The Blacksmith's Job and the Devouring of Metal

"I dare."

Tang San answered with just one word and gripped the hammer handle again.

Shi San let go and stepped aside. "Then start hammering. Don't expect to finish it in one go. Iron mother isn't like pig iron. You can't beat it into submission with brute force."

Xiao Wu sat by the door, chin propped in both hands. "More blacksmithing. You men are so boring."

Shi San laughed. "Little girl, once this iron mother is worked, it'll pay for a month of good meals for you."

Xiao Wu sat up at once. "It's worth that much?"

Tang San glanced at her. "So don't touch it."

"I'm not stupid."

Xiao Wu talked tough, but she edged back a little.

Ji Yuan ignored them.

His roots had already slipped through a crack in the sole of Tang San's shoe and into the ground, advancing soundlessly between crushed charcoal and iron filings.

Years of furnace heat had baked the smithy floor hard. Ordinary roots could never have burrowed through it, but nourished by Datura Snake venom and a hundred-thousand-year source, the Bloodthirsty Demon Vine could send fine tendrils along the cracks in the stone.

The anvil's base lay just ahead.

The first hammer blow fell.

Clang!

The iron mother barely changed shape. Instead, it sent the shock back up Tang San's arm.

Tang San's wrist dipped, and he immediately circulated the Mysterious Heaven Skill to shed the force.

Shi San called out, "Don't fight it head-on. Use the force it sends back."

Tang San nodded and brought the second blow down with the rebound.

The Sub-spore hidden in the hammer handle kept recording the path of Disorder Splitting Wind, while Ji Yuan's main body in the shoe turned its attention beneath the anvil.

A root pressed against the anvil's base.

Hot.

Heavy.

Each strike on the iron mother sent a faint vibration through the anvil. Ji Yuan sensed the metallic sharpness dispersing within it and sent even finer roots climbing upward.

Tang San hammered above.

Ji Yuan fed below.

But the first bite did not go smoothly.

When a root touched the underside of the iron mother, its hard surface kept Ji Yuan's suction cups from piercing it.

No flesh, no fluids, no meridians. Only a cold, rigid structure and tiny fissures shaken loose by the blows.

Ji Yuan called on the Datura Snake venom.

Venom seeped from the root tip and spread against the iron mother's underside.

The corrosion was slow.

Only a small dark spot appeared on the metal.

Ji Yuan changed tactics at once. Instead of forcing his way through, he sent venom into the seams that opened with each of Tang San's blows.

The third blow.

The fourth.

The fifth.

Tang San's breathing stayed steady as the layered force of Disorder Splitting Wind began to take shape.

Under the repeated heavy strikes, the iron mother finally heated up. Its impurities were squeezed together, and faint traces of metallic energy began to escape.

Ji Yuan seized those escaping traces. His roots' suction cups clung to the seams and drew the scattered sharpness away bit by bit.

The first wisp of the iron mother's essence entered the Demon Vine's body.

Pain prickled beneath its dark purple skin.

This was nothing like blood energy. It offered no nourishment as it entered him. Instead, it scraped painfully through his energy channels.

Ji Yuan did not stop.

Pain meant it was working.

Flexibility alone would not make a vine strong. It needed hardness too.

By Tang San's twelfth blow, sweat had gathered on his forehead.

Xiao Wu could not help calling out, "Tang San, stop if you can't do it."

Tang San kept hammering. "I can manage."

Shi San stared at the iron mother. "Like hell you can. Your wrist is already shaking."

Tang San did not argue.

It was hard going.

The iron mother was far heavier than yesterday's pig iron. Every rebound numbed his arm, but that only made it better practice for Disorder Splitting Wind.

As Tang San circulated the Mysterious Heaven Skill faster, Ji Yuan drew away the inner force spilling from the edge of his Heart Meridian and sent it into his roots to help corrode the iron mother.

The dark patch underneath grew a little wider.

But it was hidden against the anvil. No one saw it.

Shi San watched the iron mother shrink and frowned. "Strange. Is it losing its impurities this quickly?"

An apprentice came over. "Uncle Shi, are Tang San's blows really that powerful?"

Shi San glared at him. "Watch the fire. Don't come so close."

Catching a strange smell in the heat, Xiao Wu pinched her nose. "Why does this lousy iron smell so odd?"

Tang San paused. "It smells odd?"

Xiao Wu nodded. "A little sour."

Shi San waved a hand. "The impurities are being driven out. A smell is normal."

Ji Yuan pulled back some of the venom.

Xiao Wu's senses were sharper than the others'. He could not let her smell any more.

The eighteenth blow fell. The iron mother's inner structure finally loosened further, and Ji Yuan's root pierced a fine seam underneath.

Metallic sharpness flowed back through the root. A faint silver-gray sheen appeared at the base of the Demon Vine's barbs.

Ji Yuan compressed it at once.

He could not let Tang San notice a change in the shoe's weight.

By the twenty-fourth blow, Tang San's shoulder and arm ached, and his Mysterious Heaven Skill Inner Force was beginning to falter.

He gritted his teeth and kept going.

Shi San frowned. "Take a break."

Tang San shook his head. "I'm not spent yet."

Xiao Wu sprang up from the doorway. "Tang San, do you not understand a word anyone says? Grandmaster just told you not to push yourself."

Tang San's hammer stopped in midair.

