The Xu Household was battered by wind and rain. If it lost its artifact workshop, its standing would plummet, reducing it to a second-rate lineage, and it would soon be swallowed up by the other three households.
Xu Yilin had given him a new lease on life, and he was also the Xu Household's son-in-law. All the more reason he could not stand idly by.
Training artifact refiners by ordinary means was too slow. By the time the Xu Household caught its breath, it would already have been wiped out.
Once they lost their market share, winning it back would be harder than ascending to heaven.
"Young master, you must be joking. I dream of becoming a master artifact refiner."
With business poor, all the artifact refiners were taking time off, apprentices included. Only Hu Shi insisted on coming every day. That disposition alone made him worth Liu Wuxie's effort to train.
"An opportunity now lies before you. I can help you become a master artifact refiner of your generation."
Liu Wuxie could not stay in Canglan City forever, after all. The Soaring Cloud Immortal Realm was his goal.
"Please stop teasing me, young master. Whatever you want to forge, I'll help you."
Hu Shi took it as a joke. The last time Liu Wuxie came, he had caused such trouble that the artifact workshop could not open for several days. How could Hu Shi dare let him forge weapons again?
Liu Wuxie did not force him. In everyone's eyes, he had always been a good-for-nothing. Anyone else probably would not have believed him either. Action was the best proof.
"Hu Shi, tend the fire!"
Suddenly, an indescribable presence rose from Liu Wuxie. His gaze became utterly resolute as he took out a piece of meteoric iron and tossed it into the furnace.
Hu Shi dared not delay. He worked the bellows with his right hand, and the black ore inside the furnace gave off a scorching glow. The temperature was so high that he had to remove his outer robe.
To forge a weapon, the meteoric iron first had to be melted, poured into a mold, and then hammered into shape.
Artifact refining had three stages. The lowest was called tenfold refining, used for ordinary implements of crude workmanship, such as hoes, plows, harrows, and other everyday tools.
The second was hundredfold refining, which was more difficult. This was what it meant to be tempered through a thousand hammerings and a hundred refinements. Weapons forged this way were incomparably sharp and far tougher than tenfold-refined weapons, with equally exacting requirements for the meteoric iron.
The hardest was thousandfold refining. Not a single artifact refiner in all of Canglan City had mastered the Thousand Refinements Technique.
After hundredfold refining, refined iron took form and became very difficult to melt again. Even if it was successfully melted and poured into a mold, its increased hardness made it impossible for ordinary people to hammer it into the desired shape.
Most weapons on the market remained at the hundredfold-refined stage. This was a dividing line.
The Xu Household possessed a unique artifact-refining method that could make ordinary hundredfold-refined weapons even sharper. This was also the main reason its weapons had always sold well.
Ordinary hundredfold-refined weapons did not meet Liu Wuxie's standards either. Since he was making it himself, he naturally wanted to forge the best saber.
The meteoric iron still needed some time to melt. Liu Wuxie walked over to the molds. Most were for sabers and swords, but none had the shape he wanted. He would have to carve a new mold himself.
Taking out the tools, he spent an incense stick's worth of time carving a saber mold according to the design he had drawn up in his mind beforehand. By then, the meteoric iron in the furnace had almost completely melted. The red molten iron splashed, scattering droplets along the furnace's edge. Many of the burns on Hu Shi's arms had come from those droplets.
"Young master, this is too much meteoric iron. It's enough to forge three sabers."
Hu Shi had long heard that Liu Wuxie was a notorious wastrel. Seeing him today proved it true. Watching so much meteoric iron melt made his heart ache. It was more than enough to forge three weapons.
"That's what you don't understand. Record every step of my refining process. It will help you in the future."
He poured all the molten iron into the mold, placed it in cold water, and soon cooled it down before setting it on a horned anvil. Liu Wuxie stripped to the waist. After soaking in the body-tempering liquid, his body possessed boundless strength. He held a hundred-jin sledgehammer, while Hu Shi held a small ten-jin hammer.
Clang, clang, clang...
They took turns striking, hammering the still-unformed blade without pause.
After a hundred strikes, they put the blade into the furnace, continued heating and working it, then pulled it out to hammer again.
Over and over they repeated the process. Hu Shi went from disbelief to shock, then numbness. He could no longer describe how he felt. Who had taught the young master his artifact-refining technique?
An hour passed...
Two hours passed...
Liu Wuxie showed no sign of tiring. The blade, originally over a meter long, had been compressed to around half a meter, its density increasing tenfold.
"Young master, we can't keep hammering it. We've already gone beyond hundredfold refining. If we keep this up, the blade won't take shape. It'll definitely be ruined."
Hu Shi's heart ached for those fine pieces of meteoric iron. Wasting them would be such a pity. They had already exceeded hundredfold refining; there was little point in continuing to hammer it.
The Xu Household was renowned for artifact refining. Over the years, it had also tried to find a new breakthrough beyond hundredfold refining, but every attempt had failed.
"Don't worry. I know what I'm doing!"
He tossed the unfinished blade back into the furnace. Helpless, Hu Shi could only work the bellows. There were no open flames, yet the black ore hissed, and the blade turned red once more.
