Forging

Chen Ming moved through a flawless sequence, defeated his opponent, then sheathed his sword and strode away with a flourish. As the saying went, nothing was deadlier than showing off without even seeming to.

"Holy crap! Chen, you're such a show-off!"

Huo Tian gaped. He hadn't expected Chen Ming, who looked so quiet and mild-mannered, to be such a natural at showing off.

"Keep it low-key, keep it low-key. I was going to keep pretending to be an ordinary person around you guys, but now I'm done pretending. I'm coming clean!"

Chen Ming folded his arms and stood proudly before everyone. Lei Yuan was full of envy. He was only Soul Power Level nine and still didn't have his First Soul Ring, so he couldn't show off like Chen Ming.

"Chen, that's not very brotherly of you. Look at all those girls— their eyes are glued to you. How are the rest of us supposed to live?"

"Yeah, Chen. We were even going to help you just now."

Feng Rulang was just as envious of how Chen Ming had everyone's attention. He was practically green with envy. Chen Ming thought for a moment, then said with a serious expression:

"How about I spar with you guys later and help you improve your combat skills?"

The three of them hesitated. They imagined Chen Ming punching them until they were covered in bruises, then shook their heads.

"Maybe not... We can't handle your freakish strength..."

"It's not that bad... This is about normal."

At that, Chen Ming glanced at a nearby tree, stepped forward, and threw a punch. With a loud crash, he knocked down a tree a full meter across.

Everyone else was petrified. This wasn't a matter of being covered in bruises anymore; they'd be scattered all over the place.

After physical education, everyone had the afternoon free. Chen Ming saw that he still had time, so he headed out.

He felt that he still didn't have enough control over his strength, so he planned to forge some weights himself.

Soon, he arrived at a metal shop and bought several pieces of metal. As for forging...

In fact, throwing iron, gold, and copper into a furnace and smelting them also improved Chen Ming's Skill in forging.

But it was very inefficient. On top of that, whenever he left the Overworld, the furnace stopped burning, so his forging Skill had only reached about an ordinary level.

"Hello, boss. Do you have any forging rooms available?"

Chen Ming asked the shopkeeper at the front desk whether there was an empty forging room. The shopkeeper glanced at him. He was still a kid, probably here to try forging for fun.

"Yes. It's a thousand Federal Credits per hour. You'll have to pay extra for anything you break."

"I'll take one. I'm interested in forging."

After renting a forging room, Chen Ming began looking into how to forge.

First, he examined the forge. He didn't seem to know how to use it... Was he supposed to put some coal inside and work the bellows to heat it?

Chen Ming surveyed the forging room. He'd always used a furnace to smelt metal directly, so now that he was using a real-world forge, he had no idea what to do.

"Forget it. I'll figure it out later. Time is money, so let's get started!"

Chen Ming transformed into the Silver Dragon King Martial Soul. With a lift of his hand, the Silver Dragon Spear appeared. At a thought, it turned into a staff.

Then he placed the metal on the anvil and used the staff to breathe fire over it. The metal quickly glowed red-hot.

Chen Ming picked up the forging hammer hanging on the wall and struck the metal. It immediately caved in, forcing a lot of impurities out of it.

So this was forging? He wondered what he could accomplish with his ordinary-level forging Skill.

Chen Ming hammered away by feel. With each blow, the tungsten steel grew brighter and more lustrous.

When it seemed ready, he brought the hammer down one last time. The piece of tungsten steel shrank by a third, but its surface had turned dark and glossy. The impurities had clearly been refined out successfully.

[Forging Skill +20]

"Not that hard, after all."

Chen Ming picked up the tungsten steel and inspected it, then checked how much his forging Skill had increased. The rate of improvement seemed decent.

After looking it up, Chen Ming confirmed that he'd completed Hundred Refinement, probably at around third-grade.

Being able to do that on his first try made him a genuine genius. His hands were still warm, so he'd make another one!

Chen Ming also finally figured out how to use the forge: put in coal, light it, and work the bellows!

"Cough, cough, cough! I forgot to turn on the exhaust..."

As Chen Ming worked the bellows, black smoke billowed right into his face. He suddenly realized he'd forgotten to switch on the exhaust, so he hurriedly opened the vent and used wind elemental power to blow the smoke away.

One little mistake had left him covered in soot. It was normal to make a few blunders the first time.

After that, Chen Ming put a new piece of raw metal into the forge and worked the bellows. It took ages to get the metal glowing red, and he grew irritated.

"I should've kept using fire elemental power. This takes forever to heat up. It's all money... I won't have anything left to eat..."

He regretted using the forge to heat the metal. It was too slow. Using the fire elemental power of the Silver Dragon Staff would've been twice as fast.

Chen Ming used iron tongs to take the metal out and set it on the anvil, then hammered it a few times. Three hours later, he'd forged about five pieces of Hundred Refinement metal.

His forging had successfully advanced to the good level, and he'd also improved his control over his strength and the elements.

Each of the five pieces of Hundred Refinement tungsten steel weighed three hundred kilograms. Chen Ming turned four of them into weights and made the last one into a forging hammer.

Then he checked the hammer's quality. It was an ordinary-quality forging hammer. He also learned that forging third-grade Hundred Refinement metal added twenty points to his forging Skill, while second-grade added thirty.

In other words, the better the quality of his forging, the more points his forging Skill gained each time.

But after all that work, it was time to eat. Chen Ming used water elemental power to wash the soot off his face, then turned back to normal.

After paying the rental fee for the forging room, he went straight to My World and harvested some crops. Then he made himself a delicious meal and improved his cooking Skill at the same time.

That evening, with nothing else to do, Chen Ming went to the woods to practice controlling his Soul Power and his spear technique.

He didn't return until around eight that night. He took a shower, hung up his clothes, got into bed, and started writing. A month passed in the blink of an eye, and everyone faced a small test: a physical fitness assessment.

Chen Ming earned a plus in strength, speed, mental power, and Soul Power quality.

His overall score ranked first in the entire grade. As for his Soul Power Level, Chen Ming used a little trick to hide it at Level 12.

Just as he was thinking that Level 15 Soul Power would be too conspicuous, he spotted the top-ranked student among the new arrivals.

Lan Mengqin, Level 16. Chen Ming was at a loss for words. Seriously? There was someone even stronger?! It had only been about two months since they awakened their Martial Souls, hadn't it?

And that name... Wasn't she one of the important supporting characters in the main cast? But she had a powerful family backing her and had taken pills to cleanse and strengthen her body, along with all kinds of rare treasures. It made sense. She was a pay-to-win player, after all...

P.S. Third update for February 22: six thousand words.