Insight and Sublimation

An intense wave of exhaustion surged back through his entire body almost the instant that silver light faded.

Tang Wulin felt as though he had been hollowed out in a single stroke. His arms grew heavy first, and then he lost even the strength to lift his hands. His fingers loosened slightly around the Star-Sinking Hammer, and its shadow dispersed on its own. His knees buckled, and he slumped straight to the floor.

Sweat streamed from his temples and chin, spattering the floor with little dark marks.

Mang Tian moved quickly. He caught Tang Wulin's wrist and pressed a Bandage as thin as adhesive tape over it. The cut had still been bleeding earlier, but now only a faint red line remained. Once the patch sealed in the warm blood, nothing more seeped out.

He did not speak at once.

He merely looked down at Tang Wulin, then raised his eyes to the heavy silver on the forging table, which had already undergone sublimation. The corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

His expression was subdued, but a closer look would have revealed an emotion rarely seen on his face, held beneath his usual stony calm.

It was not surprise.

It was a deeper kind of confirmation.

What he had been waiting for was not merely a gifted child.

It was someone who could truly go far in forging.

Tang Ziran had already hurried inside and caught his son.

"Wulin?"

Tang Wulin opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but he was simply too tired. Five uninterrupted double-hours of intense hammering, followed by that instant of resonance when he completed Thousand Refinement—a sensation that had nearly drawn out his mind along with everything else—left even his eyelids growing heavy.

Hammer blows still seemed to echo in his ears, one after another, both distant and close.

He vaguely heard Mang Tian speaking.

"...Remember how today felt."

"This is a beginning, not an end."

"One day, you'll understand what the step you took today truly means."

But that voice seemed to reach him through a deep layer of water, muffled and low, impossible to make out clearly.

Tang Wulin managed only a slight movement in his father's arms before sinking into a deep sleep.

When he next opened his eyes, daylight shone outside the window.

Sunlight slanted through a gap in the window, falling beside his bed and across the little bed opposite. That bed was still there, its sheets neatly folded and its pillow set straight. Only its occupant was gone.

Tang Wulin lay there, staring blankly for a while before slowly coming to his senses.

His whole body felt weak.

Yet it was not the aching weakness of overexertion. It felt as though he had been drained completely, then slowly filled again by something. Warmth seeped between his bones and along his meridians. Even each breath entering his chest carried a drowsy heat, so comfortable that he did not want to move.

He briefly closed his eyes.

Yet the final moments of Thousand Refinement remained astonishingly clear.

That piece of Heavy Silver had breathed in the fire.

When his hammer fell, the metal was no longer dead. It seemed to have a pulse of its own. He pressed it, and it answered him. When those responses built to their peak, the whole piece of Heavy Silver suddenly shone. It was moonlight long buried in the deep sea, finally hammered free from its very depths.

So this was sublimation.

It wasn't creating something out of nothing.

It was forcing out the part that had always been there, buried too deep.

Lying against his pillow, Tang Wulin's lips curved ever so slightly.

I suppose... I really did it.

Before that faint joy could fully rise within him, his gaze fell on the empty little bed again.

His smile faltered, then slowly faded.

If only Na'er were still here.

She would surely throw herself at him first, look at him with shining eyes, then ask very earnestly, "Big brother, did you succeed?"

Then he could deliberately act as though it were no great matter, nod, and say, "Of course."

And once she was truly happy, he could secretly bask in his triumph.

But now, he was alone in the room.

"Na'er..." Tang Wulin called softly.

No one answered.

Something seemed to give his heart a gentle tug. It ached, though not with a sudden, unbearable pain. It merely lingered there, reminding him from time to time—she was gone.

When you're happy now, she isn't here.

When you're utterly exhausted, she isn't here either.

Tang Wulin pressed his lips together and stared at that bed for a while before saying softly in his heart:

I'll find you.

Wherever you've gone, I'll find you.

That promise seemed to set a resolve within him, gentle yet firm. The warmth that had been lazily enfolding his limbs slowly rose with it, wrapping around him once more.

Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep again.

The second time, hunger woke him.

