Chapter 349 - Smithing Talent

Lu Tianzi immediately got to work.

The furnaces in Old Juan's Equipment Shop were treasures in their own right. The furnaces drew energy from beast cores as a power source, allowing them to tap on the intense earthen fire from underground.

After Lu Tianzi infused a wisp of his Origin Force within, a fire immediately started to burn within the furnace.

He waited patiently for the heat within the furnace to grow to a suitable level before picking up a piece of iron that he had purchased from Ah San earlier.

Lu Tianzi decided not to be too ambitious on his first try, and just work on regular iron instead.

Thankfully, the furnace was of a rather good quality.

It did not take long before the iron was heated to a suitable level, and Lu Tianzi proceeded with the hammering phase at the anvil.

After the metal had been heated up, it needed to be hammered and cut into shape at the anvil, then quenched in water.

This process needed to be repeated several times to strengthen the weapon, but the number of times depended on the smith's discretion.

If the process was repeated too many times, the equipment might end up becoming too brittle.

After a few hours of work, an iron sword finally took form in Lu Tianzi's hands.

"What's wrong?" Nanlan Qianxue asked after seeing the frown on Lu Tianzi's face. "It looks pretty good to me."

"Not good enough," Lu Tianzi said while carefully scrutinising the iron sword in his hands. "The surface is even, but energy doesn't flow through the sword smoothly."

"Perhaps you are being too harsh on yourself," Nanlan Qianxue shrugged. "Relax, it's your first try after all!"

"The girl is right, you are being too harsh on yourself," a deep voice came from another direction.

Hmm?

Lu Tianzi and Nanlan Qianxue immediately looked over, only to see that the other two young men in the room had both stopped working and were looking back at them.

"May I know if the two big brothers here have any advice?" Lu Tianzi asked. "It is fine even if it doesn't sound pretty."

Since this was only his first attempt at smithing, he would like to hear all the professional opinions he could get. This way, perhaps he would be able to identify more mistakes and correct them accordingly.

Lu Tianzi's respectful tone left a good impression on the two young men, and they subconsciously puffed up their chests in pride.

"I heard from Master that you are completely new to smithing. If that is true, then the sword in your hand can already be considered a rather good result. When I first tried out smithing, my first product is of about the same quality as well!" one of them said.

"Hahaha, stop bullshitting, Ah Er! Your first work was absolute trash!" the other young man laughed.

"Tch! There must be something wrong with your memory, Ah Yi! Anyway, your hammering is far too standard and rigid!" Ah Er hurriedly shifted the topic back onto Lu Tianzi.

"Too standard and rigid?" Lu Tianzi blinked in confusion.

He had deliberately controlled every single one of his hammer strikes, putting an equal amount of strength behind each hammer strike so that the surface would be even throughout.

But now, he was actually being criticised for doing so?

"I can guess what you are thinking, but what Ah Er said is true," Ah Yi added. "When it comes to forging equipment, you cannot just do the same thing each time and expect it to work just as well. Materials are just like people. Every piece of them is different, and you need to feel every minute difference with your soul. Only then will you be able to help the material in your hands transform into its ideal form."

"Feel every minute difference with my soul?" Lu Tianzi repeated in scepticism.

He understood just as well that every piece of material was different.

However, adjusting accordingly was easier said than done.

As for feeling the difference with his soul, it sounded far too abstract for it to be believable.

"You don't seem to believe us, but that is fine as well," Ah Yi said with a tone that was as though he was a teacher speaking to his student. "Smithing is not something that you can master with mere words. Much of it had to be done through gut feeling and intuition, which can only be honed through years of experience. When enough time has passed and you finally managed to acc.u.mulate a fair amount of experience under your belt, you will come to understand what we mean."

"May I know how long the two big brothers here took to get to your current level?" Lu Tianzi asked, his gaze straying to the completed equipment lying on the stone tables behind them.

"Master only took us in as his disciples because he recognised our talent, so we naturally managed to get the hang of it faster than others," Ah Er grinned. "It only took me ten years to get to my current level!"

"Ten years?!" Lu Tianzi exclaimed in shock.

"Hahaha, you don't have to be so surprised. Ah Er is truly quite talented," Ah Yi laughed. "As for me, I have already been doing this for fifteen years, so you don't have to compare yourself to me. Judging from how well your first product turned out, I would say that just another twenty years will be enough for you to reach Ah Er's level!"

"Twenty years to reach his level...?" Lu Tianzi felt the corner of his lips twitch, especially when his gaze swept over the completed equipment lying on Ah Er's stone table.

From Lu Tianzi's perspective, those completed equipment were not even all that good!

While they were of a better standard than the iron sword that Lu Tianzi had just made, they were still nowhere near what Lu Tianzi would be willing to use in a serious battle.

If he would only be able to forge something of that level after twenty years of diligent practice, then it would really be a waste of his time.

On top of that, this was only the smithing portion. There was still the refinement of the completed equipment that he had to master before he could even be considered an actual artificer!

"Of course, twenty years is nothing but a rough estimate. After all, this is just your first time trying," Ah Yi tried to sound encouraging. "If your talent is good, perhaps you would only take half the time to do so. I, for one, only took five years to get to Ah Er's current level!"

"Bullshit, I bet you took more than ten years!" Ah Er retorted.

