Chapter 137 - 136 Advancement

Six months passed by in the blink of an eye as Marcus continued living in the capital city Boreas and a lot had happened during this time.

Marcus had of course continued his training under Gurrom, learning all of the basics of forging during a two-week period.

After that Marcus returned to his estate and once the on-site forge had been cleaned and resupplied, Marcus began getting to work.

Marcus started perfecting his forging style during this time, increasing his skill level readily, and once every couple of weeks he would go back to the Blazegram Forge to show Gurrom what he had made, get some extra advice, and sell his completed pieces.

Unfortunately, in the first four months Marcus was not making much money off of his forging, and when Lilia got into the kingdom's Royal Academy, Marcus had to supplement his income with adventuring to afford her tuition.

Luckily, Marcus was able to use his high level and noble status to quickly raise his adventure rank up to silver as Irene, although he did have to beat an annoying vice guild master in a fight first.

Following his increase in rank Marcus joined back up with the adventuring party Eternal Queens that he had briefly met during his stay at the Cozy Respite.

He did this mostly to get their expertise at what jobs could earn the most money, but it did not take long for him to also become good friends with them.

During this time Marcus also received plenty of invitations from other nobles wanting to meet him, but he turned most of them down since he was too busy to deal with things of that nature.

However, he did make an exception for Dame Harthen and her apprentice Clarisa Hall who he had met a few times going between the inner and outer city and became friends with.

Marcus continued with his routine of adventuring for money and using what time he had in between to practice forging until his fourth month of practice when Marcus got his forge skill up to level four.

This meant that he was finally able to make items out of mithril and it was not long after he began making mithril weapons and armor that Marcus' popularity skyrocketed, and he began getting personal commissions.

At this point Marcus had already been accepted as an official member of the Blazegram Forge and was making good money off of his forging, no longer needing to go adventuring for money.

He did still help out the Eternal Queens every now and then, but his time with them dwindled quite a bit from before.

Of course, during these six months Marcus also managed to get his level and other skills up and was now level thirty-five with all of his magic and combat skills being at level four expect for iron magic and scythemanship which Marcus had spent his skill points to get to level five.

…

Wiping some soot off of his forehead Marcus stared down at the mithril chainmail he had just finished, and a big smile spread across his face.

'Finally, I have made a chainmail where the enchantment stuck. Hehe, now I have a decent piece of armor for myself and I think I am ready.'

Putting the chainmail on under his clothes Marcus could barely tell that it was there because of how light it was.

Moving around to get used to his new armor Marcus could not be happier and he decided that it was finally time for him to once again try his hand at becoming Thabon's apprentice.

Packing up his equipment Marcus walked out of his forge and called Blitz over who had also level up during this time making it to level twenty-seven.

Mounting onto his magical beast, Marcus quickly bounded towards the road and not even waiting for the gate to be opened had Blitz jump over.

With a loud bang Blitz's hooves impacted the stone street and the two of them began rocketing towards the Blazegram forge at an incredible rate.

Within just a few minutes Marcus had arrived at the forge and had tied off Blitz before entering.

Sitting at the front desk Marcus saw one of the forge's apprentices manning the lobby and when he saw Marcus, he immediately ran over and said, "Lady Irene, it is good to see you again. So, have you thought about my request, I promise I will do whatever you say if you take me as your apprentice?"

Marcus sighed, this was a common occurrence ever since he had become an official member of the forge two months ago and became quite popular.

At some point Marcus even became the forge's idol since he had gone from having a skill level of one to four in only just six months which was pretty good and because as Irene, he was incredibly attractive.

This made it so that all of the appetencies wanted to know Marcus' secret on how he had gotten his skill up so fast and the male and even some of the female ones wanted to get into a romantic relationship.

Unfortunately, Marcus' secret was something others could not replicate, using his lack of need for sleep, he would work for days on end, and Marcus also had no intention of having any romance at this point in time.

Looking at the young man who had been the most persistent Marcus sighed and said, "Jerrard I have already told you many times that I have no intention of taking any apprentices. Now I have some important business to attend to so I will be on my way."

