Chapter 106: Eitri

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Loki quickly respectfully bowed before the 'dwarf' king, extending his greetings. Eitri barely sent a look the way of the God of Mischief though and mostly kept his eyes onto Edward.

After a few seconds, he asked with some confusion, "You do not bow before a king? Do I not deserve the same treatment as Odin?"

Anyone would probably be flustered by the remark, but Edward did not move or panic as he replied with an even voice, "When I first met Odin, I was but a mortal man meeting the King of the Gods."

Crossing his arms, he continued, "Now, I am a Godslayer, while you are a blacksmith. I would be sorely disappointed if a blacksmith of your renown cared about something like this."

Eitri kept Edward's stare, and replied with a rather loud snort, "I expected pride from a friend of Thor. But you are right, flattery won't get you anywhere here. I suppose you two are here to have weapons forged for you?"

Loki smirked and took out the three nails of Zelia from a pouch, as well as a lump of metal. Offering them to the Dwarven King, he said, "I would like for those three nails to be turned into daggers, possibly a set of twin curved daggers, and one straight knife. As for this ore, it would be my payment."

Eitri put down his hammer and grabbed the items in his blackened hands. After a moment, he nodded and looked Edward. The later pointed at Eitri's hammer and revealed, "I am here to learn your art."

Since they entered the room, Edward had been scanning his surroundings using his Chi Sense, and that included Eitri's emotions. The true reason he did not bow to Eitri was not his pride, although he had plenty of it, but because he felt distaste from Eitri when Loki bowed.

Other than then, Eitri hadn't really shown any emotions, but right as Edward told the Dwarven King his request, he felt surprise from him.

His face still indifferent, Eitri asked, "You really have some nerves to ask that. Why should I teach you anything, I don't even know you."

Edward merely smiled and replied, "I have learned quite a few smithing techniques to this day, and my goal is to merge them all together to create a superior technique. That would include your techniques as well. Aren't you interested in seeing a supreme forging technique?"

Eitri's interest waned a little as he snorted, "We created Mjollnir, which holds the God Tempest. We created Gungnir, capable of channelling and strengthening even the entirety of All Father Odin's power. We created the Infinity Gauntlet, capable of synergizing the energy of the six Infinity Stones. Tell me, you think you can do better than that?"

Loki looked at Edward with an amused face, while Eitri didn't look like he awaited any answer. Still, Edward said, "There is always room for improvement. For example, your weapons do not possess any spirit. Maybe some enchantments may be able to feign a consciousness, but that would be nothing more than a pale copy. I can create a spirit for my weapons."

Eitri frowned a little, and said, "This is a demonic technique. I will not have the teachings of my forefathers tainted by such a dark practice as to trap someone's spirit into a weapon."

Edward shook his head at that, and replied, "This is only a flawed technique. Through my own efforts, I have modified this technique to not transfer a spirit from one body to another, but to create a spirit directly into the item."

"Impossible." Eitri refused the idea without any doubt, he firmly believed it to be impossible, that would be like creating life…

Understanding mere words would not convince the Dwarven King, Edward moved his Yin Chi to the nearby molten metal, which Eitri had been working on. It had already entered a mould, and looked like a shield.

Edward's Freezing Crystal instantly lowered the temperature of the metal as it rose into the air, solidifying in an instant.

Seeing this, Eitri slightly shook his head, the quenching process was too quick and hasty to be any good in his eyes. However, Edward ignored him and used the latest technique he had learned.

During the week he spent in Muspelheim, Edward had worked on his forging techniques, especially Muramasa's that transferred a spirit from one body to an item. He had learned quite some Mind Magic and compiled everything with the specialness of his Spirit to create an enhanced technique.

Using the power of his Spirit and his emotions, they infused the shield, and searched for a function. A shield was made to defend. So, a spirit intent on defending it's user was created.

As the shield completely cooled down, Eitri felt a little surprised by what he saw. Despite the hasty quenching process, the shield looked strong, and rather elegant.

Edward grabbed it, and after closing his eyes for a moment, threw at Loki. The God of Mischief caught it with ease, but before he could examine it several ice spears materialized in the air around him.

Loki didn't expect the attack to suddenly come out of nowhere, and the spears had their power sacrificed for speed, meaning that although they would only slightly hurt him, he couldn't dodge them in time.

However, before they could reach him, the shield he had grabbed flew out of his hands on it's own and blocked the spears from reaching him, before returning to Edward's hands.

Ignoring Loki who was looking at him angrily for using him as a demonstration, Edward handed the shield to Eitri.

