13 Chapter 13 - Progress and Commission

6 months passed quickly and Mo Xie was now 10 years old.

During this period, Mo Xie made great strides in his array practice and finally reached the advanced level. He also continued his attempts to analyze his spirit rings, but he only touched the edge of the patterns inscribed on them.

However, he did make some gains and through the comparison, Mo Xie found that they were at least master level soul arrays. When he tried to understand some master level soul arrays, he finally understood how complex they were. He thought it was inevitable, since the soul was one of the most complex things in a living being. But through continuous effort he has managed to understand some of the arrays, though full understanding will take time until he is at least a peak array master level.

Mo Xie also didn't relax his training and, with the help of some spiritual energy gathering array, he reached the peak of Rank 29. His sword intent also improved a lot and he felt he could reach the next level at any time and with the temper of natural energy, his body was almost in the standard of a peak Soul King.

Mo Xie just felt sad that he couldn't break through the second level of his Heavenly Eyes. It looks like it would take another year or two before he's able to break through to the third level, but he still calmly accepted the fact.

Mo Xie's only concern these days was Xiao Hei. After 6 months of cultivating alongside him, Xiao Hei's cultivation began to increase along with his body size. Although he can still hide it in his clothes, it's only a matter of time before Mo Xie can't hide it anymore. Because of this, Mo Xie made Xiao Hei delay increasing his cultivation until he found a suitable place for his growth.

It was nighttime and Mo Xie was now sitting cross-legged in a smithy's cultivating room.

During this time, Mo Xie also rented a smithy and began accepting commissions and earning money, as well as collecting various rare metals from other shops and betting houses. He filled a new storage ring to the brim with spiritual metals that could last a long time for his array practice. His fortune reached 600,000 gold coins, which were all deposited in the bank and his card was upgraded from black to red.

In Mo Xie's room, several boards of energy gathering, barrier, noise and energy isolation arrays were activated while Mo Xie absorbed and refined the natural energy.

Also, from the intermediate level onwards, arrays need to be inscribed on plates of refined spiritual metal, and the size varies for each array.

Natural energy quickly circulated through Mo Xie's meridians and passages when an explosion came from his body.

Rank 30.

With the help of arrays, Mo Xie finally broke his rank and was one step closer to becoming a Soul Elder.

But even though he breakthrough, Mo Xie still hasn't opened his eyes. He concentrated on stabilizing and familiarizing himself with his new rank.

Only at dawn the next day did he open his eyes and let out a sigh.

"I finally breakthrough." With a smile on his face he got up and went to take a shower.

After cleaning himself up and eating something he finished his Heavenly Eyes morning practice and started thinking about what to do for the rest of the day.

"Should I take the day off and relax?" Mo Xie muttered. He had no commissions to make, and he didn't need anything at the time, so he thought it was a good idea. Just as he was getting ready to leave, he heard someone knocking on the smithy door.

He was surprised but didn't care much, as similar situations happened when people came to request services.

He left his room and headed towards the smithy door. When he opened it, two men appeared in his vision. One had short black hair and blue eyes, a sharp face, and wore light clothing that appeared to be made of some kind of expensive silk. The bald man beside him had a stern face and a scar that ran from his face to his neck and wore black metal armor with a sword at his waist and appeared to be the other man's guard.

Mo Xie used his energy flow ability and found that he couldn't see the guard's flow and that the black haired man was a Rank 46 Soul Ancestor. Since he couldn't see the guard's level, he deduced that he was fur minus a Soul Emperor or above. With his current mental power, he could see the level of anyone below the Soul Emperor.

However, they didn't notice Mo Xie's probe, as he didn't use his mental power to scan them, but just looked at the flow of energy in their bodies.

"Is this the smithy Mo Xie works at?" the black haired man asked.

"Yes, have you come to make a commission?" Mo Xie asked.

"Yes, could you call him and ask if he's free at the moment?"

Mo Xie spoke with a smile: "I'm certainly free at the moment."

The man looked at Mo Xie in surprise for a moment and asked, "Are you Blacksmith Mo Xie?"

Mo Xie just waved and invited him inside.

The man remained surprised just a moment longer before entering the smithy with his guard.

"So could you explain the order details to me?" Mo Xie brought them into a room and sat down on a sofa offering some tea.

"First let me introduce myself. My name is Zhou Ling and this is my guard Wei Xin. Before talking about my order, I would like to know which metals you can refine." Zhou Ling asked as he accepted the tea.

"Hmm, if you want a metal refined a thousand times I can refine just about anything with the exception of some extremely scarce special metals. For a refinement of ten thousand times it will depend on the required metal. Wait a minute!" Mo Xie paused for a moment before grabbing a catalog from his storage ring and passing it to Zhou Ling.

"In the catalog are all the metals that I can refine normally. For special or unique metals I need to know about it so I can give you a satisfactory answer." Mo Xie commented.

Zhou Ling nodded and flipped through the catalog before closing it.

He thought for a moment before asking, "Do you think you could refine a piece of Deep Sea Ice Crystal and a Profound Fire Earth Crystal ten thousand times?"

Mo Xie's eyes narrowed and he couldn't help but be extremely surprised. These two metals are extremely rare and their affinities with ice and fire are extremely high. Whether for making weapons or creating Spirit Tools, they are very suitable, but you rarely see anyone willing to use them.

Mo Xie thought for a while before answering: "Before I answer your question, may I know why you came to ask me this request? I don't deny that my skills are higher than the smiths of my level, but there are still many other smiths with a higher level and reputation than me."

"It's for secrecy. Although the city still has many blacksmiths above your level, they are not as secretive as you have been with your commissions. I did a little research and found that your work is excellent and you don't disclose what commissions were accepted, and that brings us to this moment." Zhou Ling explained.

Mo Xie nodded in understanding and said, "I have an 80% chance of successfully refining them according to your request. As you know, these metals are special and very resistant to refining. If you still want to continue with the request I will do my best, but I cannot guarantee that I will be successful in the end."

Zhou Ling hesitated for a moment before nodding.

"All right, I'll bet on your skill as a blacksmith. How long do you need to finish refining?"

"One week." Mo Xie replied.

Zhou Ling nodded again and pulled 2 football-sized pieces of metal from his storage ring. One was a dark blue color and had an icy aura while the other was a dark red color with a warm aura. Mo Xie picked them up and analyzed them for a while before putting them in storage.

"With respect to the order price, each refinement will cost 10,000 gold coins. Because it's a special and extremely hard metal, I don't think you'll have anything against it, right?" Mo Xie asked.

Zhou Ling agreed and Mo Xie said goodbye to them a little later.

After they left, several ideas ran through Mo Xie's mind.

'Before I refine these metals I will get some for myself and upgrade my sword. I need to recreate it and put some arrays on the blade to improve its energy flow and performance improvement.'

In the end, Mo Xie gave up on relaxing for the rest of the day and started working on the order after cutting a small piece of each metal with the Life Gold Knife.

After finishing this request he would start preparing to obtain his third spirit ring.