Unfortunately, Jerrard was feeling extra persistent today and did not get out of Marcus' way and even got down onto his hands and knees and said, "Please I am begging you. I cannot get over the hurdle of getting my skill level up to four and until then I will always be an apprentice. You must have used some secret training technique right, if you could even give me a hint, I would be eternally grateful."

Groaning Marcus looked at Jerrard and said, "Your level is too low, go kill a bunch of monsters or train like hell for a few months and once you are around level thirty you should eventually get you skill level up."

With his advice given Marcus walked around Jerrard, who was feeling helpless since he thought Marcus was mocking him.

However, Marcus had actually given sound advice since if you were not at a certain level it became very difficult to get your skill levels up.

Marcus figured this out when he noticed that it was easy for him to get most skills up to level four but after that it was incredibly difficult if not impossible to raise them as they cost absurd skill points and no amount of training seemed to help.

Walking into the forge many people greeted him and Marcus who was on good terms with most of the members of the forge smiled and greeted them back.

After saying his hellos Marcus soon found himself in front of Gurrom's personal room and he knocked on the door.

It was not long before Gurrom opened the door letting out a blast of heat and Marcus could see sweat trickling down his head.

"Hey Gurrom, you got a minute."

Gurrom seeing Marcus grew a big smile as he said, "Actually I am in the middle of working on something and if you could give me a hand, I would be appreciative."

Marcus nodded and walked into Gurrom's personal workshop and saw what he was currently working on.

Marcus could only stare in awe as he saw that Gurrom was working on an adamantine axe.

Marcus had seen the slightly green silver metal only a few times but each time he had wanted to get his hands on some.

Unfortunately, only those with a forge skill level of five or higher could effectively work with it and it was incredibly rare.

Sighing while looking enviously at the adamantine Marcus said, "So what do you need me to do."

Gurrom explained to Marcus that he had used up all of his mana already and that taking another potion would cause him some lasting damage, so he needed to use Marcus basically as a mana battery.

Using his mana to power the magical equipment in Gurrom's room it was only around an hour before Gurrom had put the finishing touches on the axe he had been working on.

Marcus watch as Gurrom inspected the axe giving it a few swings before he smiled and said, "Thanks Irene, you are a life saver. It has taken me years to accumulate the amount of adamantine I needed to make a personal weapon for myself."

Marcus with a jealous expression said, "Yeah you seem pretty pleased with yourself, while I have not even been able to get a scrap of adamantine to work with."

Gurrom just shrugged his shoulders and said, "Hey you are already working with mithril after just six months which is better than most. Just give yourself another couple of years and I am sure you will get some adamantine."

Marcus shaking his head to get his mind off of the strongest metal he knew about and said, "Gurrom I actually came here today to show my skills off to the owner again and try to become his disciple."

Hearing this Gurrom looked at Marcus seriously and said, "Are you sure, I know that your skill level is still only at four and the master did not even accept me who is an old family friend until I got my skill level up to five."

Marcus just nodded his head resolutely and showed off the mithril chainmail that he had just made to Gurrom who inspected it thoroughly.

After he had finished looking it over, he had a genuine look of surprise on his face and said, "You managed to get such an intricate and advanced enchantment to stick onto mithril."

Marcus hearing the shock in Gurrom's voice proudly said with a smug face, "Yeah it took a lot of trial and error but with the help of my little sister's magic I was able to get it done."

Gurrom just looked at Marcus like he was a monster since getting an enchantment on mithril the way Marcus had, was nearly impossible.

Gurrom handing the mithril chainmail back to Marcus said, "Very well I will go get the master and bring him here, feel free to use my room during your test."

Gurrom then left the room and Marcus began pulling out the materials he was going to be using during the test.

'Three ingots of mithril, a lightning stone, shine stone, and dark stone. The wood from a sun tree and a moon tree, a bonding agent for the two woods, and finally the magic core from the boss of the third layer.'

As Marcus took the materials out of his item box and double checked their quality Gurrom came back with Thabon who was looking at Marcus expectantly and said, "So you think you are ready.. Very well, show me how much you have advanced in these six months."