It struck with brutal directness, as though his stomach were painfully empty and the hunger had hauled him bodily out of bed. Tang Wulin sat bolt upright, his eyes not even fully open before he called out:

"Mom."

The door opened almost immediately.

Lang Yue hurried inside. Her eyes were still a little red, but her expression had visibly relaxed.

"You're awake?"

"I'm so hungry." Tang Wulin's voice was still slightly hoarse, but he was wide awake now. "Mom, I'm starving to death."

Lang Yue could not help smiling, though her eyes immediately grew warm again.

If he could complain of hunger, that meant he really had recovered.

"There's food, there's food." She nodded hurriedly. "I've kept chicken soup warm for you. There are steamed buns and dishes too. Your teacher said you were badly exhausted and should have something hot when you woke up."

Tang Wulin could think of nothing else now. He threw off his blanket and climbed out of bed.

A quarter of an hour later, at the dining table.

Lang Yue and Tang Ziran watched their son bury himself in drinking soup, chewing buns, and picking up food, his movements so quick that he scarcely paused. Their expressions slowly grew rather peculiar.

He ate an entire chicken, meat and broth alike, leaving nothing behind.

After putting away five steamed buns, he was actually reaching for a sixth.

The two plates of food on the table were almost empty too.

"This..." Lang Yue hesitated, then finally turned to her husband. "Won't he hurt himself eating so much?"

Tang Ziran was a little stunned too.

He knew his son had always had a healthy appetite, but this time, "healthy" was nowhere near enough to describe it.

Tang Wulin swallowed a large mouthful of chicken and looked up, his speech muffled.

"No," he said with absolute certainty. "I'm still hungry."

Lang Yue: "..."

Tang Ziran gave a light cough.

"Go make him another couple of dishes."

Lang Yue rolled her eyes at him. Despite her grumbling, she turned and went into the kitchen.

Only after quite a while did Tang Wulin finally lean back in his chair, thoroughly satisfied, and let out a long breath.

"Mom's cooking is still the best."

He looked as though every part of him had been fed into utter contentment.

Tang Ziran lowered his gaze to his wrist.

The cut Mang Tian had made the previous night was now nothing more than an extremely faint red mark, almost invisible without a close look.

Something shifted in his eyes, but he said nothing.

Over the past year, his son's recovery had already been beyond that of ordinary people. Now that he had become a Soul Master, the change seemed even more pronounced.

Tang Wulin had not yet spared a thought for any of that.

He set down his bowl, suddenly remembered the most important thing, and immediately sat a little straighter.

"Dad, did I really succeed at Thousand Refinement yesterday?"

Tang Ziran looked at him and finally nodded with a smile.

"You did."

"And you did very well. Your teacher hardly said anything else last night. He only said you should go see him as soon as you woke up."

Tang Wulin's eyes lit up at once.

"Then I'll go right now!"

"Stop right there." Lang Yue came out carrying a freshly cooked dish, her brows drawing together. "It's already dark outside. You only just woke up. What's the rush?"

Tang Wulin had almost stepped away, but her words forced him to stop. He turned back to her, his eyes still blazing with excitement.

"But Teacher said to come over as soon as I woke up..."

Lang Yue was about to say more when Tang Ziran stood.

"I'll go with him," he said. "Just for a little while. We'll be right back."

Seeing the father and son each more eager than the other, Lang Yue wanted to glare at them in exasperation. But knowing she could not stop them, she could only grit her teeth and deliver one final warning:

"If anything else happens, you're sleeping in the living room tonight."

Tang Ziran rubbed his nose, not daring to reply.

Tang Wulin had already hurriedly changed into his outer clothes, his eyes bright as though flames had been lit inside them.

The lights at the Mang Tian Workshop were still on.

Seen from outside in the night, that patch of warm yellow light looked especially quiet, as though the fire had not gone out but was merely waiting for someone to return.

The moment Tang Wulin pushed open the door, he could not help calling out:

"Teacher, I'm here!"

Even he did not notice the irrepressible delight in his voice.

Mang Tian came out from inside.

He wore the same old work clothes and the same stern expression. Yet the instant he saw Tang Wulin, the trace of coldness usually buried deep in his eyes softened ever so slightly.

"You're awake?" he asked.

