Lucas's mother nodded in agreement as well. At that moment, his father, Abuda, said happily, "You've reached rank three. It's time I taught you martial skills."
Then he asked, "What weapon do you like?"
Lucas thought for a moment and said, "I like spears."
Selina said to her husband, Abuda, "We happen to have a piece of blood-pattern gold ore at home. Have a spear forged for our son!"
Abuda nodded. Seeing that they had agreed, Lucas asked them, "Could you take me along to see how weapons are forged?"
Since his son wanted to watch, Abuda agreed. That afternoon, he took Lucas to the tribe's weapon forge. Once they arrived, Abuda introduced him to his son. "This is Master Drake, our tribe's weaponsmith. He's also a rank-six warrior."
Lucas looked at the old man before him. His beard was noticeably graying, but that still did little to hide his powerful arms. Lucas greeted him politely. "Hello, Grandpa Drake."
The old man smiled happily, then came over and patted Lucas on the head. "So you're our tribe's young little genius."
"You flatter me!" Lucas said modestly. "Eric, Benny, and Windsor are geniuses too."
When Lucas finished speaking, Grandpa Drake burst into laughter. He said to Lucas, "Good. Neither arrogant nor impatient. What brings you here today?"
Abuda took over the conversation, pulling the blood-pattern gold ore he had collected from inside his clothes. He said to Master Drake, "I'd like to use this piece of ore to have a spear forged for my son."
Master Drake examined the ore, then smiled at Abuda. "You're certainly willing to part with something valuable."
Abuda smiled and said, "Well, my son is a little genius, isn't he? He deserves this piece of ore."
Master Drake nodded as well and said bluntly, "That's true enough. I wasn't a rank-three warrior at his age."
Knowing that he and his father were asking a favor, Lucas hurriedly said, "Thank you for the praise, Grandpa Drake."
After acknowledging him, Drake said to Abuda, "Come back in a month."
When he finished speaking and saw that Abuda and Lucas hadn't moved, he asked in puzzlement, "Is there something else?"
Lucas took out the Wind Wolf Magic Beast Core his father had given him before and asked Master Drake, "Is there any way to melt this into a weapon?"
Lucas knew that in later times, there were ways to melt Magic Beast Cores into liquid and then add them to weapons. Master Drake took the Magic Beast Core Lucas handed him, examined it, and said, "I know what this is."
Hearing that, Lucas hurriedly asked, his face full of excitement, "Grandpa Drake, does that mean there's a way?"
Master Drake shook his head and said, "No. We've found these things inside magic beasts before too. We tried it as well, but clearly, it didn't work."
Unwilling to give up, Lucas asked, "Why?"
Master Drake seemed to sink into his memories. After a while, he said, "My grandfather tried it back then. He used the extremely high heat of a fierce fire to try to melt it. Unfortunately, he failed, and the thing eventually exploded in the heat."
"My grandfather lost his right arm in that explosion. Afterward, he strictly forbade us from trying to melt them again!"
Hearing Master Drake's account, Lucas naturally understood the reason. A Magic Beast Core was a concentration of all the magical power in a magic beast's body. Put simply, it was an accumulation of energy. Magic beasts could use their bloodline and spiritual power to draw on the energy within their Magic Beast Cores. In other words, although a core was crystalline, the energy inside it was unstable under certain circumstances.
It seemed that exceptionally high temperatures would cause the energy in a Magic Beast Core to erupt. Lucas sighed and numbly took back the Wind Wolf Magic Beast Core Master Drake handed him.
Then he heard Master Drake say, "Unless it melts on its own, there's no way to smelt it into a weapon."
Hearing Master Drake mention a Magic Beast Core melting on its own immediately opened up a new line of thought for Lucas. His eyes lit up at once, and he asked Master Drake, "Then has anyone tried using the magic beast's own blood, together with some special herbs or something else, to make it dissolve instead of smelting it at high temperatures?"
Puzzled, Master Drake asked Lucas, "Why?"
Lucas paced excitedly, gesturing animatedly as he said, "Because this thing comes from a magic beast, its blood should help dissolve it. But if we find some kind of herb that can speed up that process, we'll be able to dissolve it."
Hearing Lucas say this, his father, Abuda, who had just learned that Master Drake's grandfather had lost an arm because of a Magic Beast Core, hurriedly stopped his son. "Didn't you hear what Master Drake said? His grandfather lost an arm because of this thing. Don't trouble Master Drake with something so dangerous."
Master Drake stopped Lucas's father, Abuda, and said to him with a smile, "It's all right. If it succeeds, it will also resolve one of my grandfather's regrets!"
"My grandfather never tried this approach of his, and it sounds relatively safe. I'm willing to give it a try too!"
Since Master Drake had said so, Abuda pulled his son over and said to Lucas, "Hurry up and thank Grandpa Drake."
Lucas respectfully bowed to Master Drake in thanks. Afterward, Master Drake took the several Wind Wolf Magic Beast Cores Lucas had brought with him.
After Lucas and his father left Master Drake's forge, Abuda gave Lucas a light smack on the head. Then he said with a hint of reproach, "Next time, tell me beforehand about something like this."
Lucas nodded. Although he hadn't gotten a satisfactory result this time, he wasn't disappointed. Since Master Drake was willing to try, Lucas didn't press the matter any further. After all, even forging a powerful weapon was less important than comprehending the laws himself and growing stronger. Obtaining a powerful weapon would certainly make him happy, but the mature Lucas knew that his own level of attainment was the foundation for establishing himself in the Coiling Dragon World!
After returning from Master Drake's, Lucas resumed his stone carving. He wanted to comprehend the laws of the earth element through the craft of stone carving, laying the groundwork in advance for becoming a deity in the future.
That way, even if he had no cultivation methods for battle qi or magic, he would face no other bottlenecks before advancing to Saint, apart from the hurdle of liquefying his spiritual power at rank seven.
Before you continue