Blooming Lotus and Edging Leaf

Forging was both an art and a science. Before you started forging a blade you needed to visualize what you wanted your ore to be. A knife, a sword, an ax. Once you had that figure out, then you could begin to prep your steel.

For his upcoming business venture Logan needed to make an impression however he didn't have a lot of steel to work with and technically it would be his first time forging something. So, he made a basic plan to forge two blades out of his three pieces of ore. To give himself a little leeway in case he screwed up.

The first blade he planned to make would be a twenty-inch dagger while the second was going to be a two-foot-long short sword. Logan sketched out the design he wanted; they were going to be a set piece. Both the handle and blade were going to have a lotus engraving along with some other design.

"Okay, here goes nothing."

He prepared a canister where he placed his ores and seal it shut, then he fired up the forge with his sun flame before placing the canister inside. The yellow flames of the sun released so much heat that soon Logan was sweating buckets. He waited for about half an hour before taking the canister off with a pair of tongs and letting it cool.

Once that was done, he took a nail, his hammer and started to remove the canister from the billet. With his strength it only took him a couple of swings before the billet was free of the canister.

As the billet was freed, he placed it again in the forge to heat it up. As the it began to heat under the assault of his sun flames, Logan look through his memories as he and found the perfect forging technique to use called Roaring Dragon Dance.

The idea behind the technique was to use the body's kinetic energy and swing the hammer as hard as possible. The power came from the lower body and back increasing the strength of each consecutive strike by a fair amount. It was the best technique to remove impurities from a weapon.

As the billet glowed cherry red, Logan took his first Qi Replenishing Pill. He had been using his flames non-stop for the past hour and that put a drain on his reserves. As he took out the billet and placed it on the anvil, he grabbed the hammer and began to swing according to the technique in his memories.

The first three times he hit the billet, the force of his blows made his arm vibrate so hard he almost dropped his hammer. He frowned and corrected his postured before hitting the billet again. The fourth time the vibrations were less by the time the fifth and six hammers strike his arm no longer vibrated as he fully concentrated on piece of ore in front of it.

The billet was filled with impurities from it's time in the earth, Logan was using brute strength and the heat of his sun flame to purge the metal. As he fell into a rhythm Logan tuned everything out but the feel of the hammer in his hand and the metal beneath him.

As each strike became stronger, the sound of metal hitting on metal was soon replace with the roar of a dragon. At first it started faint and weak, but it grew in crescendo with each new blow. The sound reverberated through the estate. Cherry and Mrs. Rao were in the kitchen putting the groceries away when a loud roar shook them to their very souls.

They quickly rushed to Logan's room but stopped halfway as the dragon roars grew in intensity as they got closer. Trusting that her son was okay, Mrs. Rao went back to the kitchen to make a meal.

Logan was oblivious to everything that was happening as he hammered the impurities out of the billet. As he struck for the thousandth time the loudest roar shook the house and broke Logan out of his trance.

As he slowly came to, he noticed that the billet had shrunken by a third and what was left was a block of pure black iron. Logan smiled as he took in his work. He tried to lift the billet, but his arm wouldn't move.

He turned to look at his arm to find it swollen like a pig, his hand was bleeding and the webbing between his fingers split open. "Holy shit!" He also looked outside and noticed another three hours had passed.

His Qi was completely depleted, he forced his hand to let go of the hammer before taking the top part of his robe off and consuming another Qi Replenishing Pill. He slowly circulated the medicinal energy as he quietly meditated. It took him awhile to enter a meditative state due to the burning pain in his arm.

After an hour of rest, he was back to peak condition and began to circulate the sun flame through his body. A cool refreshing feeling started to spread through his arm, it was an odd feeling coming from a flame, but he noticed that the blisters and cuts were closing up and the swelling was going down at a rapid pace. After five minutes his arm was completely healed. His hand didn't even have callouses after all that work.

"Wow this sun flame is great, if this was the effect of the embryonic flame. What would happened once I have the full Sun Dragon Flame? Would I be able to regrow limbs?"

The thought excited him, with new vigor he fired up the forge again and began to hit the billet of pure iron again. Once the billet was hot enough, he began to draw the steel out into the length that he wanted before cutting off the excess material.

Once he had the two pieces of iron, one short and long. He began to work on the dagger and hammered the profiled in. He worked on it for another hour before he had a blade and tang. Once the blade was profiled, he began to carve the lotus design on it before heat treating it.

Once he pulled the blade out of the vat of oil, he wiped it clean and began to work on the short sword. After two hours of forging and another to make the sheaths and handles Logan had two beautiful blades with lotus designs on the blades. The handles were made of a white wooden block as well as the sheaths. Logan had used his sun flame to burned the lotus design on the sheaths to give it a more mystical look.

Logan had sharpened the blades to perfection. He picked up the dagger and tested the edge with his finger, he nearly cut his finger off with the edge. "Shit."

He dropped the dagger and the blade fell between his toes sinking into the wooden floor all the way to the hilt. Logan looked at the blade with found respect.

