Forging Luo Feng's First Blade

July 3rd.

Before dawn had even broken, Luo Feng had already arrived at the Martial Arts Hall to hone his surging strength and speed.

"3567kg." This was Luo Feng's current punching power.

Relying on this strength, he had unsurprisingly obtained a "Special Recruitment Contract" along with the keys to a detached villa in the Bright Moon Residential District. Upon returning home, Luo Feng first shared the joy with his parents.

Once he had finished dealing with family matters, Luo Feng arrived at the doorstep of Shi Fen's home, feeling conflicted and unsure of how to break the news to him.

Luo Feng sighed helplessly and knocked on the door gently.

"Knock, knock, knock."

The moment Luo Feng knocked, Shi Fen knew what had happened; he opened the door with a smile on his face.

Luo Feng walked into the living room and said hesitantly, "That... Brother Shi... There's been a bit of an unexpected situation over the last two days..."

Because their birth dates were so close, the two often called each other "brother," with the distinction between elder and younger never truly set in stone. Which title they used depended entirely on their mood at the time.

Seeing the faint smile that never left Shi Fen's face, Luo Feng finally told him about his recent "gains," though he kept his status as a Spirit Reader to himself.

Shi Fen played along with Luo Feng's words, acting extremely surprised.

"That's a good thing, why are you so conflicted? It's not like we can't be neighbors anymore; the Bright Moon Residential District isn't far away. Besides, my own strength isn't far from becoming a martial artist either. Before long, we'll be neighbors again."

Hearing this, Luo Feng felt greatly relieved. He punched Shi Fen in the chest, and a brilliant smile returned to his face.

"Damn, your strength has skyrocketed, are you trying to kill me?" Shi Fen pretended to be in pain, laughing.

The two laughed together, "wrestling into a ball" without a care for their image.

Unable to sleep due to his extreme excitement that night, Luo Feng rushed back to Shi Fen's place, "conscripting" him to start working on the custom battle blade. With 1 million in cash from Zhou Huayang's "tribute" now in his account, his confidence was sky-high!

Shi Fen didn't mind; most of his consciousness was in the Image Space, studying Basic Secret Patterns, so external matters didn't significantly affect his rate of comprehension.

The two chatted for the entire night before finally finalizing the preliminary blueprints for the battle blade.

It wasn't that Luo Feng didn't want to keep talking, but he had to go back to move house.

While Shi Fen was busy moving, to prevent any forging failures, he went online and ordered 200kg of Blue Gold, planning to fire up the furnace in a few days to forge Luo Feng's blade.

200kg of Blue Gold cost Shi Fen 620,000 yuan, which made his heart ache. It wasn't the price that pained him, but the difficulty of acquiring it.

For commoners, Blue Gold was a restricted item.

He had purchased it using the account of the "Three Stones" studio. As a moderately famous forging studio, "Three Stones" had only gained the permit to purchase Blue Gold at the end of April. Without that permit, Shi Fen would never have considered forging a weapon for Luo Feng.

Thinking about the "Child of the Plane," Luo Feng, and that his first blade would come from his own hands, he felt a faint sense of excitement. This was a thrill he wouldn't share with anyone.

This was a joy that belonged solely to Shi Fen.

With the current status of "Three Stones" in the forging world, they only had a normal purchase quota of 20kg per month. To buy more Blue Gold, the unit price had to be at least tripled, with no upper limit on the multiplier. Not only that, but to purchase large quantities, one had to pay extra and specify the intended use.

Uses like internal studio maintenance wouldn't qualify for Blue Gold purchases. It had to be related to martial artists to have any chance of success.

If not for the fact that he was forging a blade for Luo Feng, Shi Fen felt he wouldn't have been able to buy so much; 200kg of Blue Gold was likely the limit for Luo Feng's current status.

If they were lucky, the Blue Gold left over from this forging, combined with the 60kg he had bought previously, would allow them to start experimenting with creating "Kro Alloy." This was also thanks to Luo Feng's "genius" status.

