Heaven Dou City.
People bustled to and fro, filling the streets with life.
After Shrek Academy merged with Liu Erlong's Blue Tyrant Academy, the academy stood beside the forest on the outskirts of Heaven Dou City.
Neither of the two times Chu Xiu had returned had he entered the city proper.
It had been ages since he had seen so many people. Thinking back on everything that had happened lately, which felt like a lifetime ago, he could not help feeling wistful.
"I remember there's a smithy up ahead. The master there is pretty well-known."
"I think he's descended from a branch of the Strength Clan?"
Heaven Dou City was the imperial capital of the Heaven Dou Empire. Although it could not rival Gengxin City in forging, the presence of the Strength Clan made it one of the more developed regions for the craft at the time.
Gengxin City was too far from Heaven Dou City. With Chu Xiu's current strength, the journey would take at least a month, whether he traveled by carriage or some other means.
Why not go straight to the Strength Clan's headquarters? Naturally, because it was a family enterprise. Even their apprentices had to bear the family name.
Unless someone was a forging prodigy like Tang Hao, and even then, they had to pass an assessment to be selected.
How could Chu Xiu have that much time to waste haggling with them?
He soon reached the smithy and pushed the door open.
"Hello, are you taking apprentices?"
The blacksmith inside was covered in thick, knotted muscle. He turned and glanced over, then said in a rumbling voice, "You want to learn forging with those scrawny little arms and legs?"
"Smithing isn't for you. Go home."
The blacksmith chuckled. It was hard to tell whether he was mocking him or not.
Chu Xiu wasted no words. Spotting a forging hammer nearby, he walked over and picked it up.
The forging hammer was heavy, weighing at least several dozen jin.
After the Mutant Wild Apple strengthened his body, Chu Xiu's strength had doubled. Coupled with all the physical labor he had done lately, he lifted it with ease.
"Well, look at that. You've actually got some strength."
This time, the blacksmith was genuinely amused.
Chu Xiu was tall, but his muscles were not particularly bulky. In fact, his recent malnutrition made him look rather frail.
It was unusual for such a slight frame to possess so much strength.
"What's your martial soul?"
"Uh..."
Chu Xiu scratched his head. "I have a trash martial soul. It has nothing to do with strength, but I've always been strong since I was little."
"So that's how it is."
The blacksmith nodded, then warned him, "You can be an apprentice here, but I don't take useless apprentices. If you can't endure hardship, get lost before you waste my time."
"I'm not afraid of hard work."
"Good. Come with me."
As he walked, the blacksmith introduced himself. "My name's Tai Cai. You can call me Master Tai. Until you've completed your apprenticeship, don't go around saying you're my apprentice."
"Understood, Master Tai."
"Also, newcomers like you have to start with the basics. First, you need to understand where iron comes from."
By then, the two had reached a shaft furnace.
This was the key apparatus for smelting iron ore into iron ingots. Although there were families outside that specialized in smelting iron, and ordinary smiths could simply buy ready-made ingots to use,
major smithing families like the Strength Clan still preferred to use iron they had produced themselves.
That was also why Chu Xiu had chosen this smithy.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes."
Chu Xiu nodded.
Tai Cai chuckled. "It's fine if you don't. Once you've worked for a while, you'll know what to do."
"We blacksmiths have never relied on talking to teach. You can't teach someone just by explaining things. Do it yourself a few times, and you'll naturally learn."
"As long as you can endure the hard work, you'll at least have no trouble putting food on the table."
There were several other apprentices in the smithy.
Tai Cai introduced them to Chu Xiu, then assigned one apprentice to take him along to smelt iron ingots.
The forging process was complicated.
Even the smelting of iron ingots alone involved several steps.
First, the ore had to be crushed into small, sandlike grains. Then the stone had to be washed out with water before the ore could be placed in the furnace for smelting.
The resulting iron ingots had a spongelike texture and were called sponge iron.
The pores in the sponge iron were filled with slag. Only after repeated hammering could it be refined into proper iron ingots.
This was also the step most people were familiar with.
But Chu Xiu was only just starting out. It was not yet his turn to hammer the iron.
Still, Chu Xiu had intended to learn the entire process anyway. After all, no one on the Deserted Island would help him with this or that. He would have to complete every step himself.
The day passed quickly.
Chu Xiu estimated that dawn was approaching on the Deserted Island. Only then did he seek out Tai Cai to say goodbye.
"You're doing well, lad. Coming back tomorrow?"
"Yes. I'll come every day as long as I have the time."
"Here's your pay. Even apprentices get paid in our shop."
Tai Cai looked rough around the edges, but he was thoughtful.
After all, someone too careless would never make a master smith.
Chu Xiu thanked him, then left with the Copper Soul Coins.
Over the next few days, Chu Xiu returned to the smithy to learn forging every night after getting Ning Rongrong to sleep.
During the day, aside from catching up on sleep, he built a shaft furnace and the other tools he needed for forging.
The furnace in the smithy was itself made of iron, but Chu Xiu did not have any iron here, so he could only use ore as a substitute for now.
Then there was the forging hammer.
Without an iron hammer, he would use a bone hammer.
Chu Xiu ground one of Luo Sanpao's large limb bones into a forging hammer. Its weight and hardness were almost identical to those of a proper forging hammer.
"Chu Xiu, where did you learn all this?"
Ning Rongrong asked curiously, "You weren't a smith before, were you?"
Shui Bing'er and Ah Yin watched him with equally puzzled looks.
Only Qian Renxue frowned, lost in thought.
Nearly half a month had passed since Chu Xiu's first day learning forging. During that time, his muscles had grown noticeably, and he looked a size bigger than before.
Something was clearly off.
But during the day, Chu Xiu was always in everyone's sight. During the first half of every night, they could also hear Ning Rongrong wailing like ghosts and howling like wolves as he put her through her paces.
Only during the latter half of the night was he out of sight.
But where could he go that late?
And did he not need to rest?
Little did she know that, to learn forging, Chu Xiu really had barely slept these past few days. He relied on catching a little sleep after returning each day and chewing a few grains of spirit rice to keep himself alert.
Although Qian Renxue had her suspicions, she could never have imagined that he was leaving the Deserted Island to work at a smithy in Heaven Dou City.
"More or less. I did learn a little forging before."
Chu Xiu smiled faintly and continued, "The shaft furnace and the other tools are almost ready. Today, I'll dig up some ore and bring it back to give it a try."
"Ah Yin, have you found the iron ore I asked you to look for?"
Ah Yin did not possess Earth Vein Sense, so Chu Xiu had asked her to search for exposed deposits on the surface.
"I found some. It's not far from here, but there are several spirit beasts nearby. Even the weakest one is thirty thousand years old."
The place where Ah Yin had found the iron ore was farther up the mountain.
Chu Xiu had already suspected that the higher they went, the stronger the spirit beasts became.
But Chu Xiu was no longer the man he had once been. With his concealment ability, at least no spirit beast could catch him if he fled.
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