The Attack of the Wastrel

“Are… are you sure that the refining process was successful?”

Looking at how absent-minded Gu Lingzhi was, Zhang Kuihan started to lament over the amount of spirit stones that he had spent to get a hand on these materials. Not only had these materials exhausted his entire fortune, there were some precious materials that had been borrowed from his Master and had to be returned.

Although he could not return everything to its rightful owner, due to the unexpectedness of weapon-making, even if one could not achieve their desired results, the materials would not go to waste. At most, the end result would be a weapon of a lower quality, so the losses would be minimal. However, Gu Lingzhi’s sloppiness meant that things would not go as smoothly as he thought.

“Yes, it was. These are the materials that I wish to experiment with,” Gu Lingzhi smiled. The word that she used was ‘experiment’, implying that she was not familiar with them.

Well-tempered Steel, Spirit Drawing Pearl and Boundless Powder…

These were the materials that she had wanted to refine and add to her weapons, but never had the money to afford it. Never did she expect that she would now have access to them, how could she not take this opportunity to experiment with it?

Zhang Kuihan’s heart started to ache again and started to suspect whether she had already known about his motives and thought of such a way to get back at him.

“Don’t worry, if there was a problem with the refining process, I’ll compensate you entirely.” Gu Linghi did not have confidence using these materials directly, but refining them was easy for her.

“Alright, let’s begin then,” Zhang Kuihan finally eased his heart and forced a smile whilst taking out a large amount of metal ores from his Storage Ring.

Gu Lingzhi immediately chose some of the ores that she needed from the pile. Zhang Kuihan took the remaining ores and started to extract them once he found a suitable place by the furnace. He kept an eye on Gu Lingzhi whilst he put the metal ores in the furnace.

Unexpectedly, Gu Lingzhi did not put the ores directly in the furnace. She took them in her hands and examined them one by one. The ore that she held in her hands was the size of a fist. Zhang Kuihan recognized it instantly as the Well-tempered Steel.

As the name suggests, the Well-tempered Steel was originally iron that had been refined many times, yielding only a small piece of steel that can withstand a large amount of force. It was a popular material amongst higher Level Spiritual Weapons.

Although iron was rather common, the tedious process of producing Well-tempered Steel made it fragile. It was easy even for Earth-Level Master Weapon Forgers to fail at extracting it. As a result, the price of this material only kept increasing.

Gu Lingzhi was fascinated by this piece of silver-grey metal in her hands.

The shape of the steel could only be shaped by Black-Level Master Weapon Forgers. Similarly, the uses could only be fully exploited by Weapon Crafters of this standard. Using the Peering Technique to examine the piece of Well-tempered Steel, Gu Lingzhi could see the hundreds of times that it had been refined.

“So that’s how it is…” Gu Lingzhi mumbled to herself, seeming as if she had come to learn something. In one swift move, she threw the piece of steel into the furnace. Closing her eyes, she used all her Spiritual Energy to sense the changes in the piece of High-grade Well-tempered Steel, in the hopes that she could refine it as purely as possible.

As Zhang Kuihan looked on, his uneasy heart finally calmed down. The care that Gu Lingzhi put into the metal ores reassured him that she was not sloppy or intentionally messing around with him.

The weapon forging continued for two days continuously. When they were hungry, they ate the food that Yuan Zheng had brought for them before going back to their work. They added the raw materials that they had extracted into the initial prototype of the Spiritual Sword. Gu Lingzhi’s eyes were filled with excitement and hope; after all, this was her first time trying to forge an Earth-Level Spiritual Weapon.

They had worked continuously without rest for the past two days, but it was of great help to her. Even if Zhang Kuihan had hidden a lot of his wielding techniques and even tried to mislead her, her knowledge was all passed down from the Spirit Tribe. There was no way that she would take his words seriously.

On the other hand, Gu Lingzhi was scheming in her own ways.

The first time Zhang Kuihan had asked her to collaborate to make a weapon, she had already sensed that something strange was going on. She decided to change her Weapon Forging methods as well by adding some Alchemy methods. This way, Zhang Kuihan could not tell if her methods were real or fake.

As the second day passed, Rong Yuan came to visit her multiple times. His heart ached at how hard she was working, but he felt helpless. On the other hand, Wei Hanzi that had been disguising herself as the real Gu Lingzhi had stayed in the room for the entire duration. Zhang Kuihan could only lament at how eager she was to learn from the Black Thorn.