Ah Yi simply shook his head and ignored Ah Er, looking as though he was already used to Ah Er's response.

"I still think this iron sword looks pretty nice!" Nanlan Qianxue interrupted, snatching over the iron sword and inspecting it carefully. "I will be taking it if you don't want it!"

Lu Tianzi looked at Nanlan Qianxue, who responded with a radiant smile.

He naturally understood that Nanlan Qianxue was only trying to be encouraging. Compared to her Frost Jade Sword, this iron sword was completely worthless.

"All right then, I guess I would just have to keep trying to see how it goes!��� Lu Tianzi stretched his body to get ready.

"That's the way!" Ah Yi praised. "I am looking forward to seeing your progress!"

"If there's anything you are unsure of, feel free to ask me!" Ah Er patted his chest.

For the rest of the month, Lu Tianzi visited Old Juan's Equipment Shop on a daily basis, staying there from dawn till dusk as he forged equipment after equipment.

During his stay at the shop, Lu Tianzi not only practised smithing, but he also got to talk to Old Juan and his three disciples.

From his interactions with them, Lu Tianzi realised that even though there was competition among the various influences within Sacred Cliff City, conflicts are mainly resolved by business means. As long as one was capable, it would not be easy for the powerful influences to suppress one's growth.

In this world where individual strength reigned supreme, it was quite surprising that Sacred Cliff City was able to maintain such a system. But this was also how the city managed to attract talents from all over, becoming a major hub for equipment and accessories.

And it was all thanks to the city being governed by the impartial and powerful Burning Titan Overlord.

While the Burning Titan Overlord rarely showed himsef in public, his reputation alone was enough of a deterrence to the various influences out there, stopping them from overstepping their boundaries.

Of course, there was still one particular influence that nobody dared to offend – the Sacred Cliff City Guards that reported directly to the Burning Titan Overlord himself.

***

Lu Tianzi's smithing skills slowly became more refined by the day, and the equipment he made became less and less pathetic in his own eyes.

Ah Yi, Ah Er, and Ah San were all surprised, and even Old Juan could not help but praise Lu Tianzi's rate of improvement, saying that he had quite a bit of talent in smithing.

However, Lu Tianzi was not at all impressed with himself.

His eye of discernment was not poor by any measure, so he could clearly see his own improvement as well. But at the rate that he was going, he would really take almost a decade before he could reach Ah Er's level.

Old Juan and his three disciples tried to convince him that ten years was already considered a relatively short amount of time, and Lu Tianzi did not doubt their words.

Perhaps ten years really was the bare minimum to become a skilled artificer, but that was already more than half the number of years that he had lived.

That was far too much time to be invested into a side occupation like smithing!

But apart from that, Lu Tianzi realised that there were unexpected benefits to his smithing practice as well.

As he moved on from regular iron to rare metals that were more difficult to handle, Lu Tianzi started having to channel his Origin Force into his hammer strikes for them to do anything to the material.

Since it affected the strength of his strikes, these infusions of energy had to be controlled with absolute precision.

Because of that, Lu Tianzi was able to refine his control over Origin Force at the same time, helping with the consolidation of his cultivation.

Coupled with the fact that Lu Tianzi diligently cultivated every night, he finally managed to fully consolidate his cultivation by the end of the month.

While he was hard at work, Nanlan Qianxue did not slack off either.

She would occasionally head out under the invitation of Young Master Xuan Hao and Ruan Ling to visit places within the city, but she still spent the majority of her time cultivating in her room.

Before long, Nanlan Qianxue had managed to consolidate her cultivation as well.

***

On this day, Lu Tianzi received a message from Nanlan Qianxue.

According to her, Young Master Xuan Hao was finally done with his preparations, and was asking if they wanted to follow him and Ruan Ling on their trip to Mount Asui.

Lu Tianzi agreed immediately.

After letting Old Juan know that he would be away for a while, Lu Tianzi left to meet up with the other three.

"It's been a while, Brother Tianzi!" Young Master Xuan Hao greeted him warmly. "However, I didn't expect you to still be working on learning the art of artificing! I assume it is because Brother Tianzi managed to discover an unexpected side of yourself?"

Old Juan was an acquaintance of Ruan Ling, so Young Master Xuan Hao was able to hear from them that Lu Tianzi had still been visiting the equipment shop on a daily basis.

The most important thing for a martial artist was to improve his or her individual strength.

For Lu Tianzi to spend this much time on a side occupation, Young Master Xuan Hao assumed that it was definitely because Lu Tianzi managed to do well after trying it out.

"Not really..." Lu Tianzi let out a bitter smile. "It is far more difficult that I originally thought, so my progress is naturally slower than I would have liked."

"Hmm?" Young Master Xuan Hao revealed a look of surprise. "Then why are you still continuing with your practice?"

Lu Tianzi let out a helpless sigh. "I will see how it goes from here. If things continue to progress at such a slow rate, perhaps I really will give it up soon."

Seeing that Lu Tianzi had already thought it through, Young Master Xuan Hao nodded in approval. "All right, let's not talk about that anymore. Mount Asui is a three days' journey away, so let's get going. Perhaps you won't even think about the art of smithing anymore after experiencing the wonders of the War Intent Cliff!"