From the Blacksmith Village: Becoming a Legendary Archmage

[At least two chapters every day! Plenty to keep you satisfied!]

Chapter One is a prologue, with lots of little details included. Readers are welcome to join the discussion!

There's a village called Bluestone Village on the outskirts of Feloen.

The people here learn things quickly. They're good at smithing, swordmaking, and figuring things out, but those who train with swords can't gather battle qi, and those who study magic always fall just short of the final step. It's as if the whole village was born with a barrier between it and “power.”

Guo Zhechuan refuses to accept that.

If the orthodox path doesn't work, why not try another? Staves, staff blanks, mounts, tools, magic devices… If magic won't choose ordinary people, could power be put into tools instead, allowing even the unchosen to wield it?

And so, in a remote village, a group of people who don't quite fit, a bright-eyed and daring boy, a quick-handed girl with a natural feel for tools, and a sharp-tongued dwarf sword-mage teacher who complains but is genuinely talented begin to figure out this path, step by step.

It begins with a crooked water-ball spell in the yard, the first staff blank hammered out of iron and fire, and the strange crystal core taken from a mutated monster. Bluestone Village is quietly forging a path to power that belongs neither to nobles nor to geniuses, and will no longer be reserved for a select few.

But Bluestone Village has never been an ordinary village. Secrets lie buried in its past, and its name, origins, and fate are all entangled in this world's old debts. Feloen, the religious orders, the city lords, and the catastrophe that will upend countless lives will eventually sweep the little village into their midst.

This is a story that begins in a small village.