On the afternoon on the third day, the Spiritual Sword finally showed some progress. The initial prototype of the sword suddenly emanated an overwhelming force, almost like it was going to burst out and destroy everything in its surroundings.

They could now begin the process of forging. As long as they used their concentration, they could shape the Sword into any form that they wished. After which, it could be considered a successful attempt at making a weapon.

“It actually succeeded,” Zhang Kuihan exclaimed excitedly before he retrieved a rack to place the sword in.

Gu Lingzhi did not have the time to ask something before she saw Zhang Kuihan take the Sword out of the furnace before he stuck the sword in a plate.

The Sword that was still hot let out a hissing sound when it touched the light green liquid in the plate.

When the sound had diminished, Zhang Kuihan took out a large hammer. He put the sword on the rack and started to pound on the sword. Sparks flew upon contact, letting out a high and piercing sound.

“You’re forging it…manually?” Gu Lingzhi was shocked. She had finally come to a realization about something that had been bothering her for some time. Even Yuan Zheng stared at Zhang Kuihan and the sword that he had been hammering, as if he was thinking of something.

“Hehe… I think that hammering the sword would make it tougher,” Zhang Kuihan said gleefully, but his eyes looked guarded.

In modern times, forging weapons were mostly done through mental concentration, instead of physical labor. With a greater amount of mental concentration, more power could be concentrated in the weapon. Yet, what Gu Lingzhi had read from her secret books was how there were different ways to hammer weapons depending on their qualities, so that the power output can be maximized. Not only did hammering make the weapon sturdier, but it also improved the other qualities of the weapon.

Looking at the plate with the pale green liquid, Zhang Kuihan retreated sneakily.

Using physical labor to forge weapons was slowly replaced not because of the fact that it was more energy-consuming, but rather because the method of hammering has to match the kind of materials that were used to make the weapon, otherwise it would cause the materials in the weapon to degrade and lower the quality of the weapon. Eventually, the hammering method died out.

The book with secret techniques that Zhang Kuihan had gotten his hands on was different, however. Not only did it list in detail the different hammering methods, it also listed the kind of liquid that the weapons should be mixed with prior to hammering. The green liquid that was in the plate was made specially for hammering the particular sword that they had made. Even if she could sense something fishy going on, she would not be able to fully discern his secrets.

In fact, Gu Lingzhi did not even take a second glance at the liquid in the plate. She was fully concentrated on how Zhang Kuihan was hammering the blade. With each blow, the blade became even shinier. The energy that would have rushed out of the sword was now contained within it, making the weapon more and more powerful.

As Gu Lingzhi looked on, she started to gain more new insights.

“I get it now…” Gu Lingzhi laughed lightly. She knew how to become an Earth-Level Weapon Forger now.

She had always been bad at shaping weapons – her every attempt had been a disaster. Most of her energy had always been spent on shaping her weapons, she never thought of actually forging them manually.

She decided that when she was done crafting weapons here, she would immediately head back into the Inheritance Space to try crafting some Earth-Level Spiritual Weapons. The competition was drawing near, what could be a better present than to learn from someone who was better at crafting weapons than her?

With that thought, she felt much better about Zhang Kuihan. She wondered what his reaction would be when he realized that Gu Lingzhi had not been misled by him all along but rather enlightened by his actions.

After two hours, Zhang Kuihan finally put down his hammer and ended the forging process and his muscles relaxed. For the last time, he submerged the blade into the green liquid into the plate and let it absorb all the Spiritual Energy. Finally, it was time for the last process – molding the sword.

Gu Lingzhi very consciously took a step back, her face full of embarrassment.

Zhang Kuihan paused for a bit whilst thinking about the appearance of Gu Lingzhi’s weapons, before deciding that he should just be fully in-charge of molding the sword. He concentrated all his attention into molding the weapon into the design that he had intended.

Gu Lingzhi watched as the appearance of the sword changed from something that looked ordinary to something that looked extravagant, sharp and exquisite. The sword reflected a faint green light, which made it easy for others to tell that it was a weapon that was extraordinary.

Finally, the sword let out a buzz. They had succeeded. With one swift motion, the extremely sharp edges of the blade cut everything it came into contact with neatly into half.