The entire training ground fell into dead silence. Everyone's eyes widened, their Adam's apples bobbed.
They knew their lord possessed incredible abilities, such as flying, and even suspected he was a deity.
But the power displayed now, clearly surpassing human capabilities, still exceeded their imagination.
The knights who had been anxious before were now completely blank.
Fear? Worry? All these emotions were washed away by the scene before them, leaving only shock and awe.
Karl raised the stack of boxes, piled like small mountains, and said to the phalanx: "Those whose numbers I did not call aloud, take the boxes before you and follow me."
"The rest – disperse on the spot." His voice snapped everyone out of their shock.
In the formation, the remaining fifty-three men looked down at the unread numbers on the boxes beneath their feet.
Then, without hesitation, they picked up the suitcases and stepped out of the line, with Dalton and the other at the front.
Karl turned, lifted the stack of boxes, and walked from the training ground.
His steps were steady, neither too fast nor too slow, enough for those carrying boxes behind to keep up.
At that moment, Karl stopped pretending to lift it; he lowered his hand, and the stacked boxes floated beside him.
With synchronized movements, there was no sign of swaying or falling.
The remaining knights watched the procession gradually disappear until it vanished around the corner of the building, and only then did someone slowly exhale a long-held breath.
"Melitele above..." someone muttered.
"Just now..." Was that real? Not an illusion? Another person rubbed his eyes.
"Lord Karl, he... "What happened..." One man hesitated, his eyes full of awe, admiration, and an unspoken fear.
They stood in line, looking at the empty space in front of them, whose suitcases had already been "taken" by Karl.
At that moment, their hearts were filled with anxiety, only an inexplicable feeling of relief and acceptance.
If someone possesses such power, fate depends on him.
Then resistance or worry is pointless; they can only wait and accept whatever outcome.
The group followed Karl through the courtyard, around the main fortress, and reached the forge.
Karl Forgefield walked ahead, holding the mountain of boxes, followed by over fifty knights carrying boxes.
He stopped and signaled to the people behind: "Wait here a moment."
Before he finished speaking, his figure "flickered" in front of everyone – no, not a flash, but almost vanished into thin air.
In Dalton and the others' vision, Karl disappeared instantly, then appeared somewhere a hundred meters away.
No trace of movement, no afterimages – only an instant of appearance.
And the pile of floating boxes quickly flew to Karl's new location.
Keira sat on a bench with her eyes closed in meditation, and hearing the noise, opened her eyes.
She saw Karl, and suddenly a stack of boxes appeared not far before him.
She was startled and nearly fell off the bench, but Karl nodded slightly to her.
Then over three hundred boxes rose on their own, scattered in the air, and neatly landed in rows on the ground, without a sound.
"I'll trouble you with this. Triss will come to help later." Karl's voice reached Keira's ears,
Without waiting for Keira's reply – or rather, before she could recover from the sudden massive workload –
Karl's figure flickered again, instantly returning to Dalton and the others, who were a hundred meters away.
Keira sat on the bench, staring at the rows of wooden boxes stretching as far as the eye could see, her eyelids twitching uncontrollably.
Over three hundred sets of plate armor required enchanting... Even if it was just basic protective enchantments, even with Triss's help, it was still a suffocating amount of work.
She rubbed her temples and suddenly remembered that today, Triss might not be able to get out of bed.
Judging by the commotion in the next room last night, the intensity and duration of the battle were so strong that any ordinary person could have been knocked unconscious all day.
Although Triss was also a sorceress with a constitution surpassing ordinary people, facing Karl's inhuman nature... her energy was probably exhausted.
"At least don't expect anything until noon..." Keira muttered quietly, sighing.
"Start early, do what you can."
She resignedly stood up and walked towards the nearest row of boxes.
On the other side, Karl returned to Dalton and the others, his gaze sweeping over the boxes they were holding.
He turned to the raw material section next to the forge, where a large number of iron ingots were neatly stacked.
All were mined and transported from the mines on the territory, and then processed.
Karl walked towards the pile of iron ingots, and Dalton, Phillip, and the others immediately followed.
The knights in the group who had been learning forging instinctively gathered closer, wanting to observe Karl's work and perhaps learn something.
However, what they saw next completely overturned their understanding of the word "forging."
Karl didn't even step towards the furnace or anvil; he stood a few meters from the pile of iron ingots, squinting.
Then, deep in his pupils, a faint dark red light began to glow.
Immediately after, something that made everyone gasp happened.
The numerous iron ingots stacked on the ground suddenly lifted off the ground and began to float.
They were held by invisible hands, neatly arranged in the air, with each iron ingot evenly spaced from the others.
But this was only the beginning. The dark red glow in Karl's pupils suddenly became bright and intense, his gaze focused on the iron ingots floating in the air.
HISS!! The surface of the iron ingots began to change color at an astonishing rate.
From dull metallic gray, it quickly turned dark red, then bright red, then orange-red... Finally, it turned a bright yellow.
The entire transformation process took only two or three seconds, so fast that people had no time to react.
The temperature in the air rose sharply, a wave of heat rushed in, and the observing knights instinctively stepped back a few paces.
They could feel the characteristic smell of metal at maximum heating and observe the distortion of air on the surface of the iron ingots caused by high temperatures.
"The ideal forging temperature..." a knight muttered, recognizing the temperature range corresponding to the color.
"But how is this possible..." No furnace, no fuel, just... just a look?"
What shocked them even more was that the iron ingots, having reached forging temperature, were not sent to the anvil, and the hammers did not appear.
The iron ingot was lifted by the bio-field next to Karl. He raised his right hand, palm open.
He made a sharp gesture towards the iron ingots floating in the air, already glowing red.
As his palm began to swing, dense, nearly continuous, muffled thuds echoed in the air.
THUD-THUD!! It was the sound of palms striking metal, the iron ingots vibrating and deforming.