The Young Blacksmith

Tang Wulin walked into the forging room with practiced familiarity, went straight to the forging bench, and picked up the list of forging assignments beside it.

A glance over the page told him everything he needed to know. Today's assignments were all basic mecha components: protective posts for articulated joints and spherical lubrication beads that cushioned mechanical gaps and stored lubricant. They were all standard forged parts of the most basic kind, needed in enormous quantities.

Tang Wulin pursed his lips slightly, reflecting inwardly.

A year ago, mecha components like these, which demanded precise control of force and the curvature of deformed metal, would have been extremely difficult for him. He would have had to expend tremendous mental and physical effort just to finish them. But after three years of hammering and tempering, day after day, this work now came as naturally as moving his own hands. It took a little extra strength, nothing more.

He pressed the control button on the side of the forging bench. The center of the work surface slowly parted, and the scorching furnace beneath rose into view. Fierce flames churned inside, their crimson light instantly illuminating the entire forging area as a wave of heat washed over him.

Tang Wulin secured a solid block of refined iron in the clamp, then pressed the button again, smoothly feeding the raw metal into the furnace to heat.

Next, he reached for the two black hammers beside him and took a firm grip on them.

These were the personal forging hammers Mang Tian had specially given him. Made entirely of Thousand-Refined Black Steel, they gleamed black and felt immensely substantial. A single hammer weighed a full eighty kilograms. An ordinary grown man would have struggled even to lift one with a single hand, let alone forge with it.

Yet in Tang Wulin's hands, the two immensely heavy hammers seemed weightless. With a slight movement of his wrists, he swung them with tigerlike vigor, stirring gusts that whistled through the air. His control of their force had reached consummate mastery.

Within moments, the refined iron in the furnace had heated all the way through. The entire block glowed red-hot, its metal thoroughly softened.

Tang Wulin moved like flowing clouds and running water. He precisely braced his right hammer against the clamp beneath the metal and gave it a gentle nudge, then lifted his left hammer in the same motion, steadily removing the scorching iron from the furnace and setting it on the hard forging anvil.

The next second, a rapid, steady barrage of hammer blows rang through the forging room.

Bang, bang, bang! Clang, clang, clang!

The heavy Black Steel Hammers fell again and again, every blow delivered with even force and pinpoint accuracy. Sparks scattered amid the crisp ringing of metal. Under the repeated heavy strikes, the red-hot iron slowly took shape, its impurities continually driven out as the metal grew ever denser and harder.

The furnace blazed, and the hammering never ceased.

The boy stood before the furnace, wholly absorbed in swinging his hammers, day after day, year after year.

Tang Wulin, the working boy, had begun another tedious yet fulfilling day of forging.

When the final blow fell and the last sparks faded, Tang Wulin stopped. He gently lowered both hammers to the floor, neatly arranged all the finished mecha components, each flawlessly formed, then went into the inner room and handed them all to Mang Tian, who was waiting there.

Mang Tian bent over and carefully examined every joint post and spherical lubrication bead. His fingertips brushed the metal surfaces, feeling the fine, even forging marks. There was not a single flaw; the control of force was practically perfect. He nodded in satisfaction, approval filling his expression.

Then Mang Tian picked up two bundles wrapped in coarse cloth that he had prepared earlier and held them out to Tang Wulin.

One contained this month's forging wages. The other was an additional reward for exceeding his assigned workload over the past while.

Tang Wulin hurriedly reached out to take the bundles. The instant his fingertips touched the thick cloth, his heart began racing uncontrollably.

He drew a deep breath. The forging room's rich scent of rust and the lingering warmth of the furnace washed over him. That metallic smell, which he had long since grown accustomed to, now seemed wonderfully fresh and pleasant, seeping into his heart.

Because he knew perfectly well that after three years of scrimping and saving, he had finally saved enough.

Three whole years, from six to nine, more than a thousand days and nights spent swinging hammers and forging iron. His sweat had dripped onto the anvil and mingled with the scorching metal.

Every payment he earned from forging was money he had hammered out blow by blow, paid for in blood and sweat.

He lived on an extremely tight budget, carefully counting and fiercely guarding every last coin. He had never spent so much as half an extra Federation Credit on himself. He put all his wages away with the utmost care. His only expense was occasionally indulging Na'er's little cravings, buying her the fried chicken bones and snacks she loved.

While other children played freely and spent as they pleased, he remained before the furnace, enduring hardship, restraining every desire, and quietly saving his money.

