[The Sapling Has Grown to 100,000 Characters, Time to Eat Meow] It Has Always Been Like This

Close your eyes, and you cannot see. Plug your ears, and you cannot hear.

For an ordinary person whose divine sense was almost negligible, forging in such a state would be nothing but a fool's dream.

But Lu Li was different. He had the Qi-Combining Cauldron, and the gangqi it released was exceptionally special, like an extension of his senses. He had once used it to detect spirit ore buried deep beneath the water.

With two of his five senses sealed, his remaining perception became all the sharper. It was as though everything beyond him had drifted away, until the entire world contained only himself, the Profound Heavy Hammer, and the eleven layers of stacked black iron before him.

If there was anything amiss, it was that Lu Li had discovered that gangqi enhanced the power of the earthfire within the cauldron. This process demanded particular caution, lest the earthfire lose control.

Next, Lu Li picked up the flux sand beside him and sprinkled it evenly over the black iron, then tossed the iron into the mechanism groove of the Profound Heavy Hammer.

As a first-turn construct, the Profound Heavy Hammer differed from ordinary anvil-hammer mechanisms. In addition to manual operation, it could also be controlled through divine sense.

This was not because Lu Li's divine sense was particularly strong, but because the Profound Heavy Hammer itself possessed an extremely sensitive receiving formation. Even with Lu Li's low-grade Ding-class divine sense, he could control it.

Compared with operating mechanisms by hand, Lu Li was clearly more accustomed to this form of divine-sense control. It happened to be identical in principle to the killing move Stamping Art: Anvil Hammer. Compared to yesterday, his hammering efficiency had improved by far more than a little.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The hammer blows fell like raindrops. Under his pounding, the black iron compressed without cease. After an unknown span of time, the eleven layers of black iron fused tightly together, ultimately becoming a bar roughly half a chi long.

Holding iron tongs, Lu Li removed the bar-shaped steel billet and secured it in the Six-String Machine Tool. After changing the cutting tool, he controlled it with divine sense as well.

The tool precisely split the bar-shaped billet into three. Once he had taken them out again, he arranged them side by side, scattered flux sand over them once more, and placed them beneath the Profound Heavy Hammer for a second time.

This was a very common method. Any craftsman who had cultivated the Stamping Art was familiar with it.

At that moment, in a pavilion some distance away, Zhong Wenbai and Mo Zheng sat facing one another. The latter had originally come to watch his daughter's assessment, but his gaze had settled on Lu Li instead.

The reason was simple: he knew Protector Heartless, and he also knew that Mo Shuhan had sponsored Lu Li.

"Stacking eleven layers is difficult enough, yet she intends to split it into three sections and stack them a second time. That would be the equivalent of thirty-three layers. As expected of that one's... Even merely a single avatar can reach such a level."

"What avatar?"

"Nothing."

When Ying Wange had come to the Mo Family to collect someone that day, he had specifically warned Mo Zheng not to spread the matter. Zhong Wenbai clearly did not know of its existence, so Mo Zheng could not say much.

He merely felt sorry for his foolish daughter. She had dug herself a massive pit; whether she herself could advance was still unknown, yet she had gone and set up an opponent for herself.

"Patriarch Mo, who do you think will take first place this year?"

"Deer Pear."

"You are so certain? What do you mean by that?"

"This old man is merely making a blind guess. There is no basis for it."

Mo Zheng waved a hand and took a small sip from his tea bowl, secretly laughing to himself. Your White Moon Palace's hidden foundation is known even to an outsider like me, yet you do not know it yourself.

"I have observed this girl these past few days. She does have some skill, but her foundation is lacking. Those few people from the middle reaches have yet to reveal their methods."

"No rush. Let us keep watching."

At this time, Zou Bufan was likewise stacking black iron. He had stacked only six layers, but his method of welding differed from Lu Li's.

He sat cross-legged. He neither scattered flux sand nor used the Profound Heavy Hammer. Instead, he stared fixedly at the six layers of black iron, veins bulging across his face, his mouth slightly open as he let out occasional low grunts like someone straining on the privy.

"Mm—hmm hmm—mm!"

This absurd display made the people around him burst into laughter. Yet before they had even finished laughing, their scalps suddenly tightened, and an inexplicable sense of dread seized their hearts.

