Boris placed an iron bar of about half a meter into the fire to heat it. Once the middle turned white-hot, he took it out, brushed away the impurities on the surface, then immersed it in water for quenching. Quenching was a process Rein was familiar with from his previous life; it made the iron bar much harder.
Soon, through repeated hammering and heating, the iron bar gradually took on the shape of a crescent moon.
Seeing Rein come in, Drews, who was working the bellows, greeted him eagerly, “Rein! You’re here to help again today, want to continue with the bellows?”
Rein smiled and said, “Drews, I’m sorry, but I might not be able to work the bellows today!”
Under Drews’ astonished gaze, Rein walked up to Boris and pointed to the horseshoe in the making, “Uncle Boris, I want to learn this. How much is the tuition fee?”
The blacksmith Boris looked at Rein in surprise and said, “Rein, you have money? You are not my official apprentice; if you just want to learn horseshoe forging, the tuition is not cheap. Even though you have helped for free, I can’t give you a discount on how much I should charge.”
After listening to this, Rein couldn’t help but inwardly scoff. The rumors were true: Blacksmith Boris was quite skilled, but exceedingly stingy!
“Of course, Uncle Boris. How much is the tuition to learn horseshoe forging?”
“To teach you horseshoe forging for a month, 12 silver coins! If you can’t learn it when the time is up, there’s nothing I can do about it, but the tuition is non-refundable.”
Hiss! Hearing this price, the surrounding apprentices exchanged glances, as if to say that this time Rein was likely to suffer a self-inflicted disappointment!
After all, this price was indeed too high for most people, let alone Rein, who did not come from a well-off family.
Rein was also speechless.
This price!
Just for one month, and without guarantee of success!
You should know that in Flashgold Town, the monthly income of an ordinary adult male is only about 2 to 3 silver coins.
The currency system of the Dragan Empire was a bit similar to Rein’s previous life in England. One gold coin of the empire could be exchanged for 12 silver coins, one silver coin for 20 shillings, one shilling for 12 pennies, and one penny had the purchasing power of about one pound of rye bread.
But he still had to learn!
Rein feigned an expression of great distress and pulled out a gold coin from his embrace, handing it to the slightly surprised Boris, “Deal! Uncle Boris!”
“This time, my family signed me up for the Habsburg Manor’s page training, aiming for a blacksmith apprentice, so they specifically prepared some money for me to learn the essential blacksmith skills…”
Rein half-truthfully explained, accounting for the source of the money.
“It seems Old Rein has high hopes for you. Work hard, lad! Don’t end up like my good-for-nothing boy, wandering off to County Town every day, now completely untraceable!” Boris suddenly became emotional, patting Rein on the shoulder with a sigh.
This made Rein change his opinion of Boris a bit, realizing that even a stingy man like Boris had the heart of a father wanting his son to succeed.
“Come on! Rein, give me a hand here!” With that, blacksmith Boris handed Rein a heavy hammer.
Just as Rein grasped the hammer handed to him by Boris, suddenly, a string of system notifications appeared, causing Rein to be slightly startled!
[Ding! Host has come into contact with the blacksmith apprentice promotion medium — Blacksmith’s Hammer!]
[Preconditions for promotion to Blacksmith: 1. Blacksmith Apprentice lv3 at full level; 2. Strength of at least 6 points, Constitution of at least 6 points; 3. Forge ten qualifying blacksmith products… Current conditions do not meet the requirements! Promotion to Blacksmith failed!]
Rein was immediately thrilled; so this was the key to advancing from blacksmith apprentice to blacksmith!
“Rein! What are you standing around for?”
“Oh, right away, Uncle Boris!”
Quickly coming back to his senses, Rein immediately began to assist with the forging.
Being new to the craft, Rein only needed to complete one step: indenting a groove in the U-shaped iron bar.
After the iron bar for the horseshoe was shaped into a crescent, the following steps required two people to work together.
Blacksmith Boris clamped the iron bar with his left hand and heated it up again while holding a sharp tool in his right hand, shaped like an axe, moving it swiftly over the iron bar.
Meanwhile, Rein swung the hammer forcefully in rhythm, striking the wider top of the “axe,” whose blade was relatively narrow, leaving a slender groove in the hot iron bar under the heavy blow.
This groove in the horseshoe was to accommodate the soil on the ground to enhance the grip of the horseshoe.
Although Boris charged extortionately, his teaching attitude was commendable; he guided Rein on the rhythm of force application while explaining to Rein the complete experience of horseshoe forging.
This benefited Rein a great deal.
Before long, the system prompt appeared again:
[You have engaged in horseshoe forging, and your insight has improved!]
[You have realized a new skill—horseshoe forging]
[Your skill in horseshoe forging has improved, Experience +2]
[You focused on forging horseshoes, Blacksmith Apprentice Professional Experience Points +5]
Clearly, after participating in the horseshoe forging, the Professional Experience Points of the Blacksmith Apprentice soared, far surpassing previous bellows-pulling work.
This might be the essence of “pay to win”!
At the same time, one after another, qualified horseshoes were forged by Rein and Boris.
But unfortunately, perhaps because most of this part of the work was completed by Boris, the system did not recognize these horseshoes as being forged by Rein.
Naturally, this did not meet the condition of forging ten qualified blacksmith products.
This left Rein slightly disappointed.
He still wanted to advance to a Blacksmith as quickly as possible.
However, apart from horseshoes, what else could be learned quickly?
Ah, there it is!
That would be the nails used for horseshoes! These items are relatively simple to make, and logically, the horseshoe nails should also count as blacksmith products.
Rein remembered a saying from his past life: “For want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the rider was lost; for want of a rider, the battle was lost; for want of a battle, the kingdom was lost; and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.”
So, even though the horseshoe nail was small, it was equally important.
Seizing the moment during a break, Rein asked Boris if he could start learning the skill of forging horseshoe nails first.
Although Boris found it strange that Rein was insistent on learning how to forge horseshoe nails before the more important horseshoes, after giving it a bit of thought, he quickly agreed.
The reason was that the forging of horseshoe nails was also part of the lesson fee paid by Rein. After all, once the horseshoes were made, they needed to be used in conjunction with horseshoe nails, and the sequence didn’t matter!
Rein managed to contain his small surge of excitement and began to seriously forge horseshoe nails following Boris’s instructions.
At first, the horseshoe nails that Rein produced were all bent and unusable, but slowly, the quality began to improve!
Indeed, as Rein had previously guessed, the system recognized the horseshoe nails as falling within the category of any qualified blacksmith product.
With that realization, Rein was overjoyed, and like he had been injected with chicken blood, he swung the hammer vigorously, dripping with sweat as he forged the horseshoe nails.
Boris, on the other hand, looked at the enthusiastic Rein working on the horseshoe nails, shook his head, and said, “What a strange habit!”
Finally, before lunch, Rein achieved both of his goals.
Any qualified blacksmith product (10/10), achieved!
Blacksmith Apprentice lv3 (500/500) max level, achieved!
