With [Lotus Body] keeping Li Zha in peak condition, and the Plane Spirit choosing to guide him,
in Li Zha's eyes,
the chunk of heavy silver before him seemed transparent, its internal structure and metallic grain clearly visible.
For a moment, it was as though he had switched on a cheat.
Holding the hammer in one hand, Li Zha struck rapidly, again and again. The recoil made his wrist and the web of his thumb ache, but his little hand remained frighteningly steady as he gradually hammered out the impurities.
Soon,
with each of Li Zha's blows, humming sounds rose from within the heavy silver, like moans of pleasure.
"Little Know-It-All, you're really something!"
Beside him, Uncle Niu silently raised a thumb.
Today's test actually required removing every impurity from the heavy silver.
For a newcomer who had never studied forging, that was impossible.
Uncle Niu had simply wanted to see Li Zha's strength and whether he possessed a basic knack for it.
Generally, a newcomer with a knack for forging could purify metal even without training, provided they could sense its grain and strike along it.
But now,
judging by Li Zha's bearing, Uncle Niu could tell he had entered a state of utter absorption in an instant. The heavy silver on the forging table had become square again and was rapidly shrinking.
It was already smaller than when he had started.
That was the result of its internal structure tightening, impurities being removed, and its density increasing.
Another hundred strikes followed.
Sweat had appeared on Li Zha's forehead. He was no longer hammering at random, and after striking for so long, his stamina was rapidly dwindling.
"Ah."
Beside him,
Leng Yaozhu watched the sweat-soaked, utterly focused Li Zha and sighed inwardly.
At this point,
even an outsider like her could see that Li Zha truly possessed a talent for forging-and most likely no small talent, either.
Leng Yaozhu knew
that Li Zha would certainly study forging in the future.
Just as when she had first met Li Zha, and he had told her, calmly but firmly, that he was qualified to become her student.
Leng Yaozhu knew she could not stop him,
nor did she want to.
Ultimately, a person had to cultivate and live in the way they liked. Otherwise, how were they any different from the walking dead?
Having made her decision,
Leng Yaozhu did not call for him to stop. She wanted to quietly watch Li Zha finish his first forging attempt.
She knew
that opportunities like this would grow fewer and fewer.
Li Zha was wholly unaware of Leng Yaozhu's complicated gaze, devoting himself entirely to removing impurities.
As he struck rapidly, time after time, the heavy silver before him had shrunk to two-thirds of its original size, its surface changing from bright silver to gray.
"Looks like it still won't work. The temperature's too low."
Just then,
Uncle Niu noticed the problem.
Li Zha had wasted a great deal of time with those five hundred-odd random strikes at the start, and the heavy silver's temperature had dropped considerably.
If it fell a little further,
the metal would soon become too hard to hammer at all.
At that very moment,
"Fire, come!"
Li Zha roared, and a burst of white flame suddenly rose from the forging table.
The white flame appeared out of thin air on the heavy silver, actually using the metal itself as fuel to rapidly heat it!
"What?!"
Uncle Niu rubbed his eyes, almost convinced he was hallucinating.
"What the hell is that fire? How did it spontaneously ignite out of nowhere?!"
The instant the Samadhi True Fire appeared, the heavy silver's temperature rose.
Li Zha struck the burning chunk of metal again and again. Sparks filled the area around the forging table, severely obscuring his vision.
Yet even under those conditions, every blow of Li Zha's forging hammer landed steadily, exactly where he intended.
And beneath the Samadhi True Fire, the heavy silver's metallic activity was instantly stimulated, abruptly accelerating the entire purification process!
Ten minutes passed.
Li Zha stopped.
A chunk of heavy silver only one-third of its original size lay before him.
Uncle Niu hurried forward, picked up the metal, and carefully examined and stroked it.
Leng Yaozhu, meanwhile, wiped Li Zha's sweat away with concern. "Zha'er, you're tired, aren't you? Do your hands hurt?"
Li Zha nodded and smiled. "They hurt, but it feels great."
"Deputy Pagoda Master."
Uncle Niu could not hide the astonishment in his eyes.
But since Leng Yaozhu had expressed her wish for Li Zha to study mecha design before coming here, he did not continue.
Leng Yaozhu beckoned, drew Uncle Niu aside, and raised a soundproof barrier.
"Go ahead."
"Deputy Pagoda Master, Little Know-It-All's forging talent far exceeds anything I imagined. On his very first attempt, without learning any fundamentals, he nearly finished purifying this chunk of heavy silver."
Uncle Niu excitedly displayed the gray metal, gazing at it as though it were his lover.
"Little Know-It-All is extremely sensitive to the grain and internal structure of metal. He has a natural grasp of where to strike and how much force to use."
"And that white fire of his is practically a flame born for forging. It can actually use the metal itself as fuel. That's incredibly effective for removing impurities."
Uncle Niu clicked his tongue in wonder, nearly drooling as he looked at Li Zha.
As a Six-Star Grandmaster Forging Craftsman,
his talent had already taken him as far as he could go, leaving him no hope of advancement. What could be more exciting than discovering a forging genius?
