Hui looked around the room, nodding to himself. Well, that’s an anvil… and that’s a forge, a furnace, right? That’s a bucket, and over there, uhm, a fan? Is that a rake? And a hammer! Hammers are important, yes! Haha, those are some big tongs! Wow, look at that heavy… whatever-that-is.

Er… I take it back. Forging is nothing like talisman-making. Let this small Hui apologize to all those who forge magical instruments in this entire world.

No wood or coal laid around, so Hui proceeded directly to the furnace. At a guess, I light this with flame arts. I do have my modified once-second-stage-now-kind-of-fifth-stage fire talisman… well, it’ll do. He lifted his finger and drew the talisman formula in the soot on the furnace’s floor. With a snap of his fingers, it came alight.

Right. Now I need materials… and I have just the thing in mind! Hui flipped his hand, summoning the strange hammer he barely remembered from his storage. He turned it over in his hand, examining it once more. It has a spell in the hammer’s head… almost talisman-like. It’s a good starting point for me. I think I got this from the demonic sect… maybe that one bloody inheritance zone? In any case, I won’t be bothered if I destroy it, making a mistake in the forging process. It’s not like I’ve been using it until now, after all.

As for the spell…

Hui closed his eyes. He pressed his palm against the side of the hammer’s head and sent his qi inside. His qi struck the spell embedded in the hammer. The spell resonated. Waves of force emanated from the hammer, an amplified attack version of the small amount of qi Hui had sent inside. His hand lifted briefly off the hammer as the hammer shook.

Ah! So it’s a resonance and amplification spell. If you strike it, it resonates and sends that attack back out as waves of force. As a hammer, it’s clearly meant to strike something with great power, and use the power of that strike to resonate back out at the attacker.

But this small Hui isn’t someone who attacks with brute force. Instead, something small and delicate would suit me better. After all, the spell can resonate and amplify any amount of force. There’s no need to make it amplify huge blows when it can amplify small ones just as easily! True, the full force behind the attack might go down… but that’s only until I comprehend the spell better. Once I fully understand the principles behind it, I’m sure I can turn up the amplification and create a terrifying resonance from even a small strike.

And if I’m wrong… well, it’s not as if I was using this hammer in the first place.

Therefore, I’m going to cut off the head of this hammer and forge it into something small and easily struck! Hui decided, nodding to himself. Something like… a bell!

Hui held up the hammer in one hand. His other hand flattened into a blade, and he sent qi out the front edge of his hand. He struck toward the hammer, but a second before his hand hit, he flinched back.

What am I thinking? I’ve never done this before! And I’m about to slap a metal hammer with the side of my hand at full force? Hui! Are you asking to be injured? Come on, come on! I might be able to heal easily in plant form, but that doesn’t mean I should carelessly hurt myself!

Hui shook his head at himself. From out of his node, he drew Song Weilai’s hammer. Using the same technique, he made a qi blade on the head of Song Weilai’s hammer, creating a thin blade that stood up along the center line of the hammer’s head. He nodded at the hammer. There. Now I’m not slamming my hand down at hard, scary metal! Excellent, excellent. He sliced the hammer at the other hammer.

The hammer from the inheritance zone’s head fell to the ground. All that remained was the hammer’s stocky grip. Hui turned it about in his hand, then sheathed the grip at his belt. It’s made of good materials… some kind of cultivation metal. I can probably reuse it later for something else.

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Hui dismissed Song Weilai’s hammer and knelt down, picking up the hammer’s severed head. The spell trembled inside the hammer, desperately wanting to release force. Gripping it by its sides, Hui pointed the hammer’s head at the ground and activated the spell.

A blast of force slammed into the ground. The entire room thrummed. Rebounding, the metal floor threw Hui into the air. Hui waved his hands to balance himself, startled. That’s a lot of force! Damn. Even if I can’t turn up the amplification, it’ll be a powerful bell weapon!

He sent his life qi into the hammer and surrounded the spell, swirling around it. He fed the life qi into the spell, forcing it to rely on the life qi instead of being embedded into the metal. Lifting his hand off the hammer, he drew the spell with him.

A pure-white spell formula appeared, rising out of the surface of the hammer. It hovered there, encapsulated by life qi. Hui turned his hand over and summoned the pill bottle, shoving it in with the other curses and spells. In case I can’t comprehend it enough to replicate it, I should at least save the original spell.

Heat beat against Hui’s face, demanding his attention. He turned back to the furnace to find the flame much stronger than it had been, captured and reflected in the furnace to create a hotter blaze. He whistled to himself, impressed. The furnace is some kind of magical artifact in of itself, hmm? Speaking of amplification, I wonder if I can learn something from the furnace?

But first, let’s forge this hammer!

He cast about, looking for something suitable to melt the hammer’s head down in. At last, he found a sooty, sturdy bucket. The bucket barely reached a double handspan deep and about a single handspan in width, but it fit the hammer’s head. Setting the head in the bucket, Hui retrieved the tongs and used them to set the bucket in the flames.

While the head melted down, Hui knelt by the furnace and assumed the lotus pose, sending his qi into the forge to examine it. Multiple enchantments were built into the forge, carved into its outer wall. Heat reflection… heat amplification… a heat collection spell… hmm, all these spells are heat-focused, rather than general-purpose. I’m not sure I could adapt them to the bell I’m forging.

Instead, why don’t I use them to enhance my existing fire talisman? Although it’s true that the base spell formula needs to be refreshed more than it needs any sort of additional boost, in this case, even if I learn a new spell formula later, I can use the enhancement to create a hotter flame.

Heat reflection and collection won’t do much for an immediate-use talisman, but I can at least use the heat amplification spell. Creating hotter flames can only be a bonus.

Hui focused his attention on the amplification enchantment. Mentally, he copied the shape of it, then projected it out in front of him as a shimmering qi construct. As he sat there, he slowly adjusted the flow of qi in the construct to match the flow of the qi in the original enchantment. A thousand tiny strands of qi flowed in every direction, it seemed, and Hui struggled to keep up. His brow trembled with focus. Argh, come on. Right there, right there! He snapped a qi thread into place on the left side of the construct, but focusing on the left side meant the right side slipped out of his grasp and began to drift away. He quickly refocused on the right side, but without his full attention on the left-hand mana threads, they fell slightly out of place.

I don’t think I’ll be able to figure this out before the metal melts. Who created this enchantment? I’ll have to ask Ji Taiyu where he found this ship.

At last, the metal melted down. Hui released his experimental version of the heat-strengthening construct and refocused his energy on the metal instead, quietly examining it. Whatever this alloy is, it was carefully constructed. If I was trying to replicate the alloy from scratch, I would probably fail. It requires a level of smithing expertise far beyond me. Luckily, since all I need is a metal that holds spells, melting it and reshaping it is enough for this small cultivator. Even if it loses some strength or malleability in the process, since all I’m making is a bell, it isn’t a big deal.

He peered around. As expected, there’s no convenient bell-shaped mold. Actually… no molds at all. I guess I’ll have to shape it myself. Maybe that’s the normal way to do it? Since there’s no molds… well, to be fair, I don’t know much about casting metal, let alone the way cultivators do it.

Hui gathered his qi and reached out to the molten metal. He drew a small portion of the metal out of the bucket and shaped it experimentally. The metal moved easily, as easy to manipulate as water. As it cooled, it set into solid form, still malleable but harder to manipulate, then solidified fully into hard metal. Hmm… not bad, not bad. I only have a limited amount of time, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. He dropped the solid metal back into the molten metal. He closed his eyes, focusing all his mental energy and qi on the molten metal. Alright, I’m ready. Here we go!