Extraordinary natural talent

The front room of Mang Tian Workshop was far from tidy.

Metal components and half-finished parts lay everywhere—on the floor, on the shelves, beside the tables. Many bore obvious marks of cutting and hammering. Tang Wulin could barely recognize a few that seemed to belong to Soul Guidance Mecha; the rest were completely beyond him.

Mang Tian did not linger in the front room. He walked straight down the corridor and led him into a workshop farther inside.

This room was noticeably tidier.

A heavy forging bench stood in the center, with a few basic tools beside it. Various metal blanks were neatly stacked on shelves along the wall. A faint scent of fire and iron hung in the air, and the silence carried a weight unique to workshops.

Mang Tian stopped and turned to look at Tang Wulin.

"Do you know what forging is?"

Tang Wulin shook his head honestly.

"No."

Mang Tian watched him for a while before speaking flatly.

"To be honest, I never intended to take you on. You're too young. A six-year-old hasn't even developed any strength yet and has no business entering a workshop. If your father hadn't insisted over and over, I wouldn't even have agreed to let you through the door."

He made no effort to soften his words.

Any other child might already have been frightened. But Tang Wulin simply looked at him with wide eyes, neither shrinking back nor talking back to put on a brave front.

Seeing this, Mang Tian continued.

"But since you're here, I'll give you a chance."

He raised a hand and pointed at the metal strength-testing bench nearby.

"Do you see that round metal block?"

"Yes." Tang Wulin nodded.

"You won't be using any other tools today." Mang Tian looked at him. "Summon your martial soul and strike it a thousand times with your hammer."

Tang Wulin froze for a moment.

"With... my martial soul?"

"What, afraid?" Mang Tian raised an eyebrow.

Tang Wulin immediately shook his head. "I'm not afraid. I just didn't realize you could use a martial soul directly for forging."

Mang Tian said flatly, "An ordinary forging hammer is a tool, and so is a tool-type martial soul. The only difference is whether you can control it. Since your martial soul is a hammer, if you can't even manage the most basic strikes, learning to forge would only waste both our time."

After saying this, he added another sentence.

"This is your first task today. A thousand strikes. You don't have to alternate hands, but every strike must have force behind it. The counter underneath will count automatically. If you can't finish, don't bother coming tomorrow."

Tang Wulin looked up at the round metal bench, then down at his hands.

The next instant, dark light flashed, and Xiao Hei appeared in his palm.

The moment it appeared, even the air in the workshop seemed to grow heavier.

Tang Wulin did not notice. He merely tightened his grip on the handle instinctively. Contrary to what others might have expected, summoning his martial soul brought no apprehension to his face. Instead, he showed a strange hint of reassurance.

Because he knew this hammer.

It was heavy, it was strange, and everyone else thought it unremarkable. But it was his martial soul, after all, a presence he had been able to feel ever since the day it awakened.

Mang Tian stood beside him, watching. His gaze shifted slightly, but he said nothing.

Tang Wulin walked up to the metal bench, drew a deep breath, and gripped Xiao Hei with both hands, trying to lift it.

Just as whenever he summoned it, the hammer was still heavy.

Yet that heaviness was not entirely unbearable. It felt more like a familiar pressure he was slowly learning to endure. As he swung the hammer, he even had the vague sense that his arms, shoulders, back, waist, and abdomen instinctively knew how to work together to handle its weight.

The next instant—

Bang!

Xiao Hei slammed into the round metal block.

A deep boom rang from the metal bench, and a number immediately appeared on the soul-powered counter screen beneath it:

One.

Tang Wulin's eyes lit up.

I can do it!

Before he had time to think further, the second blow fell.

Bang!

Two.

The third blow, the fourth, the fifth...

Soon, an unbroken series of hammer strikes rang through the workshop.

Unlike the clumsy swings of ordinary apprentices, Tang Wulin's movements, though still immature and entirely lacking in technique, were exceptionally steady when his hammer fell. That steadiness did not come from training. It seemed to rise from his body's instincts.

He made no unnecessary movements, used no clever tricks, and knew nothing about controlling his rhythm.

He simply struck, again and again.

Yet these simplest, most direct strikes revealed a solidity utterly at odds with his age.

Mang Tian had initially stood to one side, watching coldly. After a dozen or so strikes, however, his brow had already begun to furrow.

Far too steady.

A six-year-old touching a proper forging bench for the first time had neither had his grip shaken out of position by the testing metal's recoil nor repeatedly lost his balance under the weight of his martial soul. That alone was already far beyond Mang Tian's expectations.

Tang Wulin himself, meanwhile, had no attention to spare for any of that.

The first hundred-odd strikes actually did not feel too difficult.

Xiao Hei was undeniably heavy, but once he truly began swinging it, that weight seemed to draw out the strength of his entire body bit by bit, making every falling blow feel more solid.