"Yes!" Tang Wulin nodded vigorously. "Teacher, did I—"

"Come with me," Mang Tian interrupted.

Rather than heading into the outer hall, he led father and son straight into the forging room inside.

As the door opened, the lingering heat of last night's metal still hung in the air.

A piece of metal rested quietly in the center of the forging table.

It was no longer the dazzling silver-white piece of Heavy Silver it had been.

It had grown smaller, and more subdued.

Dull gray, it looked almost unremarkable at first glance, as though the fire and hammer had pressed it layer by layer until it drew back all the light that had once floated on its surface. But another look revealed that this grayness was not dimness. It was a deep restraint with a tangible sense of weight.

Across its surface, layers of fine patterns spread like surging water.

Like the sea.

Like an entire sea that had been pressed flat, then gathered together again.

"Take a look." Mang Tian stepped half a pace aside, his voice quiet. "This is what you left behind last night."

Tang Wulin stood where he was, unable to step forward at once.

He only looked.

He looked for a long time.

Every hammer blow, every breath, every recoil from those five double-hours the previous night seemed to return before his eyes at that moment. Not vaguely, but with absolute clarity.

This was what he had forged.

His first piece of thousand-refined metal.

Only after a long while did he slowly approach, reach out, and lightly touch the Heavy Silver's surface with his fingertips.

Cool.

Not a hard, cold chill, but a deep, steady coolness. The instant his fingers settled on it, that coolness seemed to seep through his fingertips and into his bones. Yet within it lay a delicate moistness, like the dampness left on reefs after the sea receded, resting there quietly.

"It..." Tang Wulin's voice grew softer. "It's different from last night."

"Obviously." Mang Tian glanced at him.

Yet there was clearly no real rebuke in that "obviously."

"Metal naturally changes after sublimation," he said. "Last night, that piece of Heavy Silver was still just Heavy Silver. What you see now is true Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver."

Tang Wulin kept his fingers against the metal's surface.

He could feel it.

Something really seemed to be hidden within it.

It was not life, but a lingering resonance left behind after awakening. As though it was no longer merely ore, no longer merely material, but had been hammered, blow by blow, into a "temperament" of its own.

"Teacher," he looked up, the light in his eyes bright yet steady, "what did its sublimation bring out?"

This time, Mang Tian did not answer immediately.

He stepped forward and rested his hand on the Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver too, tracing its layered patterns gently with his fingertips, as though verifying something, or sensing it.

After a moment, he slowly spoke:

"Tide," he said.

"Heavy Silver comes from the deep sea. It is exceptionally heavy and dense, and the flow of Soul Power is especially important to it. Last night, you pressed out all its impurities and truly hammered out the essence of the deep sea within it. So what remained in the end wasn't merely strength or density."

"It was Tide."

"When Soul Power flows through it, it will move more smoothly and steadily, like tidal waters. Used to make Soul Tools, Mecha core components, or forged into parts that must withstand real pressure, it will resist impacts better than ordinary thousand-refined metal and handle repeated surges of force more effectively."

Tang Wulin listened intently.

Although there were still parts he did not fully understand, the moment the word "Tide" reached his ears, he grasped it almost instinctively.

Because he had truly felt it during those final moments the previous night.

The Heavy Silver had breathed and surged, curling inward layer by layer beneath his hammer like tidal waters, then pushing outward layer by layer again.

And so, in the end, it retained the sea's patterns, and the sea's temperament as well.

At that thought, a sudden warmth stirred in Tang Wulin's chest.

Not because his teacher had praised him.

But because, for the first time, he felt he had truly "understood" a piece of metal. Not through memory, nor through his teacher's instruction, but by listening with every strike of his hammer, until he finally heard what it wanted to become.

"It's good," Tang Wulin said softly.

Mang Tian glanced at him.

"Of course it is," he said. "You forged it yourself. If it weren't good, those ten hours you spent last night would have been wasted."

The corners of Tang Wulin's lips twitched slightly.

His smile was barely visible, but that little bit of joy he could not suppress still spilled out through his eyes. It was a quiet, deeply contented happiness, neither noisy nor exuberant, yet more solid and grounding than anything else.