In order not to waste his time, Bai Zemin returned to the Collector’s Pocket World after he cut off his conversation with Shangguan Bing Xue. It was still early in the morning, the sun had barely risen so he had a lot of time considerably free.
Because Bai Zemin did not want the little kids to suffer from a drastic change in their personalities and time perceptions, he did not bring Bai Shilin, Xiao Xiao, or Luo Ning with him.
In fact, this time Bai Zemin did not even let Lilith follow him, much to the latter’s dismay.
“Why don’t you want me to go with you?” Lilith asked with wide eyes as she folded her arms and began to gently tap the ground with the toe of her foot.
She looked quite a bit like his mother at the moment…
Bai Zemin maintained a calm expression on the surface and said calmly, “Lilith, we men sometimes need a little private time to relieve ourselves… I don’t know if I’m making myself clear.”
“Nonsense!” Lilith glared at him and snorted, “This big sister has taken care of your physical needs practically every night, hasn’t she? Can your right hand give you more pleasure than these two treasures of mine?”
Bai Zemin almost choked on his own saliva and died of suffocation when his eyes were immediately locked on Lilith’s hands… More specifically, on her bosom which seemed to become more prominent as she pushed them up from underneath with her palms.
Lilith was clearly aware of the effect she could have on men and when she saw Bai Zemin almost drooling she put on a seductive expression as she whispered: “Daddy Zemin, don’t you want your baby girl to take care of you? I promise to make you see stars if you take me in with you~”
‘Brat, this big sister knows you’ve been hiding something for months now!’ Lilith snorted in her heart. She was determined to find out his secret at any cost!
Unfortunately, Bai Zemin was a resolute man and although he was quite lustful he didn’t let himself be lured by the succubus’ charms this time even though he might regret it later.
“No!” He shook his head like a rattle and stepped back quickly as he looked at her cautiously, “Back off, demon! I will not give in to temptation!”
“What?” Lilith looked at him dumbfounded but before she could say more her eyes widened as she saw Bai Zemin disappear right before her eyes.
She could no longer sense his presence at all, which meant that he had entered the Collector’s Pocket World.
“You won’t be able to run away forever, kid!” Lilith stomped the ground in frustration and gasped in indignation before disappearing from the scene.
…
Bai Zemin wiped the imaginary sweat from his forehead after escaping the clutches of temptation itself.
He slapped his cheeks several times until his face turned slightly red, causing the pain to wake him up a little from the cloud of lust Lilith was slowly dragging him into.
“Alright!” Bai Zemin nodded to himself and didn’t bother to enter the house when with a wave of his hand several objects appeared in front of him.
Work table, chisel, tongs, pliers, and even a furnace!
Bai Zemin carefully set up his work tools before taking out an object that had been gathering dust all this time in his storage ring despite being incredibly precious.
[Feather of the Frozen End (Treasure grade Legend): When worn by a bird-like beast or added to a piece of equipment, the effects of the Feather of Frozen End go into immediate effect. Effect: Increases the power of ice-type skills by 20% and reduces the Mana consumption when activating an ice-type skill by 25%. All stats +200 when the wearer possesses at least 5 ice-type skills.]
The beautiful sapphire-colored feather had been in Bai Zemin’s hands since the moment he managed to kill the legendary p*kem*n Art*no back in the snowy biome in the dungeon that appeared in Eventide World during the process in which the Collector’s Pocket Watch was being formed.
The reason why he hadn’t touched this feather until now despite it being an impressive Legend grade treasure, the reason why he hadn’t let anyone know about the existence of this treasure… This was all related to the fact that Bai Zemin had decided who would be the owner of this treasure and also the time when he would give it to her.
The problem that Bai Zemin had now was a different one.
He stared at the small feather while muttering under his breath: “Should I make a necklace out of it? But, a feather necklace could become a problem in the middle of combat.”
It didn’t matter if it was a Legend grade treasure feather or if it was a normal feather, a feather would always be a feather when it came to its ability to cause itchy skin with its touch.
Since the crafting of the necklace was out of the question, Bai Zemin did not have many other options. At the end of the day, a feather was not a piece of leather or a piece of metal; it was an object with practically 0 capability of being modified.
“A pendant.”
Bai Zemin nodded with a serious expression and immediately set to work.
The first thing he did was to take out Rank 0 metal fragments for practice. He heated to fiery red the metal fragments using the power of the Endless Blue Lotus Flame and immediately after that began the process of hammering.
Bai Zemin took his time hammering over 100 different needles, and it wasn’t until about 1 hour later that he stopped when he thought he had found the perfect heat point to start with a higher Rank metal, as well as the shape he wanted the needle that would pierce the ear of the future owner of the future pendant to have.
He was taking this so seriously that he even took 1 full hour to practice everything for the sake of forging a needle he considered perfect.
“If it weren’t for the existence of the Collector’s Pocket Watch and the Collector’s Pocket World I probably wouldn’t be able to be wasting so much time like this… even though the end goal isn’t a waste at all.” Bai Zemin sighed gratefully.
1 hour here meant 6 minutes in the outside world after all.
Bai Zemin took out a piece of Rank 4 metal, one of the 3 he had in his possession. These metals had been found in the ruin left behind by the Kang Kingdom of the past, Bai Zemin had been extremely reluctant to even take them out of his storage ring let alone use them.
However, the situation and final objective certainly called for it.
