After they purchased everything that Eisen needed for the day, or instead what his three apprentice candidates required, the group made their way back to the main church of Handor, where he promised to be again today, of course only after activating his demonic transformation and full-body craftsman enchantment.
It seemed like he was actually expected, as the nun that showed him around and helped him last time, Noa, was once again the one that hurriedly opened the front door.
"Ah, there you are again! We've been waiting for you!" She exclaimed with a smile as she fully opened the door and led the four of them further into the building.
"There is no need for you to cook today, as we got a new head chef after the old one resigned. He may not be as skilled as you, Sir Demon, but he is surely enthusiastic. When our old head chef resigned, Koro lost his apprenticeship as well, so he has been especially looking forward to your return." Noa explained before Eisen began to frown deeply.
"What do you mean the old head chef resigned?" The old demon inquired, and Noa slowly nodded her head. "I'm not sure what happened exactly, but we were sent a messenger from the Lord who was accompanied by our new head chef, and then we were told about the resignation. We don't know what happened either, but it wasn't like we didn't expect him to leave sooner or later. He didn't seem quite happy or content here after all. Maybe your appearance pushed him over the edge." Noa suggested before Eisen sighed loudly and nodded his head.
"Maybe so. It's truly a shame, but in the end, if that's the dwarfs choice, it's to be respected. But talking about Koro, where are those three right now? After I've talked to them, I will begin with the repairs of the structure." Eisen told Noa, who gratefully nodded her head before leading the old man and his companions to the orphanage.
There, before anything else could happen, Eisen was assaulted by the children that were there. "Whoo! It's Mister Demon!" One of them yelled, bringing everyone else to run at him as well as if he was some sort of spectacle.
And truly, he was. After all, you didn't see a large rock and flame demon with huge wings and horns every day. So, for a little while, Eisen had to continue humoring these little devils. Some of them began climbing all over him, while others played around with his wings or took a closer look at his skin and apron.
As these kids were doing that, it seemed like the three people that Eisen went to see there also noticed his presence, swiftly making their way to him as fast as they could, as they then stood in front of the old demon, resolved to pass the tests that he was about to give them.
With a smile, Eisen then looked at the three teenagers, before telling the kids that were clinging to him that he had to go, then stepping up to his possible apprentices. "Seems like all of you are ready. We'll be doing blacksmithing work first, so go ahead and get everything you need for that, and meet me in the gardens behind the orphanage." Eisen informed them with a calm expression, as he began to make his way to the spot where he told the boys to meet him, as this was the best place to do everything according to Noa.
However, Eisen thought that working outside wasn't the best idea, because wind or rain could easily ruin what you're working on, and as such, the craftsmaster made his staff appear out of his soul storage and began to form a room outside. It wasn't anything significant, just four rock walls and some lights made of Eisen's brightest flames. It usually took far more mana to form things rather than keep their current form up and running, so he asked Bree to refill his mana after he was done creating the room and three workstations inside of it, before swiftly setting everything that was necessary up.
First, he placed a few different metal ingots onto one central table, as well as a selection of tools into each individual 'room' that Eisen made for Koro, Parc, and Rouge to work in separately. Right now, Eisen wanted to test their skills and to see what they were each individually good at, after all.
A short while later, the three young men arrived, surprised to see the new building that never stood here before today. As Eisen turned to them, he swiftly smiled with a nod as he saw the clothes they chose. Their clothing seemed quite easy to move in, and loose enough so that there was a good airflow, yet they were then again not too loose so that they may get in the way.
"Alright, each of you will get one of these rooms. You won't be able to see the others work, so concentrate on what you are doing. You have access to any tools you may need in there, and some raw materials out here. You don't need to worry if you're making something that might need another, non-metallic material to complete it, like a knife with a wooden handle, you only need to make the metal portion for now." Eisen explained to them, before the boys all slowly nodded, nervously taking a look at the metals displayed on the rock table in front of them.
In the end, Parc took a large amount of steel with him, Rouge took some silver and gold, while Koro didn't seem to be able to decide on what to choose. Since his expression didn't say that he was nervous, but simply that he was thinking about what would be the best choice, so Eisen let him do his thing before Koro slowly took a single steel ingot with him.
For now, Eisen went into each room and set the forge to the heat that each of them required, already taking some mental notes. Parc chose to go with a temperature on the higher end of the acceptable scale, while Rouge seemed unsure and instead went with a lower temperature. Although, since Rouge was working with metals that could even be cold-forged, meaning without heating them beforehand, if one had the patience to do so, that was fine in the end.
