After exchanging ideas at the Blacksmith Association gathering, Xu Zhengyang gained some new insights into forging. Forging was not simply a matter of hammering the material his Martial Soul had become; he needed to put his heart into feeling the force of every blow and the changes in the Martial Soul itself after each strike.
In particular, compared with three years ago, Xu Zhengyang now had the Devil Tiger's Eye External Soul Bone. His spiritual power was clearly much stronger, allowing him to sense the most minute changes in his Martial Soul with every hammer blow.
Forging was not merely the collision of hammer strikes, nor merely pressure exerted on the Martial Soul. It was also a process of gaining insight into the Martial Soul itself.
At this moment, in Xu Zhengyang's eyes, his Martial Soul was no longer a weapon, no longer the useless thing it had once been. Instead, it was like a beloved woman, to be carefully cherished throughout the hammering process. He had to understand every line upon it, feel every trace of its texture, and sense its innate qualities, as though it were an independent living being.
During the forging process, the Martial Soul seemed to Xu Zhengyang like an entirely new living being. He poured all his spiritual power into communicating with it, and a certain unspoken understanding seemed to develop between them.
Xu Zhengyang could clearly sense that the Tiger-Head Zhan Gold Spear was filled with defiance and untamed pride. Its current appearance was not what it ought to look like at all. Like a tiger reigning over the hundred beasts, like a king, even after falling to such dire straits, that pride deep in its bones could never be diminished. Instead, it only grew stronger.
In particular, a tiger possessed a true Pure Yang Physique, an existence of the utmost hardness and ferocity in the world. Through repeated forging, that defiance and that blazing heat revealed their terrifying resilience. Every hammer blow displayed the courage to stand against the entire world.
Through these repeated hammer blows and exchanges, Xu Zhengyang clearly felt the distance between himself and the Tiger-Head Zhan Gold Spear narrowing. Their bond grew closer, like friends reunited after a long separation, yet also as though they depended on one another for survival.
In the days that followed, his daily training was simple and monotonous, but even so, he still gave it everything he had and fought to perform every step well.
Early every morning, Xu Zhengyang practiced with his spear in the smithy's rear courtyard. Besides basic spear techniques, he also began practicing more advanced moves, such as Looking Back at the Moon, Sweeping Through a Thousand Troops, the Immortal Points the Way, and the White Crane Spreads Its Wings. Naturally, these also included the most basic spear thrusts, stabs, blocks, captures, lifts, snapping strikes, and flourishes. He began practicing at six every morning and did not stop until nine, repeating every movement at least a thousand times without allowing the slightest deviation.
After breakfast, the five workers began work at nine, and Xu Zhengyang began his day of hammering and tempering. From the start of work, apart from lunch, he did not stop until evening.
He remained beside the intensely hot furnace, freely pouring out the strength of his entire body. He even did his utmost to expend his Soul Power, as though he intended to squeeze out every last shred of strength within him.
To improve his forging, Xu Zhengyang specifically asked Lou Li to help him purchase a forging hammer made of black gold. The entire hammer weighed over one hundred and eighty jin and was among the finest forging hammers.
This wholehearted forging was also a way of tempering his own body. Every time he hammered the Tiger-Head Zhan Gold Spear, it felt as though his own body were bearing an immense weight.
After six, once all the workers had left, Xu Zhengyang spent an hour taking a medicinal bath and eating, then devoted himself fully to meditation at night.
Although this process seemed extremely monotonous, it was precisely through this monotony that his body broke through its limits time and again, while the Tiger-Head Zhan Gold Spear gradually took shape from its original appearance as a large iron rod.
Xu Zhengyang's forging skills also improved rapidly through repeated tempering. Now, besides the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer Technique, he was gradually feeling his way toward a hammer technique of his own.
Although the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer Technique could borrow force to strike, and its power was immense after nine times nine, eighty-one blows in particular, that level of intensity was still insufficient. Whenever Xu Zhengyang began forging, he would continue for an hour at the shortest, or three to five hours at the longest. This not only consumed an enormous amount of physical strength, but also tempered his spiritual power and willpower.
Just as Lou Li had said, forging was not something accomplished in a single bound. If one round of tempering was not enough, he could do it ten times, a hundred times, or even a thousand or ten thousand times. If one day was not enough, he could forge for ten days, a hundred days, or even three to five years. In the end, it all came down to one saying: a hundred rounds of tempering made steel.
Time flew, and before long, Xu Zhengyang had spent an entire year in Gengxin City. During that year, apart from occasionally attending gatherings at the Blacksmith Association, he exhausted himself almost every day, giving everything he had to hammering his Martial Soul, honing his spear techniques, and meditating with all his might.
After this year, Xu Zhengyang was now nearly one meter eighty tall and weighed eighty kilograms. He did not look fat, nor was he as bulky as many blacksmiths, but the lines of his muscles were sharply defined all over his body, like a sculpture.
His skin was bronze, and even his face had gradually shed its former childishness, looking exceptionally solemn and resolute.
Over this year, Xu Zhengyang's forging skills improved tremendously. Not only had he cultivated the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer Technique to an extremely proficient level, but through his research into his Martial Soul and forging techniques, he could also keep forging without interruption, delivering over a thousand hammer blows each time.
By Xu Zhengyang's estimate, he could now forge even the model for a Class 5 Soul Tool. If he brought himself into peak condition, he could even barely manage a Class 6 Soul Tool model. However, since his mastery of formations had not reached the highest level, his chances of successfully forging a Class 6 Soul Tool model were low.
He had a fairly complete grasp of the first three steps in forging a Soul Tool: purifying the materials, shaping, and quenching. The only thing he lacked was the final finishing step.
As for that final finishing step-the matter of engraving core formations onto a Soul Tool-Xu Zhengyang had never studied it, nor had he had the time to do so. His schedule was far too tight, leaving him with no capacity to study formations at all.
Xu Zhengyang hammered his Martial Soul again and again, as though tempering his own body over and over, but his Innate Soul Power and talent ultimately had their limits.
After this year of diligent meditation, Xu Zhengyang had now reached the peak of rank twenty-nine. Even so, he could faintly sense the existence of a bottleneck. Perhaps this was the restriction his Innate Soul Power and aptitude placed upon him.
Xu Zhengyang could clearly feel that as his Soul Power rank rose, his cultivation speed had slowed considerably, and the bottlenecks in particular would become increasingly apparent.
Right now, he was merely trying to break through to Soul Elder, yet with his own capabilities, it would probably take considerable time. In particular, after he advanced to Soul King or even Soul Emperor in the future, these bottlenecks would only become more pronounced, and might even shackle his future development.
Although this troubled Xu Zhengyang, he had no particularly good solution at present. Even after taking two Mysterious Water Pills, his Innate Soul Power was probably only around rank three or four, still a far cry from that of geniuses.
Still, with an aptitude of only half a rank of Innate Soul Power, raising his Soul Power to rank twenty-nine at the age of twelve could already be called a miracle. This was also thanks to two Mysterious Water Pills, a piece of whale glue, and two superb Soul Rings whose ages far exceeded the limits. Otherwise, an ordinary person would have had no chance of reaching this Soul Power rank, especially without sacrificing any potential.