Chapter 18: Spirit Awakening
Chapter 18: Spirit Awakening
This...
Qian Zhaoguang wasn't sure what was happening, deciding he could only figure it out after trying.
He lifted the hammers, tapping the metal block before him lightly with the right hammer.
Ding...
A clear chime with a long-lasting resonance echoed, distinctly reaching his ears.
Qian Zhaoguang's eyes focused. His right arm swung around, striking the metal forcefully.
Clang...
Another long, resonant sound.
What happened?
With no teacher to guide him, he had to rely entirely on himself.
The spiritual power cultivated through the Spirit Refining Art spread out under his control, continuously sensing the condition of the metal block amidst the scorching heat.
The emotional feedback coming from within it... seemed to have strengthened somewhat?
It was much more apparent than before.
Hesitantly, Qian Zhaoguang swung the hammers again, and the ding ding dang dang sounds continued like rain drumming on banana leaves within the forge room.
As he continued forging, it felt as if something within Qian Zhaoguang's body had awakened.
The Extreme Ice Light Martial Soul on his chest emitted a faint glow.
Has the icy power weakened?
Is it my imagination?
Focused intently on forging, Qian Zhaoguang didn't have time to delve into the mysteries of his Martial Soul. Instead, he poured all his energy into forging the piece of metal before him.
With his hammer strikes, the metal block continuously shrank, and surprisingly, tiny points of brilliance began to appear on its surface, as if something within was about to be born.
Simultaneously, Qian Zhaoguang clearly felt that the feedback force was becoming increasingly distinct. The emotions bursting forth from the metal were incredibly vivid, like a real person conversing with him.
Om...
With each hammer fall, the light on the metal gradually merged into a single sheet, resonating with a humming sound.
The piece being forged was Fire Iron, a metal with excellent heat conductivity, often used in crafting fire-attribute soul tools.
After being completely covered by the light, the interior of the Fire Iron erupted with an even more intense heat than before, almost threatening to melt the anvil.
To do a job well, one must first sharpen one's tools.
Aided by the pair of Thousand Refined Blue Gold Hammers, Qian Zhaoguang easily entered a state of fusion, achieving a wondrous integration with the Fire Iron.
In this state, the metal incorporates the blacksmith's emotions and concepts, often resulting in the birth of a masterpiece.
BOOM!
As the final hammer blow fell, the Fire Iron burst forth with unprecedented brilliance, and the temperature inside the forge room skyrocketed at that moment.
Qian Zhaoguang quickly grabbed a glass bottle filled with blood from his left side and threw it towards the Fire Iron.
Glass met metal, shattering into countless fragments.
The blood contained within splashed onto the metal, triggering a new wave of intense heat.
Thousand Refinements by blood sacrifice, successfully completed.
He hastily opened the forge room door and released his Extreme Ice Light to cool the area down.
If he had delayed any longer, some of the dry furniture would have undoubtedly caught fire.
Hm?
As the Extreme Ice Light illuminated the entire forge room, Qian Zhaoguang keenly noticed something amiss.
The icy power contained within it was genuinely weaker than before, and the temperature wasn't as low as it used to be.
This...
All he could say was, this Martial Soul was truly strange...
He looked at the Thousand Refined Fire Iron, still radiating intense heat within the forge room, and decided, just like before, to set aside the matter of his Martial Soul and ignore it.
But hey, the sublimation effect from the blood-sacrificed Blue Gold Iron is actually quite something!
With its enhancement, completing this Thousand Refinements was considerably easier; it saved him at least half the strenuous effort.
In that case, let's just call this sublimation effect 'Spirit Awakening'.
Perhaps ten thousand years later, this Spirit Awakening effect wouldn't be considered particularly outstanding, maybe only mid-tier among top-grade effects.
But in the current era, where Spirit Forging was barely in its infancy (八字刚有了一撇 - bāzì gāng yǒule yī piě - lit. the character 'eight' just got its first stroke = just beginning), this was unequivocally a top-tier effect.
Blacksmiths of this era didn't lack rare metals or time; what they solely lacked was the insight on how to elevate their forging further.
