Meanwhile, Solar Clone had also begun preparing for weapon refinement. Before anything else, he forged a proper tool for himself—a hammer formed from earth, rock, and metal, all compressed a thousandfold into a single mass. By weight, it was a small boulder of forty tons, something no ordinary human could even dream of lifting without machines, yet in his hand it rested as lightly as a wooden mallet.
Next, he shaped a refinery beside the cultivation ground.
If he tried refining metal in an ordinary hall, a single mistake could shatter walls and ceilings. So he carved a chamber directly out of the mountain, then compressed its stone and metal until the whole structure felt like a solid, unyielding lump of power. The floor became an anchored platform for impact; the ceiling was thick enough to shrug off stray shockwaves. Only when every surface felt dense and steady did he consider it safe.
A mental command sent a golem puppet trundling toward the storage area.
It soon returned with iron ore and several other mineral chunks—materials Sacral Clone had dug up earlier while hollowing out Dark Haven Fortress. Solar Clone examined each piece in turn, weighing them in his palm, noting the grain, the density, the way Essence hummed faintly inside the richer ores.
"Good enough for a first blade," he murmured.
He laid out his tools. Unlike Sacral, he had no intention of working bare‑handed.
- Smelting crucibles: high‑resistance cups of compressed stone and metal, each etched with containment lines so molten metal would not spill or leak.
- Tongs and clamps with insulated grips, built to hold red‑hot, Essence‑charged metal without burning flesh or disrupting delicate patterns.
- Quenching troughs: long basins carved from compressed earth and rock, filled with Essence‑rich water, ready to temper and stabilise finished metal.
Beneath furnace and anvil, waiting silently, were his main engines: Heatfrost patterns to smelt and temper, and Impactforge patterns to multiply each hammer strike into controlled, Essence‑driven force.
"For now, this is enough," Solar Clone decided. "A simple forge for a simple sword."
He activated the furnace. Heat rose in layered waves, guided by the Heatfrost lines until it wrapped around the crucibles evenly. He dropped the first chunks of iron ore inside and watched as they began to glow, solid surfaces softening into sluggish liquid.
When the metal was ready, he gripped a crucible with his tongs and poured the molten iron into a bar‑shaped mold. Steam and Essence hissed together as the metal settled. He repeated the process until several glowing ingots lay waiting in a row.
He placed the first ingot on the anvil and called the Impactforge pattern to life. The lines carved beneath the anvil lit up, humming with restrained force.
He lifted the forty‑ton hammer.
To an outside observer, it would have looked absurd: a man swinging a mountain. To Solar Clone, it was simply the correct tool meeting the correct problem.
The hammer fell.
Instead of a deafening crash, the Impactforge pattern caught the blow and sent its force inward, driving power through the metal and flattening it. Each strike pushed impurities toward the surface; tiny sparks and wisps of dark smoke leapt free and vanished into the air.
Strike. Turn. Strike. Turn.
When the bar cooled too much, he reheated it in the furnace, then continued drawing it out—longer, thinner, smoother—until the shape of a sword blank emerged: a straight length with a thick spine and the hint of an edge.
Once satisfied with the rough form, he moved to tempering.
He lifted the glowing blade blank and slowly lowered it into a quenching trough.
The Essence‑rich water roiled as metal met liquid, Heatfrost patterns pulling heat away at a controlled pace. Not too fast, not too slow; under his guidance the internal structure locked into place, grain aligning around the invisible memory of each hammer‑blow.
When he drew the blank out again, it no longer glowed. The metal was dark, dense, and quiet in his hand.
"A simple ordinary sword," Solar Clone said softly.
For a mortal, it would have been a masterpiece—far tougher and sharper than anything human history had produced, forged from Essence‑touched ore and shaped under a forty‑ton hammer. But in the hands of a cultivator at Stage 1, Sub‑stage 3, it was still just steel; a strong grip and enough power could snap it cleanly in two.
Even so, he was satisfied. Without using his solar energy, without any advanced method or inscribed patterns, he had created the strongest purely mundane sword he could.
That was the foundation he wanted.
He turned the blade in his hand, feeling its balance, the memory of each strike resting in the metal. "Not bad for a first step," he murmured. "Now comes the real work."
"Next, I'll forge the same sword while channelling my solar essence," he decided. "I'll refine every step, perfect the method—and then start imprinting runes and Vyuhas into the metal so the blade isn't just tough, but truly alive with power."
With that thought, he set the ordinary sword aside on a rack.
The first tool was complete. The path from simple steel to magical weapons had officially begun.