Li Ao’s following days were simple enough.

After talking with Zhu Qiu, they decided on Lei Jin’s household to use their forge.

Lei Family was a vassal-in-name of the Sun family, and they had close ties to the Qing family through several marriages. Hence, it would be more appropriate in the public eye for him to accept their offer.

Zhu Qiu also warned him several times to be more careful while talking, then refused to interfere anymore.

So Li Ao went early at dawn to practice forging, then around evening practiced formations in his room. He spent very little of his time on the third-level of Bronze Body, but that too steadily increased.

He was half-way through tempering his tendons—his legs could lift twice the weight, and run twice the length before the tempering. There was also a more refined ‘sense’ to them. His connection to the limb seemed to grow stronger.

Apart from having frequent contact with Lei Jin, he attended the weekly gatherings at Chiming Bell and got closer to Sun Jian and Qing Yan.

Through their somewhat convoluted conversations, he gathered some interesting pieces of knowledge. These, he addressed to Zhu Qiu, who smacked him on the head.

‘’Don’t betray your friends.’’ he said.

That being such, he did none of that anymore.

Time went by in a flash.

Soon, a few weeks passed. Now they were back at the Sun family’s smithy.

There were five of them still, the last two being a girl named Lu San and a boy named Pu Shu. Sun Zhongyan and Fan Yueyin regarded them with a little interest.

The former sat down on a chair, Sun Jian massaging his shoulders. He looked a little listless and pale. Latter kept making rounds around the large forge and once in a while muttered to herself.

When all youngsters stood at attention and straight as an arrow, Sun Zhongyan rose to his feet.

‘’You all seem to be ready.’’

Receiving their bows, he raised them up with an invisible wave of Qi.

‘’As I have said, there isn’t any reward from me for this competition.’’

‘’However, I wish all of you will try your best to accommodate.’

Saying so he sat down and Sun Jian walked over to the forge. Fan Yueyin stopped beside him and waved her hand.

‘’The competition is simple!’’ The boy’s loud voice echoed inside the dark smithy.

Several hills of black iron ore appeared behind Sun Jian. With a shake, Sun Jian took down his shirt and stood bare-chested.

‘’The one who forges the most swords will win!’’

Li Ao and others stared at the mountain of materials. They all had sullen expressions.

‘Where is the skill? Where are the precious materials?’

Fan Yueyin snorted and waved her hand again. Six portable anvils and furnaces appeared as well, with a set of thongs, hammers, and any tool one might prefer.

‘’The quality of the sword does not matter! Its length, width, sharpness—none of those matter! So long as it can be used as a sword, that is fine!’’

‘’All that matters is the quantity!’’

Fan Yueyin smacked his nape.

‘’Stop shouting so early in the morning.’’

Grumbling, she pointed at the furnaces.

‘’What are you waiting for!?’’

‘Fuck, why are you shouıting so early in the morning?’

Apprehensive, the youngsters rushed to their positions and readied themselves.

‘’Sun Jian?’’

Qing Yan’s voice caused Li Ao to look at her. He saw Sun Jian make himself ready as well, warming some of his tools beforehand.

Smiling, the boy gave a thumb-up to them. ‘’Well, since I came up with the rules, I have to join in!’’

‘’Fuck! How is that fair!?’’

Fan Yueyin glared at the swearing Pu Shu, so Li Ao held back his own tongue.

But really, how was it fair?

Sun Jian, unlike his appearance, was already a Quasi-Master Forger.

The boy could forge first and second-grade Earth-Quality weapons! If he could make a spiritual tool, he would ascend into the ranks of Master Forgers. That time wasn’t too far away...

‘’Okay! Good luck!’’

Seeing Sun Jian take a pile of the ore, everyone got into action. While Lei Jin and others were inspecting the ore, Li Ao just took a small hill and returned.

Sitting down, he remembered something.

‘’Master Fan, what is the time limit?’’