Only Koro chose to go with the middle of the line, a pretty good temperature range that Eisen himself would have probably chosen as well to start it off with, in the end, you could always increase the heat of the forge or cool it down a bit depending on what you needed, after all.
And so, Eisen then continued switching between each room to get a good impression of everyone's technique. Luckily, all of them went with the proper tools and wholly ignored the 'feints' that Eisen had placed amongst the tools so that he could concentrate on what the boys were doing instead.
Parc was someone that primarily relied on his raw strength most of all. He combined the ingots together into one and then hammered them into shape, albeit not a quite complicated one. It was just a large metal club with some jagged spikes here and there and ended up as a pretty 'brutish' weapon overall.
Rouge, on the other hand, was quite the opposite. He did have a good speed to his motions, but near to no strength put into them, although that didn't seem to be the case because he lacked it. Eisen could tell that he followed the motto 'Better safe than sorry' as he made a small, intricate, and ornate bracelet out of gold and silver.
Last but not least, there was Koro. His technique was quite well-executed, and the strength he put into each strategically placed hit wasn't anything anyone could complain about directly. However, his general movements were slow. Whenever he struck the metal, his hand would move with the proper speed required to bring out the force needed, but the time in between every strike was far too long, and Koro's overall movements were quite sluggish, and the reason behind that was quite apparent also, but Eisen chose to explain that to Koro himself later. What he was making seemed to be precisely the knife that Eisen mentioned beforehand as an example, and since he spent some time in the kitchen here, it ended up looking like a knife you would find exactly there.
In the end, Eisen could definitely see that each of these boys had a talent for smithing, albeit each in a different area. So, as the old man stood in front of them and inspected each of the finished items, he began to explain the shortcomings of each of them.
"First of all, the techniques you guys use are all pretty good already, so I have no complaints there, but I do have complaints about your focus. Parc, big and heavy doesn't mean better. You managed to hammer this into shape quite well, but it's pretty rough and uneven in some parts, and some of the 'spikes' are just small bumps. I won't mention the choice of the item either. Anyway, you passed for blacksmithing, but we'll be working on your precision and feeling for detail." Eisen explained as he handed the large metal club back to the tall boy who immediately started celebrating before Eisen moved on to the next boy of the trio.
"On the other hand, Rouge you focus on the details and can make a few nice intricate things. However, there were a few things you still did wrong, or rather, that you could have done better. You need to have more confidence in your ability. Even if you fail once or twice, that's fine, but you're just wasting your time and breath if all you do is give the metal you're working with a little dent. If you develop that confidence of yours, you'd be able to finish something like this a lot faster, so we'll be working on your strength output and how well you feel around different materials and with different tools. Meaning, you passed for blacksmithing as well." The old man explained before Rouge swiftly joined Parc with his celebrations while Eisen moved on to the last of the three.
"Koro you overthink, you're too focused on the end product and what people might think about it, but you shouldn't. Your technique is great, and you're the most well-rounded out of the three of you, so you shouldn't worry about other people or the future of what you're doing, and concentrate on what you're doing at the moment. That would give you a great boost to your speed as well, and probably also add onto your precision and strength. So that's what you and I will be working on first. You passed for blacksmithing as well." Eisen told Koro, who quickly nodded as he looked at a notification that popped up in front of him.
That was probably just the update-notice for the quest, which Eisen got as well, and Eisen swiftly moved on from that. "Alright, all of you go outside and take a break. The next test is for Tailoring. I'll call you when I'm ready." Eisen informed them before the three boys quickly made their way outside with each one holding the item they just made, before Sky spoke up curiously.
"So you're sure you want to take those guys as apprentices if they pass all your tests?" He asked with a frown, feeling unsure about it but completely trusting in Eisen's choice and opinion since he always knew best up until now. But then, Eisen shook his head, which immensely surprised Bree, Sky, and Kiron at first, thinking that the old man was playing around with the boys.
"I'm taking them as my apprentices now either way. I'm just trying to figure out for what areas. They're definitely my Blacksmithing apprentices already at this point. Or rather, it's hard to mess up becoming my apprentice now. At the end of these tests, I'll reveal to them who I am and what my plans from now on are, and ultimately leave the choice up to them if they want to work with me or not." Eisen explained with a smile before Sky slowly nodded and looked back down at the ornate box from Eisen's soul storage that he had been looking at for a quite while now, while Eisen himself began to prepare everything needed for the tailoring test with the help of Bree and Kiron.
