"Chief Maid Shadia, is that the blacksmith's shop over there?" Rein asked.
Shadia paused her action of opening the door, glanced at the corridor, nodded, and said, "Yes, Rein, are you interested in the blacksmith's shop?"
"Haha, quite interested. By the way, is Master Baal there too?" Rein scratched his head and smiled as he continued to ask.
"Yes, all the blacksmiths are here. Baal is the blacksmith in charge of forging daily supplies."
"Aside from Baal, the castle blacksmith shop also has Blacksmith Bazil, who specializes in weapon forging. Additionally, there is another person who is in charge of the blacksmith shop, Blacksmith Snell, a disciple of Master Verintan from County Town, who specializes in armor crafting."
Seeing Rein's highly interested expression, Shadia elaborated a bit more on the situation in the castle's blacksmith shop.
"Master's disciple," "specializes in armor"
Rein's eyes lit up, keenly picking up on two keywords, and said, "Could it be that this Blacksmith Snell is an armorer?"
"Not yet, but he is likely to become one soon. Once he passes the blacksmith association's assessment at the end of the year, Snell should be promoted to armorer!" Shadia said as she pushed open the door.
This immediately gave Rein a feeling of unexpected relief as if he had suddenly found a promising path. He had always wanted to find a blacksmith with high forging skills, and unexpectedly, one was right within the Habsburg estate.
Furthermore, since Baal was in charge of forging daily supplies, it made sense that he was responsible for related content in the servant training.
"Here you go, Rein, your ironwood oil." Seeing Shadia had already taken a bottle of ironwood oil from the room and handed it to Rein.
Rein took it, and before even opening the stopper, he smelled a strange yet familiar scent of ironwood oil.
Soon, this small black bottle was carefully tucked inside Rein's clothes.
"By the way, Chief Maid Shadia, are you familiar with Blacksmith Snell of the blacksmith shop? If it's convenient, could you introduce me?" Rein asked.
Rein thought that since Snell was the head of the blacksmith shop, establishing contact with him would be ideal.
Hearing the name Snell, Rein sharply noticed that the chief maid's complexion seemed to blush slightly, but it quickly faded.
The next second, Shadia stared at Rein quite displeased and said,
"Rein, one's energy is limited. I hope you can focus on practicing the Knight Breathing Method and not be distracted, lest you fail to meet the lady's expectations."
"This...." Rein was at a loss for words for a moment, not knowing what to say.
It was normal for Shadia to think this way.
After all, practicing the Knight Breathing Method and swordsmanship would take up most of a person's time.
Thus, anyone aspiring to reach the Transcendent level would not waste much energy on other matters.
However... what Shadia didn't know was that this situation only applied to ordinary people.
But Rein was different, he had a "cheat"!
For Rein, quickly leveling up his blacksmithing secondary profession was equivalent to quickly improving his combat profession!
It would allow him to reach Transcendence sooner!
But this, Rein obviously couldn't explain to Shadia.
Seeing the chief maid's displeased expression again, Rein knew that the idea of having Shadia help make contact was probably blown.
So, Rein could only regretfully take the bottle of ironwood oil and head home.
Since his body ached no more, Rein decided to wait until later to visit Boris's blacksmith shop, planning to first practice the Giant Bear Breathing Technique at home.
He opened the bottle, and a strange fragrance filled the air. Rein poured a little bit of the amber-colored black poplar oil into his palm. Following Lady Cleya's previous instructions, he rubbed his hands together to warm the oil before applying it to his knees and shoulders.
Instantly, a burning warmth flowed from the applied areas into his skin.
About half an hour later, a sweaty Rein suddenly received a system notification:
[Congratulations! Your Constitution Attribute has increased!]
Oh! This time it was only the Constitution Attribute that increased.
However, this had raised Rein's Constitution from 6 points to 7 points.
Rein remembered that the last time he practiced the Giant Bear Breathing Technique, both Constitution and Strength had increased.
After a moment's thought, Rein seemed to understand why.
"That's because my Strength Attribute is relatively high already, at a full 10 points, while my Constitution Attribute is comparatively low, at only 6 points. That's why practicing the Giant Bear Breathing Technique resulted in a particularly rapid increase in Constitution."
Unexpectedly, after retrieving a bottle of black poplar oil from Shadia, the Chief Maid, on Saturday, three whole days had passed and the servant training class had still not resumed.
But Rein didn't mind.
During those three days, he usually spent his days at the blacksmith's shop, and his nights practicing the Giant Bear Breathing Technique. His days were quite fulfilling.
Now, he was past the halfway mark in his blacksmith profession level, reaching Blacksmith lv1 (52/100), and had made considerable progress with the Giant Bear Breathing Technique, reaching lv2 (51/300).
Rein was keen to practice the Giant Bear Sword Technique as well, but unfortunately, there was no suitable place near his home.
Additionally, he didn't have a Dual-Handed Greatsword, only a standard Bastard Sword of the Night Watchman.
Tuesday morning, just as Rein was planning to head to the blacksmith shop again, a locked-armored guard came to his door and said, "Rein, the Sheriff wants to see you. If it's convenient, come with me to the town hall now. Lord Hamilton is waiting in his office for you."
"Alright! I'll come right away." Rein didn't hesitate at all and immediately agreed.
Last time Lord Hamilton had been seriously injured, and Rein also wanted to see if his wounds had healed, since he was, after all, his boss.
He had gone to the town hall a couple of days ago, but the guards had told him Lord Hamilton seemed to have gone back to the County Town to recuperate and had not yet returned.
To see him today, there must be something urgent.
"Come in!" Hearing the familiar voice, Rein opened the door and entered, seeing Lord Hamilton still in his noble hunting attire, but his complexion was still somewhat pale, and Rein seemed to smell a certain medicinal potion.
He was very familiar with this smell; he often smelled it whenever he passed by the town's only Abel's Potion Shop.
"Lord Hamilton, how has your injury recovered since last time?"
"It was supposed to have healed today, but the ferocious werewolf's claws had some special energy. It took a lot of effort to deal with the wounds, and now I guess I'll need about another week to recover fully."
Hamilton waved his hand, indicating that he didn't want to talk further about his injuries, only to continue saying,
"I've called you here this time because there's an urgent matter that needs your assistance."
"Remember the fishmen I mentioned to you before?"
"Just yesterday, my guard came to report again that the Sinfin Fishmen have extended their activity area to less than a few miles from Glimmer Lake."
"We need to immediately contain their expansion. Otherwise, if they start spawning in Glimmer Lake, that will be a huge problem."