Hearing his question, the woman showed a magnanimous smile.

‘’There is no limit.’’

‘’...how does that work?’’

‘’Why don’t you begin instead of OPENING YOUR MOUTH!?’’

‘’...’’

Soon the smithy was full of clanks and rings. A wave of heat rose from their position, bringing in a strong smell of sweat and ash.

Using little of his strength, Li Ao began hammering the half-melted liquid in the grid.

‘Since all it matters is quantity, I don’t need to be too careful.’

‘I’ll just hammer the shape down and whet the edges with Qi.’

Thinking so, Li Ao got into work.

Others also started smithing through their own means. Qing Yan, for example, forgo using engravings on the blade and simply cut it into three pieces. With each batch of forging, she tried to make three swords.

When she was just finished with the first batch, a terrifying force descended in front of her. A bang echoed. The swords disintegrated into fine pieces of metal and vanished.

‘’What is the meaning of this?’’

‘’Cheap technique!’’ Fan Yueyin shouted back at her. ‘’I told you to make a Sword, not a sharp stick!’’

Huffing, Qing Yan started again.

To her left, Lei Jin sweated profusely from the exchange. He spent a little more time with the sword, engraved two lines of feathers, then just as he placed it on the water coiled back from the explosion.

The invisible force shattered the blade again.

‘’You are making a sword! A fucking sword! Not art!’’

To his left, Li Ao’s body raised a thick mist of sweat. He kept hammering and hammering, sacrificing the time. With five more strikes, a beautiful iron sword formed in the grid. Li Ao raised it, straightened his fingers, then scraped the edge with his Qi.

Right as sparks flew out, the sword exploded into shrapnel. One piece scratched his finger.

‘’Fuck!’’

‘’Too slow! Work faster!’’

To his left, Pu Shu and Lu San also tried other methods. But their swords were destroyed by an invisible force.

If looked through Divine Sense, one could see several sharp swords made of Qi hanging by their heads. All of them had little Qi in them, perhaps even a fourth-level Qi Condensation cultivator could manifest one. However, these simple Qi swords’ edges could injure even Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Stolen story; please report.

Unnoticed by others, the sword above Sun Jian’s head suddenly cleaved down.

Sun Jian had just raised his sword when the Qi Sword descended, and a screech sounded across the smithy. Echoes of it kept battering the ears, yet, to their amazement Sun Jian’s sword bore a single white mark and nothing else.

Laughing, snickering at the others, Sun Jian threw the sword down and started another one.

‘Fuck—is that the standard we need to reach?’

‘Who said quality didn’t fucking matter?’

They were scammed!

And not only were the scammed, they were mentally tortured as well!

How could these novices reach the level of a Quasi-Master in a short time?

Gritting his teeth, Li Ao returned to his work. This time he poured twice the ore, forging two swords at the same time. Once their bodies came to be, Li Ao raised them into the air.

The Qi sword struck like lightning and cut both of them apart. A moment later, the blades shattered to pieces and clattered over the anvil.

‘They didn’t explode?’

Observing the change, Li Ao continued experimenting.

He wasn’t the only one to do so. Once Sun Jian’s sword managed to endure, the others also observed that the strike was at a fixed strength. While the youngsters spent an hour testing the limits of the strike, Sun Jian had a dozen swords laying by his feet.

From time to time, he would look at his peers and cast a down-trodden expression, then return to his work.

Others had no time to inspect him, however.

Another hour passed.

The rings and booms never ceased to be. Instead, now panted breaths and frustrated shouts accompanied it.

Li Ao took another gulp of water from a nearby sack and hammered down. His body seemed ablaze, with coils of mist and fire rising out of his pores. By now his physical strength was depleted and his Qi seemed to run out.

To his side, Lu San and Pu Shu already passed out, with not one sword to their sides.

Li Ao also had none.

Apart from Sun Jian, no one managed to craft a sword able to take the strike.

