Ambil suddenly brought us to the depths of the city itself, where we found ourselves right in front of the entrance leading to Hephaestus Divine Forge! Well, the first one of many.
"Wait, is this for real?! We found it much quicker than we thought!" Rita celebrated. "Alright, now how do we get in?"
"Calm down for a minute, dark elf lady." Ambil sighed. "As of right now, we can't enter, not even in your wildest dreams. This is the entrance of the first divine forge which my family has protected for generations. However, we do not possess the ability to enter it."
"I see…" Mark nodded, analyzing things. "I wonder if this is… Wait, can Planta enter easily at least? She's the successor."
"She can try, and that's why I mostly came here." Said Ambil. "This is a sacred palace where many of our craftsmen in our families grew and developed, this place used to be a secret forge where we crafted magic weapons, our family used to be the ones that supplied the world's greatest armies with their weapons.
But over time, as the Demon Kings perished and heroes never came back, our family's business declined…"
Ambil then walked towards the gates, gently caressing them with his old, rugged hands, covered on many bruises and sighing.
"This Forgery, although we could not enter, blessed us with their Divine Flames, which we used to make wonderful items. However, such flames stopped appearing hundreds of years ago." Ambil sighed. "I don't know why… And recently, there had been rumors around town about a group of shadowy people trying to find the Forge. I am worried that our legacy might soon be taken away from us by malefic hands.
Planta, can you touch this gate and prove you're who you are? I… don't want to have my hopes crushed again, so prove to me that you're who you say to be, so I can finally hold some hope with confidence…"
"Okay…" I nodded, giving him a gentle smile. "Let's do this then…"
I touched the gates while closing my eyes, hoping for something to happen. However, the only thing we got was a lot of silence…
"Nothing happened…" I sighed.
"Looks like that thing might be too old or something." Rita said.
"T-Then…?" Ambil seemed disappointed.
"Well, let's not give up yet." Said Mark. "She definitely has the Subclass, we all can see her Status, and-"
Did I heard something?
It is a whispering voice!
"Hello? Is there someone there?" I asked the gate, knocking on it.
Suddenly, the gate began to glow, shocking everyone with me after that anticlimactic silence. The carvings glowed with bright red colors, the jewels emanated a divine aura, encompassing the carvings and suddenly making them turn alive.
The flames behind the anvil suddenly started blazing, moving on their own, until finally, they emerged from the carvings, an intense heat engulfed our entire bodies, making us feel slightly sickly as we glanced an entity emerge.
"W-What's going on?!" Lily cried.
"Ugh, such intense heat…" Nieve complained.
"W-Woooah!" Acorn was amazed.
"A being made of flames?!" Mark stepped closer to me.
The entity slowly took the shape of a huge, muscular being, completely made of red flames constantly flickering around. Their only two eyes were red and made of jewels. Its height was over five meters of height.
"T-The Guardian…! The Divine Guardian of the Forge!" Ambil gasped, suddenly kneeling. "Oh guardian, it is an honor to finally see you!"
"Oh, a descendant of the Protectors of the Legacy…" The entity made of flames spoke.
Its composition was similar to Fire Spirits, but of an incredibly high quality and power. It was perhaps a Divine Spirit on its own, something similar to the Great Spirit of Nature and Harvest.
"G-Great Spirit?" I asked her.
"I can see it, yeah." She spoke. "That guy's not a Great Spirit, he's a Special Kind of thing, a Divine Forge Spirit, although he doesn't rule over the spirits of each element like us Great Spirits, he does have almost an equal amount of power… However, he looks shattered, and weakened."
"Very well, so where is the Successor?" Asked the Forge Spirit, glancing around. "Oh, it must be you, isn't it?" He pointed at Brisingra. "A girl wasn't what we expected but well, you're a dwarf."
"No, sorry, it's not me…" Brisingra sighed.
"Wait, then you?" He asked, pointing at Mark. "You're a strange being, I've never seen something before, but you wield flames! Don't you? And those burly arms and strong physique! It has to be you, right?"
"Stop pretending to not know and accept that Planta's the successor." Mark said angrily, crossing his huge arms.
"Hi…" I smiled gently, as the Spirit gave me a single glance and then facepalmed.
"HAHHH… I can't believe a Dryad from all things would become my master's Successor! Just what is going on with this word?! Has nobody else made a Heroic Weapon yet?! In all these years?!" He started complaining. "A delicate Dryad lady with no inch of strength, no mastery over the hammer, and absolutely no resistance nor affinity with fire became the successor?! Preposterous!"
"Do you have to be so rude?" I asked while raising an eyebrow. "And I am not a Dryad anymore. I evolved into a Hamadryad, and then an Yggdryad, and now I am an Yggdragon!"
My body suddenly started to change shape quickly, Ambil suddenly fell into the ground in shock as my transformation slowly completed, turning me into a gigantic, over fifty-meter-tall dragon made of wood, stone, earth, vegetation, and covered on countless golden scales made of spiritual metals, with sharp claws, an intimidating set of fangs, and flashing green eyes.
"Hoh?" The Divine Forge Flame was surprised, glancing at my entire body, as I quickly conjured golden flames into my hands, the Flames of Life.
"And I can control some flames too! Thank you very much!" I groaned, showing what I was made of.
"Heh… Hah… HAHAHAHAAH!" The Spirit started to laugh. "Now THIS is something out of left field! To think the successor of Yggdrasil would also become my master's successor… This is… unprecedented!"