Ji Yuan's heart sank.

If Tang San stopped now, he would miss the iron mother essence the later blows would shake free.

So Ji Yuan pushed back a little of the inner force he had siphoned away earlier, briefly easing the emptiness in Tang San's chest.

Tang San's arm felt lighter. "I'm not pushing myself. I was just adjusting my breathing."

Xiao Wu eyed him suspiciously. "Really?"

Tang San nodded. "Really."

Shi San looked at his hand. "Ten more blows. You have to stop after that."

Tang San agreed. "All right."

Ji Yuan sneered.

Ten blows were enough.

With every blow that followed, Tang San layered more force into Disorder Splitting Wind. The iron mother's surface began to shine as its impurities were driven out and its size diminished.

Shi San watched, pained and excited at once. "Fine material, fine technique. If you finish working this iron mother, it'll yield top-grade refined iron."

Tang San's eyes lit up too.

He was already planning Hidden Weapons.

The Sleeve Arrow, flying needles, and mechanisms all needed better materials.

But he had no idea the richest essence of the iron mother was flowing out through its underside and into the lining of his shoe.

A dark metallic sheen spread over Ji Yuan's Demon Vine. Its barbs grew harder along the edges, and its skin was no longer merely tough. It now had the hardness to resist cutting.

After the thirty-fourth blow, Tang San finally stopped.

The iron mother was visibly smaller than it had been at the start.

Shi San picked it up with tongs and turned it over and over, his frown deepening. "That's not right. It didn't have that many impurities. Where did so much of it go?"

The apprentice said, "Could it have been knocked away? There were a lot of sparks."

Shi San looked at the floor but found little debris.

Tang San was puzzled too.

He had done the hammering. He knew that much material had not flown off.

Ji Yuan promptly used his roots to nudge several iron filings into plain sight, then corroded them into black slag with a little leftover venom.

Shi San spotted it and swore. "How did you lot clean this place? There's slag all over the floor. No wonder I couldn't see it."

The apprentice hurriedly bowed his head and admitted fault.

Tang San picked up a small offcut of refined iron, and some of his doubts faded.

Shi San handed him a portion of the worked iron mother. "Today's wages won't cover this material, but I'll give you a good price. Take it home to practice with. Don't waste it."

Tang San accepted it with both hands. "Thank you, Uncle Shi."

Xiao Wu leaned in for a look. "What can you make with a little piece like that?"

Tang San tucked it into his belt. "A lot of things."

Hidden in the shoe, Ji Yuan withdrew his roots with disdain.

The good stuff was already in his belly.

Tang San had taken only the shell that remained.

When they returned to Dorm Seven that evening, Tang San did not join Wang Sheng and the others in their chatter. Instead, he used the lamplight to work on the refined iron mother.

Xiao Wu watched from beside him for a while, then yawned. "You're not sleeping again?"

Tang San did not look up. "I want to set aside the material for the Sleeve Arrow first."

Xiao Wu huffed. "If you cough up blood again, I really will go get Grandmaster."

"I won't."

"You say that every time."

Tang San's hands paused, and his voice softened. "I'm only making a few small things this time."

Xiao Wu watched him for a moment, then hugged her pillow and rolled over. "I'm going to sleep. Don't make noise."

While Tang San focused on his Hidden Weapon, Ji Yuan began digesting the iron mother essence.

Metallic sharpness rampaged through the Demon Vine. Ordinary Blue Silver Grass would have split open already.

But Xiao Wu's source formed his foundation, giving him enough vitality to repair the energy channels cut by the metallic energy.

Damage, then repair.

His barbs grew harder and harder.

His vine skin grew tighter and tighter.

Late into the night, Ji Yuan tried bending a thin vine inside the shoe's lining. Its tip grazed the old cloth, slicing a slit straight through it.

Ji Yuan drew the tip back and, satisfied, suppressed his aura.

Ordinary blades would have a hard time cutting through him now.

Tang San finally put away his materials and sat cross-legged on the bed.

He should not have cultivated, but blacksmithing had drained him so badly that his meridians felt hollow when he did not circulate the Mysterious Heaven Skill.

Xiao Wu rolled over. "What are you doing?"

Tang San whispered, "Just regulating my breathing. I won't try to break through."

Xiao Wu opened her eyes. "Really?"

"Really."

She watched him for a moment, then closed her eyes again, too sleepy to keep them open. "I'm listening."

Tang San sighed helplessly and began circulating the Mysterious Heaven Skill.

Ji Yuan had just finished devouring the iron mother and had not planned to draw much more from Tang San. But after the inner force completed one circuit through Tang San's body, a sudden swelling rose from deep within his dantian.

That was no ordinary recovery.

It was the first sign of a bottleneck breaking.

The second level of the Mysterious Heaven Skill was close.

Ji Yuan spread the entire Parasitic Network. Its suction cups pressed against the edges of Tang San's Heart Meridian, dantian, and marrow.

Tang San still had his eyes closed, utterly unaware that the Demon Vine in his shoe had set its sights on the feast of inner force he had worked so hard to cultivate.

Xiao Wu suddenly sat up and wrinkled her nose. "Tang San, why do you smell like rust?"

Tang San was about to answer when the inner force inside him surged toward the bottleneck.

Every one of Ji Yuan's barbs sprang open.

Dinner was served.