Three years of winter cold and summer heat, countless bouts of aching, numb arms, countless times his palms had been rubbed raw, scabbed over, and injured again. Countless times he had watched his earnings slowly accumulate. It had been a long, grueling road.

Now, all that perseverance had finally borne fruit.

Tang Wulin hugged the cloth bundles tightly to his chest. Joy and emotion he could not conceal surged in his eyes, and the corners of his mouth rose despite himself.

It had been so hard.

With his pay collected, Tang Wulin hastily said goodbye to Mang Tian, turned, and broke into a run toward home.

Usually composed and reserved far beyond his years, the boy could no longer hide his happiness. His steps were light the entire way, and he even found himself skipping, his eyes curving into crescents, undisguised delight radiating from his whole body.

As the saying went, happy events lifted the spirit. The moment he had saved enough, all the exhaustion accumulated over three years vanished like smoke and clouds.

He raised the cloth bag of Federation Credits and lightly bounced it in his hand. With a movement of his fingers, the coins inside knocked together, making a delicate, pleasing rustle.

Listening to that crisp sound, Tang Wulin could not stop the corners of his mouth from lifting high. His eyes were full of reassurance and satisfaction.

Three whole years, through winter cold and summer heat, undeterred by wind or rain.

Every hammer blow had cost real blood and sweat. Every Federation Credit he earned was hard-won money, exchanged for countless strikes of eighty-kilogram hammers before a blazing furnace.

After three years of scrimping and saving, never daring to squander a single coin, he had finally put away fifty thousand Federation Credits.

Prices on the Douluo Continent were much the same as in the modern society of his previous life. An ordinary meal or a simple snack cost only a few dozen Federation Credits; everyday expenses were quite affordable.

For wealthy young Soul Masters born into powerful families, who could casually squander hundreds of thousands, fifty thousand Federation Credits was merely an insignificant bit of pocket money, hardly worth mentioning.

But for Tang Wulin, whose family was ordinary and whose earnings came entirely from his own forging, it was an enormous, weighty fortune.

He could not begin to count how many times over those three years he had raised his heavy Black Steel Hammers high, or how many times he had brought them crashing down. He could not remember how often his arms had ached so badly he could not lift them, how often bloody blisters had formed on his palms, scabbed over, then split open again. Nor could he remember how many unbearably hot evenings he had endured before the scorching furnace.

Countless hammer swings, countless acts of perseverance, had earned him this heavy bag of savings.

The evening breeze brushed through the boy's short blue hair, carrying away the smoky, rusty scent he had picked up in the forging room. Tang Wulin clutched his money bag, his steps growing ever more urgent.

On the way, his sheer excitement pierced the paper-thin barrier that had already been all that separated him from rank ten, like a needle through window paper. More excited than ever, Tang Wulin ran home.

"Dad, Mom, I'm home!"

Tang Wulin swept through the door like a gust of wind, his footsteps brimming with irrepressible lightness. First, he took the wages he had just received from inside his clothes and arranged them neatly on the wooden table in the living room. Then he hurried into his bedroom, bent down beneath his bed, and retrieved a rusty old iron box from a concealed gap in the corner.

Carrying the heavy iron box, the boy breathed a little faster as he jogged back into the living room and set it heavily on the table.

With a click, the clasp opened. He lifted the lid and poured out all the savings he had accumulated over so long.

Neat stacks of clean white Federation Credit notes spread across the tabletop, impressively thick. Exactly fifty thousand Federation Credits, not one credit missing, lay securely before him.

Looking at the table covered with money he had saved coin by coin, Tang Wulin's eyes filled with burning satisfaction. He could not help praising himself inwardly: I'm incredible.

He could not help comparing it with his previous life, a thousand emotions stirring in his heart.

In his previous life, even as an adult earning money through part-time tutoring, it had taken several months to make fifty thousand. Now, however, he was only a nine-year-old child. With no shortcuts and no cheats, he had saved fifty thousand Federation Credits over three years through sheer hammer-by-hammer labor.

In his previous life, he had earned over a thousand from just forty-five minutes of private, one-on-one tutoring. Making money had been easy and quick. Now he had to endure the furnace's heat, swing hundred-jin hammers day after day, and struggle through countless tedious, exhausting days and nights to save this sum.

The hardship involved in the two was as different as heaven and earth.

Looking at the tangible fruit of his blood and sweat before him, a powerful sense of pride welled up from the depths of his heart.