"Hu Shi, swallow this."
What came next was the most important part. After two hours of continuous hammering, Hu Shi's stamina was severely depleted.
Liu Wuxie took out a Heavenly Spirit Pill and had him swallow it. From this point on, they could not stop for even a moment. The slightest mistake would send all their previous efforts flowing away down the river.
"This is... what kind of pill is this? What a rich fragrance."
Hu Shi could never have afforded such a high-grade pill. A trace of surprise appeared on his face. He was beginning to find the young master before him unfathomable.
"Just swallow it."
Liu Wuxie took out another pill and swallowed it in one gulp. His depleted True Qi instantly recovered, and strength filled him. He even faintly showed signs of breaking through to the sixth layer of the Acquired Realm. This was a good sign.
As his True Qi was repeatedly exhausted and compressed, its purity continued to rise. Liu Wuxie had kept putting off his breakthrough because he wanted to squeeze out all this body's potential.
Hu Shi swallowed the Heavenly Spirit Pill in one gulp. His body felt as though it were bathed in gentle sunlight, comfortable all over. Cracking sounds came from within him as he broke through to the sixth layer of the Acquired Realm. He was overjoyed. One tiny pill had spared him months of arduous cultivation.
He had been stuck at the fifth layer of the Houtian Realm for a long time, never finding an opportunity. This breakthrough came as naturally as water flowing into a channel. Even without the Heavenly Spirit Pill, he would have broken through in another day or two at most.
"Thank you, young master!"
Hu Shi bowed, all but dropping to his knees. His earlier respect had come from their distinction as master and servant. This time, it came from his heart.
"Next, we need to forge continuously for an incense stick's worth of time, without stopping for a moment. I was worried your stamina wouldn't hold out. Now that you've broken through to the sixth layer of the Acquired Realm, our chances are better."
He gave Hu Shi some instructions. Forging a thousandfold-refined weapon in the Acquired Realm was extremely difficult. Liu Wuxie intended to carve spirit inscriptions and imbue the weapon with spirituality. That was the most crucial part.
Those in the Acquired Realm used ordinary weapons, mostly hundredfold-refined ones. Upon reaching the Xiantian Realm, their True Qi surged. Mortal artifacts could not withstand so much True Qi; only spirit artifacts could support it. No one in Canglan City could refine a spirit artifact. Only artifact refiners in the imperial capital could accomplish that.
Every spirit artifact was worth a fortune. There were no more than five in all of Canglan City.
The blade turned deep red. Liu Wuxie quickly drew it out and, carving knife in hand, engraved strange patterns on its body. Hu Shi was completely dumbfounded.
At that moment, Liu Wuxie seemed possessed by a deity. Every movement flowed like drifting clouds and running water. Each stroke of his knife left a vivid mark on the blade, and faint spirituality emanated from the unfinished saber.
As an artifact refiner's apprentice, Hu Shi naturally knew the importance of spirituality. Anyone capable of forging a weapon imbued with spirituality could sweep through all of Canglan City.
Hu Shi felt an urge to prostrate himself in worship. His right hand trembled, and the hammer nearly slipped from his grasp and struck his foot.
"Begin!"
At the fifth layer of the Houtian Realm, his True Qi was limited. Ten spirit inscriptions were the absolute most Liu Wuxie could carve. To reach the level of a spirit artifact, he would need to carve a hundred. His cultivation was too low to sustain him to the end, so he could only abandon the idea.
Hu Shi slammed his hammer down. A powerful recoil nearly knocked it out of his hand. With the spirit inscriptions added, the unfinished blade seemed countless times harder.
Liu Wuxie brought his hundred-jin sledgehammer crashing down, sending sparks flying. Hu Shi hurriedly gathered his thoughts. Not daring to think too much, he devoted himself entirely to the refining.
This was the finest weapon he had worked on to date. If they succeeded, his artifact-refining skills would undergo a qualitative leap. He might even become a master artifact refiner.
Clang, clang, clang...
A rapid series of hammer blows rang through the refining room. No one noticed what was happening there.
As Liu Wuxie's saber reached a critical stage, a group of unwelcome visitors arrived at the artifact workshop, bristling with aggression.
"Get your steward out here! Your Xu Household actually sold us inferior weapons and got several of our brothers killed in the mountains! If you don't give us an explanation today, we'll smash this workshop!"
There were ten of them, each looking like a savage fiend. None was weak; every one was at the eighth layer of the Acquired Realm. They were probably from a mercenary company in Canglan City.
They lived on the edge of life and death year-round, entering the mountains to hunt demon beasts and obtain their inner cores to earn gold coins. Thirty percent of the Xu Household's weapons were sold to these mercenary companies, whose weapons suffered tremendous wear.
"I'm the steward here. How may I help you?"
Dong Changliang stood and hurried to greet them. The other attendants rose one after another, opening their bleary eyes.
"Who the hell do you think you are? Get someone who has a say in the Xu Household to talk to us."
Without the slightest courtesy, the man slapped Dong Changliang across the face. The blow sent him flying into the counter. He spat out a great mouthful of blood, half his face swelling up. These people were far too overbearing, injuring someone the moment they arrived.