They All Lived Once [Happy New Year]

As dozens of test takers left the arena one after another, everyone's attention gradually shifted to Lu Li.

After carving the wooden handle, Lu Li inserted the blade into it and secured it with a pin. He then finished with sealing glue and polishing, and the dagger was officially complete.

"Wait, didn't he sharpen the blade? If he didn't, its sharpness is probably limited."

"Look again. I don't think it's that simple. There's probably more to it."

Lu Li handed over the dagger he had forged. The blade tester took it and, as usual, swung it through the air a few times. Then her eyes lit up.

"Fine blade."

Just two words, yet they were the highest praise she had given since the testing began.

"What? She hasn't even chopped the straw dummy yet. How can she already call it a fine blade?"

"You don't understand. Whether a dagger is good or not also depends on how it feels in the hand. One with a good grip is far less likely to slip from your hand in real combat, less likely to injure you, and lets you exert your strength better."

How could it not feel good?

Lu Li had tailored this handle according to the tester's hand measurements. Asking her to sign and engrave her name at the beginning had merely been a smokescreen; Lu Li's true purpose had been to obtain the shape of her hand.

Any clever artificer knew that handles had to be custom-made according to the customer's hand shape. Everyone present fell into no more than two categories.

One kind forged handles based on their own hand shape. They themselves found them comfortable to hold, but the blade tester might not be satisfied.

The other kind had considered that the blade tester was a woman, with smaller palms and fingers, and so forged a handle one size smaller.

But that alone was far from enough. You never knew until you looked—when Lu Li saw those grip marks, even he was startled.

Not only were her hands small, but her five fingers were arranged with unnerving neatness. Her knuckles were exceptionally distinct, leaving clear impressions in the soft clay.

It was precisely because they were arranged too neatly that something was wrong. When normal people relaxed and made a fist, their fingers unconsciously exerted different amounts of force, so the grip marks would vary in depth.

There were four grip marks before him, corresponding to the index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger. They looked as though they had been carved from the same mold, nothing like the work of human hands.

At that moment, a suspicion arose in Lu Li's heart.

The blade tester's hands were not human hands at all, but hands modified with mechanical artifices. They were not enormous like the Monkey King's; from the outside, they looked no different from ordinary hands.

Elder Duan chuckled, then said leisurely, "Not bad. Those indeed aren't human hands, but you've only guessed half of it. To go a step further, that little girl isn't human at all."

"What?"

"She is an automaton puppet."

Lu Li looked at the blade tester again, and a chill crept over him as he considered it more carefully. He scrutinized her features; after Elder Duan's reminder, he truly felt that there was something indescribably strange about her face.

If Lu Ling were refined into an automaton puppet, would she look like this too?

Behind every automaton puppet bearing an artificial artifact spirit was a living, breathing life.

They had all once lived.

As for Lu Li himself, only now could he still be considered alive.

"No, you're lying to me. How could an automaton puppet be made so lifelike? How do you know she's an automaton puppet?"

"The rules."

"The rules?"

"The rules for the Earth-grade artificer examination are like this: the blade tester must be an automaton puppet. This counts as insider knowledge; basically all the sect elders know it. Automaton puppets can precisely control the force and angle of every swing. From beginning to end, every one of her swings was preset."

"Does she... does she know that she was refined into an automaton puppet?"

"What do you think?"

"She should know, shouldn't she?"

Lu Li recalled the scene he had dreamed of earlier: two female disciples of White Moon Palace mocking an automaton-puppet disciple who stupidly could not tell the difference. Yet he always felt that those two female disciples were automaton puppets as well.

"Hey, hey, disciple, what's with that expression? Fundamentally, she's the same as you. Don't you both have vessels constructed from mechanisms hidden inside your chests?"

Lu Li remained silent. At that moment, the blade tester took the dagger Lu Li had handed over and slashed once vertically, once horizontally, and once diagonally at the straw dummy woven from tiger-vine grass. After measuring, the first two cuts were each two inches and three tenths deep, while the third reached three inches and three tenths.

Judging by the depth alone, it could rank among the best of the many mid-tier disciples, though it still fell somewhat short of the handful at the very peak.

At that moment, the blade tester picked up the blade again, only to find that its edge was still completely undamaged.

"Why is that?"

"Wait... could it be!?"

"That's right, he didn't sharpen the blade!"

Sharpening could increase a blade's keenness and the force of its chops. But accordingly, the sharper a dagger was, the more easily its edge would curl. The cost of repairs afterward was secondary; a curled blade suffered a drastic loss in power, and that was the most fatal problem.

Among the works of so many test takers, only Lu Li's had emerged from the chopping completely unscathed.

Taking a step back, after forging and clay-tempering, the material and structure of Lu Li's dagger were enough to crush everyone else's. If he had sharpened it and made the edge even keener, the depth of the cracks caused by its chops would certainly have crushed all the others.

The proctoring disciple gave him a score of eighty-six, the blade tester gave him ninety-six, and Zhong Wenbai gave him ninety-three. After weighting, Lu Li's final score was ninety-two, placing him third among everyone.

As for the score in the practical portion, Lu Li believed that getting an eighty-six meant he had already done everything in his power.

Zhong Wenbai said, "Little Friend Lu, tell this old man—how long have you been studying the art of pincers? And under whom did you study?"

"Reporting to Senior, this junior has studied the art of pincers for roughly four years. During the first year, I studied under a teacher at a private school."

"And after that?"

"Afterward, my family could no longer make ends meet, so I had no choice but to leave the private school and teach myself."

"How long have you practiced stamping mechanisms?"

"Three or four..."

Lu Li hesitated. He was wondering whether he should simply say it outright when someone beside him beat him to that word, their voice hesitant.

"Months?"

"Days."

Lu Li had only been exposed to stamping mechanisms for three or four days. If not for his relatively solid theoretical foundation, his thorough understanding of the Stamping Art, and the fortunate chance to use the Qi-Combining Cauldron to comprehend two killing moves within it, he truly might not have been able to go toe-to-toe with others.

In truth, Lu Li had reached this point mainly through his ultimate understanding of the art of pincers and of materials themselves, rather than through any skillful command of stamping mechanisms.

The moment those words came out, the few people from the middle reaches completely cracked, including the two who had originally bested Lu Li.

"You're talking nonsense! I've cultivated under an Open Source Realm teacher since childhood. There's no way you could reach such a level in three or four days. Absolutely impossible!"

"You country bumpkins cheated! Yes, you must have secretly bribed her at the start. When she used your dagger, she put in more force! I'm going back to tell Uncle Hong and have him come beat you all to death!"

At that moment, someone in the crowd retorted, "If she used more force, then why is his blade still completely intact?"

"Th-This..."

The youth was speechless for a moment. The onlookers also found it inconceivable that Lu Li had reached such a level after practicing for only three or four days, but seeing those young masters from the middle reaches suffer a setback, they were all secretly snickering.

Zou Bufan had been listening from the side all along. At last, he could no longer hold back and said irritably, "Don't get smug. The art of pincers is only a secondary discipline for me. This afternoon's Earth-grade welder assessment is what I'm truly best at. Tell me, how long have you practiced welding?"

"Not long. I only know a little."

"Hmph. Good. Then we'll see."