Just when Li Ao thought he had made ‘the’ one, the sword over his head would grow stronger and blast the blade into oblivion. Every explosion, small scratches and scrapes appeared on his skin.

By now his heart was in turmoil and his back ached as if it would snap.

Glaring down at the grid, he smashed the hammer one last time. A beautiful blade appeared, glowing crimson from heat.

Li Ao raised it into the sky and without waiting slashed at the Qi Sword. A loud boom echoed, he tumbled back, and half of his sword embedded itself on the ground.

‘’Fuck!’’

He threw the hilt away and bashed his head on the anvil with a bang.

‘’Fuck this!’’

His shout gathered little attention.

Sun Jian himself had rough breaths now. His refined muscles shone with fiery light. Each of his strikes brought a melodious ringing that irritated the remaining trio more and more, but in their hearts they only blamed themselves.

Lei Jin, after having another sword explode, stopped and collapsed on the ground. His hair was disheveled, and he had no refined look to him. Qing Yan laid herself on the anvil and wiped the sweat off her face with her hands. It seemed like an unending stream pouring down her forehead.

‘’Okay.’’

Fan Yueyin’s cold voice echoed inside the smithy, drowning all of the growling and grumbling.

‘’That’s enough.’’

With her words, Sun Jian let out a sigh and threw his hammer down. He wiped the sweat off his back and face, then threw the wet cloth over the hill of swords.

Li Ao glanced at the eighty or so swords gleaming with the furnace’s fire.

‘’Monster...’’

Lei Jin nodded from afar, also offended.

Qing Yan remained silent, but she too kept glancing at the pile.

‘’You have ten minutes to rest.’’

Li Ao, Lei Jin, and Qing Yan all stood up again.

‘’It isn’t over?’’

‘’Of course not.’’ Fan Yueyin walked towards them and smacked the passed out Pu Shu and Lu San. The duo woke up, dazed, then gathered to their feet with flushed faces.

‘’Don’t waste your time. We will continue.’’

She leaped back and sat cross-legged on the large dais, overlooking them from the forge.

Glancing at her shadowed figure, Li Ao swallowed his curses and sat down.

As he circulated his Qi and strands of Qi flowed inside his meridians, a thought appeared in him.

‘Why am I doing this?’

He suppressed it, instead thinking of Sun Jian’s performance. He tried to understand what he did right—his movement and process unfolded in front of his eyes. Yet when he imagined it, the question came back.

‘Why am I really doing this?

‘I don’t want to be her disciple or anything.’

‘There isn’t any reward worth my time.’

‘Is there any reason I should push myself this much?’

But he thought no more.

It felt like an instant, but ten minutes already passed.

Standing up, Li Ao began his work again. Others followed the suit.

Just as they were in the middle of shaping the blades, a loud explosion happened to their left.

All eyes gathered on the bloodied face of Sun Jian. A piece of black metal dug into his cheek, while a bladeless hilt stood in his hand. The pile of swords beside him was no more.

Only a dark pit was left of their existence.

‘’I was complacent...’’

Sighing, the boy took out the metal piece. Blood gushed out, and a piece of his teeth fell. Instead of reacting, he threw the remaining blade into the furnace and began his work again.

‘’I forgot to mention.’’ Fan Yueyin spoke in a cold voice. ‘’I increased the difficulty.’’

‘’Since all of you want to make ‘that’ kind of a sword, you should aim higher.’’

‘What kind of a sword?’

Li Ao sensed some wrath in Fan Yueyin’s voice as she said it, but the new difficulty brought him more stress. Sweating again, drinking large gulps of water, he started melting ore.

Three hours passed.

After each strike of their hammer, the youngsters let out groans and wails. There was not one among them without a wound, for now even their strongest swords turned into hidden projectiles able to wound them.

Worse, the more they improved, the worse the wounds on them became. Though these were superficial wounds to a cultivator, the pain brought by cut fingers or cheeks and lips wasn’t something to be ignored.

