After much convincing, Master Silla agreed to take on Keita as his apprentice. Coincidentally, he had also taken in another apprentice just weeks ago. Both Keita and Herman found themselves under the tutelage of Master Silla.
Herman was a young protege. His dexterous hands were capable of executing the slightest of movements. His young agile mind was like a sponge, absorbing everything the instructor gave.
Keita began much later than Herman and he was not as dexterous. However, he had a lot of theoretical knowledge, and he had much more insight. While Master Silla was apprehensive at first, he quickly came to appreciate Keita's agile mind and determination.
On occasion, Keita would sometimes correct the teacher in some issues, while in other times, he would even come up with much better concepts on the fly. Right from early on, the master recognized the talent and genius in the boy.
Given how trying his young life had been, Keita did not have the strongest physique. This meant that he was somewhat lacking in dexterity and strength. This did not seem to deter him though. His determination made him quite the exemplary student.
As the weeks and months passed, Keita's forging skills kept improving day by day. Keita's goal was to learn to forge a sword, something he realized was not so easy to achieve. Hence, he needed to master the basics, improving himself step by step.
As such, he would end up making several kitchen knives, gardening tools and other accessories before finally being allowed to forge a sword. This was in accordance with his teacher's requirement. Despite his willfulness, he had to follow his master's demands.
Master Silla was a methodical teacher, breaking down everything and simplifying the procedures. His step-by-step instructions made it that the boys were incredibly familiar with the processes.
However, with only two months until the boys' birthday, the appointed day of competition. Keita was still learning. While his tutor felt he and his counterpart had made incredible strides, he knew he had to improve much more.
Unlike Zukov, Keita had the maturity to understand how heavily stacked the stakes were against him. As such, he knew that even if he made a proper sword capable of impressing his master, he himself would still find it falling short.
After accepting the challenge, Zukov had made a huge splash about it. His challenge towards the boy had been seen as an attack on the forging skills of the sect, which was tantamount to spitting on the face of these renown sword smiths.
What Zukov had done had been the topic of discussion among the various major powers. Behind the scenes, it seemed as though the Rono clan was making a power move, as though they were aspiring to contend for the position of number one swords smith.
To many of the elders in the Rono clan, this was all news to them. However, it was too late to call off this kind of challenge. At best, they would end up losing face.
Many of these elders and seniors of the clan were incised. The Sun scepter was bound to revenge, even if this was a competition among juniors. While many of the elders had tried to communicate this, it was seen as a cop out, in case things did not turn out as they expected.
Keita understood all this, and he realized that he had unknowingly taken on some pretty heavy responsibility. He could see that Master Silla also understood their predicament, but he did not seem to want to pressure the young boy. Perhaps, in his mind, it was a forgone conclusion, Keita, and the Rono clan, would face a devastating defeat.
After all, if you had to choose between a boy who had been training for a few months, and a well-known smith who had honed their craft for years, who would you choose.
Suffice it to say that Keita understood the weight of responsibility in his shoulders. However, he was not going to recoil, or capitulate, he intended to take the world by the storm.
What he needed was a weapon that could outdo any of the top-grade weapons of this era.
To do that, he had to improve the forging processes available to him. Master Silla had done a lot to get him up to speed his understanding of the various forging practices, but he had to be the one to make the final strides.
As such, after several months of advent study, Keita stopped attending his classes. He felt he had learned as much as he needed for the moment. Hence, he got a forge moved to the basement of the house, and from there, he would do his forging.
Ka! Ka! Ka!
Loud sounds of hammering could be heard as the boy whacked the newly made pig iron to remove any impurities.
No one knew of this thing called pig iron yet, but Keita was sure they would quickly come to learn what it was. Unlike just smelting iron ore, Keita had developed a new type of forge, allowing drafts to be blown into the furnace.
Keita had even added charcoal to allow the molten iron to absorb carbon, thus enhancing its steel qualities.
Once he was done hammering to remove the impurities, he proceeded to temper the weapon with both hot and cold liquids specially prepared. As for the final tempering process, Keita used a special liquid he had concocted. It contained mostly mercury and asphalt, and it could be used to quench the metal and enhance its softness, increasing the sword's toughness.
Since this was a trial-and-error process, Keita bought several quality swords. At the end of each build, he would test his newly created sword against these quality swords.
He had managed to forge several swords, each of them quite sharp, durable, and tough. However, none had met his standard. He needed to chop off a quality sword as cleanly.
Days were trickling down, and the countdown towards D-day was drawing closer. On one such fine morning, Keita pulled out a beautiful long sword from his collection. He had exerted a lot of energy, resources and concentration to forge the sword, and he was hoping it wouldn't be a disappointment.
He then drew a light gold sword from his collection. This sword was one of the best available swords from one of the main smithing clans in the realm. They were so good that they supplied swords to the royal family.
This sword was the finest among those available for sale, and Keita felt it was sufficient to pit his creation against the sword.
With a swing, Keita brandished his sword against the golden sword.
Clang!
With a loud cleaving sound, the sword was instantly cut into two. Better yet, there was barely any resistance as the sword drove through the other, demonstrating how sharp and powerful it was.
Perfect! Keita thought. Now all he had to do was recreate the same kind of sword.
"Big brother, what is that," Abi, who had been watching from a hidden place, suddenly came out. Her eyes were glued on to the sword the brother had built.
"This," Keita smiled as he eyed his younger sister, "just something I cooked up," He then made a few swings with the sword, much to his sister's entertainment. Seeing her laugh so heartily always brought a smile in Keita's face.
"Alright, let's go," Keita said, "we have to save someone from themselves."
"You mean big brother, don't you?" Abi quipped, giving her brother a sidelong glance.