid the clean sheet over the tungsten.
"Let's see how well they meld."
He knelt once more, both palms pressed flat to the upper surface. The harbor faded. His body stilled.
He entered the quiet.
The reflective world of metal stretched out around him—vast, rippling, and eerily mute. Not silence, exactly. Absence. Like watching the sea without hearing its crash, its gulls, its wind.
"Commander Moriwynn called me a metal singer," Cane murmured, the words echoing strangely. "Telamon said they were rare... but not unheard of. Not since the First Rise of Man."
He walked through the mirrored space, feeling the surface beneath his feet shift with every step. His senses were alive: touch, sight… even taste. The metals spoke in subtle ways. But something was missing.
Shouldn't I be able to hear it, too?
He focused on the quiet. Probed it.
And found a stillness that didn't belong.
"You…" His gaze sharpened, locking onto the tungsten layer—darker, duller, resisting. Beneath it lay something buried, reluctant to emerge.
"It's there," he whispered. "Right beneath the surface."
He raised both hands. Light spilled from his fingertips, dazzling across the mirrored plain like midsummer fireworks. No forge. No hammer. Just will.
"Meld for me."
The metals obeyed.
They didn't fuse with heat or pressure—but with resonance. A joining of essence. A quiet surrender.
"Now…" Cane whispered. "Sing for me."
A hum answered—soft, delicate. A note without vibration. Felt, not heard.
Then a second joined it. Lower, fuller. A harmony built of base and bright. The chorus deepened.
He heard it.
On the harbor dock, Selena stood frozen.
Cane's body was sprawled across the layered sheets, palms moving gently outward as if coaxing sound from strings only he could touch. His entire frame pulsed with inner light.
Then came the sound.
Distant at first—almost imperceptible—but beautiful in its strangeness. Otherworldly. Unmistakable.
Her eyes widened.
She took a step back and touched the rune behind her ear.
"Please come to the harbor," she said quietly. "Now."
A rift opened moments later, and Archmage Telamon stepped through.
By then, the song had deepened.
The sheet beneath Cane shimmered as the metals entwined—not an alloy, not truly. Something wholly new. Something born, not forged. The surface pulsed with quiet breath, funnel-clouds of mana rising from the surrounding air as if summoned.
Cane didn't move.
Telamon watched the display, hands folded behind his back. When the chorus finally settled, he exhaled with satisfaction.
"He's done it," the Archmage said softly, smiling as if remembering an old melody. "It's true. The metallurgists from the First Rise could make metal sing."
Cane withdrew slowly.
It felt like pulling his feet from a bog—each step careful, deliberate, ensuring he didn't disturb the melded miracle beneath him. When his senses finally returned to the physical world, he sat up, swaying slightly as a wave of dizziness washed through him.
His vision blurred, breath shallow. But his smile—
It was the smile of a blind man discovering sunlight for the first time.
Selena knelt beside him, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. She raised a finger to her lips, then subtly gestured toward the harbor.
Cane followed her gaze.
Nearly half her students stood spellbound, their eyes wide, their bodies stilled in reverent awe. Something had changed—not just in the metal, but in the water, in the very air. The harbor shimmered with quiet brilliance as if it had awakened.
The surface of the water glowed, reflecting a gentle blue light from below. Magic stirred.
Enlightenment had arrived.
And those open enough to receive it—those who sought it—were already changed.
Professor Morva's eyes glistened as she watched her students, awe written across her face. Beside her, Telamon remained still, his gaze flicking between cadets, observing the unfolding phenomenon with a scholar's restraint and a mage's fascination.
Clarity and insight swept through the group like a wave. One after another, students stepped into their elements—not just controlling, but becoming.
Dhalia's skin shimmered, taking on a translucent blue hue. Her hair, once tightly tied, now drifted around her shoulders in gentle waves, moving as if submerged in an invisible current. She wasn't alone in her transformation—but she stood out.
Cane recognized the resonance immediately. Her water was kin to his ice—the same origin, the same source. Glacial.
Selena gasped and turned away, clutching her chest. The Water Element surged, wild and beckoning. She could no longer resist.
Her legs dissolved into iridescent scales as her form shifted fluidly, skin catching light like sunlight off the sea. She stepped into the harbor and dove. Rainbow trails unfurled behind her. Glimpses of fountains, leaping dolphins, and spiraling sea serpents danced across the surface where she passed—brief illusions born of magic and motion.
Even the students who had not directly felt Cane's forging fell silent, watching their teacher swim with the grace of a living current.
Then a light tap on Cane's shoulder drew him back.
Telamon stood beside him, a small parcel in hand. No words—only a knowing nod.
Cane accepted it. The paper wrapping crinkled softly as he unfolded it, revealing a cluster of glimmering dried berries and nuts laced with alchemical threads of gold. He hesitated only briefly before eating them.
Warmth bloomed in his chest.
His fatigue vanished. His pulse steadied. The sharp edges of the world returned, clear and crisp.
He rose slowly, steady on his feet. The singing had faded, but its echoes lingered in the metal... and in him.
Cane looked down at the sheet of Tungtanium—gleaming, flawless, alive with potential.
For the first time since the project began, he felt no uncertainty.
He wasn't guessing anymore.
He could build this ship.
And it would be unlike anything the world had ever seen.