Afterward, Shane made it up to Millianna with the grilled-fish set they'd had at lunch.
The little cat-girl puffed her cheeks as she ate, still wearing a very not-happy face.
Shane said solemnly, "See, cats love fish. If you eat more fish, you'll smell like fish. That basically makes you a fish, so cats will definitely like you."
The "logic" instantly coaxed a smile out of her.
Erza, mid-sip of water, nearly choked. Her shoulders shook; the kid-level nonsense had her well and truly stumped.
Given she'd helped make Millianna cry earlier, she swallowed the urge to roll her eyes, turned away, and studied the patterns on the wall in silence.
That night, Shane lay on the inn's not-so-soft bed, mind clear. Trying to reset his body clock, he forced his eyes closed. But after sleeping so much during the day, it took ages of tossing and turning before drowsiness finally crept in.
The Saber vision he was hoping for didn't come.
He kept suspecting that using a Phantasm disrupted the dream link, but the idea felt wrong. He'd be training Erza for a while and would need the Phantasm, so he couldn't test it yet.
Thinking it over, he felt the likelier answer was that the dreams depended on how deeply he understood the spirit.
Understand enough, and you'd get a dream the same day, like with Arash—and a true name within two.
Which left him speechless.
It was like a fresh grad being told a job "requires experience." Without the job, where does the experience come from?
A dead loop…
The last thoughts sank under sleep. No dreams at all.
And his sleep was restless.
At first light, a pounding on the door rattled the frame like war drums.
Shane dragged himself up, scowling in a low-pressure haze, and yanked the door open.
Erza stood bright-eyed on the threshold.
No dress today—she wore lean black shirt and trousers, scarlet hair in a high ponytail, a force of presence all her own.
Still foggy, he grumbled inwardly: She changes looks pretty fast…
Before he could speak, she grabbed his wrist and tugged. "Shane! Hurry—let's go to the coast!"
He pried his eyelids open and planted his feet. "Hold up… Erza, your top priority now is getting familiar with magic and control. All I can help with at the moment is your swordwork; there's no rush."
It took a lot of words, but he finally got the go-getter to accept that "meditation and steady mana circulation" were just as important. He nudged her back to her room to study.
Not that he had the faintest idea what meditation or mana circulation actually were—he just parroted Rob's theory with a straight face.
Once she was gone, he let out a long breath.
He hadn't left the Tower to spend all day indulging a battle-crazed girl's "fight high."
Since he was up anyway, he meandered down to the lobby for a simple breakfast:
A nicely singed white roll, a little dish of jam, and a steaming glass of milk. He ate in small bites, savoring the rare quiet of morning.
"Um… are you Shane-san?" came a tentative voice at his side.
Shane looked up to see a vaguely familiar boy. He frowned and searched his memory. "Tower of Heaven?"
"Yes!" The boy lit up at being recognized. "I'm Noel—thanks to you…"
They chatted. Shane asked why he was still at the inn. Noel scratched his head, a plain smile on his face. "I'm an orphan, nowhere to go. This place is fine, so I figured I'd settle here.
And I've found an apprenticeship at a blacksmith's in town—room and board included. I was going to move my things there today."
"A smithy?" Shane perked up.
Seeing his interest, Noel grinned wider. "Yeah! Want to come see, Shane-san?"
"Sure." Shane nodded and sped up his breakfast. Noel decided not to bother packing yet and waited patiently for Shane to finish, then led him out.
The forge sat on the city's edge, not far from the docks.
Before they reached it, the rhythmic ting-ting-ting of hammer on iron and a wave of heat rolled out to meet them.
Inside the open doors was a roaring furnace. Tools and rough weapon blanks hung on the walls; coal and iron filings were scattered on the floor.
The air carried that special tang of charcoal and hot metal.
The smell sparked an odd affection in Shane; his fingers even itched to try a swing himself.
"Sorry, Shane-san, master says newbies can't touch the hammer…" Noel stopped his hand, embarrassed.
Shane nodded, disappointed but understanding. Since he was here, he wandered the shop.
With Saber's Phantasm, he hardly lacked weapons—but a thought struck him: he couldn't use two class cards at once.
When he used Arash's crimson bow, pairing it with physical arrows hit harder than pure mana shots. Stocking some real arrows wasn't a bad idea.
He asked the smith about buying some. The owner said that arrows were mostly custom work; not much was pre-made.
The owner brought a few samples. Shane checked them—shaft straightness, head forging, fletching fit—and was left unsatisfied.
He thought a moment. "Could you bring me some long iron billets—rough stock?"
The jump in his request was odd, and the owner raised a brow at using billets for arrows, but fetched the materials anyway.
Shane only had an idea—and not the wallet for a big buy—so he kept it small: nine sets of billets.
He paid and carried the lot back to his room.
Door closed, he switched to the Archer class without delay.
Then, guided by [Arrowcraft] instinct, he took a set of billets and fed mana into every part, shaping it.
Under the flow of mana, the iron warped and settled into a slender, gleaming length of metal.
But it looked less like an arrow and more like some unusual sword.
"As I thought!" Shane's eyes lit. "As long as I define it as an 'arrow,' the process works."
After the buzz, though, he turned the "rapier" in hand and frowned—something was still off.
An idea flashed; he switched back to Saber.
With Saber's "weapon master" intuition open, he immediately saw dozens of tiny flaws he'd missed.
Add spiral grooves to bite the air; hollow the body a bit to lighten and improve control.
He kept swapping classes—using Archer to pull and shape, and Saber to critique and refine—worrying over nine arrows without end.
He fell into it completely, the world shrinking to the weapons forming under his hands.
When the ninth arrow was finished, dusk had deepened; orange-red light poured into the room.
Shane laid the nine "arrows" in a row and studied them.
Smooth lines; hidden edges; elegant spirals winding the shafts. They looked like ceremonial rapiers crafted by nobles—beauty mixed with bite.
He nodded, satisfied. "Still feels like something's missing—but… this is my limit for now."
~~~
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