Chapter 31: Artifact Refining (1)

"But now, I think that I've wasted enough time. It's time to learn artifact refining now!"

...

At the forge...

~Strike~

~Strike~

The sound of metal being repeatedly struck by a hammer echoed across the forge as the golden-haired kid was giving the form of a sword to a Quicksilver ingot. 

~Strike~

~Strike~

Mo Fan continued to strike the hammer on the ingot with extreme harmony and balance, each part of the metal being hit with the same amount of power.

As it was being struck more and more, slowly the Quicksilver's ingot's sides became sharper, its length increased, and its height decreased to the point of it being thinner than even a piece of paper.

Finally, after the golden-haired kid had been modeling it for more than two hours without ever stopping, the ingot had taken the form of a perfect sword. Not one. Mo Fan didn't make a single mistake in making it: the blade was perfectly straight, light, and balanced, with each part of it being in absolute harmony with one another. But the thing that took most of his time wasn't doing so, it was carving a freaking phoenix revolving around the sword on the fucking blade!

Why did he go to the extent of carving something so complex on the sword? Well, when he was thinking about what abilities to give to the artifact, a very good idea came to his mind...

"Phew... I think it came pretty well at last," Mo Fan exclaimed, while proudly looking at the majestic and perfectly drawn phoenix he had just finished carving on the blade. "I didn't think I'd be so good at drawing!"

"Now, I should put the blade in the water before this perfect phoenix of mine gets messed up." The golden-haired kid said, immediately taking the pliers and grabbing the scorching blade with them before releasing it in freezing water, a lot of vapor instantly being created upon their contact.

"Phew, finally I can get some rest... my muscles are all sore after using the Harmonious Hammer technique at full power and the Qi Wave Principle for two hours straight..."

"Fortunately, I didn't choose the Chilling Yin Steel for the sword or it would have taken me years before even managing to slightly bend it..."

Well, Mo Fan has got a point. In fact, he did right in choosing the Quicksilver over Chilling Yin Steel, as it still took two hours straight of him constantly striking with the Harmonious Hammer technique and the Qi Wave Principle the former, even though it was a hundred times less resistant than the latter! So, he was forced to choose the Quicksilver, although in terms of compatibility with the Ice Qi it was much worse than the Chilling Yin Steel...

But, fortunately, he had an idea to resolve this matter: the Ice Rotten Wood. It's a rare type of wood that comes to life only in the coldest areas of the planet after a normal piece of wood gets frozen by the area's Yin Qi and turns into a huge block of ice together with the surrounding water, slowly absorbing the encicling's energy as hundreds of years passed, until the piece of wood finally rots, the huge block of ice blocking him immediately disappearing and it becoming one with the surrounding environment.

Mo Fan initially thought about using it to make the entire sword as it was way more compatible than both the Quicksilver and the Chilling Yin Steel, as well as being more easy to work with, but when he went to reedem some of it with contribution points in the sect's treasury, Meng Wu Ya asked for twenty thousand points just for a tiny piece of it that wasn't even enough to make the hilt of the sword! He even came up with the excuse that it was precious and things like that! What a greedy bastard! Mo Fan would have never done something like that if he were in his place... maybe.

Well, leaving that aside, after some quick calculations, the golden-haired kid decided to buy that tiny piece of Ice Rotten Wood anyway, as the compatibility with the Ice Qi would be still superior to the Chilling Yin Steel, with the idea of making only the hilt of the sword with it, obviously complementing it with another metal. 

So, while waiting for the blade to cool down, Mo Fan immediately got to work and started to create the sword's hilt.

...

"It came pretty well at the end," Mo Fan exclaimed as he looked at his finished opera: the grip made out of two strands of Ice Rotten Wood and Black Iron interwined with each other, the guard and the pommel made out entirely of Quicksilver, extreme balance and harmony decorating the hilt in its entirety. "I didn't like those strands alternating between each other at first, even though they are both of a white color, and thought about levigating the entire grip to make everything look more uniform, but now that I look at the hilt finished, I am really starting to like-"

~Blub~

~Blub~

~Blub~

The sound of water boiling suddenly interrupted the golden-haired kid. "Ah, fuck! I was so taken by making the hilt in the best way possible that I forgot to take the blade out of the water! Fuck! I have to hurry!"

And so, with all of his speed, he ran to the boiling water and took the sword out of it with the pliers, a sigh of relief coming out of his mouth at the sight of the sword and the phoenix being just as perfect as he had forged them. "Phew... I made it in time. Only a second more, and the sharpness of the sword would have greately decreased."

Then Mo Fan took the blade with his hands, as it wasn't scorching anymore but rather cold, and the hilt, then immediately started to weld everything together, the process not lasting that long as it finished just a few seconds later.

[Image Here]

"Now, all that's left to do is transform this amazing sword into a fantasmagorically strong artifact!"

...to be continued

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Remember to check my other work "Uniqueness Emperor"