Chapter 31: The Artifact Forger
Master Chen was at the eighth layer of Qi Refining, over a hundred years old. His hair and beard were half-white, his body was sturdy, and his face, long blackened by years of furnace heat, was tanned to a deep shade. Yet his spirit was vigorous, and his voice thundered.
He was currently watching several disciples forge iron. Perhaps something in their technique had gone wrong, because he suddenly shouted with wide eyes. The brawny disciples took the scolding obediently, heads bowed, not daring to speak.
After giving them a solid dressing-down, Master Chen personally picked up a massive hammer to demonstrate. His muscular frame swung it with the might of a tiger, and the red-hot iron sparked violently under the blows, slowly shaping into a rough blade.
Once the forging was done, he merely wiped the sweat from his brow, his breathing steady—as if he hadn't exerted himself at all.
Mo Hua, naturally frail by comparison, watched in awe and envy. If only I had that kind of strength...
"Watch closely! This is how you strike iron! What you lot were doing earlier? All weak and limp—my daughter doing embroidery has more spirit than you!"
After another round of yelling, Master Chen turned his head and noticed a fair-skinned, bright-eyed young boy staring at him with open admiration.
He hesitated for a moment and asked, "Hey kid, you want to learn artifact forging too?"
Life as a rogue cultivator was tough. Once outside the sect, survival depended on practical skills. Those who hadn't learned anything useful within the sect would seek to pick up a trade.
In this area, it wasn't uncommon for cultivators to send their children to Master Chen to learn forging—hoping they'd someday make a living from it.
Master Chen didn't charge much. If the family couldn't afford spirit stones, he'd accept spirit rice or other supplies as tuition.
Mo Hua glanced at the tall, burly disciples again, then looked at his own spindly limbs, sighed in resignation, and shook his head. Then he got straight to the point:
"Master, do you make cooking furnaces here?"
"Cooking furnaces?" Master Chen squinted at him. "What's a kid like you asking that for?"
"I'm asking for my mother," Mo Hua replied.
"Of course I can make a furnace," Master Chen said. "But they take a lot of refined iron. Converted to spirit stones, that's not a small expense."
"What if it's a smaller one? Would that be cheaper?"
"Of course," Master Chen replied. "A smaller furnace needs less iron and manpower, so it'll cost less. But small furnaces are rare in Tongxian City—plus, you'd have to pay someone to design and inscribe the array. That part alone could cost a good number of spirit stones."
"How many spirit stones would it take to make the smallest possible furnace?"
Master Chen didn't brush him off just because he was a child. He seriously pulled out a sheet of paper and listed the prices of each material in detail. Then he calculated the totals and wrote down the estimated cost for furnaces of various sizes.
He handed the sheet to Mo Hua and added,
"Keep in mind—this is just material cost. Us artifact forgers charge labor by the day. However many days it takes to forge it, that's how many days of labor fee you'll need to pay."
"Ohh." Mo Hua noted everything carefully, then said,
"I've got it. I'll go discuss it with my parents and come back once we've decided what size to make."
Master Chen grunted and waved him off. "Alright, get home safe, kid."
He didn't think much of Mo Hua's words. Plenty of people came asking about commissions only to disappear afterward. Most who said they'd "think it over" never returned.
And this was just a ten-year-old kid asking about something as costly and labor-intensive as a cooking furnace? He doubted it would go anywhere.
Back home, Mo Hua reviewed the price list Master Chen had given him. He selected a furnace size that was suitable and within his financial reach. Just the material cost came out to about 150 spirit stones.
Then there was the labor cost, which still needed to be negotiated.
Mo Hua didn't know how long Master Chen would take to forge the furnace—but estimating ten to fifteen days, that meant another 50 to 75 spirit stones.
That was a bit beyond Mo Hua's current budget. He'd probably need to ask his parents for help, or borrow from someone.
The most critical part now was the formation.
Mo Hua laid out the Melting Fire Array Diagram on the table and began studying it closely.
The Melting Fire Array contained five fire-element runes. Most of the rune strokes started from the Lí Fire position. Just by looking at the runes, he could tell they were far more complex than the Goldstone Array or Earth-Fixing Array.
He let out a small sigh, cleared his thoughts, and began memorizing the rune structures and stroke orders.
Mo Hua immersed himself in study, and before long, night had fallen.
Even during dinner, his mind was still preoccupied with the array. He absentmindedly chewed a few bites of steamed bun, then spaced out mid-bite, still holding it in his hand.
Liu Ruhua watched him with a mix of amusement and exasperation. She pinched his cheek. "Eat properly. Think later."
Mo Hua snapped out of it, grinned sheepishly, and focused on finishing his meal. As soon as he was done, he darted back into his room.
He had now nearly memorized the runes of the Melting Fire Array. He then spent another hour practicing the strokes with ink that contained no spiritual power, sketching them on draft paper. After that, at midnight, he entered his sea of consciousness and began practicing the array on the stone tablet.
While the rune structure looked complex, its underlying logic wasn't much different from other arrays. Memorizing the runes wasn't too hard.
The real challenge lay in spiritual sense.
Mo Hua's current spiritual sense might not be enough to draw a full Melting Fire Array.
He began drawing the array on the fragmented tablet.
The first three runes went smoothly.
By the time he reached the fourth rune, things started to get difficult—his spiritual sense began to slow, like a well running dry.
Mo Hua's small brows furrowed.
After he finished the fourth rune, waves of pain surged through his sea of consciousness, as if cracks were forming on the riverbed after the tide had retreated.
He immediately stopped and hurried to erase the runes on the tablet. Only then did the pain subside.
He collapsed onto the hazy, dreamlike floor of his consciousness, panting heavily.
"Damn… still way too short on spiritual sense…"
His current capacity only allowed him to draw four runes. After the fourth, he had nothing left for the fifth.
It looked like he was just one rune short—but without a quick way to strengthen his spiritual sense, this "one rune" might hold him back for a long time.
"Now what…" he thought, frowning.
There was no shortcut for growing spiritual sense—this was common knowledge in the cultivation world.
At least, among Qi Refining cultivators in Tongxian City, it was accepted as fact.
Mo Hua had asked Instructor Yan before, who had confirmed it—spiritual sense typically grew only with increased cultivation level. The higher your realm, the stronger your spiritual sense would be.
The second method was through use—the more you used your spiritual sense, the stronger it would grow. That was why array masters, who constantly worked with formations, naturally had stronger spiritual sense than average cultivators.
Mo Hua had also asked if there were any special cultivation techniques to train spiritual sense.
Instructor Yan had been very clear: none—at least, none that were safe and reliable.
No known ancient tomes or sect manuals recorded such techniques. Some existed in demonic paths, but they often came with severe side effects. Those who cultivated them typically fell into madness and became heretical cultivators hunted by all.
Whether those methods truly didn't exist or were secretly hoarded by noble families and ancient sects—no one could say for sure.
Either way, Mo Hua had no way of getting his hands on them. And even if he could, he didn't dare risk turning into a demon.
He was currently at Qi Refining Stage 3, and a breakthrough to Stage 4 wasn't in sight—so relying on cultivation to boost his spiritual sense wasn't feasible either.
That left him with only one option:
Keep drawing arrays.
The path with no shortcut… was, in truth, the best shortcut.
(End of Chapter)