Successful Weapon Forging, Idea Realized

Inside the Qi and Blood Chamber's cubicle, a mist-like essence slowly circulated. Wang Yue sat cross-legged on a futon, holding the yellowed Hundred Herbs Illustrated Manual, his fingertips gently pressing the rough pages.

"Extract Tier Two Pill Dao Talent: Herbal Identification."

He chanted inwardly, his gaze fixed on the medicinal illustrations in the book.

The next second, a gentle energy surged from the pages into his body, transforming into countless fine light fragments that rapidly unfurled in his mind. The forms, scents, medicinal properties, and growing environments of three hundred herbs, along with the impact of different preparation methods on their efficacy, were imprinted into his consciousness like a brand.

Wang Yue opened his eyes, a flicker of joy flashing within them. He carefully put away the Hundred Herbs Illustrated Manual and rose, heading towards the forging workshop. He spent his mornings digesting Pill Dao talents and his afternoons practicing weapon forging. This rhythm allowed him to improve his skills while also tempering his physique, ensuring both benefited. At night, he would focus on his cultivation, and during the day, he would also spend an hour or two practicing!

Within the forging workshop, the "ding-ding-dang-dang" of hammers had already begun. Wang Yue walked up to his familiar forging station, picked up a glowing red iron ingot, and gripped the large, pitch-black hammer.

After several days of practice, he had become increasingly proficient in the force and rhythm of forging. The experience brought by the Hundred Forgings talent flowed into his movements like instinct. The angle and force of each hammer blow were as precise as if measured.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!" The hammer blows varied in intensity and rhythm, clearly distinguishing between fast and slow. Impurities on the surface of the iron ingot shed with each strike, gradually revealing fine patterns. One, two... With the final hammer blow, the twentieth pattern was clearly imprinted on the iron ingot, emitting a faint metallic luster.

"Twenty Forgings complete!" Wang Yue put down the hammer, exhaling a long breath. Although his arms were slightly sore and swollen, his heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment. From his initial ten forgings to now easily achieving twenty, his weapon forging skills were progressing at a visible pace.

He didn't linger. Placing the twenty-forged iron aside, he turned and left the forging workshop. He still needed to cultivate the Blood Dragon Secret Method in the Qi and Blood Chamber, aiming to break through to the eleventh Qi and Blood soon.

Not long after, Liu Haibing returned to the workshop carrying a wine gourd. When he saw the piece of fine iron with twenty patterns, the wine gourd in his hand clattered to the ground. He stood frozen in place, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"This... This kid has only been learning weapon forging for a few days, and he can already produce such regular twenty-forged iron?"

Liu Haibing strode forward, picking up the fine iron and examining it repeatedly. His fingertips traced the uniform patterns, and his heart churned like a stormy sea. "It took me a full two months to reach this level when I was practicing!"

He looked up in the direction Wang Yue had left, the corners of his mouth curling up involuntarily.

Night fell, and the Qi and Blood Chamber once again glowed with a faint light.

Wang Yue stood in the center of the cubicle, his Qi and Blood surging within him. He pushed the Blood Dragon Secret Method to its limit, his fist winds whistling. One hundred and eight variations unfolded in his hands with fluid grace, each movement imbued with the power of his robust Qi and Blood, resonating with the surrounding essence.

"Drink!" Wang Yue let out a low roar. The ten streams of Qi and Blood within him suddenly boiled, surging towards his Dantian like a tide, violently impacting his meridians. The extreme forging and essence nourishment of the past few days had already pushed his Qi and Blood accumulation to its limit.

"A new stream of Qi and Blood rose slowly in the Dantian like the newborn sun, emitting an even more robust aura!"

"The eleventh stream of Qi and Blood! It's finally condensed!" Wang Yue stopped his movements, his face alight with ecstatic joy. He could clearly feel that his strength had increased by nearly 10% compared to before, and his physique had become even more resilient under the nourishment of Qi and Blood.

What surprised him even more was that as the eleventh stream of Qi and Blood condensed, the introductory method for the fifth form of the Blood Dragon Secret Method also quietly appeared in his mind, although he had only just begun practicing it.

Qi and Blood flowed slowly within his body, tempering his muscles and bones like warm water. Wang Yue gradually suppressed his smile, his expression turning solemn. "Condensing Qi and Blood is becoming increasingly difficult. The time it took from the tenth to the eleventh stream is longer than the previous two combined. It seems that every step in the late stage of the Blood Condensation Realm requires more accumulation."

He took a deep breath, suppressing his impatience. The path of martial arts had no shortcuts; one could only proceed step by step, steadily moving forward.

Time flew by, and seven days passed.

