'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 4: The System

A Romping Session

Friday, 25th November 1442

After I had successfully forged an iron ingot, which was way beyond the expectations of Old Jack, which held the piece of iron unfit in his hands right after I had forged it

He was wondering if he is already too old for the job since he discovered I was able to forge a single piece with at least 97% purity for the piece of an iron ingot.

And this is the first time I had been in the blacksmith area and was able to accomplish one like as if I had years of experience forging these type of pieces for a livelihood before.

As Old Jack was looking at me and staring at the piece of the iron ingot in his hands, he waved me off and I discovered that I had passed the initial test that I was supposed to attain.

"Ceres, how did I do in the first place? Do you think if I concentrate on pounding the pieces of iron pieces, I would be able to level up soon enough?"

Ceres waited for a few moments before it finally concluded me to open up the system Informational panel. I tapped at the system Informational panel and tapped on the menu and sure enough, I had seen that I had struck at least 56 times with perfect strike.

As mentioned by Ceres, one perfect strike is equivalent to 3 heavy strikes. In this manner, I had struck 56 perfect ones and I had earned just a mere 176/1000 and I am still on Level 0...!

Z-E-R-O...! OH MY GAWD... HOW LONG MORE COULD I HIT LEVEL 1 AND THEN UP TO LEVEL 10...???

I hung my arms at my sides as I thanked Old Jack for his guidance and would definitely be deploying his techniques over at the realm. I asked Ceres if the blacksmith room would be prepared earlier before I enter the realm.

"No can do, Audemars. You need to be at the realm itself so that you would need to organise the things you need to visualise and then you would need to bring the ores and the coals manually over to the blacksmithing room before you could do anything over there."

"Besides, you need to organise your things over there first and the first thing you need to do is to capture the images of all the tools and pieces of equipment of a blacksmith trade and once you had done that, you could visualise the things over in the realm."

"I guessed your old self back in the Tokugawa era in Japan was able to conjure up such images and your old self there was able to become a rather efficient blacksmith, you know. Right until he used the smelting room, he had never utilised the blacksmith room anymore."

"Your case is different, Audemars. You need to make sure you do the iron ores first and then upgrade to mithril ores through blacksmithing process only."

"Once you had done so and reduced the ores to become ingots, only then you can use the smelting room to shape them into plates where you could implement new designs for the pieces of armours...!"

Ceres explained it for the umpteenth time and I understood what she had meant. Although my blacksmithing skill is only at Level 0 of 176/1000, I realise that only through hardship and hard work would I slowly climb the ladder of getting to Level 1 and so on.

"Alright, Ceres. I understand what you are trying to imply so right now I want to be with my family that had been waiting for me in the town square."

"I hadn't had my dinner and supper and I think I should be going to get them together with the family."

"Tonight, after a short rest and cups of Psi Energy orbs, I would be able to regain back my loss energy and from there I would be spending at least 3 real-world hours to pump up my blacksmithing skills."

I gathered up my pieces of armour and wore only my steel meshed leather armour pants and carried the rest of the items since I had seen and memorised what things I would need to build the blacksmith zone.

=*=

"How was it dear? Did you manage to achieve anything besides pushing and pulling on the handles of the bellows to fire up the furnace and then to ensure that your furnace was kept at the maximum constant temperature?"

Heather pulled on my arm lovingly as she nestled her head sideways to my chest and immediately backed away because my arm was covered with sweat and soot and became shitty with all that grime...!

"Old Jack informed me that I had made a 97% purity iron ingot earlier after 100 hammerings. According to my information system panel, I am still on Level 0 and had attained only a grade of 176/1000."

"Which means I would have to land heavy or perfect strikes on the pieces of ores that I would be forging close to another 800 over more times before I level up to Level 1."

The children checked me out up and down and decided that it would not be the best time for them to give me a hug or even a kiss since my face had been covered with streams of perspiration and now had trials of salt on the side of my face, my whole neck and even my body, my armpits and not to mention my crotch. Hahaha...!

"We would be having our dinner and supper here, children. Its been so long since we have not mingled with the community here since we have our own affairs to attend to. Would you like that as well?"

Heather suggested to us as we walked over to the outdoor kitchen area where the ladies were preparing a thick gruel with game meat and lots of greens and tubers inside it along with crushed grains.

The children were delighted to learn that they would be having their dinner outdoors since it had been such a long time since they had done so.

They waddled over to the ladies they were preparing dinner for the workers of the factory and also the returning farmers they had been toiling in the crop fields and was a bit puzzled to find that the crops were getting bountiful even though the season is getting close to winter already.

The children peered at what the ladies were doing and saw that they had just started to prepare dinner and the children asked what they could be of any assistance.

The ladies over at the outdoor kitchen area was laughing uneasily because they had never expected His and Her Royal Highness would be helping them in the kitchen so the ladies got the children to help out with the lightest of work — distribution of the spoons to set the tables.

Heather rolled up her sleeve and helped the ladies to prepare the greens et cetera while the ladies assisted HRH JR and Amy to set the tables for the returning employees.

As for me, I was ushered out from there and have to go and take my shower to get rid of the grime that had been stuck on my body like a piece of cake...!

