Wild Ox

A day later, the Frost Giant Axe, weighing over eighty pounds (the axe's weight has been changed here), had finally turned completely orange-red. William gripped the axe head tightly with a pair of large tongs and deftly pulled it from the furnace. The gnome Nanfudo was waiting beside him. He quickly uncorked a potion bottle and poured another bottle of blue-black retarder over the giant axe. As white steam hissed and billowed, the Cold Star Iron coated with retarder glowed even brighter.

William lowered the axe head heavily onto the anvil. Singers took the steaming giant axe with another pair of tongs, gripping it firmly in place. William seized a long-handled sledgehammer and brought it down hard on the axe blade. Clang! The deafening crash sent sparks flying in every direction, and a bowl-sized dent appeared in the blade. The Dwarf and the gnome were nearly deafened by the impact.

"Damn it, William! Don't hit it so hard! You've nearly deafened me!" The one-eyed Dwarf let go of one tong and dug vigorously at his ear with his short, thick fingers. Nanfudo grumbled and shook his head too.

William paid no attention to their complaints and kept pounding the axe head with all his strength. With each blow, the Cold Star Iron gradually lost its axe shape. Singers adjusted the angle of the tongs from time to time, and the material became a thick, long rectangle.

At last, when the basin-sized axe head had become a billet more than two feet long, the Cold Star Iron, once blazing red, had begun to darken. William picked it up with the tongs again and put it back into the furnace to heat.

When the Cold Star Iron turned orange-red again, William pulled it from the furnace. Nanfudo promptly sprinkled it with retarder, and the Dwarf took over in turn. William continued hammering it hard before putting it back into the furnace to heat. They repeated this process until the Cold Star Iron had become a thick rod more than four feet long. William then focused on hammering the middle of the rod. Once the center had narrowed, Nanfudo set a special cutting axe upright on it, and the Dwarf struck it with an iron hammer until the rod split in two. Repeating the process, they divided the Cold Star Iron into four pieces and hammered them into slender bars. They worked at the forge for two days and one night. During that time, Torg also finished arranging the city's affairs and joined them, taking turns at the work.

On the morning of the third day, the small pieces of Adamantine being heated had finally turned completely translucent pale blue. The gnome alchemist Nanfudo carefully took them out one by one with tongs, coated them evenly with flux, then put them back into the furnace. Having an accomplished alchemist around really did save them a lot of trouble. Of course, William thought it would be even better if Nanfudo and the Dwarf didn't argue.

On the fourth day, the Cold Star Iron had been forged into bars. The Adamantine coated with flux was still heating, while the largest piece had only just begun to change color. Except for the one person left to watch the furnace, the other three hurried to sleep and recover their strength and spirits.

Around midnight, several small pieces of Adamantine gradually turned golden. Torg, who was keeping watch, quickly woke the others. The real challenge was about to begin. Having absorbed enough heat, the Adamantine seemed to have become weightless golden jelly. Singers carefully took out one of the smaller pieces, holding tongs in one hand and a short hammer in the other. Torg took up a sledgehammer, and the two began hammering it, one lightly and one heavily. Nanfudo took out another piece of Adamantine, while William wielded a sledgehammer to assist him. Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! The blows of the hammers rang out in a varied, rhythmic chorus.

Under the blazing sun, William felt that what was oozing from his body wasn't sweat but slick grease. By then, the four of them had started taking turns in pairs. No one could keep working without a break—not even William, with his ridiculously long stamina bar.

It had been several days since they'd seen William, and Phinia and the little girl were getting restless in the city. So the Elf's "lessons" were moved to the forge. In truth, those so-called "lessons" had become little more than a formality. The two youngsters wandered around the furnace, looking here and there, and were experts at causing trouble.

It was already the seventh month of summer in northern Faerun, and the weather had grown hot. Phinia kept fetching buckets of icy water from the River Mirar and pouring them into a wooden tub. Whenever the water in the tub stopped being quite so cold, she dumped a bucket over each of the four men's heads. She seemed to pour water over her own head even more often, though.

William and Nanfudo were forging Aelf's rapier. None of them had ever made a weapon entirely out of Adamantine before. Even the gnome had only experimented with small amounts of Adamantine alloy in his alchemy lab. They knew how Adamantine was forged, but since none of them had any practical experience, they could only feel their way through the process. And the rapier requested by the little Elf, who had the least "say" in the matter, became their first test piece.

Adamantine was highly malleable, but getting the golden "jelly" to change shape was difficult. It needed to be hammered continuously for a long time. William pounded at the "stubborn thing" on the anvil, a little frustrated. Even after nearly a hundred furious blows with his terrifying strength, the little piece had only become slightly flatter.