In the alchemy workshop, Fu Shuangyun held the Hundred Herbs Illustrated Manual, casually pointing to the herbs and asking, "What are the medicinal properties of this 'Purple Placenta'? What herbs is it suitable for compounding with?"

"Purple Placenta is warm in nature, capable of tonifying Qi and Blood and benefiting essence and marrow. It is suitable for compounding with Angelica and Prepared Rehmannia to enhance the blood-tonifying effect. It can also be used with Astragalus and Codonopsis to concurrently tonify Qi, primarily for conditions of both Qi and Blood deficiency."

Wang Yue answered fluently, his tone calm, without any hesitation.

Fu Shuangyun continued to ask about dozens of herbs, from their properties to preparation methods and contraindications for compounding. Wang Yue answered them all flawlessly, even adding details not recorded in the manual.

"You... You've actually recognized all the herbs in seven days?" Fu Shuangyun put down the manual, his eyes wide with astonishment. He had originally thought Wang Yue was just "seeking novelty," but he hadn't expected the young man to not only recognize all the herbs but also master them so thoroughly.

Wang Yue smiled slightly, offering no explanation. He couldn't possibly say that he had already imprinted the knowledge of herbal medicine into his consciousness thanks to the Herbal Identification talent.

During these seven days, he had not only assimilated the Pill Dao talent but also quietly extracted the Flowing Water Strength, Returning Cloud Strength, and Hundred Pills Mastery talents from the alchemy cauldron while Fu Shuangyun wasn't paying attention. Now, he was already capable of refining Tier One High-grade pills.

However, one matter still left him with lingering fear. After extracting the Three Revolutions Dragon Transformation Strength that day, he had cautiously attempted to circulate it in the chamber, and the Qi and Blood within him had suddenly surged wildly, attempting to condense internal strength. If he hadn't suppressed it with essence in time, he might have injured his meridians.

From then on, he never dared to touch this internal strength lightly again, having to temporarily set it aside.

In addition, he had also secretly extracted the Tier One weapon forging talent, Hundred Weapons, from the hammer while Liu Haibing wasn't paying attention. Although he didn't manage to get his hands on the hammer, it was still a small gain. However, after that.

Liu Haibing seemed to have sensed something and began hiding the hammer even more carefully, keeping it in his hand at all times during forging, not giving Wang Yue any opportunity.

"Master Fu, your disciple has mastered the basic medicinal principles. In a few days, I would like to try refining a batch of Blood Replenishing Pills using the Cloud Sea Cauldron. I request your permission." Wang Yue withdrew his thoughts and proactively requested permission to refine pills.

Fu Shuangyun snapped back to attention. Seeing the confidence in Wang Yue's eyes, he nodded, "Alright! In three days, I'll let you try!" He wanted to see if Wang Yue truly possessed the talent for pill refining.

"Thank you, Master!" Wang Yue bowed respectfully and turned towards the Qi and Blood Chamber. For the next three days, he needed to familiarize himself thoroughly with the Hundred Pills Mastery talent to ensure the pill refining process was foolproof.

A day later, the furnace fire in the forging workshop burned hotter than usual. The orange-red flames licked the furnace walls, casting the entire workshop in a fiery glow.

Wang Yue stood before the forging station, holding five pieces of twenty-forged fine iron that gleamed with metallic luster. His fingertips gently caressed the patterns on the surface of the ingots, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.

"I've been learning weapon forging for some time now. Today is a good opportunity to verify the results."

He murmured softly, arranging the five pieces of fine iron in a line on the workbench. From left to right, the color of the ingots became increasingly uniform, and the hammer marks on the surface grew finer, clearly the result of his progressive forging.

The first piece had the most impurities; it was a work from when he had just mastered twenty forgings. The three pieces on the far right, however, had very few impurities and higher metal density, representing the fruits of his efforts in refining his skills over the past few days.

"I'll use these." Wang Yue bent down, picked up the three pieces of fine iron on the far right, and turned towards the furnace. He carefully placed the ingots into the furnace and then pulled the bellows.

"Whoosh, whoosh." The roar of the bellows echoed in the workshop. The flames in the furnace grew more intense. The fine iron gradually turned red under the high temperature, from dark red to orange-red, and finally to a dazzling golden hue. Impurities on the surface began to melt and drip at a visible rate.

Half an hour later, Wang Yue used iron tongs to pick up the three glowing red pieces of fine iron and steadily placed them on the anvil. He gripped the pitch-black hammer with both hands. After these days of practice, he was already familiar with the feel of the hammer handle. Under the combined boost of the Hundred Forgings and Hundred Weapons talents, each swing of the hammer possessed almost instinctive precision.

"Bang!"

The first hammer blow fell, and the three pieces of fine iron were instantly smashed together, sparks flying. The subtle sound of metal fusing was clearly audible. Wang Yue didn't pause; his hammer techniques flowed like water. Sometimes he struck with heavy blows, shaking out hidden impurities.

