Soul Slayer

Iron Tree Spark House.

No one knew how much time had passed. At the very least, none of the hill dwarves had bothered to keep track. Their minds were wholly immersed in that figure swinging the hammer, including the hill dwarves' bravest and most battle-hardened king.

After all, the first lesson every hill dwarf learned after gaining awareness was forging.

Until a blade lay quietly upon the forging table.

It lacked the dazzling sheen of its primary material, silver iron, and had no special shape or patterns. It looked like nothing more than a broad saber with a somewhat dark hue and an unremarkable appearance—let alone dwarves, any human blacksmith shop could make one.

Oh, and its size was a little off too. It seemed rather short, though that "short" was only in comparison to humans.

A trace of weariness appeared on Chen Rui's face. Forging this blade had consumed far more energy than he had imagined, far beyond that required for ordinary equipment. Yet at this moment, he felt an unprecedented exhilaration.

As a master artificer proficient in all three disciplines, after all his studies and training—including the Super System's Refining Room linked by the Time Rule—and Tetenis's instruction, his artificing had reached a bottleneck. He had never expected to gain a breakthrough insight today in this underground forging world of the hill dwarves.

Though this blade was plain and unadorned, it faintly exuded a spirituality absent from Chen Rui's previous works. This unique spirituality contained the creator's particular insights and state of mind, born under a particular environment and at a particular moment.

That also determined the blade's uniqueness. Even if Chen Rui forged another blade identical in appearance, it would not possess precisely the same attributes.

Most importantly, a weapon of this quality was no longer an