People Can Be Tempered Too

After one night, Du Chengfeng felt that he had grown considerably.

Before this, because of what had happened at the Yang Clan ancestral hall, he had always taken the matter of "sharpening blades" to heart. Thus, when preparing to deal with those war hammers and maces, he had instinctively wanted to use a whetstone—but that was obviously impossible. How could a hammerhead be sharpened into an edge?

But now, he had figured it out.

Rather than "sharpening blades," "weapon maintenance" was a more accurate term. Blades had their own way of being sharpened, swords had theirs, and when it came to whips, maces, hammers, and cudgels, their methods of upkeep were even more different.

Yet at their root, the essence of sharpening was always the same: understanding a weapon's condition, repairing its hidden damage, and discerning every mark upon it.

It was just that this process was somewhat dangerous for most people.

"Whew..."

After wiping down the last mace, Du Chengfeng came back to himself and let out a long breath.

To his surprise, polishing these several dozen war hammers and maces had drained more of his energy than polishing those curved blades—and the reason was that the original wielders of these hammers and maces had generally been stronger than the wielders of the curved blades, and had killed more as well.

This left Du Chengfeng rather surprised. He had originally thought that the barbarian warriors who used curved blades would have done more killing, while the users of such crude-looking weapons as maces would surely have been weaker rank-and-file soldiers.

But who could have imagined that the Northern Desert Grasslands calculated things entirely differently? Those with a bit of wealth would prepare a curved blade for themselves before heading to war, but that blade might not see blood more than a few times. On the contrary, it was those grassland warriors too poor even to afford a curved blade who were more willing to wildly swing the maces in their hands, smashing one opponent's skull after another.

"You really can't judge people by appearances... Weapons are the same."

Du Chengfeng could not help sighing.

But compared to the weapons themselves, what concerned him more were the things he had just seen from them.

Whenever he finished polishing a curved blade, he could hear one of Hexi Qing's speeches. Whenever he finished wiping down a war hammer, he could feel a grassland warrior's fervor—these barbarian warriors were not merely scattered bandits who raided without thought. Their loyalty to Hexi Qing was nothing short of madness. Any grassland warrior with a shred of ambition regarded serving Hexi Qing as an honor, and under Hexi Qing's orders, they were even willing to die.

This also gave Du Chengfeng a deeper understanding of the enemy he was about to face.

He was not merely a humanoid monster like a demon god, but also a commanding general with tremendous power to rally his troops.

"Why does this seem to be getting harder and harder...?"

Whenever he thought of those grassland warriors raising their arms and roaring in the main camp, Du Chengfeng's heart sank.

It would never be easy to face such a monster alone. What was more, the news at Yang Family Fort could not remain sealed for long. With Hexi Qing's sharp instincts, he would probably soon notice that his own brother had gone out to train troops and had yet to return.

Not enough. His strength was still not enough.

Even though he had already grasped a way to temper his body as if it were a weapon, and had found a method that could fundamentally improve his combat strength, that method was ultimately still too slow to show results.

Faster. He needed to be faster. He needed some faster way.

And now, a shortcut lay right before him.

As long as he picked up that large axe at hand, the one bearing ancient patterns, and killed a few more...

"Behave yourself."

The broadsword struck the axe blade, and Du Chengfeng's desire to kill and see blood vanished without a trace.

But this time, though the axe had indeed settled down, Du Chengfeng's heart could not completely calm.

Hexi Qing's savage figure weighed on his heart like a great mountain. Faced with such a powerful enemy who seemed to possess no weakness at all, no one could truly remain composed.

Could that Hexi Qing really be the omnipotent genius his brother had described?

"Probably not. There has to be a way to deal with him."

Taking a deep breath, Du Chengfeng decided not to put too much pressure on himself for now, and instead think of something lighter to cheer himself up.

For instance, he could tally the gains from this round of polishing.

Perhaps because he had thrown the Unlucky Curved Blade out the door, his gains this time were far better than before. These mace-hammers had not only brought him a wealth of techniques for using blunt weapons, but quite a few of them also carried the Northern Desert men's unique methods for tempering the body.

It made sense. Maces and war hammers had neither points nor edges. If one wanted to hurt someone with them, sufficient strength was indeed necessary.

If there was one problem, it was that these methods of tempering the physique were excessively harsh.

Some involved carrying logs and running through ice and snow. Some involved using one's body to ram into great trees amid freezing winds. Some grassland warriors who tended sheep would hoist sheep weighing dozens of jin as training equipment. Others simply swung great clubs whenever they had nothing to do, starting with wooden clubs of around ten jin and working their way up to heavy iron rods weighing over a hundred jin.

Of course, heavy iron rods weighing over a hundred jin were certainly unsuitable for the battlefield. But once the body grew accustomed to such crushing weight, switching back to maces and war hammers in combat would make them feel supremely light. A mace swung with speed like the wind could even be faster than blade or sword.

Only after undergoing such harsh training could those Northern Desert warriors temper themselves into something as hard as iron.

For Du Chengfeng, however, these were not too bad. At the very least, compared to the extreme regimen of Three Thousand Sword Swings a Day that he had learned before, these grassland warriors' training methods looked more reliable and more feasible.

To clash head-on with iron, he had to temper himself into refined steel.

At that moment, Du Chengfeng had already made up his mind. He would try every single one of these training methods.

He wanted to see where the limit of his will truly lay.

"Come! Again!"

But just as Du Chengfeng prepared to temper his sinews and bones once more before resting, someone pushed open the courtyard gate and entered.

Anyone who knew they could enter the little courtyard without knocking was naturally no stranger. Yet Du Chengfeng had not expected that it would not be Carpenter Li, whom he knew better, but the old man Yang Xuan, with whom he was not very familiar.

"Hero! Good news! Great news!"

This time, Yang Xuan had not even brought anyone with him. He had hurried over at a jog.

"Hero, you previously asked the Yang Clan to help collect weapons. We have now acquired a fine one!"

"...Oh?"

Only then did Du Chengfeng notice that Yang Xuan was holding a long saber in its scabbard.

The old saber remained sheathed, looking utterly ordinary.

"You mean this?"

"Hero, this blade merely looks plain."

Seeing Du Chengfeng's lack of interest, Yang Xuan hurriedly handed the blade over.

"This blade is indeed cheap, but it was the personal saber of Swift Blade Liu Qingyun. If Cui Yuan had not gone to find Liu Qingyun, and Liu Qingyun had not then been killed by a single sword strike in their duel, this blade could never have been bought no matter how high the price..."

"Wait a moment?"

Du Chengfeng could not help freezing.

"Who did you just say killed whom?"