I may as well treat it as training! William consoled himself. He began coordinating his muscles, pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and drew a focused breath. The heavy hammer, weighing dozens of pounds, became a meteor plunging from the heavens. Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! The whirling sledgehammer pounded the Adamantine with speed and force. William's muscles absorbed the recoil from each blow and channeled it into the next, even more savage strike. Nanfudo, who was holding the billet steady, was completely terrified by the fierce gusts stirred up by the hammer. Covered in cold sweat, he shut his eyes in fright and didn't dare look.

Although his experience from his previous life helped him avoid many early detours, martial arts cultivation was ultimately not like leveling up by killing monsters. It required not only arduous training and a certain state of mind, but also opportunity. It was like suddenly lifting a heavy object one normally couldn't budge in a moment of crisis, or scaling an otherwise insurmountable wall—making the impossible possible in an instant. That was opportunity. When ordinary people encountered such an opportunity, they couldn't maintain it and might even injure themselves. Martial artists, however, sought to tap their own potential, turning such moments into instinct through training, and even surpassing the limits of the human body.

But to truly do that, one first had to experience such a moment. It was like learning to swim: someone could listen to all the rules and techniques on shore, but the first time they jumped into the water, they would still swallow a mouthful of "soup" and cry for help. A person who knew how to swim, on the other hand, could stay out of the water for decades and still float if they fell in. That was the body's instinctive memory. That was why some martial artists trained in dangerous places like sheer cliffs and surf-beaten shores, or challenged others to fights, using perilous encounters to bring out their potential. This was also called "seizing an opportunity."

(An aside: A certain martial artist was training by a cliff, hoping to break through a bottleneck, when he accidentally fell. He was lucky enough to survive, and the ordeal suddenly unlocked his potential, greatly increasing his power. People assumed he had obtained some secret martial arts manual. After becoming invincible, he lost his motivation and hit another bottleneck. The martial artist returned to the same cliff where he had broken through before, hoping to make further progress by jumping off it. Unfortunately, this time he landed with his brains splattered everywhere. Some fellow who had followed him secretly climbed down the cliff and found the cultivation notes he had kept hidden on his person. A few years later, after becoming a formidable figure, that fellow let slip the origin of his martial arts while drunk. He was hunted down, jumped off a cliff, and so the tradition of jumping off cliffs to find secret manuals spread. o(∩_∩)o)

Some martial artists encountered an opportunity without even realizing it while doing something else. William had evidently run into just such a situation. To advance from Dark Force to Transforming Force, one needed to train the force through the entire body, down to the finest detail, until every pore could be controlled at will. Dark Force had to surge from every part of the body, hard where it could be hard and soft where it could be soft. It looked as though one were breathing through one's pores: not even a feather could touch one, nor a fly land.

William hadn't quite reached that stage yet, but he wasn't far from training Dark Force through his entire body. One major problem still troubled him, however. In his previous life, William hadn't known to take care of his body when he first began cultivating. His hidden injuries accumulated and proved difficult to heal. Later, he obtained an exceptional health-preserving art, Wild Ox Force, but it was already too late. Though he had forced his way to the peak of Transforming Force, the damage to his body's vital energy in his early years had left his foundation weak, and in the end he failed to achieve the Golden Elixir. In this life, his unusual bloodline power caused trouble too, keeping him from using Wild Ox Force to strengthen his body and build up his vital energy. William had excellent physical gifts, and with the experience of his previous life, he could just barely unleash Dark Force from most parts of his body and injure people without their noticing. Only the most difficult areas—his face, groin, and the back of his head—remained beyond him. But without the support of Wild Ox Force, he was like a duckweed without roots, and his achievements were bound to be limited.

William appeared to be pounding the Adamantine furiously, but his attention had already shifted to his inner body. As his muscles and tendons pulsed, he kept feeling as though a thin membrane stood between him and something else. William understood that his force had never penetrated his internal organs, so he couldn't achieve inner vision. Yet this let him sense the changes in his bloodline power. Its scorching force flowed slowly through his body, burning every inch of flesh bit by bit. Unable to help himself, William let out his second Wild Ox Roar since arriving in this other world. Moo—! A deep, resonant bellow rang out across the land.

The bloodline power inside him abruptly surged, and its circulation began to accelerate. As he bellowed, William did his best to suppress its wild outburst, unconsciously channeling the excess heat into the hammer in his hand. Fiery flames instantly blazed across the hammer's surface. It became a streaking fireball, crashing again and again against the anvil. The surging heat completely terrified the gnome assisting him. He shrieked, dropped his pointed tongs, and scrambled away on all fours.

Even without the gnome holding the billet steady, William could control every ounce of his strength almost perfectly. The Adamantine seemed rooted to the anvil, unmoving as it took blow after blow from the "flaming hammer."

Moo—! Every time William exhaled, he bellowed, like a massive bull mooing at the moon. Gradually, after the bloodline power reached its peak, it began to sink and settle. His muscles, bones, and organs felt hot and itchy, as though gently roasted over a low flame. Nearly intoxicated by the feeling, William couldn't help letting out a long howl, but the sound that emerged was still a Wild Ox Roar.