With this pair of Blue Gold Spirit Awakening Hammers, the difficulty of Qian Zhaoguang's future exploration into Spirit Forging would be greatly reduced.
For him, this was the best possible top-grade effect.
Qian Zhaoguang's mind envisioned the path ahead as he slowly walked back into the forge room.
On the Fire Iron, the blazing orange-red glow had subsided. It now resembled a piece of fine red agate, quietly awaiting a master's touch for carving.
Hmm...
I wonder what the Fire Iron's sublimation effect is?
He couldn't waste his second Thousand Refined work.
Three days later, on her birthday, Huo Yutong received a dark red barbecue grill, a dark red cooking pot, and a set of gleaming silver knives.
Feeling the faint sense of connection emanating from them, Huo Yutong adored them, unable to put them down.
If Soul Masters from later generations were to witness this scene, they would surely cough up blood three times and decry it as a reckless waste of precious resources.
Such valuable Thousand Refined metal, and you actually used it to forge cookware?!
That's right. These two pieces of cookware were precisely what Qian Zhaoguang had crafted from the Fire Iron forged three days prior.
Originally, he had intended to utilize its extreme fire resistance to forge a piece of protective gear as a gift for Huo Yutong's self-defense.
Unexpectedly, however, the sublimation effect that emerged after the Fire Iron underwent Thousand Refinements turned out to be Fire Affinity and enhanced Heat Resistance.
Simply put, this material could withstand extremely high temperatures without damage, possessed excellent and uniform heat conductivity, and even had functions for self-heating and heat retention when stimulated by soul power – making it an exceptionally fine raw material for crafting cookware.
After pondering it over...
Qian Zhaoguang decided it was better to leverage its strengths and just make the two cooking utensils.
Coincidentally, Huo Yutong herself was very passionate about cooking. Isn't gift-giving all about catering to the recipient's preferences?
Afterwards, he used Hundred Refinements High Grade Star Sky Steel, incorporating various advanced designs from Blue Star, to craft over ten sturdy knives, assembling them into a complete set.
He hadn't used them himself, but according to Huo Yutong, they were quite handy.
Late at night, Qian Zhaoguang, for the first time in a long while, wasn't cultivating. Instead, he sat with a pen, writing something on paper.
Looking closely, it was a Douluo Calendar marked with Arabic numerals and Chinese characters.
Both his and Huo Yutong's birthdays were in January. That meant there were only twelve months and a few days left until the start of Shrek Academy's school year.
The entire vacation period served as Shrek's enrollment window, ending the night before classes began.
The old butler had once told him that Shrek had a one-month vacation in January, with classes officially starting on February 1st.
Based on this, Qian Zhaoguang had bought a standard continental calendar and cross-referenced it with time descriptions from the original work to extrapolate backwards.
Subtracting six days for travel, subtracting a short period for fusing with the Tianmeng Ice Silkworm, subtracting an unknown amount of time for exploration and battling the Mandala Serpent, subtracting over one shichen (2 hours) for Tang Ya to absorb her soul ring, then subtracting five days for travel to Shrek, and finally subtracting three days of waiting within Shrek, Qian Zhaoguang arrived at a rough estimate for the timing of the original story's inciting incident.
The Huo Yuhao in the original story should have set out around the 16th or 17th of January, encountering the Tianmeng Ice Silkworm around noon on approximately the 21st, near the southern edge of the Star Dou Great Forest.
He rubbed his temples and sighed softly.
The time descriptions in the text were mostly vague; narrowing the margin of error down to within three days was already the limit.
In the time remaining, I should continue cultivating the Spirit Refining Art diligently.
If he could advance to the next stage – Condensing Spirit Awareness – ahead of schedule, the possibility of attracting the Tianmeng Ice Silkworm might increase slightly.
If the Tianmeng Ice Silkworm truly ignored him, then his only recourse would be to stand by the edge of the Star Dou Great Forest like an idiot, shouting: "I grasp the sun and moon, and pluck the stars; in all the world, there is none like me!" in order to attract Electrolux's attention.
Hopefully...
Everything goes smoothly. After all, this Plan B is really too stupid...
(End of Chapter)