"Brother Long, so you know how to forge too?"
Whenever forging was mentioned, Tang Wulin felt as though he had found another source of comfort on his disappointing path as a Soul Master.
So when he discovered that his close friend could forge as well, he was naturally delighted and excited.
"But, Brother Long, why don't you use a forging hammer? Why did you choose this kind of..."
Tang Wulin did not dare finish, because he knew that not every flower, blade of grass, or tree in the world could be beautiful in the same way. There would always be one or two that stood apart.
Perhaps standing apart was precisely someone else's unique way of surviving.
Long Zijin did not bother explaining that the Crow-Absolute Stone was part of his body. Using his forearm as the hammer handle and the black stone in his hand as the hammerhead could produce an effect surpassing "man and hammer as one."
He simply tossed the Crow-Absolute Stone in his hand and said, "This is my Martial Soul."
That explained not only why the Crow-Absolute Stone could change shape and enter his body, but also this brutally unconventional forging method.
"A stone Martial Soul?" Tang Wulin caught the Crow-Absolute Stone. Its astonishing weight made him stumble forward, like thinking he had picked up an empty bottle, only to find it was filled with lead.
"What a heavy black stone!"
Long Zijin briefly explained, "This Martial Soul is called Crow-Absolute Stone. It is part of my Martial Soul. It feels unusually heavy and can even suppress the circulation of Soul Power."
"It's that amazing?" Tang Wulin exclaimed, feeling as though his Tough Grass Martial Soul had found a companion.
Unable to resist his professional habit as a blacksmith, he tapped the Crow-Absolute Stone with his knuckles, then quietly listened to its sound...
"Brother Long, you're incredible!" Tang Wulin gave him a thumbs-up.
He said excitedly, "Brother Long, you really are a genius. This Crow-Absolute Stone doesn't contain the slightest impurity. You must have purified it through Thousand-Refinement."
"Thousand-refining your own stone Martial Soul—there can't be another idea like that anywhere on the continent!"
However, Long Zijin shook his head. "No. My Crow-Absolute Stone Martial Soul is naturally pure. It was already refined a hundred times from birth. And because it is my Martial Soul, its internal crystal lattice is extraordinarily uniform. So it is a rare material that was Thousand-Refined from the start."
"Huh?" Tang Wulin froze, holding the black stone at a loss. That feeling of kinship from thinking they both had ordinary Martial Souls vanished in an instant.
But Long Zijin had put it very conservatively, because forging materials were classified as: Hundred-Refinement, Thousand-Refinement, Spirit Refinement, Soul Refinement, and Heaven Refinement.
The Crow-Absolute Stone already possessed independent spirituality and contained a mental illusion realm within it. It was completely a rare Soul Refinement-grade material.
As long as it underwent a single Heaven Refinement, the laws of heaven and earth within it could be awakened, such as "love" among the seven emotions. It could then rise in a single step to become a Heaven Refinement-grade material.
Naturally, this was also the evolutionary path the Dragon Emperor had laid out for the Crow-Absolute Stone Martial Soul with his world-shaking wisdom.
After all, God Rank was not the end. It was only the beginning...
Long Zijin stepped aside and pointed at the Amethyst Blade Blank. "Come, give it a try."
Tang Wulin had long been eager to try. He immediately went around the Holy Dragon King and walked up to the forging table.
Looking at the black stone layer atop the forging table and the red ring embedded in its center, it seemed that the flames used for forging were supplied by that red ring.
Tang Wulin carefully avoided the curtain of fire, then raised the Crow-Absolute Stone high. Copying Brother Long's usual method of exerting force, he aimed at an uneven spot on the Amethyst Blade Blank and brought it down with all his strength.
Clang!
Instead of two clear, melodious rings, there came a piercing, dull noise.
Tang Wulin shuddered as if struck by a chill. After trembling in place for several waves, his entire right hand began shaking nonstop.
A painful numbness spread through his right arm, as though every God Rank network below his right shoulder had been shattered by the rebounding force in an instant...
Fortunately, a thread of warm current emerged from between his muscles and bones in time, gradually offsetting the numbness and slowly repairing the damaged tissue.
"Brother, Brother Long." Tang Wulin's upper and lower teeth clattered together, as though the aftershock of the rebound was still raging through him.
At that moment, he began doubting his own thousand-pound strength, and he could only form one impression of this piece of amethyst ore:
"So, so hard..."
Yet Long Zijin merely shook his head lightly, flicked a finger, retrieved the Crow-Absolute Stone through the air, and instructed, "Go out and play. Come back at dinner."
Tang Wulin suffered another blow.
But his naturally stubborn nature made his gaze suddenly firm. "Brother Long, maybe my method of exerting force and my tool were wrong. I want to try using a hammer."
Long Zijin raised one eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
Tang Wulin clenched his right hand before him and nodded emphatically. "Yes!"
However, two seconds later...
Bang!
Crash, crackle...
Whoosh—
With one hammer blow, Tang Wulin stood dumbly in place, his trembling left hand gripping only the half-broken handle of the Tungsten Steel Hammer.
He had just summed up his experience and used a completely different method of exerting force, intending to press the force rebounding into his palm back down.
In the end, the Tungsten Steel Hammer that had accompanied him for three years shattered into debris all over the floor after a single strike, crushed from both sides by the Amethyst Blade Blank's rebounding force and the rebounding force his left hand had pushed back...
Tang Wulin held the fragments of tungsten steel and squatted there, on the verge of tears.
"What kind of material is this? Why is it so strangely hard?"
Long Zijin was almost too honest. "It's a bit of bone from the end of my spine."
Tang Wulin said with some embarrassment and annoyance, "Brother Long, you don't need to tease me to cheer me up. I'm not a child anymore. I won't cry."
"And in three days at most, I'll have a new set of forging hammers, forged from Deep Silver."
Then came his curiosity. "By the way, are you planning to use that rare material to make claw blades for a medium-sized mecha?"
Long Zijin shook his head and lifted his chin toward the doorway. "My bodyguard, Old Di, lost the machete he carried with him. So I'm working day and night now to forge him a handy new blade."
"Is that so?" Tang Wulin turned around, scratched his head, and laughed. "Then Uncle Di was pretty careless too, but I guess it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Heheh~"
Ever since his stomach had been filled, Tang Wulin had not been in a bad mood once.
But Di Guangming looked at the Golden Dragon King's host, who was grinning foolishly, and suddenly fell silent. Then, for no apparent reason, he said, "Call me Uncle Di Bo or Grandpa Di instead. You'll meet an Uncle Di later."
"Huh?" Tang Wulin did not understand and scratched the back of his head even harder.
But seeing how young the Holy Dragon King looked, he chose to say, "All right, Uncle Di Bo."
Di Guangming could not resist reaching out and rubbing Tang Wulin's head.
For the rest of the days after graduation...
Tang Wulin traveled between home, the Spirit Pagoda, and Mang Tian Studio.
After three days, he finally forged that piece of Blood-Sacrifice Thousand-Refined Deep Silver into a finished product. Carrying the pair of Thousand-Refinement Deep Silver Hammers, he silently "showed off" before Long Zijin, a fellow blacksmith.
Though he was mature for his age, he was still only a nine-year-old child. He could not help feeling proud of his first Thousand-Refinement finished product, one that filled him with such a sense of accomplishment.
Though his face was brimming with a happy smile, Tang Wulin knew that these well-fed and carefree days would only grow fewer. He cherished each day more than the last.
Because...
The day of parting was drawing near.
Before you continue