Black Stone Fortress

The group had been walking for nearly a full week.

Finally, a sprawling expanse of tents appeared ahead.

Blackstone Fortress.

The northern gateway of the Orenda Kingdom.

It was also the graveyard for countless souls.

The fortress was built against the mountains, its towering walls constructed entirely of massive obsidian blocks. They were covered in the marks of blades and chisels, along with vast, dark red stains—the imprints left by countless wars over the past few centuries.

Before they even drew near, a thick, pungent scent of blood assaulted them.

It was not the kind of smell that came from slaughtering a few chickens or ducks.

It was a murderous aura forged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

The group came to a halt.

An officer wearing standard-issue armor and riding a tall warhorse led a squad of cavalry to meet them.

The officer looked quite young, but his eyes were as cold as two blocks of ice.

He swept a glance over the ragged recruits, his brow furrowing so tightly it could have crushed a fly.

"This is it?"

The young officer turned to the bearded man in charge of the escort. "Is this the reinforcement you sent from Grey Gull Port? A bunch of beggars? Refugees? I asked for warriors! Men who can hold a sword and hack down an enemy! Not this pack of useless trash who can barely walk straight!"

The bearded man hurriedly offered a fawning smile.

"My lord, you know how it is—able-bodied men are hard to come by these days. These are the healthiest ones from our area. Look at that one..."

The bearded man pointed at Su Li.

"That one is a blacksmith! He's got great skill! And that one over there is a butcher! They've all got some strength in them!"

The young officer followed the direction of the finger and glanced at Su Li.

He paused for a moment.

He likely hadn't expected to see such a "fine specimen" among this pile of garbage.

"A blacksmith?"

The young officer rode his horse up to Su Li, looking down at him from his saddle. "Can you forge?"

Su Li raised his head, meeting the gaze of the man on horseback.

"A little."

"Take him." The young officer turned his horse around, not bothering to waste any more breath.

Two fully armed soldiers stepped forward, flanking Su Li on either side.

The officer ignored the bearded man still fawning nearby and rode straight into the fortress.

Pete poked his head out from the crowd, wanting to shout, but swallowed the words back down.

The roads inside the fortress were riddled with potholes. Dark red blood clots had accumulated on the bluestone slabs.

Patrolling guards and stretchers carrying the wounded were everywhere. The heavy stench of blood rushed straight into their noses.

After turning two corners, a row of tall sheds appeared ahead. Several furnaces belching black smoke were burning fiercely.

A wave of heat hit them. Over a dozen shirtless men were swinging heavy hammers, pounding away at glowing red chunks of iron.

This was the fortress armory.

The officer dismounted, tossed his whip to a personal guard, and pointed a finger at an empty anvil.

"Get on it."

Su Li walked over to the anvil.

"The army is short on blacksmiths; this work is precious." The officer walked to the furnace, picked up a crudely made iron sword, and tossed it at Su Li's feet with a clang. "But I have no room for waste. Forge a sword that can be used, and you live—you'll eat meat at every meal. Fail, and the mass grave outside is currently short on filler."

The rules were simple and brutal. Su Li actually liked it. It was much more straightforward than those twisty, turny noble lords.

"The fire isn't hot enough." Su Li kicked the bellows nearby.

An old blacksmith with a scarred face standing nearby snorted through his nose when he heard this.

He stepped forward, grabbed the leather handle of the bellows, and pumped it back and forth with violent force. The flames in the furnace shot up high.

Su Li untied the cloth bundle on his back and pulled out the small iron hammer he had used for sixty years.

The hammerhead was small, and the wooden handle had long since been polished smooth by sweat.

Among a group of burly men wielding dozens of pounds of heavy hammers, Su Li looked exactly like a greenhorn on a stage.

The old blacksmith curled his lip, waiting to see a joke.

Su Li picked out a piece of pig iron, clamped it with long-handled tongs, and steadily shoved it into the center of the furnace fire.

The temperature climbed rapidly.

The [Sword Spirit Root] began to circulate.

The thin spiritual energy in the air flowed in a steady stream into his limbs and bones with every breath Su Li took. As he gripped Xiao Chui, that familiar sense of unity between man and hammer returned once more.

The iron block burned until it was glowing red.

Su Li flipped his wrist, pulled the iron block out, and slammed it onto the anvil.

He raised the hammer.

He struck down.

"Clang!"

The sound of the forging was crisp and melodious.

It was all basic forging, devoid of any unnecessary flourishes.

With every hammer blow from Su Li, the impurities within the pig iron were forcibly squeezed out bit by bit.

His strength was surprisingly great, yet his movements were light and agile. The small hammer danced up and down in his hands, its rhythmic striking strangely synchronized with the beating of his heart.

Hammer blow after hammer blow followed. White smoke rose continuously.

The old blacksmith, who had been waiting to see a joke, slowly stopped smiling. One look at an expert's technique was enough to know the truth.

In less than an hour, the rough blank of a sword had taken shape.

Su Li used tongs to grip the sword blank and submerged the entire thing into the water trough beside him.

"Hiss—"

A large plume of white smoke billowed upward.

A fully formed longsword was lifted out.

The blade shimmered with a strange, greenish-gray hue.

Su Li grabbed a whetstone and rubbed it along the edge a few times.

"Done." Su Li reversed the hilt and handed it to the officer.

The officer reached out and took it.

It was unexpectedly heavy. He flicked his finger against the spine of the sword.

"Hum!" A long, resonant sound echoed through the shed.

Standing nearby was a wooden dummy used for testing swords. It was wrapped in two layers of thick cowhide, with solid hardwood inside.

The officer gripped the sword with one hand and slashed diagonally at the wooden dummy.

"Swish."

It was as smooth as cutting through tofu.

The cowhide-wrapped solid wooden dummy was severed in two on the spot.

The top half rolled onto the ground with a clatter. The cut was so smooth it could reflect a person's image.

The officer's hand, still gripping the sword, froze in mid-air.

He stared at the longsword in his hand, then looked at the severed wood on the ground. The core of this wooden dummy contained a layer of iron rod!

With just this iron sword, which hadn't even undergone a detailed sharpening, he had forcibly sliced through an iron rod?