Rank-4

"Congratulations on leaving alive!" Weilan said giggling at Xueqin who was having breakfast.

"Shut up, sister!" Xueqin spatted.

"Sorry, sorry" Weilan apologized but kept her smile over her face "But to think that the Mad Elder would be interested in you. He is known to have a very bad temper, flaring at any moment and hurting his surroundings. However, he is the greatest blacksmith here so you are very lucky."

"Grr!" Xueqin growled.

"In the end, what happened?" Wuhua asked sitting over the table with food "Had you been able to test your rank?"

"I kind of being forced to be Wuyu's blacksmithing disciple. I was forced to spend all the day learning about it because as he says, I'm a silly idiot that knows nothing" Xueqin sighed "About the rank, he told me that I must be at the initial state of rank 4, but I need to learn and familiarize with more metals to be able to truly attain it."

At that, all the eyes of the middle class members shined excitedly "Great! We finally have a blacksmith! With you, we can start building something." Lizhi shouted excited.

"Even if we can, it's too early to start creating a battle armor, but we can start creating a mecha" Xinglan proposed.

All the members started cheerily chatting about the construction of the mecha and its specifications.

"You really had it planned, eh?" Xueqin asked surprised as to how quick and fluid was the conversation.

"Of course. We all want to become strong and we will need to practice it. Now that we have a blacksmith, there's nothing stopping us!" Xinglan said excitedly.

"Hurry up and become a master craftsman so that we can start building our battle armors" Weilan said to Xueqin.

"Weilan, don't push him!" Wuhua scolded Weilan "We all need to improve yourself before starting. And to create a 1-word battle armor a rank-4 is enough."

"Yeah, once we all reach rank 4, we can start creating our own. Even if we need to be spirit kings to use them, we can prepare some parts before" Xinglan stated.

"Chi, chi!" Weilan clicked her tongue as she shook her index finger "If you truly want a battle armor that worth something, you need to be at rank 5 of your profession and use spirit refined metals. That way it would be truly yours and could it be upgraded to higher words. If not, you will have useless scraps. At least is what Grangran said."

"It made sense" Xueqin interjected "For what Wuyu had told me, spirit refining is when the metal is truly part of you. We will wait until we all reach rank 5 before started our battle armor. Meanwhile, we will start proving ourselves building a mecha."

"Let do that!" Everyone shouted in unison.

That morning class, they went towards Shen Yi and explained their idea. Shen Yi was a little surprised by Xueqin's blacksmithing rank, but she quickly accepted their idea. She was happy for them to have all the members to create a battle armor. There was a not written rule that there couldn't be a difference of more than 4 years between everyone creating a battle armor, so it was great for them to have a so talented group.

She could remember that time when she was creating her own armor. She made the designs and her senior brother created them, however, it became incredibly difficult to find refined metal for them, needing to obtain an incredible number of contributions points to finally buy it. *Sniff* *Sniff* All that nights without sleeping, creating design after design like a machine. It was truly a sad and difficult time.

Since that day, the morning classes became shorter, leaving more time for them to practice their own secondary job and the creation of their mecha, but never forgetting their battle practice, acquiring actual battle progress.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Clank!" Xueqin struck a metal with his hammers, two rings hovering over the metal, showing the success of the refinement. He put away his hammers and cleaned the sweat over his forehead. In front of him, a shining silver refined metal stood.

Wuyu appeared next to Xueqin and took the metal, completely ignoring the heat of it "Heavy Silver thousand refined. 1st grade" He said analyzing it "Good job, you are a quick learner. With this, you are at the top of rank-4."

"Thanks, master" Xueqin said towards Wuyu. 6 months had passed since he entered Shrek Academy and Feng Wuyu had become his master. At first, Xueqin though that Wuyu would be like Mucheng, a spartan master, threatening him to be strong. However, in these months, he had discovered that both of them were very different.

Mucheng was cold and forceful. Forcing him to the impossible without any previous explanation. On the other hand, Wuyu was a little spartan but he clearly explained everything about the metals and blacksmithing techniques. Even if he himself lacked about Swordsmithing, the art of blacksmithing with sword techniques, he was knowledgeable about it and tried to teach Xueqin everything that he knew, explaining his own points of view.

Wuyu's classes were more of the practical side, becoming familiar with the metal, refining them while Wuyu explained its properties and filling the knowledge that Xueqin lacked. Wuyu might be a little spartan and usually became angry, shouting and rambling around, but it was kind of his own character, he was simply too passionate.

Xueqin was glad to have him as his master, seeing himself improve every day under his tutelage. Even if Wuyu tired himself until exhaustion, it was a refreshing feeling not receiving killing intent for his master. Even if he knew that Wuyu might burn him, at least his life wasn't in peril.

"With this, you should be even ready to start practicing spirit refinement" Wuyu mumbled "Xueqin" Wuyu said turning to him "From now own, you should practice imbuing your Sword Intent into your hammers. If it's with your Sword Domain, it would be even better."

