After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World-Chapter 1411: Bitterness Between Toolmakers

Aetat touched an empty desk. He remembered standing behind this and looking at the former master and Kalfene focus on work. The master had taught that bastard everything. In contrast, the rest of them were taught how to assist Kalfene best!

His eyes were dark."I wonder how long you could still own this place you don’t have a right to."

Kalfene frowned. Elron thought about intervening, but he also worried if it’d add a botch in his plans to leave.

How could he live if he were thrown in prison for possibly hurting a toolmaker?

Kalfene pushed up his glasses and looked at his former junior with a frown. "You realize it’s... bad manners to enter another’s workshop without express permission, right?

"I thought master taught you better than that."

Aetat flinched, eyes sharpening as he looked at him. "Master is gone! And you are not the only one of the few who has that inheritance," he said, gritting his teeth. "Don’t patronize me."

His words obviously triggered something in Aetat, making the others look at him. Menzon gazed at Aetat deeply. Kalfene’s words were not wrong, and they were not too harsh. It did not warrant such a hostile reaction.

Obviously, he had a vendetta against his senior brother. Did he bring him here to do something? Was he using him as an attacking point?

This was just him being petty to his senior brother, right? He never even tried to negotiate the switch as promised.

Menzon’s impression of his old friend dipped down, though said friend didn’t notice anything.

It had to be said: Although Menzon seemed to lack talent in the field he was supposed to be gifted at, he wasn’t too big of a fool.

Anyway, Aetat was indeed triggered.

Kalfene was the Master’s first and favorite apprentice. Their late master, Ashon, was one of the rare people who was willing to share a lot more knowledge than normal with other people. Many didn’t understand the generosity, but everyone wanted to take advantage.

In fact, even if the toolmaker had nothing to do with him, if they went to ask him questions, he would answer them to some degree.

However, like Hoffen, that old guy also didn’t formally take apprentices for a long time. The difference was that in his master’s case changed a few decades ago when he discovered Kalfene, a slave.

He had heard this story thousands of times. That old man, whenever he was drunk and bonding with them, would somehow mention how they met.

Apparently, when he was visiting another City, he met the "brightest boy". He was asked to be one of his valets during his visit, but was surprised when he saw the boy looking at his drafts that he had left on the table.

At first, the boy was very scared when he got caught, but when the master allegedly started asking some questions out of curiosity—something about pattern and pattern recognition or whatever— and the brilliant boy’s thought processes and creativity impressed him.

Anyway, the late master saw young Kalfene’s potential and bought him off, and he began his training from as young as 15 years old. Unexpectedly, he reached the peak of Class D only after a few decades, earning his own freedom.

He was the master’s pride and joy.

The apprentices that came after were taken in to assist this guy! They’d be luckier if they had awakened the inheritance earlier but, if not, then they’d be trained to do the mundane things like preparing the special papyrus, the solution, and other errands. If they awakened an inheritance after that, then they’d just be assigned more work under Kalfene.

For example, look at the other two in this workshop, working patiently under this bastard when they were legitimate toolmakers as well!

This was why he jumped ship when the master’s will declared Kalfene as the owner of everything he had! He left the rest of them with nothing but their rooms! That ungrateful bastard!

Anyway, no matter what mental gymnastics were running in Aetat’s head, Kalfene didn’t seem to take him into his eyes.

"I’m getting bored, Aetat, go back to your new master," he said. "Your skill level fits that side anyway."

Aetat’s eyes turned red. "Don’t think you’re so great! You were just lucky master favored you so much!"

"No, you didn’t learn because you were lazy. You used our profession for the wrong reasons," he said. "Leave now before I get you dragged out of here.

"Even if I’m being outcasted, the Lord is doing it so I will choose to serve him," Kalfene said. "What will you do if I say yes? What do you think will happen to you?"

"YOU! You’re so full of yourself!!"

Kalfene ended up growing to be the best of the best in aether letter making. He could make a letter in 2 to 3 days, which was less than half the time of others. Others also had 50% less success rates than he did!

It was why he was so damned arrogant!

However, he believed that if the master taught him as closely as he did Kalfene, and gave him his own workshop earlier, Aetat didn’t believe he’d be less successful than Kalfene!

This was what Aetat wholeheartedly believed, the anger and jealousy in his heart eating him up for years.

He never saw the hours that Kalfene spent inside his room studying until his nose bled while he went around bar-hopping with people who wanted to get close to toolmakers.

On the other hand, Aetat instead became infamous for producing only one or two low-quality aether letters a month! This was well-known because a letter he made was once returned and the damned noble who bought it decided to make a scene! It so happened that the noble was associated with other toolmakers, so he didn’t care about his face.

Why did Ashon take in trash like you? To handle trash?

When it happened, Kalfene didn’t say anything, but Aetat could feel his condescending stare.

Just the thought of those times—with the fact that he was inside the place he had unconsciously been desiring to be his own—made Aetat’s blood boil.

"Just you wait," Aetat snapped, giving Kalfene a malicious look. "This City is changing, and don’t think you won’t be swept under the rug!"

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