Chapter 150 - The Forging Hall IV: The Creation of the Artifacts

  In three rounds, fire burst from invisible seams, then calmed. The furnace’s heat jumped with each one until a calm was reached, which made the focus of the Hall Leader to the forefront of the room.

  Not a muscle was moved. The dust seemed to stand at attention and joined to watch as the Hall Elder moved his hands in a pattern that seemed an improbable puzzle.

  “Quiet now…” The voice of Niu Lan Tian, which was so full of energy before, was a leaf sliding across the frozen surface of the ocean.

  Hao looked over to her for just a split second. Those bright eyes were brighter in the dim hall, now that all the fire was hidden. She was leaning against an anvil, just as she had been before.

  Nearly locked into the same sort of focus that had taken the Hall Leader, but she had one foot back, ready to run, while her hands were fidgeting with the two bowls of metal powder in front of her.

  Her eyes went wider as she stared off at the Hall Leader.

  Does she find him impressive? Hao found a creeping question as he followed her gaze back to watch the brown-bearded man move again.

  The Hall Leader, with only two fingers lifted, slowly raised his extended arm. With that, the door at the front of the furnace opened. Torrential heat roared out as if they were looking into the mouth of a beast that breathed flame.

  A few disciples in front of Hao flinched from the flame. He wouldn’t have noticed them if one of the men at his side hadn’t bumped his shoulder as he stepped back.

  Hao didn’t move at all. He watched closely, staring into the fire, knowing it could burn him, yet tempted to tame, or at least smother it, just to prove he could. He noticed then the glance of the Hall Leader over all of them. Clear blue eyes of expectation with pinched brows for his disciples and students, but the look he gave Hao was one of curiosity akin to surprise.

  The Hall Leader said nothing. Returning to the task at hand, he flicked his wrist down, not to close the door of the furnace. That stayed open, flames of red, orange, and occasionally green or blue spewing from the round hole before being unnaturally tamed and pulled back.

  His action split the air, severing what looked like molten metal. It had that bright orange shine, with an over-pronounced highlight like a copper coin dropped into a campfire.

  But no metal entered the furnace. Only the pelts, which the two molten orbs that spun with that simmering glow matched the size of the balled-up pelts before they entered.

  Is such a thing possible? Hao questioned the reality of something he knew was not possible. His question was somewhat answered with the drop in the temperature. Through the haze, he could spot more than just floating, glowing liquid, but the pristine white fur and its black stripes.

  The hatch closed again before he could spot more.

  It felt like a new book was placed in front of him, all of it in a language he couldn’t recognize.

  Are all paths beyond normal Cultivation like this, Alchemy, Talismans, Formations, and now Forging? Each one flipped his view of the world on its head, even Li Tuzai, and the way he butchered. A simple thing brought forth too many questions. More than even a place as grand as the library could answer.

  What of strength like Senior Brother Guan’s, does Physical Cultivation have such advantages to break what I thought were the world’s rules? What of this Second Rank, Cloud Forming and Five Rivers, the next stage of Cultivation… To walk in the air, unaging, Immortal.

  Hao’s mind burned with a dozen questions that demanded answers, ones he would find on his own.

  He saw the passion of the people in the dozen wordless minutes that passed. If a path was set before these disciples of the forging hall, one to be a ruler of a region, another to have as many high-rank beast cores as they wished, they would ignore the glory and riches of being a lord. With drool on their faces, they would stumble towards the furnace, working the cores to seek perfection.

  After a few minutes, the heat returned with greater vigor, and all, including Hao, were dripping with a cloudy sweat. The furnace had become a small sun in the room with them, white and yellow, the flames far beyond normal heat.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Still, there was a strange gentleness in its brutality.

  Nearly an hour, silence. Some studied, those sitting finally wrote, but their words were poorly scribbled, and the depictions that they had done made little sense even to the most creative eyes. They were too busy watching the process to look down in front of them.

  The Hall Leader’s face was still the picture of calm. He moved from his standing position to sit down in front of the furnace, close to the heat. Occasionally, with flames so hot, a few leaped from the furnace again. Like he was a charmer with a snake, he coiled around the tails of fire and directed them with control that had to be reaching a level of exhaustion.

