Malice Sweeps In, Soul Artifact Forging

Armor Forging Hall, Western Courtyard District

Chu He chose a relatively secluded courtyard. No one lived nearby, and its overall location was fairly close to the massive boulder behind the mountain.

Stepping through the courtyard gate, he saw an evergreen loquat tree planted in the southeast corner, with a set of stone table and stools beneath it.

The main hall faced the gate. There were two side rooms on the left, while the master bedroom and kitchen lay to the right. The overall layout resembled a traditional courtyard home.

Chu He set down his bundle and casually tidied the place up.

Then, all of a sudden, he sensed someone approaching outside the gate.

Without giving anything away, he took up a broom and swept the fallen leaves from the courtyard. When he looked up, he saw a gray-robed old man grinning at him with an eerie snicker.

Yet in the next instant, the old man vanished.

As if he had been nothing more than an illusion.

Having broken through to the Furnace Realm, Chu He's senses had greatly improved. He knew the other man had not left, but was hiding in a concealed corner by the wall.

From Aunt Lan's explanation, this old fellow seemed to be called Li Shuangcheng?

Why had he come to spy on me?

The visitor was precisely the old man who had opposed Aunt Lan in the main hall yesterday. Chu He had heard that the man was highly senior, yet had no dignity befitting his age. He often did shady business with outsiders and had a poor reputation in the courtyard.

Chu He's expression did not change, but he had already considered Li Shuangcheng's intentions from every angle. After turning it over and over in his mind, he found no other lead.

The only possibility was the matter of the portrait burning itself!

A chill flickered in Chu He's eyes as his fingers slowly clenched.

A few breaths later, Li Shuangcheng's presence gradually disappeared.

But another person's presence immediately followed, stopping at the courtyard gate. A head slowly poked in from outside.

"You live nearby?"

Leaning on his broom, Chu He frowned at Zheng Hao.

"Yes. My residence is just past the room next door in that direction. Brother Chu, you're welcome to drop by anytime." Zheng Hao smiled as he pointed east.

"Another day."

Chu He replied blandly.

"Then how about we go to the artifact-forging district together?" Zheng Hao warmly invited him. "It's about time anyway, and we're headed the same way."

"Fine. Let me tidy up first."

Chu He returned to the room, put down the broom, straightened things up, then slowly locked the door. When he stepped outside, he saw Zheng Hao whistling while kicking pebbles with the tip of his shoe.

"Let's go."

Chu He took the first step, and Zheng Hao followed close behind.

"Brother Chu, I ran into an utterly cold-hearted senior brother at the gate earlier. He made me run back and forth several times before I finally moved all my luggage."

"Ah..." Zheng Hao sighed, glanced around, and complained in a low voice, "I haven't even had time to straighten out my room because of him."

After their brief time together, Chu He had discovered that Zheng Hao looked aloof and cool, but his personality was quite lively, and he was rather talkative.

Listening to Zheng Hao mutter under his breath, Chu He's expression shifted. He abruptly changed the subject. "Brother Zheng, do you know how soul artifacts are forged?"

"I do. Brother Chu, you don't know?"

Zheng Hao nodded and asked in return.

"I'm indeed still unfamiliar with it. I've only heard the name, never learned how they are forged, and I only half understood what Aunt Lan said earlier."

Chu He did not conceal it and admitted it openly.

Since he had entered the Armor Forging Hall, the people here would surely investigate his background afterward and learn that he came from Earthhead Village.

So there was no need to hide such things.

"I merely know a little more about soul artifact forging in detail. I'm not qualified to perform it myself, and I don't even know whether I have any talent for it."

Zheng Hao did not look down on Chu He for his ignorance. He patiently explained, "But I can tell you how soul artifacts are forged. Put simply, you nail a weirdness into a weapon, allowing that weapon to possess special abilities and power."

"Fuse a weirdness into a weapon?"

Chu He instantly caught the key piece of information.

"Exactly."

Zheng Hao nodded as he looked at Chu He.

"Weirdnesses only grant weapons special properties, but the base materials used to forge the weapons are also extremely particular. I don't know about the outside world, but in Black River Town, the materials used by the Armor Forging Hall to forge soul artifacts are all transported out from that mysterious giant boulder behind us..."

As they walked, Zheng Hao enthusiastically explained many things.

Chu He nodded from time to time, gaining a rough understanding of soul artifacts.

Half an incense stick later, the two arrived at the artifact-forging district together.

The Armor Forging Hall's artifact-forging district was actually like a massive modern sports arena. It was divided into three levels. The level built above ground was the first level, while the remaining two lay underground.

It was said that the Armor Forging Hall had chosen this location largely because a scorching fire vein ran beneath the artifact-forging district.

The farther down one went, the higher the fire vein's temperature became.

Chu He had once seen the Patriarch use his own qi and blood to forge materials in the illusion, but that was ultimately the stuff of legend. After all, an ordinary person's qi and blood were limited. It was fine for forging common weapons, but when forging special weapons such as soul artifacts, relying on qi and blood to burn them simply could not sustain the process.

Aunt Lan had already been waiting here for quite some time. Liu Qingqing stood obediently at her side and gave Chu He and Zheng Hao a slight nod when she saw them.

"Now that everyone is here, let's go in together."

Aunt Lan flicked the token at her waist. Before the artifact-forging district's entrance, invisible waves transformed into ripples, revealing an opening.

Following her example, Chu He and the others took out their own tokens and waved them at the space before them. Several more passages immediately appeared.

The moment they entered the passage, a surging heat wave rushed at them. Beyond it lay an incomparably vast plaza.

Rows upon rows of ores in every color, along with all manner of strange materials, were arranged in the center of the plaza, while red ripples formed barriers around its edges.

"In the future, you can choose your materials from the materials plaza. But they aren't free. Every material has a different price, and you'll have to buy whatever you need yourselves."

Aunt Lan's words dealt a heavy blow to Chu He's enthusiasm.

He was poor to begin with. Later, he might also need to cultivate the entry stage of Iron Shirt, which required purchasing large amounts of medicinal herbs for medicinal baths.

By that calculation, he had even less capital to spend on artifact forging.

"Then do we have to pay to enter the ore tunnels and choose materials as well?" Compared to money, Zheng Hao was clearly more concerned about this.

"No. You get one free opportunity each month."

Aunt Lan's skirt swayed as she pointed at the sealed stone doors around them. "The artifact-forging rooms on the first level are free, but if you want to forge soul artifacts, you'll need to go down to the second level. The first level isn't hot enough."

As she spoke, she led them in single file into a hall. At the entrance stood a middle-aged man who looked half asleep.

"Sister Lan, morning."

The middle-aged man jolted awake and scratched his head.

"Qi Chao, has Old Du gone in?"

Aunt Lan nodded and asked.

"He went in, but he seemed to be in bad shape. How should I put it? He looked like he'd been beaten up." Qi Chao rubbed his eye and vividly described, "Like someone had punched him in the eye."

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