Heavenly Tribulence

Under amount, buried entrance, dark cave but a flicker of light from heated steel. There stood a man, he had no clothes but a mallet. There are piles of weapons behind him swords, spears, tiger claws, Katars, and gauntlets.

It had been six years since he comprehended Scholar's control, Ivor had managed to forge multiple Peak-beyond-grade weapons. Ivor had managed to create about 50 peak-beyond grade weapons a year and Ivor had gotten better at creating inside engravings. He had created gauntlets that either had Strength enchantment, speed enchantment, or reflection. Most engravings were basic enchantments, Ivor realised he won't be able to make elemental enchantments until he at least reached the golden core realm.

"I am getting close" Ivor thought as he felt Qi hitting the bottleneck

What Ivor did not know is that there is a punishment for trying to reach the Golden Core Realm, this was the heavenly turbulence, and cultivators with certain expertise would be judged by heaven. An alchemist would be boiled in a cauldron in 9 different heat degrees, A formation master would be given 9 formations to crack within a time limit. These are just a few examples of people with special affiliations, and a blacksmith would not differ.

Ivor kept creating a weapon but what he had been aiming to create the last two years was a low-spirit-grade Jian sword, Ivor was trying to use the Qi engraving to forge the weapon. Using the Qi engraving allows the user to insert their personal Qi element, this allowed for a wind user to make the blade light, a fire user to burn his enemy, a water user to have a send a water strike, earth user to crush his enemy, this allows the user to improve his elemental skills strength.

There are cultivators with unique Qi but this engraving only worked on basic elements. What Ivor need to do was to create a path from the hilt to the centre of the sword where resided 4 pathways, each path had 4 different words written but in symbols Water, Wind, Fire, Earth and for the qi to identify which path to take, Ivor had to infuse an element of each key on to the sign. This helped the qi be guided and the other paths blocked the key that was not theirs.

at the tip of the path was a little circle where the key gather and a symbol, Activate. When the key touched the symbol it would make the sword suck in the qi it desires and then the user can improve their defence or attacking technique with the Qi gathered from the surrounding air.

The process sounds easy but engraving the symbols were hard a slight mistake in-depth, the Qi placed into the sword, the length of the path. All had to be perfect not a single mistake and for a peak-foundation cultivator with a weak divine sense made it hard.

Usually, Earth True Immortal technique refreshes Ivor with Qi, but it did not help his mental state which made Ivor have to mediate the sutra: a mind of true blacksmith.

"just there... that's enough... stop... " Ivor was mumbling to himself.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Qi suddenly started to gather abruptly into the sword and Ivor, Ivor noticed he had to start refining his qi into creating a golden core. Ivor started to gather the surrounding Qi, he felt 4 elements also he noticed he was attracting other unique Qi which he did not know about.

Outside the mountain, a dark cloud gathered above the forest. Ivor had no clue what he had attracted, any other cultivator would think he was mad being inside a cave, they would believe he was trying to bury himself alive.

Suddenly, an anvil dropped which was made of lightning through the cave onto Ivor. Ivor had no clue what hit him but he felt pain, either way, he did not give up. The next moment a mallet was formed and smashed Ivor through the cave, once again Ivor had no clue what happened but it was painful. the third trial was fire, Ivor's body was so warm he felt that he would melt. The fourth was water, it tried to quench Ivor so that they could find cracks and make him weak. The fifth time a whetstone formed and tried to sharpen Ivor's skin to be extremely thin that he would shatter for not having a strong body but All Ivor felt was pain and he was bleeding from everywhere making him lose blood at a rapid rate. The sixth stage was creating a hilt, heaven used Ivor's body and started to sand the body like it was wood to make it smooth. The seventh stage was getting wrap around Ivor's body, heaven created a wrap and started to wrap around Ivor's body, this was a stage where many suffocated to death. Then the eight-stage began it struck Ivor with a bolt of lightning, this was used to test the strength of the weapon, which was Ivor.

Now it was the last stage, the cloud above started to gather multiple elements of qi and injected it into Ivor, this stage would make the cultivator explode for getting too much Qi injected like a weapon that too much qi which shattered the insides and had to create a new weapon. Ivor felt the sudden burst of key, he noticed refining his golden core was too slow, he quickly got up and started to forge a weapon.

Ivor was creating another low-spirit-grade weapon with the same engraving as the last but this time it was a spear, he made the handle out of yellowwood, he quickly created the path, and then he forged naginata's head of a spear, it was like a single-edged curved blade.

Ivor quickly created the symbols and path while doing this the Qi injected into him by the heavenly turbulence was being used to be injected into the mallet which made it easier to use, the qi was used to engrave paths, inside the weapon, qi was used to sharpen the blade with a whetstone. This process also refined the golden core more solid each action, Ivor in the end had created five weapons, A gauntlet, sword, spear, knife, and tiger claw.

Each weapon was a low-spirit-grade weapon.

After a few hours, the cloud started to disperse and Ivor had broken through to Golden Core.

"What was that?? that was painful, was it trying to kill me?" thought Ivor confusingly.

"It was as in it was trying to forge me into a weapon"

"Wait a minute, my body seems more refined and stronger"

Ivor walked over the dead-end of the cave and punched it.

Bang!

The mountain trembled and broke down a little inside the cave.

"Is... can I do this without Qi?" Ivor thought as he had initiated fire on a wooden stick while looking at the rubble.

Ivor then decided to use the scholar's control on the cave and started to cut down the rock, making the space inside the cave bigger, and stored the stones inside his storage ring.

"System how much space is inside the Mortals space necklace?"

[There is 1000 cubic meters of space]

"What?" asked Ivor while blinking his eyes

"It was only 200 cubic meters at peak stage, it increased by eight hundred?"

[Yes host, it is basic mathematics]

[1000 - 200 = 800]

[You have been rewarded with basic number subtracting]

"..."