  Suddenly, his lips parted, sweat hidden beneath his beard. “Prepare the purple bronze, use a rank one core for the catalyst, and don’t forget the thread, a generous amount…”

  The flames calmed, but a different fire started in the Forging Hall.

  Niu Lan Tian was the first to move, as if all the fire of the hall was gathering behind her to singe her ass.

  “Yes…” The few with ready hammers near Hao echoed and followed her lead. The same haste pulled them as many flames grew from fingers and palms, and furnaces turned to a pack of angry bulls spewing flame from their noses.

  Most waited and watched Senior Sister Lan Tian.

  She pulled both hands back from the bowls and went around a way to find what the Hall Leader referred to as a Catalyst. When she came back, in her hand was a faint orange core.

  It was obvious to Hao what it was, though he didn’t have one for himself, but the polar opposite of the thing. It was a Yang Demonic Beast core, weak, but easy to recognize.

  Senior Sister’s flame was different from the rest, with a tinge of purple and a destructive edge that gave Hao a chill to look at.

  She worked differently, too. While everyone was in a silent focus, every time she did something, she spoke, “Out you come, not all of you, be kind to me now, girl…”

  Most of the men and women in the hall swooned as she worked.

  The purple flame was agile under her control, on just the tips of her fingers as she lightly touched the core, which made it glow brighter, then fade to a fainter color than before.

  Then all at once, the core and her flame leaped into the furnace at her direction. “Now you too,” she said, throwing the contents of the bowls in.

  All the blue iron and half of the red copper. Done with them, she let the bowls fall to the ground, two fingers pointed at the furnace as Senior Sister sank into that silent focus.

  A disciple ran up and grabbed the bowls.

  The heat jumped, and the disciple with the bowls in hand ran fast.

  Purple fire forked out through the open hatch and reached towards the ceiling. It took only a few minutes, and she was done. Her breath came in heavy pants. What seemed like little work compared to the Hall Leader made her sweat five times as much.

  The two fingers she had pointed directed the globule. Floating out, the metal ball rapidly cooled, revealing its now silver shine, with a tint of purple that gave it its namesake.

  “You remember Disciple Niu Lan Tian?” The Hall Leader asked.

  Senior Sister nodded and cut her finger through the air a dozen times, which separated the globule into little odd-shaped pieces.

  They floated to the other disciples. Only three pieces stayed in front of her, which she quickly hammered into a shape. As soon as she lifted it, there was a flurry of hammer blows throughout the hall.

  Senior Sister did the three in front of her, and all the other fellow disciples finished in a minute, no less.

  Then a disciple, the one who retrieved the bowls, came forward. There were others at his side, all of them carrying the freshly forged, alongside a thin wrap of string that had a crystalline shimmer to its blue color.

  The Hall Leader looked at the materials. As one hand maintained the fire, he lifted the material with the other. They floated to him and joined the pelts in the furnace. Encased in flame, it looked like the essence of their being was extracted as the furnace door shut once again.

  No one else moved but the Hall Leader. Both his hands now pressed forward, he held, as the rest of the fires died down, the furnace rumbled. Only the Hall Leader’s steady flame remained as the Hall started to cool.

  Another forty minutes passed.

  Finally, the Hall Leader stood, “It is nice to work on something like this every once in a while,” he said. His arms held out as the flames vanished. Cold winter wind blew in from the doors behind them.

  The furnace door lifted, and out flew two robes.

  Of the purest white, the strips that once ran down the pelt were missing. There wasn’t a thread to be seen. There was even a hood, and instead of just two slender robes, there was an additional piece of pelt left over, reinforced and spotless like the two that were complete.

  “Wow… Hall Leader’s work is brilliant as always.” A breathless swoon came from one of the people who made the plates.

  “Indeed, such an idea had never occurred to me. Soaking the purple bronze into the hide to make it more resilient, but it makes it heftier, so the hem and sleeves won’t drag or flap in the wind.”

  “Truly weatherproof, interesting.”

  Hao stepped forward as everything that came out of the furnace landed in the Hall Leader’s hands. A small piece of paper followed.

  The Hall Leader dropped it all into Hao’s hands; they were perfect, light despite their purpose, then he saw the piece of paper on top.

  It was the price.

  The Hall Leader was smiling down at him, prouder than the bluest peacock in the crowd.