Blood Sacrifice of Thousand Refinement

In fact, before Mang Tian even spoke, Tang Wulin had already walked up to the Forging Platform.

The piece of Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver lay there quietly. The light falling upon it did not reflect the usual dazzling brilliance of metal. Instead, it seemed to draw all the light inside, leaving only a deep, utterly still gray-silver sheen. It was much smaller than before, its edges subdued and its contours drawn inward, like a stone washed by tides for countless years before finally sinking into the deepest reaches of the sea.

Layer upon layer of fine, wave-like patterns spread silently across its surface.

Tang Wulin gazed at it, his eyes gradually growing calm.

The five hours of hammering from the night before seemed to return to his ears.

He raised his hand and gently rested his fingertips on it.

The instant he touched it, something stirred faintly in his heart.

The sensation was extraordinary.

It was not like touching a cold piece of metal, but something that had always been connected to him. Coolness seeped inward through his fingertips, yet within it lay the faintest trace of familiarity. It was as though he had not just forged this piece of Heavy Silver, but had carried it buried in his flesh and bones all along, only slowly hammering it out of those deeper places last night.

"Do you feel it?" Mang Tian asked suddenly from behind him.

Tang Wulin did not turn around. He merely nodded gently.

"It feels... like it was always mine," he said slowly and earnestly.

The faintest hint of a smile appeared in Mang Tian's eyes.

"That's right."

"Thousand Refinement isn't as simple as hammering metal a little harder." He stepped forward, his gaze falling upon the Heavy Silver, his voice low and steady. "Hundred Refinement purifies, stripping away impurities. Thousand Refinement gives metal essence, nurturing its spirit. What you hammered out last night wasn't merely a better piece of Heavy Silver. It was metal that had truly acknowledged you."

Tang Ziran stood beside them. Though he knew nothing of the intricacies of Forging, he understood the weight of those words and could not help taking another look at the Heavy Silver.

At the words "acknowledged you," Tang Wulin's eyes brightened slightly.

He remembered the final stretch of last night.

It had not been a one-sided process of striking and pressing the metal. Rather, the Heavy Silver had seemed to respond to him little by little, finally surrendering that entire radiance of silver.

So it had not merely been his imagination.

Mang Tian looked at him and continued:

"There's a rule in the Forging world. Your first truly completed work of Thousand Refinement must undergo a Blood Sacrifice."

"A Blood Sacrifice?" Tang Wulin finally turned around.

He had never heard the term before.

"Yes." Mang Tian nodded. "Thousand Refinement gives metal a spirit. A Blood Sacrifice makes it acknowledge its master. To put it plainly, it firmly seals that final connection between you and the metal. From then on, it'll be just a piece of metal to anyone else who touches it. But in your hands, it'll know where it should go and how it should respond to you."

At that, Tang Ziran could not help frowning slightly.

"Does it take a lot of blood?"

Mang Tian glanced sideways at him.

"We're not slaughtering a pig."

Tang Ziran: "..."

Mang Tian looked away and continued:

"Your first Thousand-Refined work must undergo a Blood Sacrifice. That's the rule. But you're different from everyone else."

Tang Wulin froze for a moment.

"Me?"

"You've always forged with your Martial Soul." Mang Tian lowered his voice further. "When other people complete their first Thousand-Refined work, they usually keep it as a collectible or forge it into a weapon or a hammer. That's because they wield an external hammer and forge an external object. But you don't."

At that, his gaze fell upon Tang Wulin's palm.

"The hammer in your hand has always been inside your body."

Tang Wulin's breathing faltered slightly.

Those words were like a featherlight hammer, landing precisely where they should upon his heart.

That's right.

From the very beginning, he had never used any other hammer. Practicing his swings, bringing the hammer down, understanding metal, completing Thousand Refinement—he had relied on the Star-Sinking Hammer for all of it. It was not a tool, but his Martial Soul, the part of him closest to his very essence.

If that was the case, why did his first Thousand-Refined work have to be forged into another "external object"?

