Chapter 39

The two of them, Athena and Asclepius, were already used to the forging skills. They didn’t have any curiosity and were doing their things in the castle.

Only Locke was interested in forging skills, so he went to the workshop to see the process of weapon forging.

After they got the black iron ores, they couldn’t use them directly but needed to refine the ores.

With a wave of his big hand, a full cart of ores weighing up to a thousand pounds was carried into the forging furnace by the great divine power.

Swoosh~

A dark red flame appeared in Hephaestus’s hand.

Locke clearly felt that the flame was several times stronger than the one he and Athena condensed with the fire element.

Suddenly, Hephaestus threw the flame in his hand into the forging furnace.

Boom!

The fire inside the forging furnace flickered.

The glittering black iron ores were directly ignited. The originally hard black iron ores now had little bubbles on their surface, and then they began to melt like the cheese in the microwave.

Hephaestus was the god who had the title of “fire god” at the same time. Looking at the powerful flame that could melt black iron, Locke sighed secretly.

Ten minutes passed.

The black iron ores in the forging furnace had turned into a mass of slightly black thick liquid.

The black thick liquid in the forging furnace began to stir automatically. To Locke’s surprise, the liquid began to change during the stirring. A small part of the liquid turned pure black, and most of the liquid turned multicolored.

Hephaestus waved his hand again. Something in the forging furnace was opened, and a multicolored mixture of unknown substances flowed out from the left mouth of the forging furnace.

Soon, there were only about 5 liters of pure black liquid left in the forging furnace.

“Are these all not necessary?”

Locke asked curiously as he looked at the gradually cooling multicolored mixture. Although he was not familiar with the forging skills, looking at these things, they did not look like anything good.

Hephaestus nodded and said, “Yes, these are the impurities in the black iron ores.”

After separating most of the impurities, Hephaestus did not stop extracting. The pure black liquid in the forging furnace was still flowing, tearing, and combining rapidly.

Another half an hour later, the liquid in the forging furnace stopped and another pile of impurities was separated.

“It can be called ‘black iron liquid’ now.”

Looking at the black iron liquid in the forging furnace, Hephaestus said with satisfaction.

After the refinement was finished, under the control of Hephaestus, the black iron liquid flew out of the forging furnace and landed on the sword-shaped mold prepared in advance.

Soon, a pure black iron sword appeared in front of Locke.

Half an hour later, the iron was completely cooled down. Hephaestus lifted the iron with divine power and threw it into the forging furnace.

Within a minute, the iron weapon had turned red.

Another minute later, he took out the iron weapon.

Ding! Clang! Ding! Clang!

Hephaestus grabbed the hammer placed aside and began to beat it. Blue veins stood out on his arms.

Soon, under the hammer’s attack, the blade of the sword turned into a thin piece.

With a sweep of Hephaestus’s arm, the thin piece seemed to be grabbed by an invisible hand and then folded together.

Ding! Clang!

After folding, he continued to beat.

Hephaestus threw it into the forging furnace, heated it until turning red. Then he took it out.

Beating… Folding again and again.

According to the introduction of Hephaestus, this was a process of forging, repeating fold forging, and further extracting impurities to improve the toughness of black iron. A sword like this usually needed over ten thousand times of forging.

After several times of folding, there were more than 10 layers of obvious texture on the iron weapon.

Shocked, Locke suddenly remembered that he had obtained the drawing of the Sword in the Stone when he completed the planting task last time.

Thinking of this, he took out the drawing and handed it to Hephaestus. He asked expectantly, “I have a drawing of the Sword in the Stone. Can you forge it now?”

“The Sword in the Stone is a good weapon.”

After reading the drawing for a long time, Hephaestus said slowly, “Although the structure is a little complicated, it’s not a problem for me. The Sword in the Stone made of this low-grade iron won’t be of much high level.”

He put away the drawing and said with a smile, “With your current strength, you can’t control the Sword in the Stone, even it’s in front of you.”

Locke nodded with a smile. High-level weapons often had their consciousness and would reject low-level users.

After handing the design drawing to Hephaestus, Locke found that it was late and decided to go back to have a rest.

“Don’t you need to keep an eye on it?”

Seeing Hephaestus was also preparing to leave with him, Locke was a little surprised.

“I am a god.”

Hephaestus laughed, turned around, and walked towards the castle. The sound of forging iron came from the workshop before Locke could understand what Hephaestus meant.

After a short pause, Locke shrugged helplessly. It seemed that he thought too much. Hephaestus was the god of forging. He didn’t need to stay by the side of the iron all the time like ordinary forgers.

After forging, compounding, engraving, quenching, sharpening, and other complicated craftsmanship, ten days later, the first batch of weapons had come out.

There were six long swords, two long blades, and two big swords. There were ten level-2 weapons in total.

As soon as the weapons came out, Locke distributed the exclusive weapons to Kotter, Kerton, Sam, and Becky first.

As for the other retinues and subordinates, they were not even practitioners now. Even if they had level-2 weapons, they could not play many roles.

So to encourage practice, Locke sent a notice directly. As long as one became the level-1 practitioner, he could get a level-2 weapon.

When they knew that as long as they became level-1 practitioners, they would be able to obtain level-2 weapons, everyone was shocked and activated the crazy practice mode.

On the training ground outside the castle.

“Kerton, this is the first time I’ve seen such a superb carving technique!”

Looking at the carved texture on the big sword in his hand, Kotter exclaimed.

“I’m afraid it’s not just the carving technique. Look at the pattern in the sword like flowing water, it’s perfect.”

“How about we try the strength of this weapon?”

Kerton suggested, looking at the big sword.

With his eyes lit up, Kotter said without hesitation, “Okay, let’s try my level-1 big sword.”

He was also very curious about the power of the level-2 big sword.

Clang!

To everyone’s astonishment, the original big sword of Kotter was directly cut into two pieces. When they looked at the big black iron sword, there was only a trace of being scratched on the blade.

Broken…

How… So powerful!

“I’m afraid the hardness of this big sword is about to catch up with a level-3 weapon!”

Kerton said in strong shock. Ordinary level-2 big swords couldn’t easily break the level-1 big swords.

“Yes, this is definitely the top weapon of level 2!”

Kotter said in a trembling voice, his face full of uncontrollable excitement. As a practitioner, the weapon was the greatest help in the battle! Think about it, if two level-2 practitioners had a life and death battle, and one of their weapons was directly cut off by the other party, how could continue the fight!

In the heart of Kotter and the others, the status of Hephaestus had risen again. Perhaps Master Locke didn’t lie to them. Hephaestus was really the best forger in the world!

Locke discussed with Hephaestus and decided to forge some weapons and sell them.

Half a month later, Hephaestus had forged 30 level-1 weapons and 10 level-2 weapons. Of course, the weapons of level 1 and level 2 were not comparable to the weapons of level 1 and level 2 forged by ordinary forgers.

On the second day, with this batch of weapons, the crowd headed for Bone City with great momentum.