Star Luo City.
Blacksmithing Competition.
Unlike standard Spirit Master battles, competitions for secondary professions were always very concise.
There was no need for team divisions, advancement brackets, or eliminations.
All participants simply gathered together, supervised by the audience and judges, completed the task for each round, were filtered through round after round, until a champion was finally decided.
Over the years, who could win the Blacksmithing Championship was always uncertain, as these competitions always managed to produce one or two wild geniuses, which was also the purpose of holding the competition.
But this year was different.
This year's Blacksmithing Championship was almost universally acknowledged to be taken by Su Ming.
Even the citizens of the Star Luo Empire, upon hearing about Su Ming's blacksmithing prowess in the Federation, felt overwhelmed and scarcely believed their own blacksmiths could compare to Su Ming.
Coming to watch today, they also looked forward to Su Ming displaying his great skill.
In fact, Su Ming was indeed showing off.
The first round of the Blacksmithing Competition required completing a Thousand Refinement on a metal one was familiar with.
Starting directly with Thousand Refinement as the topic showed the high standard of this blacksmithing competition.
Su Ming was undoubtedly engaged in a technical display.
Life Embryo Forging Method!
He had already been to the Ice Fire Two Eyes, clearly mastered the powers of Destruction and Life, and possessed control over Ice and Fire forces.
He could openly demonstrate this Life Embryo forging method.
The Life Embryo still belonged to the Thousand Refinement level, but it was already sublimated.
To put it this way, ordinary Thousand Refined metal cannot integrate into a Spirit Master's body, but taking it one step further allows integration—Spirit Refinement is like this, Spirit Alloy is also like this.
And the Life Embryo is undoubtedly the same.
Compared to Spirit Refinement, the Life Embryo does not truly possess life yet; it is still in the embryonic incubation stage.
Compared to Spirit Alloy, the Life Embryo is a pure, single rare metal, with no concept of fusion degree.
This is the extreme of pure forging technique.
Spectator Stands.
En Ci watched this scene, his pupils constantly contracting.
"Is this the Spirit Infusion Technique? Practiced to its extreme, it can actually forge metal with Spirit Refinement characteristics during the Thousand Refinement stage? The foundation laid is incredibly solid. Subsequent Spirit Refinement, Fusion Forging, and even Soul Refinement can all be accomplished more easily, even laying a perfect foundation for Heaven Refinement."
He had originally thought that after the Blacksmith Association members exchanged studies in the Federation and spent a year learning the皮毛 of the Spirit Infusion Technique, it was already sufficient. He didn't expect it was far from enough.
The significance of the Spirit Infusion Technique far exceeded just solving material cost issues.
Su Ming's expression was calm as he displayed the characteristics of his Life Embryo.
The audience cheered, and forging faith swarmed towards him, allowing him to have his fill.
The next day, the second round of the Blacksmithing Competition began. This round tested Spirit Refinement.
Su Ming chose to forge using an ordinary iron block.
He took out a Spirit Soul—a successfully created artificial Spirit Soul at the hundred-year cultivation level.
Seeing him take out a Spirit Soul Orb during the blacksmithing competition, the audience found it very strange.
From their understanding of the Spirit Infusion Technique, wasn't it a technique where the blacksmith used their own Spirit Soul to impart spirituality to an ordinary iron block?
Why bring an external Spirit Soul?
In the audience, En Ci took a deep breath and stared intently at Su Ming, unwilling to miss any detail of what followed.
External Spirit Souls could also be used for Spirit Infusion.
As a Sacred Blacksmith, he quickly realized the importance of this technique.
Su Ming noticed En Ci's gaze and glanced towards his location.
After smiling and nodding in acknowledgment, he turned his attention back to the iron block in front of him and crushed the Spirit Soul Orb in his hand.
Inside the orb was an Ice Silkworm.
As the sphere shattered, the Ice Silkworm darted out, immediately trying to escape.
Su Ming grabbed it, refined it in an instant, and threw it into the red-hot iron block before him.
Bang!
The forging hammer fell. Its delayed characteristic continuously exerted force, causing a persistent power from the hammer to strike the iron block.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hammer blows fell one after another. The Ice Silkworm had already dissolved, completely merging into the iron block.
As the forging proceeded, this ordinary iron block began to exhibit extraordinary characteristics, emitting a cold air. Even amidst the flames burning on the forging platform, one could see wisps of cold air.
Icy white patterns began to appear on the iron block.
Special undulations seemed to distort the very light.
"He really fused the Spirit Soul into the iron block! This iron block is no longer ordinary metal, it's no longer metal without characteristics; this is a rare metal!"
En Ci's breathing became rapid.
He recognized the change in the iron block; it was clearly the symbol of the Ice Silkworm's ice and spiritual attributes.
This was Artificial Rare Metal!
If a complete Spirit Soul could do it, what about incomplete ones?
En Ci knew full well that the success rate of the Spirit Transmission Pagoda's artificial Spirit Soul project was extremely low.
There were always some defective artificial Spirit Souls.
If these artificial Spirit Souls could be used for forging, it would allow the creation of vast quantities of Spirit Soul metals, completely different from the naturally discovered rare metals of the past!
While En Ci was pondering, Su Ming also completed his forging.
On the forging platform before him, the Ice Silkworm iron block first shed its physical form, revealing its spiritual body—that is, the Life Embryo state—and was then awakened to spirituality by Su Ming in three hammer strikes, reaching the Spirit Refinement level.
Above the Ice Silkworm iron, the phantom of a slumbering Ice Silkworm materialized.
It was the very same Ice Silkworm Su Ming had just smashed and kneaded into the iron block. Now, it looked vivid and lifelike, its body seeming to rise and fall with breath, merely existing in a different form.
It had become the spirit of this Spirit Refined iron block!
The entire venue erupted in cheers.
"My heavens, I feel like my understanding of blacksmithing has been overturned in just two short rounds."
"Who isn't? This is the first time I've deeply realized that blacksmithing isn't just following rules and beating iron."
"If this technology can really be popularized in the blacksmithing world, will we be able to custom-order Spirit Refined metals in the future?"
Some Spirit Masters were already fantasizing about a future where a Battle Armor Master's full set of Battle Armor would display different Spirit Soul phenomena on different parts.
"That would be so incredibly cool!"
"It might actually be possible to have a mighty physique, with dragon shapes manifesting on each arm, and the wings of a Three-Word Battle Armor Master could even have the phantom of an eagle."
Some Spirit Masters were already drooling.
"Wake up, you'll never become a Three-Word Battle Armor Master in this lifetime."
"Even becoming a One-Word Battle Armor Master is difficult."
The spectator who proposed the fantasy flushed red.
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, do not bully the youth for being poor!"
"Even though I'm only level 30 at twenty years old now, just for a set of Battle Armor like that, I'll fight with my life to become a Battle Armor Master!"
"..."
Su Ming's forging was very fast. About an hour after he finished, the screening for the second round finally concluded.
"Tomorrow is the third round. I wonder what other tricks he has up his sleeve."
On the third day, the competition arrived as scheduled.
En Ci and the audience from the previous two days all took their seats.
The third round tested Fusion Forging.
Su Ming employed the Spirit Fusion Method.
He took out a piece of rare metal, one recognized by everyone from the Star Luo Empire present: Variable Silver, unique to the Star Luo Continent.
Then, he took out another Spirit Soul Orb out of thin air.
Inside the Spirit Soul Orb was a Brown Bear.
***
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(End of Chapter)