Beyond that, his memories were filled with all kinds of forging techniques.
He had been honing his craft since childhood, yet he had never managed a breakthrough. By Swordsmith Village standards, he was still an apprentice.
He was nowhere near skilled enough to forge Nichirin Blades for members of the Demon Slayer Corps. Good materials were as good as wasted in his hands.
Tetsu no Sosuke refused to accept that. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I might still be an apprentice, but these memories tell me what to do! I'll start with the first step. Sooner or later, I'll forge myself the strongest, fiercest Nichirin Blade there is!"
Light the fire!
Flames rose in the furnace, and Tetsu no Sosuke picked up an iron ingot.
Every month, the village handed out iron ingots to its swordsmith apprentices so they could practice their Forging Technique.
He placed the ingot in the furnace. The instant flames engulfed it, a sudden roar filled Tetsu no Sosuke's head!
[Buzz...]
"Hm?"
Tetsu no Sosuke shook his head instinctively. It felt as though something strange had happened to him.
But when he tried to pin down the feeling, it vanished like an illusion.
"What was that? Am I too tired? Some lingering effect from hitting my head?"
He turned the possibilities over in his mind but thought little of it. Then he looked up at the ingot in the furnace, and his pupils contracted!
"What the hell?"
A strange marker had appeared beside the ingot.
It was a gradient, blue at the far left and red at the far right, shifting steadily from one color to the other.
A needle pointed to the blue end.
"What is this?"
He waved a hand in front of his eyes. It wasn't stuck on his vision; he saw nothing when he looked elsewhere. The marker appeared only when he stared at the ingot in the furnace.
The discovery left him baffled. As time passed, the needle began to move.
Bit by bit, it crept toward the red.
"Wait... does this show the ingot's temperature?"
According to the Forging Technique he remembered learning, a swordsmith judged an ingot's temperature by eye before taking it out to forge.
So what was this marker doing here?
"Could it replace judging by eye? Give me a clearer scale for the ingot's temperature?"
At that thought, tears streamed down Tetsu no Sosuke's face. "Even heaven thinks I should be a blacksmith, doesn't it? Why else would my Golden Finger have to be about hammering iron?"
The injustice of it all!!
"But being upset won't help, will it? I probably can't return a Golden Finger."
With no other choice, he watched the needle's progress and the ingot's glow. By the time he judged it ready, the needle had reached roughly two-thirds of the way across, nearing the red end.
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