Mang Tian looked at him and said slowly:

"So you don't need to forge this piece of Heavy Silver into a new hammer."

"What you should do is feed it into your Martial Soul."

As those words fell, the Forging room went quiet.

Tang Ziran was startled at first, then his expression changed.

Even a layman like him could tell this was no ordinary path.

Tang Wulin stood where he was, feeling his heart suddenly pound harder.

It was not fear.

It was an almost instinctive sense of agreement.

As though this was how things had always been meant to happen, and only now had someone finally spelled it out.

"Feed it into..." he repeated softly, his gaze already returning to the Heavy Silver.

For some reason, the longer he looked, the more certain he became that this was the right approach.

The Star-Sinking Hammer was black and heavy, blunt and restrained. The Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver before him was gray and still, its patterns like tides. Their auras were clearly utterly different, yet to his eyes, they shared an indescribable harmony.

Just as they had in that final moment last night, when silver radiance and the hammer's shadow overlapped deep within his mind.

"Teacher." Tang Wulin raised his head. "How do I do it?"

Mang Tian did not answer immediately. Instead, he gave him a look.

"Think it through first," he said. "Once you take this step, there's no turning back. After this Heavy Silver enters your Martial Soul, it won't come out again. If you ever want to trade it for money, materials, or anything else, you won't be able to."

Tang Wulin barely hesitated.

"I don't want to trade it."

He said it.

The words came too quickly, yet rang utterly true.

So quickly that they seemed less like a considered answer than a conclusion his heart had reached long ago.

The faint smile in Mang Tian's eyes deepened a little.

"Good."

As he spoke, he took an extremely thin knife from nearby and set it on the edge of the Forging Platform.

"A Blood Sacrifice begins with blood. What you did last night only secured the Heavy Silver's final breath of vital essence. It wasn't true acknowledgment of a master. Today's cut will complete that final step between you and it."

Tang Wulin nodded.

He placed his right hand on the Forging Platform, palm up, his fingers spread slightly. His movements were steady; even the tendons on the back of his hand barely trembled.

Mang Tian glanced at him and said nothing more. The blade flashed, opening a shallow cut near the base of his palm.

As blood welled up, Tang Wulin's brows tightened almost imperceptibly, but he did not pull away.

Bright red blood dripped onto the Forging Platform, trickling down the creases of his palm before finally landing on the surface of the Heavy Silver.

Hiss—

An exceedingly faint sound.

Unlike last night, there were no coils of white vapor. This time, the blood did not immediately evaporate upon contact. Instead, the gray-silver surface seemed to absorb it little by little. It was a profoundly strange sight, as though the Heavy Silver were not a lifeless object, but a truly awakened life silently drinking blood.

Tang Wulin's breathing deepened involuntarily.

"Summon your Martial Soul," Mang Tian said.

Dark light flashed.

The Star-Sinking Hammer settled silently into his hand.

This time, the moment it appeared, the strands of dark gold patterns deep within its body surfaced faster than usual. No Soul Ring pulsed, and no Soul Skill activated, yet it was responding, watching, waiting for something.

The Heavy Silver on the Forging Platform also began to glow softly.

It was not the dazzling silver radiance of last night, but a restrained glow, like tides slowly rising and falling beneath the moon. The layers of patterns on its surface began to flow ever so gently, as though coming alive.

Tang Wulin's heart gave a sudden jolt.

Without even needing his teacher's reminder, he instinctively extended the Star-Sinking Hammer an inch forward.

Its head hovered above the Heavy Silver.

A hammer and a piece of silver.

One black, one gray.

Only the thinnest layer of air separated them.

Yet at that very instant, the Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver suddenly trembled on its own.

The next moment, under Mang Tian's and Tang Ziran's gazes, the entire piece of metal began to "dissolve" little by little.

It was not melting.

Nor was it breaking apart.

Rather, like a tide beneath the moon suddenly losing the boundaries of its solid form, it surged slowly and silently upward along those flowing silver patterns.

