Ning was forced to work in the smithy for 3 hours to pay the man back for the appraisal.
He technically only had to work for a single hour, but the old man decided to give him 2 more hours so he could earn some money instead, since he didn't have any.
The task was supposed to be hard as he had to continuously beat blobs of molten metal into the shape of an armor.
The thickness had to be very much the same all the way around, and he had to make sure the metal was properly tempered.
He was used to working on metals to make items, but it was different when working with Qi. With Qi, he was capable of melting the metal and shaping it without even having to touch it. The only hard part there was putting Qi lines into them, but without any energy, he had to make sure he didn't ruin it all.