After two hundred strikes, he began to sweat.

Only after three hundred did a dull ache gradually develop in his arms.

But Tang Wulin gritted his teeth and did not stop.

He remembered clearly that his father had said he must rely on himself if he wanted to become a powerful Soul Master.

And now he was relying on himself, hammering out his first path toward the future, one strike at a time.

Bang, bang, bang—

The hammering echoed continuously through the workshop.

Five hundred.

Six hundred.

Seven hundred.

By then, sweat covered Tang Wulin's forehead, and a large patch on the back of his school uniform was soaked through. His palms were numb from the impacts, and his arms ached so badly they hardly felt like his own.

Still, he did not stop.

Because he was no longer thinking only about "finishing the task."

He thought of what his father had said.

Of his mother holding back her tears and still smiling as she sent him off.

Of the increasingly empty rice bowls around the little square table at home.

And of Na'er's reddened eyes as she gently nodded and said, "Mm."

He wanted to grow stronger.

He wanted to rely on himself.

He did not want to be someone who could only stand where he was and say, "I want to become a Soul Master."

After seven hundred and fifty strikes, his movements finally slowed noticeably.

Xiao Hei had grown heavier.

No, the hammer had not grown heavier. He was truly beginning to reach his limit.

Every time he raised his arms, his shoulders and elbows ached as though they had been scorched by fire.

Yet just then, a familiar tingling suddenly crept up from his tailbone.

Tang Wulin shivered slightly.

The next moment, that tingling traveled up his spine like an exceedingly fine electric current. In an instant, it flowed through his back, shoulders, and neck before spreading into both arms.

His arms, which he had barely been able to lift, suddenly seemed a little lighter.

At the same time, an extremely faint pattern of dark gold emerged on Xiao Hei. It was so faint that without looking closely, no one could have noticed it.

Tang Wulin noticed none of these changes. He merely felt instinctively that something had pushed back the sensation of being unable to hold on.

So he gritted his teeth again and kept bringing down the hammer.

Eight hundred.

Nine hundred.

Nine hundred and fifty...

Bang!

The final blow fell, and the number on the counter finally changed to:

One thousand.

Tang Wulin loosened his grip, and Xiao Hei vanished instantly. He staggered half a step backward and began panting heavily.

Sweat streamed down his forehead. His palms burned, his arms ached fiercely, and his chest heaved as though it were about to burst. Yet beneath all that exhaustion and pain, he distinctly felt a strange exhilaration, as though every last bit of strength in his body had been forced out once.

Deeper within him, that line of tingling along his tailbone and spine still traveled back and forth, carrying a barely perceptible warmth.

Mang Tian, meanwhile, had fallen completely silent.

His requirement of "a thousand strikes" had been intended as a way to weed the boy out. A six-year-old, even one who had awakened a hammer-type martial soul, should never have been able to complete such a task on his first encounter with forging.

Yet the child before him had not only completed it, but had done so with his own martial soul hammer.

More importantly—

There had been no hint of wild, haphazard hammering in his strikes.

He had seen it clearly: although the boy's movements were immature, they were exceptionally steady. In particular, that almost inborn control as the hammer fell went far beyond anything mere "great strength" could explain.

"Uncle Mang Tian..." Only after panting for quite some time did Tang Wulin lift his head. "I... finished."

Mang Tian looked at him, and for the first time, his gaze truly changed.

"Rest for five minutes first," he said.

Tang Wulin obediently nodded and slowly sat down, supporting himself against the edge of the strength-testing bench. Five minutes later, he stood again. His arms still ached, but the feeling of utter exhaustion had eased somewhat.

Rather than leading him away, Mang Tian walked up to the metal bench and glanced down at the unmistakable "one thousand" on the counter before turning back to Tang Wulin.

"Do it again," he said. "This time, don't stop until I tell you to."

"All right."

Tang Wulin agreed without hesitation and summoned Xiao Hei once more.

Dark light emerged, and the hammer took shape in his hand.

He drew a deep breath, swung the hammer, and brought it down.

Bang!

The second strike.

The third.

The fourth...

Mang Tian stood beside him and watched without a word.

The longer he watched, the more the coldness faded from his eyes, replaced by increasingly intent scrutiny and a trace of astonishment he himself was reluctant to admit.

Because this time, he could see it even more clearly.

This child truly had talent.

It was not simply a willingness to endure hardship, nor merely greater strength than other children his age. It was a genuine talent for forging—

His martial soul and his body seemed to know instinctively how to hammer a piece of metal.

That steadiness, that coordination, that natural union of strength and control—all of it closely resembled those rare few people born to hold a hammer.

Mang Tian slowly narrowed his eyes.

Could it be...

Was this what they called extraordinary natural talent?