“The old man’s family were generations of blacksmiths, and he would definitely have the experience. Moreover, his awakened power is a hammer, and being the best weapons forger of Lingzhou City, he definitely would have his own experiences and key techniques.”
“Though mystic treasures were not that alike to alloy weapons, they are all ultimately weapons and would definitely share a common ground.”
Even as Jiang He thought that, he took out some Feral meat to feet the golden eaglets and the Cloudscraper Vine before passing a pile of Orirocks to Dumbo and the Seven Bottle Gourd Brothers, and had them stay at home to cultivate. He then drove the sports car he had not touched for a long time to the Lingzhou City Martial Arts Department (MAD), heading straight to the old blacksmith’s workshop.
The old blacksmith actually held a high position in the MAD and most would go to him when they needed some weapons forged. Aside from his own workshop and office, it was said that the MAD had also provided him a house and his yearly salary was at least a million dollars.
Since it was lunch hour, the old blacksmith was holding a lunchbox and eating at his workshop.
He was not being wary around Jiang He either, joking as he usually did when they met, “So, you have the free time to visit this old man today, Mister Jiang?”
The familiar tone, the familiar dialect.
Jiang He teased in return, “You old fool. You’ve never called me Mister Jiang before.”
“What should I call you then?”
The old blacksmith lowered his lunchbox and lit himself a cigarette, before saying tentatively, “Rascal?”
“Just call me by my name.”
Jiang He grimaced at that.
Rascal?
Why don’t you ask everywhere else—who in the world would have the guts to call me that?
Still, it sounded quite intimate.
With that, Jiang He told the blacksmith about the purpose of his visit.
The old blacksmith appeared taken aback, and said, “My experience in forging weapons? I know nothing about that. To tell the truth, even though generations of my family were blacksmiths, my father and my grandfather made a living through forging farming equipment. They did not forge more than a handful of cleavers, let alone weapons.”
“You’re selling yourself short, old man.”
Jiang He smiled. “Who in Lingzhou City doesn’t know that you’re a master craftsman? Your only shortcoming is your superpower is low-leveled, but when you improve to A-class and can forge S-grade alloy weapons, there wouldn’t be many across the Hua Nation who could compare to you.”
“A-class Awakened…”
The old blacksmith flashed a pained smile. “I only strike on steel and I have no idea how I could improve my superpowers. When would I actually reach A-class?”
“That’s easy.”
Jiang He whipped out a bottle of rank-nine Origin Fluid that improved spirit and around three catties of purple golden sunflower seeds. “Whenever you get tired from smithing, drink some of these Origin Fluid and munch on the sunflower seeds, and your spirit would improve quickly… the strength of one’s superpowers are actually connected to one’s spirit, and one’s superpower would improve naturally with it.”
The old blacksmith promptly waved him off, saying that those items were too valuable for him to accept.
Not hearing any of it, Jiang shoved the purple golden sunflower seeds and Origin Fluid into the old blacksmith’s hands, grinning as he said, “Take this as a sign of my gratitude since you’ve helped me forge so many items previously. Still, you shouldn’t keep any secrets after getting my stuff, so do tell me about your experience in forging weapons.”
Forced to accept the gifts, the old blacksmith mused to himself for a while before saying, “Actually, before that brat Duan Tianhe dragged me here to the MAD, I never really did forged weapons. I don’t know how to design them even now, and it’s mostly thanks to others giving me the blueprints that I would base my work on… not to mention that I would still have to rely on my superpowers.”
Jiang He took out pen and paper and started making notes.
Blueprints?
He had that…
Moreover, didn’t item-refinists in novels need a base form of a mystic treasure to refine it?
The blueprint was therefore the same deal with the base form.
“Aside from blueprints, the forging process is important as well. The ore of all alloys and metals would contain a lot of impurities, and it is only by repeated refinement to remove those impurities that a good weapon could be forged.”
The old man then mentioned a simple example.
Why would some A-grade alloy weapons sell for ten million while others only reach six million?
The factor was the forging. There could be a difference in how much impurity was removed beforehand or how well the metal was quenched that affected a weapon’s final grade.
Jiang He listened seriously and made notes as he did.
As their conversation continued for a long time, he would ask questions if there were anything he did not understand, asking for pointers in forging. The old man watched as he wrote and paused, before poking his head forward and asked, “What are you writing?”
The old man knew how to read but not much. Moreover, Jiang He’s writing was too illegible… making him recognize even fewer words now.
Jiang He did not hold back, however, and answered sincerely, “I’m a little interested in item refinement, so I needed some inspiration for the item refinement manual I would create myself.”
“Item refinement?”
“Hmm. It’s a term that immortal cultivators use, but it’s basically different from forging weapons.”
