TL : GoldenLung
“Senior, didn’t you know when I first arrived? I have to thank you for introducing me to this field. You said that this is considered as Thousand Refined, is it worth something ?” Lan Xuanyu pointed at the Heavy Silver in front of him.
“Of course,” Yang Yingming said. “With a Thousand Refined metal, you should be able to exchange it for five white emblems. A Thousand Refined metal is enough to help you make a One-Word Battle Armor. And this is for Shrek Academy’s standard. In the outside world, a Hundred Refined metal is usually used for making Battle Armors. A Thousand Refined metal can fuse with its user, it’s a rare item. The hardest part in forging is our success rate. Who would be willing to sell something like this! We usually keep it for ourselves.”
“Oh, five white badges for one piece, a hundred is 500 white emblems, equivalent to over 30 yellow emblems. Ten times the profit. Not bad !” Lan Xuanyu’s eyes lit up. He had bought a hundred pieces of Heavy Silver for three yellow emblems.
“Hey, did you hear what I said? Have you considered the success rate?” Yang Yingming was speechless. He was a fourth-rank blacksmith, but even he only had about a 25% success rate for Thousand Refinements. 5% success rate for First-Grade Thousand Refinements, and that was when he was extremely lucky.
Yang Yingming was already able to earn money from Thousand Refinements, but the problem was that he still needed to reach a higher level of forging, and if he failed, the materials would be wasted and it was akin to burning money. If that wasn’t the case, he wouldn’t be here doing odd jobs in the association.
Lan Xuanyu looked at him and a look of realization appeared on his face. “Senior, if I want to sell this Thousand Refined metal, would it be easy to sell in our academy? Or should I bring it outside?”
“Of course it’s easy to sell. There is always more demand than supply of Thousand Refined metals in the Outer Court. One-Word Battle Armor crafting requires this stuff, and it is something that must be completed by the end of the second-year or you will be expelled. It is something that the first and second years urgently need. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to complete One-Word Battle Armor or even Two-Word Battle Armor crafting when choosing forging as your secondary profession. Even if you manage to do it, it would be good enough if you can forge your parts. Who would be willing to sell the metals ? And if our proficiency is high enough, we need to upgrade our Thousand Refined metals to the higher level of Spirit Refinement, which also has very high demands for Thousand Refined metals. Are you really going to sell it?”
Lan Xuanyu nodded. “I’ll sell it. I think I can forge better ones in the future and I’m not in my second year yet. My Battle Armor is not that urgent.”
In fact, he realized that his success rate was different from what Yang Yingming said!
When he was forging the iron ingot, he would often fail at the beginning, but ever since he was able to complete all 36 strikes in one go, he had never failed again. He wasn’t sure why exactly.
The reason why it was so easy to fail when forging rare metals was because the energy inside the metal was too strong and had countless variations. When Lan Xuanyu was forging, he realized that as long as his bloodline power was injected into the metal, it would become extremely obedient and the difficulty in forging would decrease. This meant that he felt that his success rate would not be low.
This was his first time forging Heavy Silver after completing the 36 strikes and he wasn’t familiar with it at all. Nevertheless, he still succeeded. Didn’t that mean that he would be even better at forging with more familiarity?
“I’ll buy it!” Just as Lan Xuanyu was polishing his plan for getting rich, Yang Yingming suddenly said without hesitation.
“Ah?” Lan Xuanyu was stunned.
Yang Yingming said, “Junior, I’ll buy this piece of Thousand Refined Heavy Silver. Five white emblems, this is the market price. Can you make it a little cheaper?” At the end of his sentence, the smile on his face became slightly fawning.
Lan Xuanyu smiled. “Senior is too polite, I’ll give it to you. You are my guide. Without you, I might have taken many detours.”
“No, no, no. You can’t give it to me. I’m your senior, after all, and I still want some face. Four. I’ve already taken advantage of you with this price. Just this once, there won’t be a next time.” As he spoke, Yang Yingming took out four white emblems and placed them on the forging counter. Then, he picked up the piece of Thousand Refined Heavy Silver and looked at it carefully.
Lan Xuanyu was surprised to find that there was a faint red glow in Yang Yingming’s eyes. When he looked into Yang Yingming’s eyes, he actually felt a little dizzy.
What a strong spiritual power!
He only knew that this senior was in the Blacksmith Association and wasn’t very clear about his cultivation. Judging by his age, he should be an Outer Court senior.
“Eh, that’s weird!” Yang Yingming suddenly exclaimed, “Ordinarily, a Thousand Refined meta’s level of activity should already be very strong and would have a higher energy level. But this piece of yours definitely has the right energy level, but why is it so stable? Strange, strange, I’ll go and study it first. Junior, continue to do your own thing.”
As he spoke, Yang Yingming turned and left.
Lan Xuanyu watched him leave and couldn’t help but feel curious. He could sense the changes in the metal just by looking at it with his eyes and didn’t have to use his soul power to probe while forging ? This senior wasn’t simple either!
After putting away the four white emblems, he had an even better impression of Yang Yingming. Although he had bargained, he still stuck to his bottom line and didn’t really take advantage of him. In fact, Yang Yingming’s guidance to him wasn’t something a white emblem could replace.
After warming up his limbs, Lan Xuanyu picked up another piece of Heavy Silver and placed it into the forging counter to be calcined.
With the previous experience just now, he felt that he was much more familiar with Heavy Silver. As long as it was Thousand Refined, he could sell it for money. This was really not bad! Although he was still considered rich, who would complain about having too many emblems ?
“Dang, dang, dang…” The sound of forging echoed in the forging room.
Two hours later.
The continuous forging had pushed Lan Xuanyu to his limits. The Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer technique that Yang Yingming mentioned was able to complete the forging of a piece of Heavy Silver with 36 strikes each time. But the problem was that this technique could only be used when one’s essence, energy, and spirit were completely united. It was extremely exhausting for him.
Lan Xuanyu’s recovery ability was very strong. After each forging, he had to meditate for 15 minutes before he could continue again. By the time he completed his fourth forging, he was utterly exhausted.
“Forging iron ingot is indeed different from forging rare metals! There are too many changes to adjust and feel. It’s far from being comparable to iron ingots. If it was iron ingots, I should have been able to do more than six rounds. But I’ve only done four today.”
Four forging attempts, one failure, and three successes. He failed during the third forging. Lan Xuanyu summarized his experience and lessons. When he failed, he didn’t have enough rest, and after the last few strikes, he was exhausted. In the end, he didn’t monitor well enough the internal activity of the Heavy Silver. Also, his forging hammer wasn’t in good shape either. He had to constantly use soul power to protect it in the later stages and it had become a burden instead.
Lan Xuanyu had completed two pieces of Heavy Silver in front of him. One of them emitted a light that was over two feet long and the other was over three feet long. Lan Xuanyu had already thought about using them as the main material to forge a pair of Thousand Refined Heavy Silver Hammers as his forging hammers. That way, his forging efficiency would definitely be higher.
‘I can’t do it today, I’ll come back tomorrow. The final exam is the day after tomorrow.’
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
“Bang, bang, bang.” The entire forging room shook.
“What?” Lan Xuanyu was taken aback. One had to know that it was a taboo to disturb blacksmiths when they were forging. The association had a rule that no one was allowed to disturb anyone forging! There should have been a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign outside his door.
But he still walked forward and opened the door of the forging room.
The moment the door opened, a figure rushed out. Lan Xuanyu instinctively wanted to resist, but that person had already lifted him up and he didn’t even have the ability to resist. He only felt his body weaken as though he had lost his ability to resist.