Beside him, Tang Ziran watched his son's shining eyes and his proud, happy expression, his own eyes full of quiet satisfaction. Silently, he gave Tang Wulin a thumbs-up.

Tang Wulin looked up at his father, his eyes sparkling. His voice brimmed with excitement and anticipation as he declared, "Dad, I've reached rank ten, and I've saved enough money! I can buy a Soul Spirit and become a real One-Ring Soul Master!"

Seeing his son's eager expression, Tang Ziran nodded gently, his voice warm and certain. "All right. On Sunday, the whole family will go with you to the Spirit Pagoda."

Night completely enveloped Aolai City. Beyond the window, the darkness was thick, while inside the house, all was quiet.

Tang Wulin lay on his bed with his eyes closed, resting as the memories of the past three years slowly passed through his mind.

Over those three years, he had spent most of his time outside class in Mang Tian's forging workshop, keeping company with flames, hammers, and iron. It was not because he neglected his studies. He had long since learned the Red Mountain Junior Soul Master Academy's basic Soul Master theory by heart, and there was no longer any need for him to sit through lessons on the textbook material.

So he had explained his situation to his homeroom teacher, Lin Ximeng, early on. During the day, he devoted himself entirely to forging, honing his body and improving his craft. At night, he forsook sleep and rested through meditation instead, quietly cultivating his soul power, working day and night to compensate for his low innate soul power.

He had to admit that meditating day and night had helped at least somewhat.

It suddenly occurred to him that he had been so caught up in his happiness today that he had not yet done his usual nightly meditation.

Tang Wulin stretched lazily, a relaxed smile curling his lips.

Forget it. I'll give myself a day off today.

After three hard years, he had finally fulfilled his dream. It was time to properly reward himself for fighting so hard and never giving up.

The night was still. A bright moon hung high in the sky, its clear radiance slipping through the window and quietly spilling into the tiny bedroom, covering the floor with gentle moonlight.

Tang Wulin had just shed his exhaustion and was about to fall asleep when his peripheral vision happened to pass over the little bed just over a meter away. His pupils abruptly contracted, his entire body went rigid, and every trace of sleepiness vanished.

Beneath the moonlight, Na'er's soft, short silver-white hair shimmered with tiny glimmers, as though starlit frost had scattered across it. At that moment, her small body was trembling slightly, and seven distinctly different, dazzling halos rose around her without warning.

Yellow, green, red, blue, purple, gold, and silver. The seven colors were clear yet overpowering, intertwining and illuminating one another as they formed an endlessly revolving wheel of seven-colored light that enveloped her entire little bed.

These were the primal powers of the world's seven fundamental elements: wind, earth, fire, water, space, light, and darkness, all gathered here.

A gentle yet boundlessly vast elemental pressure quietly spread. Even deliberately restrained, it still made the air throughout the room thick and heavy. The seven-colored radiance slowly revolved, finally entering Na'er's smooth brow bit by bit and sinking into the depths of her soul, nourishing the primal soul that had slumbered for ten thousand years.

Tang Wulin lay on his bed, not daring to move. He held his breath and silently watched the breathtaking phenomenon.

Time passed, second by second. Only after a full twenty minutes did the seven-colored light surrounding Na'er slowly recede, sinking completely into her body without the slightest trace escaping.

Peace returned to the room. Only the cool moonlight continued to fall gently, resting on the girl's tranquil, youthful face. She looked peaceful and harmless, as though that earth-shaking elemental phenomenon had never happened.

But Tang Wulin saw it clearly. After this baptism of primal power, Na'er had quietly grown a little taller. Her bones and flesh had developed without a sound, and her aura had become more distant and profound. A trace of childishness had faded, replaced by an almost imperceptible thread of ancient divinity.

The excitement and joy of earning his hard-won savings and soon acquiring his first Soul Spirit vanished completely from Tang Wulin's face. In their place came a deep stillness, with endless bitterness and helplessness churning in his heart.

He knew better than anyone what this scene meant.

The memories sleeping within Na'er, stripped away and sealed, were slowly being released.

The pain of the Dragon God's splitting, the blood-deep hatred born of the Divine Realm's slaughter of countless Soul Beasts, her obsession with taking revenge on the Divine Realm as the sovereign of all Soul Beasts...

All those memories, buried through ancient ages, were about to awaken.

Within this sweet little girl before him, who had always depended on him and clung to him, who wheedled for fried chicken and timidly feared the dark, the supreme consciousness of the Silver Dragon King was slowly waking.