My Charity System made me too OP

The air inside was stifling. The forge wasn't just hot—it was alive. The stone walls glowed with slow pulses of magma veins, and the sound of metal on metal echoed through the vast chamber like a heartbeat.

The dwarf who had greeted them, now fully armored in soot-stained smith gear, turned back to face them with a scowl of authority.

"Forget what you know about fighting," he said, voice rough like gravel grinding on steel. "This ain't the battlefield. This is the forge. Here, ye don't swing to kill. Ye swing to create."

Leon and Roman nodded.

The dwarf continued. "You're not here to slap runes on blades or hammer pretty patterns. You're gonna learn from the roots—starting from how to make a damned fire."

Roman blinked. "Wait, just the fire?"

"Aye. You think we hand rookies enchanted tools and elemental cores right off? Get over yerselves. You'll learn what heat means. You'll learn how to make a fire with your bare hands, with nothing but flint, breath, and tinder—and then how to turn that into a smelting flame."

He tossed a pair of tool pouches at their feet. "There. Flint stones, dried moss, wood slivers, and a lump of raw spit-coal ore. You're gonna learn how to birth fire, how to feed it, and how to command it."

Leon picked up the kit and knelt beside the forge pit. Roman joined him.

The dwarf watched. "You two have cores full of power. But that don't mean a thing in the forge. This place don't care about your Tier, your title, or your mana. You start at the bottom here—same as we did."

As they worked, Leon felt his muscles tensing—not from strain, but from focus. Lighting a fire wasn't about brute force. The sparks needed to kiss the tinder, the breath needed to be just right, the wood placed with precision. It was almost like threading combat stances, but inverted—this was patience, not power.

Roman struggled at first—his strikes were too eager, too forceful—but Leon's precision caught the ember first. A tiny red glow began to eat into the moss.

"Feed it slowly," the dwarf grunted. "Don't choke it. Fire breathes, same as you."

Soon, smoke rose. Then the flame.

"Good. Now," the dwarf said, walking over and slamming down a rough, rock-like lump, dark with red veins pulsing inside. "This here's Spil Coal. This isn't yer ordinary fuel. Once refined, it burns three times hotter than surface charcoal—and it remembers heat. Used right, it can smelt meteoric alloys. Used wrong, it'll blow yer eyebrows off."

He slammed a pair of blunt chisels into the ground. "You're gonna crack this lump, refine the veins, and shape it into a burn-core. Then—maybe—you can light the beginner's forge."

Leon glanced at Roman. "You good?"

Roman grinned despite the sweat. "Let's make fire dance."

The dwarf gave a toothy smirk beneath his beard. "Let's see how long that spirit lasts once the coal bites back."

The lump of Spil Coal sat like a sleeping beast between them—its jagged form pulsing faintly with internal heat veins. It wasn't ordinary fuel. It was alive with potential, and dangerously unstable if mishandled.

The Dwarven smith crossed his arms. "To refine Spil Coal, ye don't just break it. Ye read it. Every vein in there's a path of pressure. Too hard, and it'll shatter and spit fire. Too soft, and the heat won't draw out. You find the rhythm, then crack it. Clean."

He dropped two Impact Hammers—short-handled tools forged of copper-iron alloy—at their feet.

Leon crouched beside the coal first, his Shell Reverb instincts almost involuntarily activating. But he suppressed them. This wasn't about combat precision. It was resonance of another kind. He ran his fingers lightly across the surface.

A faint pulse echoed from within—steady, slow… almost like a heartbeat.

He struck.

PANG! The impact rang, clean but shallow.

"Too shallow," the dwarf grunted. "You're not scared of it, are you?"

Leon didn't respond. He adjusted his grip and tried again—this time slightly to the right, following a curving vein.

CRACK! A clean split echoed as a portion broke off, revealing the glowing red ore inside.

"That's it," the dwarf said, voice less rough now. "That's the core vein."

Roman stepped up next. Unlike Leon, he didn't sense the rhythm—so he watched, learned, and calculated. He marked three potential stress points with chalk, then struck them in quick succession.

The coal cracked in a spiral, exposing a full chunk of fuel.

"Well done," the dwarf muttered. "Not bad for humans."

Once they had enough core chunks, the dwarf led them to the Beginner's Hearth, a small circular forge pit lined with mana-conducting stone.

"Now light it. No magic. No skills. Just flint, bellows, and fuel. If ye can't light this, you're not setting foot near a real anvil."

Leon knelt again, layering moss, wood, and refined Spil Coal pieces. The air felt tense. Even Roselia and Liliana watched from a distance, quiet for once.

Spark after spark flew. Sweat dripped. Roman fumbled once, then adjusted the flow of oxygen using the manual bellows.

Then—whoosh.

A controlled flame bloomed into life, licking the coal and quickly shifting from red to orange… and finally to a brilliant blue-white core.

The forge was lit.

"Good," the dwarf said simply. "Ye didn't die. That's always a plus."

Leon stood, wiping soot from his hands. "What's next?"

The dwarf grinned. "Now… you forge air."

Roman blinked. "What?"

"Aye," the dwarf chuckled. "Before ye touch steel, ye'll learn how to shape the breath of the forge. The draft, the flow, the pressure zones. Air's just as much a material as metal. If you don't control it, your flames dance wild—and wild flames make cursed steel."

He turned toward a chamber filled with dozens of bellows, vents, pipes, and draft control levers.

"Now get movin'. You're gonna spend the next three hours sculptin' hot wind. Welcome to real smithin'."

Leon and Roman exchanged a look, then moved toward the wind forge chamber.

Outside, Liliana exhaled. "They're insane."

Milim grinned. "Yeah. But they'll be legendary smiths when they're done."

Roselia nodded, watching the glowing forge.

"Or they'll burn the tower down trying."