To be precise, it was actually a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Blue Gold was a fantastic material.

It had high density, high hardness, and its toughness and other metallic properties were far superior to any top-tier steel. Most importantly, Blue Gold possessed excellent "compatibility" and "inclusivity"; it could be fused with monster materials, further enhancing the metal's performance!

Many forging studios, through years of accumulation, possessed their own unique methods for creating "Kro Alloy."

While Shi Fen's Extreme Forging contained even higher-tier methods, he didn't intend to try them for this project. If he failed during a real-world forging, the Blue Gold would be wasted, and its value would plummet. Furthermore, since he was forging a large piece, Shi Fen couldn't afford a failure.

At the end of April this year, when "Three Stones" gained the qualification to purchase Blue Gold, Shi Fen had decisively decided to build a new forging room.

He rented the shop next to "Three Stones," spared no expense on renovations, tore down the original steel floor additions, cleared out all the rooms in the shop, and after reinforcing the structure, turned the space—which originally had many rooms—into one large hall with a 5-meter ceiling.

It was a proper, large-scale warehouse!

He hired a professional team to convert this warehouse into a high-tier Forging Room and bought a large number of tools made from ordinary Kro Alloy. From then on, he and his father could study the forging of Blue Gold and Kro Alloy inside.

After all these operations, the money Shi Fen had earned from years of stock trading, his own little nest egg, and the savings of his parents and brother were completely exhausted. Over 50 million was spent down to the last cent.

After the Forging Room was completed, the remaining money in the family was less than 30,000.

However, this hadn't reached the point of breaking their bones; after delivering a batch of orders, their liquid capital became sufficient once again. With more funds entering Shi Fen's coffers, he continued to double his money in the stock market.

Shi Fen's master-level forging skills could be called a "small, human-shaped money printer."

Shi Fen didn't care much about the stock market now; making money there was quite mentally taxing. To earn another 50 million in the market, even someone as cunning as Shi Fen would have to expend a great deal of energy.

Once he forged Kro Alloy or Blue Gold cold weapons, that would be much faster than the stock market. Besides, he was currently pouring all his energy into comprehending the Basic Secret Patterns, and stock trading was merely "leisure and entertainment."

Shi Fen couldn't keep his eyes glued to stock market news all day. The money he'd been making from trading lately was meager, but even the smallest mosquito had meat on its bones.

After Luo Feng moved to Bright Moon Residential District, aside from going to the Martial Arts Hall for training every day, he became a total homebody. He visited his old house so frequently that he became a regular topic of neighborhood gossip.

"I heard that Luo Feng moving to Bright Moon Residential District is a lie; it was Luo Hua who rented a big place outside. Why show off like that? Now he's running back home every single day."

"What are you talking about? I heard their family ran into trouble. Luo Hua's investment failed, and they went into hiding to dodge debts..."

"Oh? Is that so? Tell me more..."

Shi Fen scoffed at this, not bothering to pay it any mind.

Seven days later, two men with a craving for perfection designed a battle blade of artistic caliber.

When Luo Feng saw the final blueprints, he felt they had gone too far. He highly doubted Shi Fen could actually forge a blade of such artistic quality, and even if he did, Luo Feng feared it would be nothing more than a pretty ornament—all show and no substance.

In short, he was conflicted.

Seeing the look of absolute confidence on Shi Fen's face, Luo Feng felt too embarrassed to say anything, so he just braced himself and waited.

July 21st, morning.

After more than ten days of waiting, the 200kg of Blue Gold finally arrived at the studio.

Knowing the shipment was coming, Shi Fen waited at the studio early to receive the goods personally. After hauling the Blue Gold into the Forging Room, he dialed Luo Feng.

"Luo Feng, the Blue Gold is here. Come to the Forging Room now. If you're lucky, you might be able to take your blade home today!"