"If Little Know-It-All hadn't hammered randomly at the start, wasting time and stamina and damaging some of the internal structure, this purification might really have succeeded!"
Uncle Niu took a deep breath after finishing.
Mastering Hundred Refinement purification without a teacher.
Surely even Divine Craftsman Zhen Hua couldn't have done that as a child, damn it?
Leng Yaozhu asked, "So, what are you saying?"
"I'm saying Little Know-It-All is a heaven-chosen forging prodigy! If we start training him carefully now,
I can't promise he'll become a Divine Craftsman, but with his innate strength, tremendous spiritual power, and that white fire assisting him, he'll be a sixth-rank grandmaster at the very least, and most likely an Eighth-Rank Saint Craftsman!"
"He might even have a chance at becoming a Divine Craftsman before thirty!"
Leng Yaozhu tightly pinched the hem of her clothing.
She had not expected Li Zha's talent to be so extraordinary.
Most likely an Eighth-Rank Saint Craftsman!
What did being an Eighth-Rank Saint Craftsman mean...?
You could count every one on the Douluo Continent on the fingers of one hand!
And as for Divine Craftsmen,
there was only Zhen Hua!
Of course, considering that Uncle Niu himself was merely a sixth-rank grandmaster, he might have been exaggerating.
But Li Zha's talent was plain to see.
At least in all her years as a Soul Master, Leng Yaozhu had never heard of a genius nearly succeeding at Hundred Refinement at six years old.
Let alone without a teacher.
"All right, I understand."
Leng Yaozhu nodded. "Then let Zha'er study forging. If our Spirit Pagoda can produce a Divine Craftsman, that would be a tremendous blessing."
"Zha'er will study under you for now. But Uncle Niu, since he's a genius, please be sure to be strict with him."
"With Zha'er's gifts as both a Soul Master and a blacksmith, he may well become the next Pagoda Master to take the helm of our Spirit Pagoda."
"So you must hold him to the strictest standards. We cannot let this child's talent go to waste."
Uncle Niu hurriedly nodded.
After hesitating briefly, he spoke again. "Well, Pagoda Master Leng, of course I'll put my heart and soul into teaching him, but..."
"But what?"
"Ah, it's just that I'm only a sixth-rank grandmaster myself. I can teach him everything up to and including Thousand Refinement, but I may not have mastered what comes after that. When the time comes, please find Little Know-It-All a good teacher. Otherwise, I'm afraid he might stray down the wrong path."
"Yes. I understand."
Leng Yaozhu nodded.
Meanwhile,
on Douluo Star, a vast consciousness swept over the scene within the Spirit Pagoda and quietly felt reassured.
"Child of the Plane, please grow quickly. Whether my Douluo Plane can escape Divine King Tang's control depends entirely on you!"
The Plane Spirit let out a weary sigh.
As the Douluo Plane Will, it had once supported Thousand-Hand Asura Tang San as the Child of the Plane, helping him become a God King.
Yet not only had Divine King Tang failed to repay the Douluo Plane, he had even let the entire Douluo God Realm fall into turbulent spacetime and be swept away, damn it.
He had also left a contingency behind, allowing his father, Tang Hao, to parasitize its body and constantly eat away at its original consciousness.
The Douluo Plane Spirit wanted to weep, but had no tears.
It was not as though it had never resisted over the years.
Unfortunately,
the new Child of the Plane it had supported ten thousand years ago, Huo Yuhao, had been trained into a dog by Divine King Tang.
Its previous favored one, Underworld Emperor Ha Luosa, had also long failed to find any hope of attaining Self-Created Godhood.
With Tang Hao constantly devouring it as well,
the Plane Spirit was already on its last breath. This was the final Child of the Plane it could support.
If it failed again,
it would have no chance of turning its fortunes around and would be completely devoured by Tang Hao.
Originally, it had wavered between Tang Wulin and Li Zha. After all, it knew how formidable the Golden Dragon King was.
But it had never encountered Nezha and did not know who he was.
Yet once it discovered the Immortal Court Seed within Li Zha, the Plane Spirit immediately chose him as its final Child of the Plane.
For no other reason than this:
the greatest difficulty now was that the Divine Realm was gone. Even those as powerful as Yun Ming and Ha Luosa had no way to attain Self-Created Godhood.
Under those circumstances,
Li Zha, who bore the aura of the Immortal Court, was born with the standing of a god. Once he grew strong enough, at the very least, he would only need sufficient energy to create another Divine Realm.
"Grow quickly, Li Zha. When you encounter Tang San's son in the future, I'll have to lend you a hand to prevent him from leaving a spiritual imprint on you."
"The Abyss's devouring is imminent, too. You don't have much time left."
The Plane Spirit sighed. Sadly, less than a tenth of its strength remained, and it had to save its energy for the coming great calamity.
Otherwise, how could Li Zha have nearly been killed by an Evil Soul Master?
Soon,
its consciousness sank back into its struggle with Tang Hao.
Before you continue