Great Wall Fortress

The metal glowed red-hot. Heat waves rolled forth, blurring and warping the air.

Bai Yujun applied her special talent to forging. Her infrared sensing had grown remarkably powerful, allowing her to carefully observe whether the metal was at the right temperature during forging and spot impurities that affected its quality. Her sensitivity to vibrations also let her adjust the force of each hammer blow.

A rack stood beside the forge, where the pieces of a small-looking suit of armor were gradually assembled.

She carved formation arrays directly onto the red-hot armor plates, then melted down the rare metals she had collected and poured them along the formation lines, melding the arrays and armor into one.

Perhaps her sense of beauty had improved this time, for she deliberately gave it a somewhat mechanical style.

She cooled the shoulder armor with a cold spring, precisely snapping it into the clasps reserved on the armor. Once she confirmed the fit was perfect, she continued forging the next component. There was no legendary casual wave of the hand to create spirit fire, nor any use of spiritual power for control—only hammer blow after hammer blow. Compared to an ordinary blacksmith, she merely had many more specialized tools and worked with greater precision.

One piece after another was assembled. Before long, a humanoid suit of black armor, entirely pieced together from dark gray metal, stood beside her.

The breastplate required the hardest metal. The various rare metals she had stored in her storage pouch for years were rapidly depleted. When she finally installed and assembled the breastplate, the entire suit of black armor gained an air of weighty solidity.

The metal-wire gloves took longer. They required excellent weaving skill and considerable time, and armor plates had to be added to the backs of the hands