I made up magic and taught a world-destroying witch?

Chapter 102 Crisis Begins at Home

Her father was still holding the pliers, and when he saw who was at the door, his face lit up with obvious surprise: "Why did you suddenly come back?"

"The sir tells us to rest."

Mia carried her luggage inside. The shop was still as warm as ever, and the air was filled with the distinctive smell of a blacksmith's shop. She used to find it a bit stuffy, but after spending some time at the academy, the smell suddenly made her feel at ease. It was as if no matter how the outside world changed, her father's blacksmith shop would always remain the same.

Mia's father, Barn Taylor, looked her up and down and asked, "Are you alright?"

"no."

"Didn't you burn things on campus again?"

"No, not at all!" Mia immediately retorted, then added somewhat guiltily after a moment's thought, "At least not these past few days."

Barn looked at her: "Was that burned before?"

"No," Mia said softly, "I just made a cake, and that Mr. Burnt Wood recently said it was a bad example."

"Did the professor cook it himself?"

"right.

"

Barn's previously worried expression immediately relaxed: "Then it's alright, the professor must have had his reasons for burning it."

Mia: "————"

I don't know why, but my father trusted the teacher so much even though he had never met him.

There were two old men working in the blacksmith's shop. When they saw Mia return, they greeted her with smiles. One of them couldn't help but ask, "I heard that your professor is very powerful? Old Jack, who sells coal next door, said that there's a professor in the academy who teaches students to cast spells without using incantations."

"Professor Grantham is already very capable," Mia said earnestly.

"So, have you learned it?"

The eyes of everyone in the shop fell on Mia.

Mia hesitated for a moment, then raised her right hand. A tiny reddish-gold spark appeared from her fingertip, which she quickly withdrew.

The people around were all stunned, and Barn almost dropped the iron pliers in his hand: "You...you can really use magic now?"

"It's not quite stable yet." Mia lowered her head somewhat embarrassedly. "The master said that I might be suited to work in restoration and mechanical engineering in the future."

After a moment of silence in the shop, Barn suddenly slapped her shoulder hard: "Okay!"

Mia was jolted forward by the slap, quickly clutching her shoulder and saying with displeasure, "Be gentle!"

"I'm so happy," her father said, his smile brighter than the fireplace. "I told you long ago, you could even take apart a broken pair of scissors and put them back together when you were little, how could you not learn magic? Those people in the past just didn't know how to teach."

Mia rubbed her shoulder and whispered, "You clearly said before that I would even take apart scissors, and that I would tear everything in the house apart sooner or later."

"The meaning is similar."

"Quite different, isn't it?" The two old men next to him had already started laughing.

Mia looked at the smile on her father's face and slowly smiled back. In the past, whenever she returned from the academy, she was reluctant to talk about how her studies were going. Because no matter what she said, it always seemed to circle back to the loss of control and the academy's suggestion that she change direction.

Her father always said it was alright, but she knew he was more worried than anyone else. Now she could finally tell him that she had actually learned a little magic.

Although it's only a little bit, it's already completely different from before.

"You're back just in time," Barn said, placing the pliers on the workbench. "Help me check the tools the Grey Pigeon Town branch is taking. The list they sent over is a mess; they even put a No. 2 hammer and a two-pound hammer together. I suspect the bookkeeper doesn't even know the difference between them."

"Let me take a look." Mia put down her luggage and quickly walked to the worktable.

Just as the father and daughter unfolded the crumpled list, the sound of horses' hooves and wheels suddenly came from outside the shop. The noise was so loud that people in the nearby blacksmith shop quickly poked their heads out, and the hammering sounds on the street gradually stopped.

Mia looked up and saw a black carriage stopped in the middle of the street, followed by two delivery carts. Several neatly dressed servants got off the carriages, with a middle-aged man with very neatly combed hair at the front.

He wore a long, dark brown coat, with a small silver crown and hammer badge pinned to his chest. When Mia's father recognized the man, the smile on his face slowly faded.

"Lord Rosen's men."

"Lord Rosen?" Mia asked.

"A distant relative who has some connection to the royal family," her father said in a low voice, "who nominally manages the land in the Blacksmith and Fireworks Street area."

"Wasn't this left over from the royal family's old workshops?" Mia asked, somewhat confused.

"It's because it used to belong to the royal family's old workshops that it ended up in the hands of someone related to the royal family." Her father sighed. "These things are complicated to explain, but in short, he always wanted to take back this area of ​​shops and turn it into more profitable warehouses and shops."

The middle-aged steward had reached the middle of the street, and his servants carried down a very heavy wooden box. The owners of several nearby blacksmith shops came out one after another.

"Butler Hall," an elderly blacksmith asked, frowning, "what brings you here today?"

Butler Hall took out a white handkerchief and gently dusted off non-existent dust from the wooden box.

"Lord Rosen is preparing to reopen an old magic forge," he announced loudly so everyone around could hear, "but unfortunately, something inside is broken."

Butler Hall gestured behind him, and two servants immediately opened the wooden box. Inside was a black iron wheel nearly half a person's height. The wheel's surface was covered with faded old magical runes, and a very obvious crack ran through the outermost layer. The metal strips connecting the wheels in the middle were all twisted and deformed.

Even without anyone using magic, one could still feel an uncomfortable heat emanating from the area upon approaching, causing the old blacksmiths' expressions to change.

"Is this the stabilizer wheel of an old-style magic forging hammer?"

"Wasn't this kind of thing discontinued a long time ago?"

"Even if it's reconnected after being cracked like this, it might not work."

Upon hearing this, Butler Hall put on a polite, fake smile: "You are all the most experienced blacksmiths on Old Hammer Street. Lord Rosen believes that a small stabilizing wheel shouldn't be too difficult for so many of you."

He slowly scanned the blacksmith shops that had been open for many years on both sides of the street. "The Lord is willing to give you three days. As long as someone can fix it within three days, the leases of all the shops on Old Hammer Street can be maintained."

A murmur of discussion immediately arose around them. Barn frowned and asked, "What if it can't be fixed?"

Butler Hall's gaze swept past the crowd and quickly landed on Barn at the entrance of Taylor's blacksmith shop, where he saw Mia standing beside him.

"This must be Miss Mia Taylor?"

"You know me?" Mia was taken aback.

Butler Hall's smile widened slightly: "I heard that Miss Mia has become Professor Joseph Grantham's student."