Li Ao had some pain immunity. He received harsh training from young, but also had plenty of life and death battles where he bore injuries. He could function rather normally.

These young masters and ladies had none of that.

At one point, perhaps an hour ago, or a moment before—Li Ao had no sense of time—Pu Shu had thrown his hammer down and stomped out.

Lu San followed him right after, then a few minutes later Lei Jin.

Fan Yueying didn’t say any word to them, but let out a sigh when Lei Jin bowed at her. The boy seemed resolved about something, but Li Ao wasn’t privy to what it was.

Only Qing Yan, Li Ao, and Sun Jian were left in the smithy. None of the workers seemed present, except a maid who attended Sun Zhongyan. The old man remained seated the whole time, watching his grandson with tender eyes from far away. A fire seemed to be brewing in his heart at each wound, but he didn’t make a single noise.

Another hour passed.

When Li Ao had his two-hundred something sword explode in his face again, he stopped.

He heard a sound behind. A clatter, a clang.

Then a shockwave erupted, and Li Ao found his hair fluttering with cool winds.

Turning around, he saw Sun Jian holding another black iron sword. The Qi sword above his head seemed stuck in the air, pushing down at him with ferocity. Sparks flew out at the match, and with a held breath Li Ao glared at the point of contact.

‘Break.’

He whispered.

The Qi Sword pushed him back, and Sun Jian’s elbows bent down. Still, there was no mark on his sword.

‘Break!’

Sun Jian let out a yell and stepped forward.

‘Just break!’

The Qi sword stopped, then vanished into a wave of green aura.

It washed over Sun Jian and swept away his blood, clearing his wounds. The boy showed a bright smile and waved his sword towards Sun Zhongyan, receiving a nod.

Li Ao, ashamed, sat down where he stood and planted his fingers in his cheeks.

‘Why did I think of that?’

‘Am I such an unsightly person?’

‘Am I that shameless?’

Then he stood up again. Taking a deep breath, he put down the hammer in his grip. There were large bristles on his palm. Some parts of the skin was torn. All blood-vessels produced a dangerous red color.

‘Why am I doing this?’

‘Why am I torturing myself?’

Just then, he saw Qing Yan stop as well. She halted, seemed to choke, and gently let down her hammer.

‘’Why did you stop?’’

Fan Yueyin opened her eyes and looked at them. She held a cold gaze as both of her pupils went back and forth over their sorry figures.

Sighing, she took the long way down the stairs around the forge. Each of her steps resounded in their ears, and when it turned into silent thuds on the ground they looked up.

Fan Yueyin gazed deeply at their expressions.

She saw Li Ao’s deep distrust. He was exhausted, spent, but more than anything rebellious. He seemed to brew a thought, and also held a gaze that spelled disrespect. Fan Yueyin glimpsed that this boy didn’t regard her too well.

In what matter, she could only guess. However, she was too familiar with such looks to not understand the indignation.

Qing Yan, however, seemed more ashamed. She was also exhausted, more than anyone even, and barely stood on her feet without support. The only reason she could keep going was her unwillingness to back down, and even now she seemed to be in a platonic competition with Li Ao to not fall down first.

Fan Yueyin understood this girl was a little vicious at heart.

‘’Why did you stop?’’

Hearing no answer for a while, she turned to Sun Jian.

‘’Why did you stop?’’

Sun Jian’s smile froze. Pouting, the boy took out his fresh robe and started the furnace again.

Turning to the two of them, she pointed back.

‘’Get back to work.’’

Li Ao struggled. He clenched his fists and gnashed his teeth, but at the end sighed and returned to the anvil.

Qing Yan was already at work. The duo repeated the same motion they did for a thousand times today, but much more slowly. Breathing itself became a chore.

There was truly no strength left in them.

Looking at their listless work, Fan Yueyin first approached Qing Yan...