Eitri first thought of a rune that would make the shield protect it's master from incoming attacks, he had forged such shields too, but as he grabbed it he felt the spirit inside the shield. There was no mistaking it, the lad before him had really managed to do as he said…

Eitri examined the shield a few more seconds before saying, "While creating a spirit is impressive, this shield's quality is average at best, and that's because of the expensive materials used to make it. A slightly stronger attack would break it, that's not an equipment fit for a god."

But then he added with a slight sigh, "Fine, you have potential, you convinced me. You may learn from us."

A grin broke out on Edward's face as he immediately thanked the king, "You have my gratitude, King Eitri. If you need anything, don't hesitate to call for me."

Eitri nodded, "I won't. Before you learn any forging, go to the library. You should be able to find your way around."

Edward nodded, and simply walked out, while Loki stayed behind, to give further details about the weapons he wanted to be made.

Edward obviously didn't have any problem finding the library, his Chi Sense extended a hundred meters after all. On his way, he also felt a peculiarity in the corridors he walked through.

He could feel things stare at his every move within the walls. Had it been in the past he wouldn't have been able to fell them, but now that he could feel not only life but also inanimate objects clearly, they didn't escape his senses.

It felt a little like cameras, but there was more to them. By the time he reached the library though, he finally put his finger on what it was. Golems.

Golems were magical constructs with a fake spirit within them, they varied in strength, but Edward did not doubt the golems made by the dwarves of Nidavellir were at least as strong as any Asgardian.

Odin, or rather Asgard, ruled over the Nine Realms, and protected most of them. However, they all had their own defences, and for the dwarves it was those Golems.

Edward found those to be quite interesting, and was even a little curious as to what they would end up as if he were to craft one and imbue it was it's very own, real soul, but quickly lost interest.

Golems were quite weak, too much for him, and he personally was a one man army, he didn't need an army of golems to fight for him. As for creating one stronger than the current him, Edward would have long grown much stronger than this when he managed to create something so powerful, if he were to ever do so.

Anyway, as he arrived within the library of Nidavellir, Edward was pleasantly surprised when he found out the size of the library.

It wasn't that big, and yet the books were much bigger than normal books to fit the Dwarves' size. The pages were also much thicker than normal, so the Dwarves wouldn't tear them off any time they read a book. Dwarves were quite rough after all.

Spreading his Yin Chi toward several books, Edward began his copy and paste learning. If any of the great minds that ever existed in humanity saw him right now, they probably would feel the urge to kick him and curse him, but fortunately for them, they couldn't.

What would take even the greatest genius years to read and decades to learn, took Edward 32 hours to completely memorize. In slightly more than a day, Edward had copied the entire library of Nidavellir.

By the time he finished Edward had quite the headache, he had even been learning under a time dilation array because he didn't like wasting time.

Enduring the headache, Edward created a portal to his crafting room in the Himalayas, where he had built a much stronger time array.

Most of the time, Edward simply used his magic to create arrays, but he could also use materials to power up an array as he set it. The additional time to set it up and the resources it ate away made it impossible to use on a regular basis in combat, but it was still useful.

Thanks to the materials he sacrificed and the others he used to maintain this time array, the time inside was accelerated by more than a thousand time, meaning a minute outside was more than a thousand inside.

Once inside, Edward finally fell asleep, to rest his mind. He didn't know how long he slept, but as he woke up his mind was refreshed, and barely more than a minute had passed outside.

Back in top condition, Edward teleported back to Eitri's room, where Loki was still explaining his requirements for his weapons.

Because of the time arrays, less than ten minutes had passed in the outside world, so with a frown Eitri asked, "Did you really not find the library?"

At that Edward shook his head and replied, "No, I found it, and I finished learning everything stored inside, including the secret room under the 14th shelf from the left."

Eitri's frown disappeared as a sigh left his lips. He was an honest blacksmith, and he did not want to deal with any of this shit. But he had observed Edward more than once, he knew about his feats in the war in Muspelheim as well as the Kronan Invasion on Midgard, and knew he could be a valuable ally.

So Eitri swapped aside his doubts and said, "Since you have learned all of our techniques, including our protected ones, do you want to watch me forge the Prince's weapons?"

Edward shook his head at that, and replied, "Thank you for the offer, but I have already learned everything I wanted to learn here."

Edward took out a coin, which he flicked toward Eitri, who easily caught it despite his size. Edward added as he walked toward the portal he used to come here, which he still hadn't closed, "If you ever need me, use this coin and I will do my best to come and help."

Eitri grunted slightly, he didn't really like the human, but his help could come in handy one day. Moreover, Odin had been quite persuasive to allow the human to learn whatever he wanted…