“Little Fire, let’s start from the temperature we stopped before.” He said as he brought the tongs with the gold-colored piece of metal closer to the furnace where the Endless Blue Lotus Flame was burning brightly.
The Endless Blue Lotus Flame rippled slightly in response as if it was nodding silently as it adjusted its temperature with ease to the point it remembered from all the previous processes.
“Raise the temperature now.” Bai Zemin said in a serious voice.
However, he soon realized that he had greatly underestimated the hardness of a Rank 4 metal and what it represented.
Even after the Endless Blue Lotus Flame had been burning for practically 80% of its full power for 20 minutes, the Rank 4 metal had barely turned a little red and was still far from the optimum point needed for simpler workability.
This made Bai Zemin surprised beyond words as he knew how powerful his little blue flame was at this point. The Endless Blue Lotus Flame was at the peak of Third Order flames and it probably wouldn’t take more than a few months to evolve into a Fourth Order flame at the rate Bai Zemin was feeding it!
“Little Fire, raise the power to 90 percent.” Bai Zemin said in a serious voice.
The Endless Blue Lotus Flame just obeyed, and soon its flames became brighter than before.
If not for the fact that the furnace was made of special materials, probably Rank 3 or even higher metals with heat containment capabilities, the entire ground several kilometers around would have caught fire and disappeared in seconds due to the strong power of the Endless Blue Lotus Flame.
Finally, after raising the power of the Endless Blue Lotus Flame by another 5% until it reached 95%, the Rank 4 metal began to overheat and after 15 minutes it reached the maximum point; a little more and it would begin to melt, but this was not what Bai Zemin was looking for.
After taking the metal part to the worktable, Bai Zemin took the chisel and drew a thin line on one of the corners. Then, he dipped most of the metal into a large basin of cold water which did not evaporate completely right away as this water had been slightly modified by Wu Yijun’s Hydrokinesis skill.
Once the only part of the red-hot metal was beyond that thin line, Bai Zemin held onto the metal using a pair of tongs with his left hand while holding his work hammer with his right hand.
Clang!!!
Bai Zemin slammed hard on the piece of metal from the side that had regained its natural color, but despite having used practically all of his current Strength he did not achieve his purpose.
“I don’t think you won’t break apart!”
Clang!!! Clang!!! Clang! Clang! Clang!!!!…
Bai Zemin hammered ferociously on the piece of metal for several minutes until he finally managed to detach the part he would be using to work with from the rest of the metal he would hopefully not be using.
Using the chisel again, Bai Zemin carefully drew several lines on the piece of burning metal. This process took him almost an hour, and the cooling-heating process to separate each piece took him more than 2 hours.
Once he had approximately 20 different pieces of miniature metal, Bai Zemin picked up one and overheated it before he began to fiercely hammer to mold the metal into the slightly curved needle shape he had achieved earlier while using Rank 0 metal to practice.
However, after Bai Zemin managed to compress the metal to a certain extent he soon realized that no matter when he hammered his Strength was no longer enough to compress it further.
“I can’t believe I have to use Overlap Regeneration for this.” Bai Zemin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as his body was enveloped in a halo of golden light and his Strength grew more than 900 points after turning his Magic into Strength.
Blacksmithing was a different battlefield, but a battlefield regardless.
Clang!!! Clang!!! Clang! Clang! Clang!!!!…
Gradually and to Bai Zemin’s great relief, the Rank 4 metal began to compress although very slowly with each blow of his hammer.
Unfortunately, he soon faced the first of many failures he would have during the forging process of the pendant he had in mind.
“Agh! Fuck!” Bai Zemin growled as he saw the piece of metal split in half.
Using too little Strength would cause the metal to not mold enough but using too much Strength after a certain level of compression would cause the thin metal piece to be destroyed.
The latest_epi_sodes are on_the ʟɪʙʀᴇᴀᴅ.ᴄᴏᴍ. website.
Despite his frustration, Bai Zemin did not give up but kept that piece of broken metal in his storage ring for future use before continuing to work on one of the other pieces he had prepared earlier precisely in case something like this happened.
After 1 full day in the Collector’s Pocket World hammering, after a total of 26 failures and using Overlap Regeneration over and over again, Bai Zemin finally managed to obtain the needle of the pendant.
“About 30 hours for a needle.” Bai Zemin looked at the thin, perfectly golden needle that seemed to shimmer as if surrounded by diamonds with a wry expression on his face, “If just the needle took me that long I don’t even want to think about how long the rest of the pendant will take me.”
Linking chain, ornaments, and finally the setting of the Feather of the Frozen End… Bai Zemin still had a long process ahead of him.
“But… this is good as well.” His eyes flashed with resolve and his lips curved slightly upwards despite his face showing some exhaustion due to the constant use of all his Strength along with several activations of Overlap Regeneration, “Only the needle is considered a Rank 3 item… I can’t wait to finish the accessory and see her face hehe.”
He giggled happily just like a small child waiting to see the happy expression on his mother’s face after handing over a handmade gift at school for her special day.
This pendant was destined to become by far the greatest masterpiece that Bai Zemin would forge for a long time!
In fact, this pendant would outperform his current primary weapon and by no small margin; especially after Bai Zemin asked Kali to draw runes on the body of the accessory!
* * * * * * *
Really thank you very much to all those who send gifts to the novel and support with valuable Golden Tickets. I hope we can all keep it up <3
