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n'That food we ate must have been special. When considering the cost, it makes sense.' Eldrian thought as he saw that he was almost in top shape. 'Seems like I can go all out.'

nFirst, he waited until the metal was glowing. Then he took it out, ensured that the lengths were about equal and naturally he started hammering.

n'As expected, no system message or help. I wonder if other players would have gotten some system support by now' Eldrian thought after his 5th time he had heated and hammered the pieces.

nAfter the first two times, he had started hitting the metals far harder. At this time, he was using full force to try and make them form. What he found was that they just stayed apart, by now Eldrian was feeling that the quest Boran had given him was impossible.

nUnknown to him Vivian had gone to Boran to give him an earful.

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"Really Boran you too. I thought at first that you had put the wrong metal inside, it seems you did it on purpose. Why do you and my dad want to give him such a hard time.

" Vivian asked in a huff of anger.

n

"It isn't that we want to give people a hard time, rather that we want to ensure they are committed, even when it seems impossible.

" He defended himself.

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"Bull**! If that was the case you wouldn't have given him mithril. You can only forge it via magic hammers or by channeling mana. How do you expect a high elf who has never learned about mana to do that?

" She almost screamed at Boran, just barely keeping her voice in check.

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"Aren't the Chosen blessed? So, let him show me why I should teach him.

" Boran countered smugly. Clearly, he was happy with himself.

n'Why are they so mean.' She complained to herself as she kept observing Eldrian at work.

nVivian gnashed her teeth. She knew in the entire city only about 8 blacksmiths could work with mithril. They were only in a medium city so this was already considered good. Normally that number would be less than 5 in other cities of the same size.

n'What the hell are these metal pieces? It won't bend at all!' Eldrian asked himself completely shocked by the toughness of this metal. He already wasted around 40 minutes trying to get the metals to blend. At this time, he started considering if the metals couldn't be forged at all.

n'I guess it makes sense. There is no way a newbie at the game can complete an SS ranked quest.'

nHaving reached this conclusion Eldrian just wanted to see how strong the pieces truly were. He placed the bundle on the ground, taking only one small thin piece to try and get it to bend.

nAfter waiting for the piece to heat up, Eldrian placed it onto the anvil. Instead of trying to hammer it as he did previously, he hammered the piece between the anvil and his hands. Trying to force it to bend at the very least.

nWhat happened next Eldrian couldn't believe it. When he hammered the piece it had released a blue flash of light. After which he found that the piece had cut into the anvil quite deeply. His hammer had also shattered into pieces when it connected with the lone piece.

n'The **! How is that even possible.' Eldrian screamed in his head. The piece he took was only 1.5 millimeters wide, with a thickness less than that. This piece was now stuck in the anvil-like some weird wire.

nUnknown to Eldrian in that hit he had lost almost half of his mana, but since he didn't know how it felt to control and move mana, he didn't realize it.

nVivian's mouth hanged open when she saw the piece cut into the anvil. She knew mithril wasn't that hard. It would have at most scratched the anvil, ending up bent from such a hit, even if mana wasn't channeled into it.

nShe looked at Boran as if he was pure evil. 'How was this supposed to be a fair check. The only metal she knew of that was that hard was adamantine, but that metal is a blackish-purple color. She also knew that only Boran was able to even work adamantine in the city. 'What the hell is that metal then. I have never heard of a silver metal with that amount of strength?' She asked herself.

nAs if feeling the angry stare directed at him Boran stopped his work to see why Vivian was so angry. When he saw that Eldrian was now struggling with all his might to get a piece of metal out of an anvil he almost broke down laughing.

nSome chuckles still escaped, resulting in Vivian directing and an even angrier glare at him.

n

"Okay, okay. I admit that was unfair. To be honest I just planned to see if the kid would work at it till the end or give up. I didn't think he'd try experimenting to see if he could bend a single piece, since that wasn't part of the test I gave him.

" Boran said as he started laughing for real.

nVivian turned around to see why Boran started laughing after controlling himself. What she saw was Eldrian trying to regain his balance, as he had pulled the anvil up via the small metal piece.

nSeeing Eldrian dancing to try and counter-balance the weight of the anvil Vivian also couldn't control herself and started laughing.

nEldrian continued struggling to keep his balance for almost 10 seconds, before he ended falling down. Luckily the anvil didn't fall on him but rather missed him.

nBreathing out a breath of relief Eldrian looked at the two laughing figures. By now, Boran was lying on the floor struggling to breathe as he laughed.

nThis confused Eldrian a bit since he hadn't seen how his performance looked, scratching his head he thought, 'Was that really so funny? Even Vivian is struggling to keep standing.

"

nThis entire scene happened because Eldrian wanted to remove the piece from the anvil. He didn't expect it to be stuck so fast, so when he had pulled with all his might the anvil had simply left the ground.

nWhat resulted in him struggling so much to regain his balance, was the fact that the metal piece still hadn't bent, so it was still in its zig-zag crack pattern, with an anvil attached at its one end and Eldrian on the other.

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"Boran, what the hell is this metal. When I tried to check if I could bend it, it just cut straight through the anvil. Through a freaking anvil! How is that even possible?

" Eldrian asked finding the situation a bit funny himself after he thought about it a bit.

n

"Hahaha, sorry Haru… I wanted to check your resolve. I never… expected you to actually succeed. The metal is called divine mithril, or rather that is what we decided to call it for now. It is very rare and very valuable. That single piece stuck in that anvil is worth probably around 30 gold in its raw form, and that is a conservative estimate.

" Boran said, laughing in between every sentence, and a bit in-between.

n'Holy **, that is a lot of gold,' Eldrian thought as he looked at the small metal wire again thinking 'That is just a few grams of metal, how is it worth so much.' Luckily he wasn't the only one who was confused.

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"Wait what, I have never heard of divine metals before,

" Vivian questioned as this wasn't something she has ever heard of before.

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"Of course not. It's something new that was discovered when the invasion began. It was found in a celestial silver mine, surrounded by mitral.

" Boran said after he finally calmed down.

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"As you see it there is as it was inside the vein. Like cracks in a rock, except the cracks were filled with divine mithril and the rock was mithril. The only way we managed to extract it was by removing the surrounding mithril.

" Boran said as he lifted his hands to indicate how helpless they were. But a yearning look was present in his eyes as he glanced at the divine mithril again.

nVivian had shocked all over her face when she heard that even Boran couldn't shape it, since it was still in its raw form. That meant this metal was really, really high tier.

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"Why did you ask Haru to form it then?

" Vivian asked. She was even more irritated that he would give an impossible task to Eldrian.

n

"Simple, for inspiration. That kid certainly reached an interesting approach quickly. I never even thought of trying to bend it. Mostly due to it not really accomplishing anything, but still it was smart of him to think of that.

" Boran said as he walked over to the anvil.

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"Why do you call it divine mithril?

" Eldrian asked as he looked at the pieces in a new light. They were a pure gold mine. Currently, players haven't even started exchanging in-game money, mostly because no one has succeeded in making any, so hearing how much one piece worth certainly tempted him.

nThe gains from animal kills were at most 20 copper per kill. And that is if the players skinned the animal well and sold the meat. Nothing else was gained except a little XP.

nThis meant one divine mithril piece would be worth months of hunting.

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"That, well we called it that since like celestial metals, being the magic variety of normal metals, this seemed to be the more advanced tier of magic metals,

" Boran answered

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"Celestial metals?

" Eldrian asked no one in particular.

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"I can answer that.

" Vivian stepped forward as Boran crouched down and observed the anvil and divine mithril piece.

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