Blacksmith's Work, Metal Devour

"Dare."

Tang San answered with a single word, his hand gripping the hammer handle again.

Shi San let go and stepped aside. "Then hammer it. Don't expect to finish in one go. Ironmother isn't the same as pig iron—you can't beat it into submission with brute force."

Xiao Wu sat by the door with her chin resting in both hands. "Hammering iron again. You men are so boring."

Shi San chuckled. "Little girl, once this piece of ironmother is forged, it'll buy you good meals for a month."

Xiao Wu immediately sat up straight. "It's that valuable?"

Tang San glanced at her. "That's why you shouldn't touch it carelessly."

"I'm not stupid."

Xiao Wu refused to admit defeat, but she still shifted back a little.

Ji Yuan paid them no mind.

His roots had already slipped through the cracks beneath his shoes and burrowed into the ground, moving soundlessly through the crushed charcoal ash and iron filings.

The blacksmith shop's floor had been baked hard by fire for years. Ordinary roots could never penetrate it, but the Bloodthirsty Demon Vine had been nourished by Datura Snake venom and the origin essence of a hundred-thousand-year soul beast. Its fine roots could creep along the cracks between stones.

The anvil's base was right ahead.

The first hammer blow fell.

Clang!

The ironmother showed no obvious deformation. Instead, it sent the shock back into Tang San's arm.

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

Shi San reminded him, "Don't fight it head-on. Use the force that comes back."

Tang San nodded, bringing down the second hammer along with the rebound.

The spores hidden in Ji Yuan's hammer handle continued recording the trajectory of Disorder Splitting Wind, while the main body beneath his shoes focused on the space under the anvil.

His roots pressed against the anvil's base.

Hot.

Heavy.

After the ironmother was struck, faint vibrations traveled down through the anvil. Ji Yuan sensed the scattered metallic sharpness within them and immediately split off even finer roots to climb upward.

Tang San hammered above.

Ji Yuan fed below.

But the first bite did not go smoothly.

When his roots touched the underside of the ironmother, the resistance from its surface kept Ji Yuan's suckers from piercing in.

There was no flesh, no fluid, no meridians—only a cold, hard structure and tiny cracks loosened by the hammer blows.

Ji Yuan mobilized the Datura Snake venom.

The venom seeped from the tips of his roots and coated the underside of the ironmother.

The corrosion was slow.

Only a faint dark mark appeared on the metal surface.

Ji Yuan immediately changed tactics. Instead of forcing his way through, he sent venom into the patterns shaken open by each of Tang San's hammer strikes.

The third hammer.

The fourth.

The fifth.

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

Under the continuous heavy blows, the ironmother finally heated up. Its internal impurities were compressed, and a faint metallic aura began to leak out.

Ji Yuan seized those escaping traces. His root suckers clung to the patterns, slowly curling away the scattered sharpness.

The first strand of ironmother essence entered the Demon Vine's main body.

A stabbing pain spread beneath the dark-purple vine bark.

This was different from blood energy. Rather than nourishing him after entering his body, it scraped painfully against his energy channels.

Ji Yuan did not stop.

Pain meant it was working.

If the vine wanted to grow stronger, flexibility alone was not enough. It also needed hardness.

By Tang San's twelfth hammer, sweat had already formed on his forehead.

Xiao Wu could not help shouting, "Tang San, if you can't keep going, then stop!"

Tang San's hands never paused. "I'm still fine."

Shi San stared at the ironmother. "Fine my ass. Your wrist is already shaking."

Tang San did not argue.

He truly was struggling.

The iron mother was far heavier than yesterday's pig iron. Every rebound left his arms numb, but the more it tested him, the more it honed his Disorder Splitting Wind.

As Tang San's Mysterious Heaven Skill began circulating faster, Ji Yuan drew away the leaking inner power from the edge of his heart meridian, then sent it into his roots to help corrode the iron mother.

The dark patch at the bottom of the iron mother spread slightly.

But that subtle change was hidden above the anvil, unseen by anyone.

Shi San watched as the iron mother above had shrunk by a full circle and frowned. "Strange. It shed its impurities that quickly?"

The worker beside him leaned closer. "Uncle Shi, is Tang San's hammering really that impressive?"

Shi San glared at him. "Watch the fire. Don't get too close."

Xiao Wu caught the smell of heat and pinched her nose. "Why does this stupid iron smell so weird?"

Tang San paused. "It smells weird?"

Xiao Wu nodded. "A little sour."

Shi San waved a hand. "The impurities are being forced out of the iron mother. It's normal for there to be a smell."

Ji Yuan drew back some of the venom.

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

When the eighteenth hammer fell, the internal structure of the iron mother finally loosened further, and Ji Yuan's roots burrowed into a fine crack at its base.

The sharp metallic essence flowed back through the roots, and a faint silvery gray appeared at the base of the demon vine's barbs.

Ji Yuan immediately compressed it.

He could not let Tang San notice the change in weight beneath his sole.

By the twenty-fourth hammer, Tang San's shoulders and arms were aching and swollen, and his Mysterious Heaven Skill's inner power was beginning to fail to keep up.

He gritted his teeth and continued.

Shi San frowned. "Stop for a moment."

Tang San shook his head. "I haven't reached my limit yet."