Other times, he lightly tapped and refined, adjusting the metal's form, allowing the three pieces of fine iron to completely meld into one, gradually outlining the shape of a long saber.

Impurities continuously fell away with each hammer strike, accumulating as black slag beside the anvil. Wang Yue occasionally sprinkled in mixed materials to further remove residual impurities from the metal while also enhancing the saber's resilience.

Once the saber's shape was initially formed, he picked up the glowing red blank and quickly walked to the nearby cold water bucket. With a splash, he plunged it into the water. The cold water met the high-temperature blank, instantly producing a large amount of white mist. Accompanied by a sharp sizzling sound, the metal structure on the saber's surface became even harder in the sudden cooling. This was the tempering process, which greatly improved the weapon's strength.

A moment later, he retrieved the blank, placed it back into the furnace to heat, and repeated the previous steps of forging, impurity removal, and shaping. He did this three times. Each heating and forging session made the saber's metal density higher, its grain tighter, and its impurities fewer.

After completing the final quench, Wang Yue fixed the blank onto the workbench. He picked up grinding stones of varying thickness and began to meticulously polish the saber's body, from the spine to the edge, from the hilt to the tip. Every part was polished smooth and flat, gleaming with a cold metallic luster.

Time passed unnoticed. The workshop was filled only with the rustling sound of grinding stones against metal. Wang Yue was already immersed in the world of forging, his eyes fixed solely on the blank in his hands, as if the entire world consisted only of him and this weapon about to be born.

As the last ray of sunlight streamed into the workshop through the window, Wang Yue finally stopped his movements. A saber, five feet long and about three inches wide, lay quietly on the workbench. Its body was as black as ink, with twenty fine hammer marks faintly visible on its surface, flowing like ripples on water. Though not yet sharpened, it already exuded a formidable sharpness.

"Done!" Wang Yue let out a long sigh of relief. He reached out and grasped the hilt. It felt cool to the touch, yet possessed a peculiar sense of weight, as if it had become one with his arm.

The next second, golden text instantly flashed in his mind:

[Tier One High-grade: Binhai Saber]
[Body Talent: Tier One [Strength Mastery] enhances fine control of strength, allowing strength to be split and allocated, improving movement precision]

A glint of golden light suddenly appeared in Wang Yue's eyes, his heart filled with pleasant surprise. He had successfully forged a Tier One High-grade weapon, and a talent had appeared just as he had expected. Was it far off until he could forge and then extract talents himself?

"Brother Yue, you... you really forged a Tier One weapon?" A voice filled with disbelief came from behind him. Wang Daoling had appeared at the workshop entrance at some point, his gaze fixed on the Binhai Saber on the workbench, his face full of shock.

He had also been diligently forging these past few days, yet he struggled to consistently produce even Twenty-Forged Iron. Now, Wang Yue not only effortlessly mastered Twenty-Forgings but had directly forged a Tier One High-grade weapon. This disparity left him with mixed feelings.

Wang Yue turned around, smiling and nodding. "It seems my efforts these past few days weren't in vain."

Wang Daoling's expression instantly froze. He opened his mouth but didn't know what to say. He could only slowly turn and walk away. Compared to Wang Yue, his own progress was simply too slow. He felt both envy and a trace of indescribable frustration.

Wang Yue paid no mind to Wang Daoling's reaction. He gripped the Binhai Saber again and silently thought, "Extract Tier One Body Talent [Strength Mastery]!"

A strange energy flowed from the hilt into his body. Unlike the warmth or stinging sensation he felt when extracting talents in the past, this energy was like fine threads, rapidly spreading to every limb and bone.

Wang Yue could clearly feel that a portion of his strength seemed to have been split into several parts, making his movements incredibly precise.

He tried swinging the saber. The originally heavy weapon felt exceptionally light now. He displayed the Tiger Might Saber Art. Every slash and cut was executed with extreme precision. He could even subtly adjust the force of his wrist while swinging the saber, causing the saber's wind to avoid the nearby anvil.

This fine control over strength was like operating an extremely precise machine; every movement could be accurate to the millimeter.

"This [Strength Mastery] talent is simply tailor-made for martial arts cultivation!" Wang Yue was overjoyed. With this talent, not only could he better control weapons, but he could also precisely manage the flow of Qi and Blood when cultivating the Blood Dragon Secret Method, ensuring that every move delivered the perfect amount of force. He could even master complex variations faster.

He gently stroked the body of the Binhai Saber, a hint of anticipation flashing in his eyes. His weapon forging had seen a breakthrough. If his pill refining went smoothly in three days, perhaps he would be known as a master of both weapons and pills in the future?