"Alright! I'm on my way."

Luo Feng ended the call and sprinted at full speed, flying toward the Three Stones studio.

When Luo Feng arrived, Shi Fen was already busy with the preparations for forging.

"Ah, why didn't you wait for me before starting? I said I wanted to record the whole process!" Seeing that Shi Fen had already begun, Luo Feng panicked, whipped out his phone, and scrambled to start the recording.

Shi Fen glanced at Luo Feng's phone and retorted helplessly, "Cutting a block of Blue Gold doesn't count as the start of forging. If that counts, you might as well record from the refining process—you've got the energy to hold that phone up the whole time, anyway."

"Uh..." Realizing his "layman talk" had offended the expert, Luo Feng was too embarrassed to speak, his hand hovering in the air, unsure whether to put the phone down or keep holding it.

Seeing Luo Feng caught in a dilemma, Shi Fen continued, "Just keep recording. It'll be over soon enough."

"Uh, alright."

Luo Feng didn't dare offend his "Forging Master," so he gave a nod, stood obediently by Shi Fen's side to record, and kept his mouth shut.

Shi Fen cut the 200kg metal block into 10 equal pieces, each weighing exactly 20kg and roughly the size of one and a half adult male fists.

"This Blue Gold is something else. Just this little bit of work ruined three saw blades. If I mess up today, I'm going to take a huge loss!" Hearing Shi Fen mutter to himself, Luo Feng grew nervous, following Shi Fen's movements and constantly adjusting his camera angles.

Shi Fen picked up six of the pieces and placed them into the Heating Furnace, swiping across the control screen to crank the temperature to the maximum.

In the gap while waiting for the heating, Shi Fen began putting on a specialized Heat-Insulation Suit. Seeing Luo Feng aiming the lens at him, he couldn't help but laugh, "You're not a very professional cameraman, are you? Recording people getting dressed, too."

Luo Feng laughed, "This is a raw recording of a master's forging process—it's authentic!" He had no intention of moving the lens, filming Shi Fen intensely until he was fully suited up before finally pointing the camera at the Heating Furnace.

Shi Fen rolled his eyes, ignoring Luo Feng as he focused on putting on his protective gear.

The Blue Gold needed to be heated to nearly 6,000 degrees before forging could begin.

With his current strength, which was "less than" a prospective martial artist, he definitely couldn't withstand heat waves of this magnitude. As a necessary disguise, the suit was indispensable. For the forging about to begin, he would use techniques only a smith with low physical strength would employ.

A performance, after all, requires a full commitment.

After all, since he currently had "low strength," he couldn't hammer large chunks of metal and had to work with smaller pieces.

After a short wait, the six pieces of metal in the furnace turned a dazzling gold. Just looking at them, one could imagine how terrifying the temperature inside was.

Shi Fen walked up to the furnace, turned to Luo Feng, and shouted from inside his suit, "Stay back, brother! I'm starting!"

Luo Feng immediately retreated, making sure to keep the phone steady as he moved. Only after Luo Feng had backed away three or four meters did Shi Fen feel safe enough to open the furnace door.

As the door opened, a terrifying wave of heat surged out from the chamber.

The ventilation system in the Forging Room detected the temperature spike and immediately activated the exhaust fans. Massive amounts of hot air were sucked out of the room, replaced by fresh air, allowing the ambient temperature to stabilize quickly.

Luo Feng was holding his phone from a distance, but when he felt the heat, he was startled and took a few more steps back. If he could feel such terrifying heat from this far away, he could only imagine how much worse it was near the furnace.

6,000 degrees Celsius—that was the temperature of the sun's surface!

With Luo Feng's current strength, he felt he would be reduced to ashes if he got any closer.

Shi Fen, wearing the heat-insulation suit, felt almost nothing of the external heat; the biggest source of heat inside the suit was actually himself. Relying on this expensive gear, Shi Fen could do whatever he pleased.