"I knew that taking out all the impurities will make the blade stronger and sharper but not to this extent." He circulated his sun flame over the cut and it quickly healed.

Logan picked up the dagger and put it in its sheath. With what he knew and how sharp the blade was. Even though it was made of an inferior metal than Leroy's sword. If the two clashed the dagger would cut his sword like a knife through butter.

The advantage of making a blade of such pure metal was that it retained a better edge and the metal was stronger. If it clashed with a blade made with an impure metal, then it would cut through the impurities destroying it.

Of course, that would only work with mortal weapons made of regular materials.

Weapons were classified between two large categories. Mortal and Martial Weapons. The difference between the two was that mortal were made of trash every day materials that any blacksmith could make. As for Martial Weapons they were only able to be forge by a Forge Master with their spiritual strength linked to their forge flames. The weapons were made of special materials that allow cultivators to circulate their Qi through them.

As he looked at the two blades, he felt pride about his first works, but he also felt disdained at having to make such trash weapons. He knew that those feelings were from the Forge God memories. But there wasn't anything he could do. He was no god and had to work with what he got.

He looked at the remaining piece of pure iron, it was enough to make another dagger. He waited until he recovered before firing the forge for a third time and making the last dagger. Unlike the other two this one was for his personal used, instead of engraving a lotus design. He carved a small sun on the blade above the cross-guard.

Instead of using a white wooden block for the sheath, Logan picked a dark one to match his clothes and attached the sheath to his lower back. This will be a weapon to keep him safe and one of his hidden trump cards.

"Now for the next part, I have to give a name to these blades. How about Blooming Lotus for the sword and Edging Leaf for the dagger." Logan felt satisfied with the names. "As for my dagger, hmm how about. Crimson Light." His dagger would only be use for killing and see light of day to be bathed in blood.

After spending all in his room forging, he stretched his back and went to take a shower to wash away the filth. Once he was done, he sat down in his room and took out the Qi Gathering Pills normally a person could only take one pill at a time because their meridians couldn't handle so much energy coursing through them.

That wasn't the case with Logan's his were purer and wider than the average person so they could take a large quantity of energy. The other issue that many cultivators had with taking pills was that pills were filled with impurities depending on the skill of the alchemist they could reduced the number of impurities. As of now the pills in Logan's hand had about fifty percent purity.

"The state of development for the Crystal Lotus Kingdom was truly pathetic."

Without another word he opened the bottle and swallow all ten pills at the same time. As the pills melted in his mouth the torrential energy gushed out like a tsunami, before the energy could overwhelmed his meridians and damage them, Logan unleashed his sun flame through out his whole body. The intense flames coated the medicinal purging the energy of any impurities leaving behind only the purest energy.

As a result, the amount of energy coursing through his body was halved but the remaining part was so pure that it made up for it. It was always better to go for quality instead of quantity. Waves of intense pain flooded through his body as the potent energy wrecked his meridians but before the damage could be made permanent, his sun flame passed through the area healing it.

Logan spent the rest of the night cultivating, after awhile he got used to the cycle of pain and healing that it no longer bother him by the he finished cultivating the sun was rising and he manage to break through from the peak of third stage to the early fourth stage of Qi Condensation.

It wasn't as dramatic as raising three ranks in a row like before but the quantitative leap in his strength was nothing to joke about. "My base strength should be around a fifth stage cultivator and if I boost myself with my sun flame fighting six stage cultivators shouldn't be any problems however anything above that would be difficult."

Once he broke through, he took the time to consolidate his strength as to no damage his foundation, though meditation help with that it wasn't as useful as actual live combat. As he slowly opened his eyes, he noticed that his body was cover with a layer of grime and filth.

"Ugh I stink like three-day old fish." Logan covered his nose with his hand.

Every stage in cultivating was divided in low, mid, and peak. As one broke through to the next stage the impurities in the body would be expelled through the pores in the skin. However, the amount that covered Logan was a little higher than usual. "I guess my body hadn't expelled all the impurities from my earlier breakthrough."

He went on to take a shower and go have something to eat. As he walked to the kitchen his mother was there finishing making breakfast. "You're not going to be satisfied until you see your old mother in the ground. What was that terrible noise coming from your room?"

Logan knew he had to come up with a good excuse, but he still hadn't thought of anything so he bullshit his way through. "What do you mean old, mom? You're as beautiful as the winter lotuses and can charmed the very gods themselves. Dad should hurry back from the border or he will have to fight an army of suitors before long."

"That silk tongue of yours is just like your father. What army of suitors? You, badmouthing brat." His mother's cheeks reddened in embarrassment as she berated him, but her words didn't have any heat to them. "And don't change the subject."

Logan was halfway through his food at this point. "Oh, look at the time mom, I have to get to the Institute."

He kissed his mother goodbye before rushing out the door, there was no good explanation as to how he suddenly became a cultivator overnight specially with the dire straits their family was in. So, he was better off changing the subject and escaping while he could.