Xiao Wu sprang up from the doorway. "Tang San, can't you understand plain speech? Master just said you weren't allowed to push yourself."

The hammer in Tang San's hand halted in midair.

Ji Yuan's heart sank.

If he stopped now, Ji Yuan would not get to consume the iron mother's essence scattered by the later impacts.

So he pushed back a bit of the inner power he had previously siphoned away from deep within Tang San's meridians, briefly dispelling the hollow sense of depletion in Tang San's chest.

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

Xiao Wu stared at him suspiciously. "Really?"

Tang San nodded. "Really."

Shi San looked at his hand. "Ten more strikes. You must stop after ten."

Tang San agreed. "All right."

Ji Yuan sneered inwardly.

Ten strikes were enough.

With every hammer that followed, Tang San layered Disorder Splitting Wind with greater force. The surface of the iron mother began to shine, its internal impurities were forced out, and its volume continued to shrink.

Shi San watched with both heartache and excitement. "Good material, good technique. If this iron mother is forged properly, it can produce superior refined iron."

Tang San's eyes brightened as well.

He was already calculating potential hidden weapons.

Sleeve arrows, flying needles, mechanisms—all of them required better materials.

But he did not know that the iron mother's true essence was flowing from its base into the hidden layer beneath his shoe.

A dim metallic sheen coated Ji Yuan's demon vine, its barbed edges grew harder, and its vine skin was no longer merely tough—it now possessed the hardness to resist cutting.

After the thirty-fourth hammer fell, Tang San finally stopped.

The iron mother was clearly a full circle smaller than it had been at the start.

Shi San picked it up with tongs and turned it over repeatedly, his brow knitting tighter and tighter. "That's not right. It didn't have that many impurities. How did it lose so much material?"

The worker said, "Could some have been knocked away? There were a lot of sparks just now."

Shi San lowered his head to inspect the floor, but found very few fragments.

Tang San was puzzled as well.

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

Ji Yuan immediately controlled his roots, shifting several bits of iron filings on the ground into obvious places, then corroding them into black slag with a trace of leftover venom.

When Shi San saw it, he cursed, "How did you lot clean up? The floor's covered in scraps. No wonder you couldn't see clearly."

The workers hurriedly lowered their heads and admitted their mistake.

Tang San picked up a small piece of refined iron scrap, and the doubts in his heart lessened somewhat.

Shi San handed him part of the refined iron essence. "Today's wages aren't enough to cover this material, so I'm giving you a discount. Take it back and practice with it. Don't waste it."

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

Xiao Wu leaned closer to look. "Such a tiny piece—what can it make?"

Tang San put it into his belt. "It can make many things."

Ji Yuan hid beneath the sole of his shoe and disdainfully withdrew his roots.

The good stuff had already gone into his stomach.

What Tang San took was only the remaining shell.

That night, after returning to the Seventh Dormitory, Tang San did not join Wang Sheng and the others in their chatting. Instead, he used the lamplight to work on that piece of refined iron essence.

Xiao Wu lay beside him and watched for a while before yawning. "You're not sleeping again?"

Without looking up, Tang San said, "I want to sort out the materials for the sleeve arrows first."

Xiao Wu snorted. "If you cough up blood again, I'm really going to find the master."

"I won't."

"You say that every time."

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

Xiao Wu stared at him for a while. In the end, she hugged her pillow and turned over. "I'm going to sleep. Don't make noise."

While Tang San focused on his hidden weapons, Ji Yuan began digesting the essence of the iron core.

The sharp metallic energy rampaged through the demon vine's interior. If he had been an ordinary Blue Silver Grass, he would have burst apart long ago.

But Xiao Wu's origin had laid a foundation within him. His vitality was enough to repair the energy channels sliced open by the metal aura.

It destroyed as it repaired.

His barbs grew harder and harder.

His vine skin tightened further and further.

By the latter half of the night, Ji Yuan tried bending a thin vine within the hidden layer of the shoe sole. The vine tip brushed across the old cloth, and the cloth immediately split open with a tear.

Ji Yuan withdrew the vine tip and contentedly suppressed his aura.

Ordinary blades and swords would now find it difficult to cut him apart.

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

He should not have been cultivating, but forging today had drained him too much. If he did not circulate the Mysterious Heaven Skill, his meridians would instead feel hollow.

Xiao Wu turned over and asked, "What are you doing?"

Tang San said quietly, "Just regulating my breath, not breaking through."

Xiao Wu opened her eyes. "Really?"

"Really."

Xiao Wu watched him for a moment, then closed her eyes again, too sleepy to stay awake. "I'm listening."

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

Ji Yuan had just finished swallowing the iron core and had not planned to draw any more. But after Tang San's inner strength circulated once through his body, a sudden swelling sensation arose from deep within his dantian.

That was not ordinary recovery.

It was the sign that a bottleneck was about to break open.

The second level of the Mysterious Heaven Skill was about to arrive.

Ji Yuan spread his parasitic web to its fullest, its suckers fastening onto Tang San's heart meridian, dantian, and the edges of his bone marrow.

Tang San still had his eyes closed, completely unaware that the rich feast he had painstakingly cultivated had already caught the attention of the demon vine beneath his shoe.

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

Tang San had just been about to answer when the inner strength in his body began charging toward the bottleneck.

Ji Yuan's barbs all sprang open.

It was ready to be harvested.