So off I went to our old domain and fortunately the plumbing works were still working. At least I would not accidentally flood the whole domain at all.

The waterworks still worked wonderfully and there are hair shampoo and body soap there as well and someone had placed a piece of hemp loofah to scrub the body with it.

Just be one of the standby militia here who had placed these small luxuries for the convenience of everyone here to use.

Ah well, it's alright and fine by me and it had been some time since I had entered the domain to have a look-see.

The old painting of my parents was still hanging along with the achievements I had in the Archery competition.

Our Royal jewels were still on the mantlepiece and it would only be worn once a year and this time we have to fashion something for the children as well.

The knighting sword and the personal blunt short sword that had been sharpened by Old Jack was hanging there as well and there's also the latest painting of our family when the children were just able to sit by themselves. Hahaha.

I laughed when I looked at the paintings and I wondered how times had flown as I went to strip down in one of the rooms and walked in my birthday suit inside the bathroom.

The splash of the lukewarm water was very much welcoming indeed as I subconsciously made some Psi energy orbs and dropped it in the vat of water, a thing I had learnt when I saw my young self preparing the bath for my elder before.

I could feel many tiny hands massaging the back of my neck, my shoulders and back as well as other parts of my tired yet toned muscles as the water was splashed from the top of my head right down to my feet.

I lathered a few dollops of hair shampoo and slowly gingerly rubbed it to my scalp area and massaged it. I left the sweet-smelling aroma of hair shampoo and then I began to pick up the hemp loofah before I rubbed some of the soap on to it and then slowly reached and scrubbed my neck first to get rid of the sooty grime.

As I was enjoying the scrub, a pair of hands reached out and hugged me from behind. I was taken aback but when  I saw the huge rock adorned on one of the fingers I knew who the owner of the arms was.

It's was Heather and since the children were preoccupied with the work laying the table for the community, she had crept into the room, undressed and then joined me inside the bathroom.

"Hohoho... Christmas came early this month, eh? The children noticed you sneak out?" we were like two teenagers and running around gallivanting with one another away from the prying eyes of our parents. Hahaha...!

So, in the end, a 10-minute shower had turned into a rather steamy 45-minute shower as we wrestled inside the bathroom in every position we could think of and at the end of it, we showered and removed all the grime that had stuck on both of our bodies. Hahaha.

After we stepped out of the room on the ground floor, there were bashful looks on some of the militiamen who were on standby at the far end of the corridors and when we exited from the room, the militia saluted to us and went away as far from the 'crime' scene.

=*=

"Daddy...! Mummy...! How come Daddy went for a shower and you were missing from the kitchen area?"

"We thought that you were helping the ladies to boil the food or prepare the vegetables and such for the thick gruel."

"After we had set the tables of the spoons accordingly, we looked around and couldn't find you."

."Where did you go, Mummy? How come your hair is wet just like Daddy?"

"Did you both fall inside the river or something it maybe you had played in the rain in some other parts of town, eh?"

"Daddy... How come you still have some shampoo stuck inside the ears and Mummy..."

"Your hair is dripping wet and it would be best to go and dry them off before you wet the seats as well...!"

Bith our children roamed questions at us and we laughed at them as Heather pinched the cheeks of them as they ran about among the tables and benches as Heather was running after them.

Maybe the children knew they we parents need to take some time to have a love romp one way or another so the children were just teasing us for leaving them alone too long at the outdoor kitchen area.

"Hush children. The ladies are about to serve dinner soon. Let me dry off the hair first and let them serve the workers and farmers and we would be the last to take them, alright?"

I highlighted as the children stopped running around and came back obediently to my sides as Heather finally caught her breath and wrung her hair at the sides before coming to stand beside me.

"Dear, I'm going to call our friendly fire and see if it could help us dry our hair or not. If we don't do anything about it, it would have a weird odour."

I suggested as Heather made a sound with her throat. I reached out my left hand and then called the little friendly fire to appear on my left palm and within seconds it was bounding on my palm when it was summoned.

"Hey little friendly fire, could you help us dry out hair? At least it won't drop and later on make us feeling sick. I will rub the hair together and then you help us to dry them, would that be alright?"

I wasn't sure if the tiny friendly fire would do such menial task but it bounded and twirled around on the top of my palm which was a signal that it agreed to be manipulated in that way.

We sat down in a bench away from the tables they had been set by the children and j clasped my hands together and held it close to Heather's hair as I sort of ruffled the damp air from the top of the head right down to the ends.

The tone friendly fire was warm enough and when I was fulling the hair, the tiny flame flared out and this helped to dry the hair faster.

As the tiny friendly flame does not burn but instead, gives out a warm sensation, the hair that I was ruffling somehow got blown dry and after I had done so, Heather just ran her fingers to comb her hair down.

"Alright, everyone. It's time for dinner now. You don't have to wait for us to settle down and get our meals. No special treatment here, remember?"

I called out to the waiting diners who had their bowls of gruel before them as they waited for us to be served and seated before they would start consuming their meals together.

Just like old times... And I really missed those times altogether...!

=*=

Dear friends, if you spot any errors, please leave your comments in the paragraphs or the chapter section. Thank you for the POWERSTONES and God Bless.