The old man understood right then, and he said, “You should have told me from the start. My grandfather left a secret manual for smithing, with plenty of techniques written in it… just wait for a bit. I’ll bring it here.”
Delight showed on Jiang He’s face.
Meanwhile, the old man stepped out of his workshop for a while and soon returned with a yellowed book.
“My grandfather passed this down,” he said, “but I didn’t read it more than a few times since I can’t read much.”
Jiang He accept the ragged, yellowed book which turned out to be thread-bound with a blue cover. Still, there was no word written on it, though there were tidy lines of regular script on the very first page.
“Difficult is difficult, striking steel, steering boats, grinding tofu?”
That was the first line, which was more or less the entire ‘secret’ text in a nutshell.
Even in ancient times, striking steel, grinding tofu, and steering boats were all exceedingly difficult livelihoods, and rarely would any youth be willing to learn such work.
And beneath the line ‘Difficult is difficult, striking steel, steering boats, grinding tofu’, with a single bolded word: scissors.
Jiang He was speechless.
The first page showed how one could forge a nice pair of scissors.
As he flipped through the pages, he noticed that aside from scissors, there was also the forging methods of other farming tools such as rakes, shovels, steel pots, hoes, as well as woks.
The only thing that pleased Jiang He a little was that side from the daily use items, farming tools and other random trinkets, the last page recorded how to forge a cleaver.
“Cleavers actually count as weapons, and it could well be used as a reference…”
Jiang He read closely, only to find that the first page read, “The cleaver is the object that measures the height of a blacksmith’s technique. Do not be fooled by the cleaver’s mundane appearance, for the procedure to forge it is numerous and complex.”
“The steel selected to forge a cleaver is critical. For finer materials, a little bit of hammering and grinding mean a good clever, but with rubbish materials, all you would ultimately forge is a rubbish cleaver even if you hammer upon the steel for a thousand times.”
Jiang He became thoughtful after reading that.
It seems to be the case for refining mystic treasures as well.
First and foremost, the selection of materials was vital.
For example, if you desire a premium-grade soul item but used materials for an inferior-grade soul item, you would only stand a very small chance of forging a premium-grade soul item regardless of how good your item refinement technique was.
Taking out pen and paper again, he wrote, “First step of item refinement: material selection.”
Then, Jiang He continued reading the note about forging the cleaver.
“When forging the cleaver, one’s control of the fire temperature must be immaculate. This process is called smelting, the chief purpose of which is to fuse steel and iron. If the fire is not enough, gaps would easily develop between steel and metal while they fuse, and the cleaver would easily snap later on.”
Jiang He’s eyes lit up at that.
That aspect could be used on item refinement too.
Many materials, both primary and auxiliary, were needed to refine a mystic treasure. If they did not fuse perfectly, they could be reduced to scrap after clanging a while in a fight… in fact, it did not have to be a fight—if one was being a little forceful, one’s mystic energy could crush it already.
“Third step of forging a cleaver, bending.”
“Hmm… bending is basically refining the base form. For example, I need the mold of a sword if I need to refine a sword, and the mold of a blade if I need to refine a blade…” Jiang He’s hand kept writing fervently.
When it comes to creativity, all it takes is a flash of inspiration.
And having got his inspiration from the notes about smithing a cleaver, his notes were coming smoothly the more he wrote. In less than a dozen minutes, he had already scrawled out several hundred words, creating half a manual for item refinement.
“The fourth step, grinding… well, I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“Fifth… quenching?”
Jiang He was surprised.
Quenching was actually the most important technique in forging cleavers?
It turns out that the usage lifespan and quality of the cleaver should there be an issue in the quenching. The cleaver’s edge would be too fragile if the quenching heat was too high and would easily break.
On the other hand, too small a fire could cause dents or chips on the edges.
“Is that so? It seems that one must pay attention to the quenching process… and here I was thinking that all it takes is getting a bucket of cold water and stick the shaped weapon inside… whatever. This would need a little revamping.”
“For the quenching process of refining a mystic treasure, a bucket of cold water is needed beforehand. After the base form is refined successfully, it just needs to be thrown in the water for a soak.”
“Hmmm… would others have a recipe or something for their quenching process?”
“More adjustments needed, then… when quenching, a certain ratio of salt, vinegar, soy sauce, and starch must be added to the water…”
Jiang He then nodded in satisfaction after seeing the quenching process he revamped.
As for the very last step…
It was very different from smithing a cleaver, since mystic treasures required an inscription of arrays and certain mystic symbols—this step was called soulception.
“I don’t know any arrays or mystic symbols I could inscribe for now, and while I could learn it later, the thought of inscribing arrays or symbols on a sword is such a pain… Well, I’ll keep up the revamping. All I need to do is write ‘soulception’ on the root form of the refined mystic treasure to achieve the same effect…”