Bzzzz—

As Zou Bufan hummed, the six layers of black iron before him began to tremble. Their contact surfaces fused without warning.

"Good heavens, what kind of sorcery is that? How did it weld together just like that?"

"Could it be divine-sense object control? This boy's divine sense is truly terrifying!"

"No, it is not divine sense. This is the Sound Welding Art. The Zou Family has excelled in the path of sound for generations, and their Sound Welding Art is peerless."

The Sound Welding Art should have been a branch of welding arts, but clamping and welding arts had always overlapped with one another. Besides, the Heaven-grade assessment restricted only cost, not methods.

Hearing the discussions around him, Zou Bufan gave three arrogant sneers and said, "That is right. This young master has a first-turn sound-path construct, the Resonance Instrument, implanted in his body. By activating this construct, I can wield the Nine Nether Soundwave Art. When advancing, I can kill without leaving a trace; when retreating, I can melt gold and forge ore. What do you low-reach trash have to contend with me?"

"My heavens, so he was not constipated just now—he was adjusting his pitch!"

Someone in the crowd said this, making the corner of Zou Bufan's mouth twitch. He nearly flew into a rage on the spot. Suppressing the fury in his heart, he suddenly said to the other six Zou Family disciples, "Everyone, the time has come. Let these backwater bumpkins see the foundation of our Zou Family as well."

The seven exchanged looks, secured their respective stacks of black iron, then sat cross-legged in a circle.

"Raise the formation!"

At Zou Bufan's command, the other six members of the Zou Family simultaneously activated the Resonance Instruments within their bodies.

Nine Nether Soundwave Formation: Palace Form!

The seven Resonance Instruments operated at once, releasing seven soundwaves of identical frequency. They nearly condensed into substance as they spread outward from Zou Bufan like ripples in every direction.

Under the force of those soundwaves, not only did the black iron begin to fuse, but the people closest to them blacked out, spat blood, and collapsed unconscious. The people on the outer edge recoiled in fright, retreating again and again.

"Shameless! They actually resorted to tricks outside the rules!"

"Wow, is no one going to do anything about these guys? That has to be against the rules, right?"

"We are merely smelting mystic iron. You stood too close and were accidentally injured because you lacked the strength—who can you blame but yourselves? Besides, if you lowly commoners were slaves in a stamping workshop, wouldn't it be perfectly normal to be dragged into the machinery for standing too close? Why don't you accuse the shopkeeper of using tricks outside the rules? Hahahaha..."

In the pavilion above, a White Moon Palace disciple hurried over to Zhong Wenbai. But before the disciple could speak, Zhong Wenbai shook his head.

"No need to stop them. It has always been this way."

Zhong Wenbai spent all year handling affairs outside and had presided over hundreds of major and minor Heaven-grade assessments. He had encountered Zou Family disciples descending in groups to take the examination several times. He had once wanted to stop them too, but his own master had prevented him.

Back then, his master had told him only four words—this was how it had always been.

Perhaps when these tricks outside the rules had first appeared, they had stirred up no small amount of controversy. But in the end, the dispute had concluded with the Zou Family's victory.

From then on, that Heaven-grade assessment became a classic case, and the outside-the-rules tricks of the various middle reaches families became a regular feature of every Heaven-grade assessment.

That was how "always" came to be.

Back then, he had also asked his master: Was something right simply because it had always been this way?

Yet his master had only hardened his expression and rapped him heavily on the head three times.

Returning to the present, Zhong Wenbai closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. He held up his teacup in his right hand while forming a seal with his left, raising a protective barrier. The barrier shielded the people outside the arena, but it also enclosed all the examinees within. Then he slowly said to the disciples:

"Go. You few, carry those mortals out. It's hot in there. If they stay dead inside for too long, they'll start to stink. What a pity about that little girl surnamed Lu, though."

Deer Pear's examination station was right beside those seven Zou Family members. Faced with such an assault, Zhong Wenbai knew the outcome without even looking, and he could not bear to witness the miserable sight of the young girl's beauty perishing.

"Artisan Zhong, you are underestimating her too much. Why not take a careful look before drawing your conclusion?"