"Come, have some water first."
Qiu Qiang stepped forward and handed Zhang Ping a cup of water.
After Zhang Ping finished drinking, he smiled and said, "Not bad. I originally thought you wouldn't be able to hold on, but it seems the school misjudged you. With your current performance, getting into the Big Three will be more than easy."
"Say, Uncle Qiang, everyone keeps calling the Patrol Team and the Investigation Team the Big Three organizations, but what's the third organization called?" Zhang Ping looked up and finally asked the question that had been bothering him for days.
Qiu Qiang froze for a moment, then spread his hands. "No idea. Mingzhu City has always called them that. Everyone calls them the Big Three and knows there's another organization besides the Patrol Team and Investigation Team, but nobody knows what it's called or what it does."
"That's so strange," Zhang Ping said in surprise.
He had originally thought that the previous owner of this body had only cared about training and had no interest in such trivial information, which was why he did not know what the third organization among the Big Three was.
Now he understood. Good grief, nobody knew.
"All right, forget about what the third organization is called. It's probably some secret department like an assassination unit. Have you rested enough? If so, come see what your first work turned out like." Qiu Qiang did not continue the topic and steered the conversation back to forging.
Zhang Ping nodded, got up from the ground, and looked toward the mold.
He glanced at Qiu Qiang, who motioned for him to open it himself. Zhang Ping reached out, gripped the switch, and pulled hard. The mold slowly opened, revealing a black-and-silver blade before them.
Silver?
Seeing that the color was wrong, Zhang Ping frowned slightly and looked at Qiu Qiang.
"It failed, sure enough."
Qiu Qiang was not surprised. He smiled, stepped forward, and picked up the blade.
The blade looked no different from the Pearl Saber. The only difference was that its body was covered in countless silver threads. They were unevenly distributed and lacked the beauty of the Pearl Saber's red patterns.
Holding the blade, he walked to the testing platform, replaced the test stone, then raised the blade and chopped down.
A flash of blade light passed by. The stone did not crack. Instead, the blade rang crisply and broke into two pieces, its tip eventually landing on a large magnet nearby.
"Clean this up." Qiu Qiang tossed the broken blade to Zhang Ping and spoke.
Zhang Ping looked at the fracture and found that the blade's interior was also filled with silver threads, tangled together with red threads. With no pattern to them at all, the entire blade looked like a tree trunk hollowed out by termites.
I must not have done well enough when mixing and kneading it. I didn't truly fuse the materials together.
He silently reviewed his mistakes.
The biggest issue was that the furnace had been too hot.
Squatting beside it, he felt like a roast pig. If he had stayed there any longer, perhaps the smell of grilled meat would have started wafting off him.
Then there was his strength.
His strength was still far too lacking. The "kneading" process had been extremely strenuous, nowhere near as effortless as it was for Uncle Qiang.
After cleaning up, he walked over and sat beside Qiu Qiang.
Seeing Zhang Ping's exhausted face, Qiu Qiang smiled and spoke.
When he had first learned the Dough-Kneading Forging Technique, he had been in an even worse state than Zhang Ping. He had not even completed the first step. Only later, under Liu Tiefeng's pressure, had he gradually grasped the knack. Next, he explained Zhang Ping's mistakes during the forging process in greater detail. His explanation was much more thorough than Zhang Ping's own summary. After comparing it with the process he had just gone through, Zhang Ping indeed gained a great deal.
"By the way, Uncle Qiang, how much did I lose from that failed forging attempt?" Thinking of the price of iron ingots, Zhang Ping could not help asking.
Qiu Qiang sighed. "About sixty thousand."
"..."
Zhang Ping's heart sank.
Even selling himself would not be enough to repay that loss.
"Hahahaha! You didn't seriously believe that, did you? Don't worry, it isn't nearly as expensive as you think. Once there's enough scrap, I'll tell you how to deal with it." Seeing Zhang Ping's pale face, Qiu Qiang burst into laughter.
But joy turned to sorrow as Liu Tiefeng's pipe landed on Qiu Qiang's forehead. He immediately bared his teeth and clutched his head.
"Stinky Qiang, where did you lure this kid back from? His talent is almost on par with Dashan's. By the way, where did Dashan go?" Liu Tiefeng asked, but as he spoke, his mind seemed to grow muddled again. His eyes drooped, and he fell into a daze, looking as though he were spacing out.
Qiu Qiang glanced at him, sighed softly, then patted Zhang Ping on the shoulder and said in a low voice, "Help me take care of Uncle Liu. I have something to do, so I'm leaving first."
"Okay." Zhang Ping nodded.
Qiu Qiang stood up and was about to head out, but after thinking it over, he still could not rest easy. He gave Zhang Ping many more instructions, talking for over ten minutes before reluctantly leaving Iron Soul.
Inside the shop, the furnace still blazed fiercely.
Zhang Ping rested in his seat, glancing at Liu Tiefeng from time to time.
In his previous life, he had volunteered at a nursing home for a while, so he knew very well how to care for elderly people.
"Grandpa Liu, come, have some water."
Zhang Ping stood and went behind the counter, poured a cup of water, and carefully handed it to Liu Tiefeng.
