Lu Wu rested and recovered for half an hour, only to suddenly feel something restraining his entire body.
A wash of silver light filled his vision, and alarm surged through Lu Wu.
His Fire Element stars were still arranging themselves when a pair of heavy hands pressed directly onto his shoulders. "Don't be nervous. It's me."
"Grandpa Shen?" Lu Wu had never expected Grandpa Shen's mastery of the Space Element to have reached such a level.
Cold sweat had broken out all over his body just now. It was a fear of position.
He was comparatively better off. Zu Yanzhi's face was now somewhat pale; she looked badly frightened.
She could barely stand, and Lu Wu hurried to support her.
"Master Shen, why didn't you give us any warning?" Zu Yanzhi was around twenty, and a little taller than Lu Wu.
Although she was not as pretty as Mu Nujiao, she had lovely features and definitely qualified as a beauty.
And because of her age, she had already fully developed, her graceful figure abundantly voluptuous.
Seeing Lu Wu come to support her, Zu Yanzhi did not refuse, leaning her body slightly against his.
She paid no attention whatsoever to where her height would make Lu Wu touch her.
"This is where we'll be crafting." Shen Shitian pointed around them.
Only then did Lu Wu notice that they were inside an enormous cavern, with magma radiating intense heat at the bottom.
The orange-red magma flowed quietly, giving off intense heat.
He had not noticed at first, but gradually realized that the temperature around them was rising.
"Is this underneath that enormous rock?" Lu Wu asked, looking at the hard stone of some kind beneath his feet.
"That's right." Shen Shitian nodded. "Take a moment to recover, you two, then follow me."
The cavern was enormous, seven or eight meters high and so long that Lu Wu could not see its end at all.
Orange-red magma flowed around them. Although the rock beneath their feet was somewhat warm, it was not scalding.
Aside from its rather high temperature, there was nothing unusual about the air.
It did not even affect their breathing.
The brown rock underfoot formed a winding, irregular stone path. A hundred meters ahead, a giant sword more than five meters tall hovered above the magma.
"Let's follow him. I've recovered." Zu Yanzhi slowly moved her body away.
Lu Wu nodded without speaking, looking instead at the giant sword.
It was a giant white bone sword forged from some Demon Beast's leg bone!!!
And although it was clearly just a bone, it gave Lu Wu an inexplicable sense of pressure.
"Grandpa Shen, is this giant bone sword what we're going to craft?" Lu Wu followed closely behind Shen Shitian.
Countless patterns were currently inscribed on the giant bone sword.
Those patterns continuously drew Fire Element energy from the magma, occasionally giving off a faint orange-red glow.
"This is the leg bone of a Northern Plains Ice Vulture that died many years ago. Old Man Luo bought it in Europe." Shen Shitian nodded. "This is what we're crafting. The groundwork is essentially complete. Next, I just need you to help me melt Mystic Ice into Mystic Ice water to keep the giant sword from cracking while I fuse in the other materials."
This Northern Plains Ice Vulture must have been an extremely formidable existence when it was alive, Lu Wu thought to himself.
In truth, Lu Wu knew absolutely nothing about artifact crafting.
Looking at those complex, mysterious patterns only gave him more of a headache.
Grandpa Shen's crafting method stood in a class of its own, beyond the grasp of ordinary people. Those patterns might be one of its steps.
This giant sword seemed to be some kind of magic tool, and a Demon-Slaying Tool with extremely powerful offensive capabilities at that.
But it was far too big.
Magical artifacts included magic implements and magic tools, which were further divided according to their different uses.
Magic tools included Boot Magic Tools that assisted movement, Shield Magic Tools for defense, Demon-Slaying Tools for attacks, and even incomparably expensive Wing Magic Tools.
All magic tools were relatively small. Once a mage poured magic energy into them, they would take on another form for the wielder to use.
This giant bone sword seemed to be a Demon-Slaying Tool, yet it was enormous.
The aura it gave off was even more astonishing.
Even he could feel the pressure emanating from this giant bone sword. Among Demon Beasts, with their strict bloodline hierarchy, any that sensed it from far away would have long since fled without a trace.
Elder Luo had racked his brains over it, and Grandpa Shen had likewise given it his full support. Half a year had passed from the start until now.
What was the purpose of going to such lengths to forge this giant bone sword?!
"Master Shen, what are you crafting this giant bone sword for?" Much of the color had returned to Zu Yanzhi's previously pale face.
Actually, before coming here, Zu Yanzhi had merely met Elder Luo at the Imperial Capital Academy, and the terms he offered had been very attractive.
Otherwise, she would never have traveled all the way to Rongcheng.
She had never expected the process to be so outrageous.
She had encountered Demon Beasts along the way, and now she had even come to this cavern filled with magma.
The spatial teleportation just now had been even more unexpected for Zu Yanzhi, and had truly given her a fright.
"You don't need to concern yourselves with that. All you need to do next is keep melting Mystic Ice." Shen Shitian waved his hand.
Two fist-sized pieces of Mystic Ice appeared, along with two specially made iron buckets.
There was Mystic Ice on the iron buckets, as well as a protruding pipe, with a palm-sized iron bowl at its end.
Lu Wu hurriedly reached out to take one.
He really had no idea where Grandpa Shen kept all this Mystic Ice and these iron buckets before casually taking them out.
Still, Grandpa Shen was a master at crafting magical artifacts, after all. It was possible that he possessed some special ones.
Hearing this, Zu Yanzhi asked no further questions and took one.
Although she rarely went out for practical training, she still had some sense of how to read a situation.
Since Master Shen did not want to say more, she should not keep asking.
"You two don't need to do anything else. Just melt Mystic Ice here, the more the better," Shen Shitian instructed. "Once you've used up your magic energy, you can recover here. The Fire Element energy here is extremely dense, so you'll recover somewhat faster."
"Understood."
Lu Wu and Zu Yanzhi nodded at the same time, then each began preparing their magic.
Zu Yanzhi's primary element was not the Fire Element. It was her secondary element, which she had now cultivated to the third level of the beginner tier.
They had begun preparing their magic at almost the same time, but the flames appeared in Lu Wu's palm sooner.
"You actually cast magic faster than I do!" Zu Yanzhi discovered that Lu Wu cast his magic even more quickly than she did.
"Practice makes perfect, practice makes perfect," Lu Wu said quietly.
He really had not expected Zu Yanzhi's Fire Element casting speed to be somewhat slower than he had imagined.
Zu Yanzhi was an Intermediate Mage. It seemed that after gaining control of her magic, she had not paid much attention to practicing it.
After controlling seven stars to form a Star Path, continuously practicing magic and connecting the Star Path would steadily reduce the time needed to control the magic.
He was now casting his Fire Element Beginner Magic faster and faster.
If he kept cultivating, One Thought Star Track would be within reach before long!
Pouring flames into the specially made iron bucket, Lu Wu began concentrating on melting the Mystic Ice.
The entire process was slow, but with the Mystic Ice present, the heat rising from the surrounding magma was instead alleviated.
Combined with a Fire Element mage's degree of immunity to flames, Lu Wu felt no particular discomfort.
Although it did not consume magic energy in the same way as casting a magic skill, continuously releasing flames still consumed an enormous amount of magic energy.
Zu Yanzhi looked at Lu Wu. Since Master Shen kept carrying away the melted profound ice water through Space Element magic, she did not know how much water either of them had melted.
After all, their pieces of Mystic Ice had been different sizes to begin with, making it even harder to judge now.
"If you can't hold on, take a break and recover first. Don't push yourself."
"How about a bet? I'll definitely last longer than you," Lu Wu said with a smile at her words.