Over the next few days, Lan Tian shut himself in the workshop beneath the castle.
The workshop was a basement he had specifically reserved when the castle was completed. He had reinforced the walls and ceiling with Blue Silver Divine Vine, then layered a Soundproof Formation Diagram and an Aura Concealment Formation Diagram over the entrance. Even if he tested weapons at full power inside, no one outside would sense it.
Inside stood a small furnace he had assembled himself, its firebox using fragments of Guiding Stone as a heat source. Its temperature was several times higher than ordinary charcoal fire, enough to smelt rare metals such as Mysterious Iron and Star Iron.
Beside it was a set of forging tools—hammers, tongs, an anvil, and a quenching trough—each specially commissioned from a blacksmith shop in Nuoding City.
A wooden rack against the wall held several whetstones and files, as well as a fine scraper for refining metal surfaces.
Three rare metals were neatly arranged on the workbench.
The surface of the Star Iron shimmered with tiny points of light beneath the lamp, like a small stretch of starlit river compressed into solid form.
The Essence Gold billet carried a warm, muted golden sheen. Its texture was uniform and dense, and when weighed in the hand, it felt far heavier than its size suggested.
The Mysterious Iron ore was cold and hard to the touch, its rough surface covered by a natural dark gray oxide layer.
Several repeatedly revised blueprints lay spread out nearby. The pencil marks had grown somewhat blurred, and the corners had curled from being handled so often. Dimensions, angles, and structural details were marked across them, every value having undergone countless deliberations and revisions.
He spent three full days first smelting the Mysterious Iron ore, repeatedly hammering