"My Sword Intent?" Xueqin tilted his head.

"Like I told you, to spirit refine you need to use your own soul and spiritual power into the metal, creating a unique metal with your own characteristics as you awaken life from it" Wuyu explained "Blacksmith usually need to be at rank 40 to even start, but your control, strength and quality of your soul and spiritual energy is incredible, so you should be able to do it now. However, your case is a little different than the usual as you are a Swordmaster. So you should focus on Swordsmithing as you have more talent in it, imbuing your Sword Intent over the metal."

"So I need to make the metal able to contain my intent, like if a sword was" Xueqin mumbled.

"You should awake life over the metal and at the same time familiarizing with you, always containing your intent, making it seem like a sword that had spent years with you" Wuyu said "It's not an easy thing so you should first practice with your Sword Intent and hammer over some scrap metal. Once you find using your hammers no different than your swords, you will be ready to start truly spirit refining."

Wuyu took away the refined Heavy Silver "I will transfer your contributions points for it. You can go now, we had finished for today."

"Yes! Thanks, master" Xueqin said goodbye at Wuyu who left the refinery room. This room was actually Xueqin's own private workshop, prepared by Wuyu for himself at the Blacksmith Association. It was one of the perks of having the president as your master.

"Pam! Pam!" Before Xueqin was about to leave, someone knocked on his door.

"Who is it?"

"It's me, brother" Weilan's voice sounded over the door.

Xueqin opened the door and effectively it was Weilan "What are you doing here, sister?" He asked confused. It was extremely rare for her to directly come to find him if it weren't for something of the clan.

"I wanted to ask you for something and this workshop was the perfect place for it" Weilan looked around the room and saw some refined metals that Xueqin had kept. She didn't have profound knowledge about blacksmithing but knew some about it "Are you near to break through to rank-5?"

"Master Feng, just said that I should start practicing about it" Xueqin asked "What's this about? Did you need some spirit refined metal?"

"Yes, a very special one" Weilan approached the table and took out seven different colored metals on it. Each metal had a different color and aura around it.

"This is?" Xueqin's eyes went wide. He didn't recognize the metal, but somehow he sensed some familiarity with it "Is this a Myriad Colored Being?"

"Near" Weilan answered "These metals are special, each one with its own element. In some way, it could be considered the core of the Myriad Colored Being, but it's not."

"What do you want me to do with them?" Xueqin asked glancing at her.

"This is a secret of the clan. Only blacksmith members of the clan can know about it" Weilan took some ancient-looking paper and gave it to Xueqin.

Xueqin made a quick read and was shocked. "This is an alloy?!" It was the method to create an alloy, a 7 metal alloy on top of it! It must be known that spirit alloys are extremely difficult and rare, considered as part of the blacksmith inheritance, the public ones being very scarce. Xueqin had listened about them from Wuyu, but a 7 metal alloy was unheard "Ning Maya" He read at the end of the paper, showing the one that created it.

Xueqin turned to Weilan "Someone 10.000 years ago before the blacksmithing truly bloomed was able to create such a thing?"

"It's only suppositions. Maya was not able to truly create it, only making something similar using soul power, but thought about how to do it" Weilan explained "Now, it had been demonstrated that Maya was right and this is possible."

"Do you want for me to create that alloy?" Xueqin asked.

"Hahaha!" Weilan exploded laughing "How could it be? You are not even close to creating. You should be at least a rank-8 to even try it." She turned serious "In these papers are explained how to refine each metal. I want you to choose one of them, the more familiar with you, the one that you find easier to refine and spirit refine it. Then, I want to make it part our mecha core."

In these months like they had agreed, the middle class had been working in building a mecha. There has been a lot of problems trying to make everyone participate, joining everyone's ideas, and creating something completely new. After some fights in the middle, they were able to create the raw design between everyone. Moreover, it was decided that the first one would be for Weilan who was the best and the only one with experience with mechas.

Now they were building it, Xueqin refining the metals and making it with the others. For now, they had made the arms and legs, lacking the body, core, head and assembling it together. A change in the core would need some changes over the other parts but it was bearable at the moment.

"Of course, I'm not asking about doing it now" Weilan hummed "But Grangran trust you and she want you to focus on these metals. That's the only reason that she gave you this information."

Xueqin continued reading the paper "Okay, I don't know how much time it would take, but I will try to do it."

"Great." Weilan cheered "Let's go and have some spar. It had been some time since last, and I feel like I'm a little rusted."

"Okay, it's always enjoyable to beat you" Xueqin grinned.

Weilan clenched her teeth and seemed to growl. However, she didn't have an answer. The truth was that she had been unable to even win one time against Xueqin. The first time was the closest one and that was only because Xueqin tried to use his domain without truly comprehend it, exhausting himself. In the end, the Seven Treasured Pagoda was a support spirit and limited her fighting strength. She was even unable to win against Xinglan.

"Let's see in the future" She whispered for herself as she was already thinking of taking out a mecha and beat the shit out of her brother and guardian.