However, Liu Tiefeng ignored Zhang Ping and continued smoking with his head lowered.
A few minutes later, Liu Tiefeng looked up at Zhang Ping and said calmly, "All right, put the cup down. That kid has already gone far away."
"Uh..." Zhang Ping blinked, feeling that something was off about Liu Tiefeng.
Liu Tiefeng sighed. "All right, I'm not actually sick. I know perfectly well that Dashan has most likely met with disaster."
"Then you..."
Zhang Ping placed the cup on a nearby table and looked at Liu Tiefeng in surprise.
Mostly because Liu Tiefeng's acting had been too convincing. When Zhang Ping had first met him, Liu Tiefeng had truly seemed senile.
"I know Dashan's strength very well. Qiang wanted to investigate Dashan's whereabouts, but I was worried he might meet with disaster too. So I had no choice but to pretend to be confused, leaving him no time to take risks." Liu Tiefeng spoke slowly.
Although he desperately wanted to find out who had killed his son, he did not want Qiu Qiang to put himself in danger. He had already lost one son, and he was even less willing to see the son of an old comrade die as well.
After thinking about it briefly, Zhang Ping understood why Liu Tiefeng had pretended to be ill. He could not help asking, "Then Uncle Qiang won't take risks now?"
"No. Once that kid has something weighing on his heart, he's like a turtle. He won't go looking for death so easily." Liu Tiefeng smiled bitterly.
He understood Qiu Qiang's personality better than anyone.
Although Qiu Qiang usually seemed careless and boisterous, his thoughts were actually extremely meticulous. That was also why Qiu Qiang had survived until now.
Back then, Liu Tiefeng had opposed Qiu Qiang becoming an adventurer. Qiu Qiang agreed verbally, then ran off the moment he turned around. By the time he returned again, he was covered in injuries, but he had also become more mature and capable.
From that moment on, Liu Tiefeng knew that verbal dissuasion could not stop Qiu Qiang from doing what he wanted.
So this time, he chose to pretend to be ill.
Only then would Qiu Qiang, burdened by concern, not take risks so easily.
"Grandpa Liu, aren't you afraid I'll tell Uncle Qiang?" After hearing this, Zhang Ping could not help asking.
Liu Tiefeng glanced at Zhang Ping and asked, "Would you?"
"I wouldn't," Zhang Ping said.
Liu Tiefeng smiled. "There you have it."
All right.
Zhang Ping felt as though he had been completely seen through.
"But Qiang was right about one thing. You have a great deal of talent for forging. Still, Qiang isn't very good at teaching others, and he isn't particularly devoted to forging either, so there are many things he overlooked. Over the next few days, I'll teach you the real Dough-Kneading Forging Technique." Liu Tiefeng exhaled a puff of smoke and looked seriously at Zhang Ping.
This craft was not some top secret, but it was the foundation of the Liu family's unique techniques.
Originally, he had passed all of it on to his son, but his son had met with misfortune.
Naturally, Liu Tiefeng could not bear to let the technique be lost. This was humanity's legacy. If it vanished in his generation, he would fail his ancestors and all humanity, so he had to find every possible way to pass it on.
Originally, he had planned to write the secret technique down as a manual, but when Zhang Ping had been forging earlier, he realized he had a better choice.
The next day.
Zhang Ping got up shortly after four. Looking at the scenery outside the window, he realized that he had already left the school dormitory.
When he came out of his room, he found that Liu Tiefeng had risen even earlier than he had.
Liu Tiefeng sat in a chair in the living room, staring fixedly at a sword in the distance. Only when he saw Zhang Ping come out did he speak. "All right, follow me."
With that, he got up and headed upstairs.
The third floor was Liu Dashan's workshop, mainly used for weapon modification, such as setting special materials or gemstones into weapons, replacing guards, or redesigning scabbards and sheaths.
Liu Tiefeng brought Zhang Ping to the workbench, first had him fetch flour, then directly taught him how to knead dough.
This time, they were really kneading dough!
Liu Tiefeng skillfully kneaded the dough with both hands and smiled. "Qiang already knew how to knead dough when he was little, so he probably never realized that the foundation of the Dough-Kneading Forging Technique was actual dough kneading. But he started practicing from childhood, so he had long since mastered it. As long as his strength kept up, everything naturally fell into place. You, however, lack the foundation, so we'll have to take a shortcut."
As he spoke, he placed many iron beads of varying sizes into the dough and rapidly kneaded it. In the end, the dough and iron beads fused together, and from the outside, it was impossible to tell that the dough contained so many iron beads.
"Now it's your turn. Put on the blindfold first, then knead all the iron beads out of the dough." Liu Tiefeng stepped aside and looked at Zhang Ping.
Zhang Ping nodded. After putting on the blindfold, he pressed both hands onto the dough. He found it firm and dense. Clearly, Liu Tiefeng had made the feel of the dough as close to forging material as possible.
He carefully kneaded the dough and discovered that after putting on the blindfold, its texture became extremely clear to his touch. He quickly separated the iron beads from the dough.
But the process was not one hundred percent accurate.
Some tiny pieces of dough felt surprisingly similar to iron beads.
He did not know how Liu Tiefeng had managed that, but it certainly caused him no small amount of trouble.