It touched the hammer's surface.

First came an exceedingly thin layer of silver, then a second, then a third. It was not coating the hammer. It was as though something sealed away in a deeper place had finally found the framework to which it truly belonged, adhering inch by inch, seeping inward inch by inch.

Tang Wulin's hand trembled slightly.

He could clearly feel that this was not merely metal attaching itself to the surface. Something was truly entering the Star-Sinking Hammer. Like the essence of deep-sea tides pouring little by little into the black hammer's deepest reaches, it pressed its already tranquil nature down another layer.

It was very cool.

Yet after that coolness passed, a profound, delicate warmth arose.

As though the blood of this Heavy Silver and the bones of this hammer had only now truly met.

"Don't resist," Mang Tian said softly. "Let it in."

Tang Wulin immediately steadied his mind, curling his fingers slightly to tighten his grip on the handle.

He ignored the blood still trickling from his palm and the needle-prick pain. He simply let his heart sink little by little, accepting the tidal essence seeping inward through the hammer.

Then he "heard" it.

It was very faint.

Like the sea turning over in its deepest, quietest reaches.

The next instant, the silver radiance abruptly drew inward.

The entire piece of Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver vanished completely into the hammer.

Only a few drops of blood, not yet dry, remained on the Forging Platform.

And in that moment, the Star-Sinking Hammer in Tang Wulin's hand changed completely.

It was still pitch-black.

Still short, blunt, and heavy, without the slightest added ostentation at first glance.

But a second look revealed an exceedingly faint layer of silver-gray tidal patterns deep within the hammer's surface, between the strands of dark gold markings that had once been barely visible.

Those patterns neither shone nor rose to the surface. They seemed to have been washed into the iron by the tides, settling deep within, revealing that trace of the sea's stillness only in an occasional glimmer beneath firelight or moonlight.

More importantly—

The hammer had grown heavier.

It was not merely an increase in weight. Its very aura had "sunk downward" another layer. It was like a star that had once only weighed upon a mountain's shadow, but now had its tail caught by tides at the bottom of the deep sea, making even the stillness of its descent heavier.

Tang Wulin lowered his head to gaze at it, momentarily unable to speak.

Mang Tian stood beside him and watched for a long time before finally speaking slowly:

"It's done."

"From now on, it isn't just your Martial Soul."

"It's also your first work of Thousand Refinement."

Though Tang Ziran could not grasp all the intricacies involved, he could tell that this was something no ordinary Forging master would experience. As he watched the black hammer in his son's palm, his eyes held astonishment and a tangle of emotions he could barely suppress.

This child's path was growing increasingly different from that of ordinary people.

Tang Wulin stood where he was, tightening his grip slightly.

He could feel it.

Something new had formed within the Star-Sinking Hammer.

It was not simply strength, weight, or some easily explained increase in Soul Power. It felt more as though—from this moment on, his hammer truly possessed "bones."

It had always been heavy, but now that weight had deeper roots.

It had always been steady, but now it was steady like a reef anchored in the deep sea.

If last night's Thousand-Refined Heavy Silver had been metal he had hammered to life, then that newly awakened "life" had now followed the Blood Sacrifice and taken firm root within this hammer.

"Teacher," Tang Wulin suddenly said, his voice a little lower than usual.

"Hmm?"

"I think... I like it even more now."

The remark was somewhat childish.

Yet after hearing it, Mang Tian merely gave a very soft snort.

"Obviously."

"Your own blood, your own hammer, your first piece of Thousand-Refined metal—they're all in there. If you don't like it, who would?"

Tang Wulin smiled.

It was not a showy smile. He simply lowered his head and looked at the hammer in his palm, the corners of his lips slowly curving upward. Somewhere in his heart, a space that had always stood empty was finally filled with something that fit just right.

Mang Tian watched him, then added mildly after a moment:

"From today onward, stop thinking about Forging hammers."

"What you'll truly forge from now on isn't an external hammer."

"It's this hammer of your own."