With that voice guiding him, Tetsu no Sosuke began repeating the same motions.
Hammer, hammer, hammer. Heat, heat, heat. Then back to hammering...
From noon until night, he spent almost every moment hammering that piece of iron, stopping only for the occasional break.
"What a workout!"
Tetsu no Sosuke rubbed his arm and put the iron back into the furnace. "Good thing I've been smithing since I was a kid. Otherwise, I'd never keep up this pace. Once I finish this round, it'll be time to eat, right? Yeah, then I'll get back to it!"
Once the iron was hot again, he pulled out the ingot he had hammered hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times with a pair of tongs.
He picked up the Forging Hammer and looked at the ingot that had kept him company all afternoon. Suddenly, a strange feeling welled up inside him.
Somehow, he felt closer to it.
It was like a newborn, and he was slowly shaping it into what it would become.
An emotion he could neither explain nor name rose in his chest. Almost without thinking, he raised the Forging Hammer.
Bang!
The hammer fell, sending sparks flying.
[Impurities -5] [Strength +1]
The two notifications snapped Tetsu no Sosuke back to his senses.
Warmth flowed through his body, and his utterly exhausted limbs filled with fresh energy.
But the notifications left Tetsu no Sosuke rooted to the spot in shock!
"What just happened?"
He looked at the hammer in his hand, then at the ingot before him. "Why did I suddenly feel so close to it? Why did that one strike remove five points of impurities? And... my strength went up by one?"
He moved his arm. The difference was subtle, but he really did feel as though he had more strength to spare.
"So this Golden Finger doesn't just tell me exactly how much the iron's impurities have decreased. It can increase my strength, too?"
At the thought, he drew a sharp breath and struck again.
[Impurities -1]
There was no notification of increased strength, and the impurities had dropped by only one point.
"No, no! That didn't feel right!"
He shook his head. What he had felt a moment ago was clearly different from what he had felt during that last strike.
What had caused it?
"Was I not close enough to it?"
He stared at the iron, trying to recapture that earlier emotion and feel close to it again.
But no matter how he looked at it, it was just a red-hot piece of iron!
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