“Good job,” Theodor said after a while.
Kyle just grinned.
Theodor had praised him!
That was very rare!
“But we’re not done,” Theodor said.
“Of course! Give me more!” Kyle shouted.
“Next, I need you to turn it back into a sphere. Then, you need to split it into two halves.”
“Sure thing, Boss!” Kyle said.
He focused on the bar again and forced it to change its shape.
Surprisingly, it was much easier this time.
Theodor could see that Kyle felt it was easier due to how fast the ore changed its shape.
“It’s easier now, right?” Theodor asked when the metal turned into a sphere.
“How did you know?” Kyle asked.
“It was obvious,” Theodor answered with a snort. “Do you know why it was easier?”
“Because I practiced?” Kyle asked.
“No, because your Ether is no longer in an imbalanced state,” Theodor answered. “Your body desires an Ether equilibrium, and when there is too much in one Aspect, it will work to distribute it to regain its equilibrium.”
“In short, your high has worn off, and your mind has calmed down.”
Kyle didn’t like hearing that one bit.
He looked with a bitter grimace at the sphere and changed its shape again.
’Fuck, I hate that this is so easy now!’ Kyle thought.
’The goldfish might be right.’
But then, Kyle perked up again.
’Eh, might not be useful for forging, but it helps in combat. Confidence is important, right? And this stuff gives me plenty of confidence!’
In the end, Kyle turned it into a sphere again.
Then, he slowly willed it to split.
Splitting it was surprisingly easy, and there were no issues during the process.
“Now, you need to remove the inner parts of both spheres until there are two half spheres and two shells left. The shell needs to be about a centimeter thick,” Theodor said.
“Eehh, what’s that in inches?” Kyle asked.
“How am I supposed to know that?” Theodor asked with annoyance. “Inches are an antiquated method of measuring, and nobody bothers using it.”
“Then, how am I supposed to know how big a centimeter is?” Kyle asked.
Theodor looked around the room with annoyance.
“There, look at that table,” Theodor said.
Kyle looked at the only table in the room.
“Yeah?” Kyle asked.
“The plate is about four centimeters thick,” Theodor said.
’So, a centimeter is like… 40% of an inch? Something like that? Sure!’
Kyle looked back at the half-sphere, and the sphere’s image appeared in his head.
He imagined a part of the half-sphere splitting off, turning the half-sphere into a thin shell.
The next moment, Kyle infused the half-sphere with his Ether.
His Ether followed along the paths he had imagined, and the core of the sphere fell out.
“Huh, thought it would be harder,” Kyle said.
Theodor was a bit surprised.
While splitting something in a straight manner was easy, cutting something out was not.
When someone split something, one just had to cut through it from one side. This meant one could always see the cut and could act according to what they saw.
But when removing a core, one couldn’t see the cut.
One essentially had to cut blindly.
While there were a couple of flaws in the cut, it was definitely good enough.
If Theodor showed the shell to other Artificers, they wouldn’t think that this was someone’s first attempt.
“How is your process?” Theodor asked.
“Not sure what you mean,” Kyle answered, removing the core from the other half-sphere.
“How do you do it? What goes through your mind when you manipulate the ore? Walk me through it,” Theodor said.
For once, Theodor was not arrogantly reprimanding Kyle.
“Eh, I just imagine the half-sphere. Then, I imagine the core coming out. Then, I use my Ether, and my Ether does exactly what I imagined,” Kyle said.
At that moment, Theodor realized why Kyle was so talented.
“You can create a perfect replica of the half-sphere in your mind and even imagine it splitting?” Theodor asked.
“Pretty sure basically everyone can do that,” Kyle answered.
“That is not normal,” Theodor said. “Such a level of spatial imaging inside one’s mind is not normal.”
“Eeehhh,” Kyle answered.
’I’m pretty fucking sure almost everyone on Earth can do that. People tell other people to imagine things all the time. If I told them to imagine a sphere and then imagine a hole appearing in that sphere, they could probably do it.’
“Can you do that?” Kyle asked.
“Of course I can!” Theodor shouted. “I’ve been capable of that before I even became an Artificer! That was one of the main reasons why I was so talented and why all the schools wanted to have me!”
Kyle just raised an eyebrow.
“And that is somehow special?” he asked.
“It is!” Theodor shouted. “People gifted with a high level of spatial imaging are natural-born Artificers! It can be trained later in life, but it will be much harder! Something like this has to be trained in one’s childhood. Only gifted people and people who went through a luxurious education that deals with abstract concepts can have this level of spatial imaging!”
’Okay…’ Kyle thought. ’Seems to be special here.’
’Doesn’t seem to be special back on Earth.’
At that moment, Kyle had a thought and blinked a couple of times.
’Wait a second…’
’Is it school?’
’I mean, almost all the shit we learn is basically irrelevant to normal life, right? Who the fuck needs to know what Pythagoras said about triangles or what the fuck a hyperbola is. Sine, cosine, blah, blah, blah.’
’Shit is abstract as fuck.’
’But that’s probably why people can imagine geometric shapes relatively well. All that fucking thinking about angles and shit kinda forces you to imagine the object.’
At that moment, Kyle had to laugh a bit.
“What’s so funny?” Theodor asked with annoyance.
“No, nothing,” Kyle said. “I just realized something funny.”
’Dude, school did jack-shit in preparing me for life on Earth, but it proved to be great at teaching me how to thrive in fantasy land.’
’Who knew that the public education system would help me in fantasy land?’