A Legacy of Unworked Ore

"The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens."

— Rainer Maria Rilke

———

The service corridor behind the Onyx dormitory hadn't seen maintenance in decades. Moss crept along the stone walls like green veins, and the air hung thick with the smell of decay and forgotten spaces. I led Lyra through the narrow passage, ducking beneath low-hanging pipes that dripped condensation onto the cracked flagstones below.

My fingers traced the wall as we walked, counting stones the way the original novel had described. Forty-three stones from the corner, then seventeen up. The knowledge felt surreal—navigating by details that had once been mere words on a screen, now solid reality beneath my touch.

"Master, where exactly are we going?" Lyra's voice carried a note of curiosity rather than concern. She trusted me completely, even when I led her into forgotten corners of the academy that no student had any business exploring.

"Somewhere that doesn't appear on any official map." I stopped before what looked like a solid wall, running my palm across the rough stone surface. "The academy has layers, Lyra. What students see is just the surface."

My fingers found the loose stone—a piece of masonry that shifted slightly when pressed. The mechanism groaned, metal grinding against metal after years of disuse. A section of the wall pivoted inward, revealing darkness beyond.

Stale air rushed out, carrying scents of cold metal and ancient dust. The darkness seemed to swallow our small lamp's light, but stone steps descended into the depths, worn smooth by countless feet from centuries past.

"The original builders of this academy understood something the current administration has forgotten," I said, starting down the steps. Each one felt solid beneath my boots, despite their age. "They built for war, not politics."

The staircase spiraled downward, the walls closing in around us. Lyra followed without hesitation, her crimson eyes reflecting what little light we carried. The temperature dropped as we descended, the warmth of the upper academy fading into the perpetual chill of underground spaces.

Chapter 847 had mentioned this place in passing—a single paragraph about the "forgotten forges beneath House Onyx." PlotHoleFinder69 had speculated about its significance in one of his forum posts, but the author never explored it. Now I understood why. This wasn't meant for the protagonists.

The stairs ended at a heavy wooden door, its iron hinges black with age. The wood felt solid under my hands as I pushed it open, revealing the chamber beyond.

The forge stretched out before us, a circular room carved from living rock. Dust lay thick on everything, undisturbed for decades. Tools hung on the walls like sleeping weapons—hammers with worn handles, tongs that had shaped countless pieces of metal, files and rasps arranged in neat rows. The bellows stood silent in one corner, their leather cracked but not beyond repair.

At the center of it all sat the anvil.

It dominated the space like an altar to some forgotten god of creation. The metal surface bore the scars of countless projects—dents and scratches that told stories of blades forged and armor shaped. Despite the dust, the anvil remained solid, its dark surface unmarked by rust.

I approached it slowly, my footsteps echoing in the silence. The weight of history pressed down on this place—generations of House Onyx smiths who had worked here when the house meant something more than academic failure.

"What is this place?" Lyra's voice was barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might disturb whatever spirits lingered in the shadows.

"House Onyx wasn't always the dumping ground for unwanted students." I ran my hand across the anvil's surface, wiping away a patch of dust. The metal beneath was dark iron, cold but unblemished. "Once, we were warriors. Smiths. Makers of weapons that decided the fate of kingdoms."

Lyra moved through the chamber, examining the tools with the eye of someone who understood their purpose. She lifted a hammer, testing its weight, then set it down carefully.

"The academy's records don't mention this," she said.

"The academy prefers its current narrative. House Onyx as the house of failures makes for better politics." I gestured to the walls around us. "But the stone remembers. The tools remember. This forge created weapons that ended wars."

The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, the supposed failure of a failing house, standing in a place that represented everything House Onyx had once been. The academy saw me as a charity case, a third son playing at nobility while his betters achieved greatness.

They had no idea what they were looking at.

I pulled out the crumpled supply denial from my pocket, smoothing it against the anvil's surface. The red stamp seemed smaller here, less significant against the backdrop of centuries of creation.

"The quartermaster was right about one thing," I said. "These components in the wrong hands could be dangerous. But he made one critical error in his assessment."

Lyra raised an eyebrow, waiting.

"He assumed I was the wrong hands."

I moved to one of the tool racks, selecting a small crucible that looked like it could still hold heat. The ceramic was chipped but functional—good enough for what I needed.

"Flash-powder, niter-dust, quick-fuse—the academy restricts these because they're weapons. But they're also just chemistry. Reactions that follow laws as immutable as gravity." I set the crucible on a workbench, clearing away decades of dust. "The materials themselves aren't restricted. Only their combination."

Understanding dawned in Lyra's eyes. "You're going to make them yourself."

"Better than make them. I'm going to perfect them." I opened my notebook, showing her the formulas I'd sketched earlier. "The academy's suppliers work with standardized compositions—adequate for their purposes, but hardly optimal. I can do better."

The original Alex Chen had studied chemical engineering, but that knowledge felt distant compared to what I'd absorbed as Kaelen. The Narrative Appraisal skill showed me not just what things were, but what they could become. Every material had potential written into its very structure.

"The salt from the kitchens contains impurities that actually improve combustion rates when properly isolated," I explained, my finger tracing the chemical diagrams. "The sulfur from the alchemical stores is over-purified—adding controlled contaminants will increase reaction speed. And the cotton from the infirmary..."