It was worthy to be called as an amazing view if one were to be given the chances to take a look at the shelf stacked with 35 Pure Iron Ingots, 13 Sentient Iron Ingots, and 2 Crystal Ingots. Because each of the Ingot's purity reaches 40%, they're able to carry a beautiful and attractive composition that attracts people in their first sight. If they were to be put in the auction, such a high-quality ingot can easily obtain the prices of 100,000 Gold Coins, 200,000 Gold Coins, and 500,000 Gold Coins as their starting price respectively.
Without anything else he needed to do in the Blacksmithing Room, Zhang Wu Ji came out and head to his room for another good rest before he heads to the Blacksmithing Department tomorrow. Missing the comfort brought by the goose feather blanket that was upgraded by him previously, Zhang Wu Ji falls asleep within minutes after he dug into the blanket, and awaken at the next morning, under the call from the Time Caller.
Knowing that he came back to his own courtyard yesterday, the people from the kitchen were no longer skimpy with their amount of dishes sent to the ninth courtyard. In total, they deliver twenty-two different dishes to his Dining Hall, where Zhang Wu Ji shared the dishes along with his three subordinates. When they look at the number of deliciously made dished placed on the table, the four couldn't help but drool from that bomb of food fragrance.
"Master Senior Ninth, if there weren't anything else for now, please excuse us. Kindly enjoy your meal." the four kitchen staff excused themselves after all the dishes have been prepared and displayed on the Dining table. Smiling on their way back, each of them was carrying an additional five Qi Sensing Pills on their little trip. It was like working as a waiter for a salary of 5,000 Gold Coins each time they appeared.
The moment their breakfast was done, Zhang Wu Ji gave a few of them his instructions. From their initial conversation, Zhang Wu Ji gets to know the name of the other two people, Zhao Xiao Hua, the only lady among the four, and one more guy named Zhang Ya Pin. Both of them were yet to enter the 1st Stage Inner Qi Fighter cultivation, and only have around 50 to 60 strands of Inner Qi with them.
Although each of them already received their own copy of New Fist of Destruction Qi, their speed of progressing is still low to be compared against Tang Yuan, who already at his 190 Strands of Inner Qi now. But this guy should be still dreaming about entering 2nd Stage of Inner Qi Fighter because he has yet to understands that to enter the second stage, he will need to condense ten thousand strands of Inner Qi to form 100 strands of Fighter Qi.
"The Taixia Condensing Plant should reach their maturity soon. I suggest you three to go look for some Dried Bottle Gourd to use as the container to keep the dew it produces every day. As for the Yantai County's Mandrake Plant, try to not disturb them too much at this time, at the end of fourth month, we will begin to harvest all of them completely, and remember to harvest them and leave a part of their leg in the soil, that will let them continue to grow again."
"As for the other plant, continue with how you guys handle them, it should be fine for now. Hei Tie will be away from us for a week, so if there were any material sent by the blacksmith department to our courtyard, help him to receive for temporary until he comes back after two weeks."
"I will go to the Blacksmith Department for a while. Tang Yuan, follow me and bring me some of the Mulberry Paper we stored in the Treasure Vault and follow me." he gave them the instruction to follow before he ordered Tang Yuan to collect the papers and escort him to the Blacksmithing Department. The reason for this was simple. He wanted to instruct Tang Yuan further in his cultivation before he ends up practicing abnormally.
The master and subordinate went on their walk, and when the situation is just right for him to talks, Zhang Wu Ji begins.
"Tang Yuan ah, I noticed that your cultivation is already around 190 Strands of Qi now, it was a good result." he started his sentence with some praises first, to not let this subordinate feel that he wasn't valued.
"Dear Master Senior, this subordinate does try to climb up the 2nd Stage of Inner Qi Fighter now. I am confident I can enter that stage if I were given another week to cultivates. It was all thanks to the Fist of Destruction Qi Manual you given to each of us. Not only my cultivation speed has increased, I feel that my physical body is stronger too." he replied, and let Zhang Wu Ji know the changes happened on his body.
"That is great, but always remember, it wasn't an easy thing for a 1st Stage Inner Qi Fighter to climb up in cultivation stage without sufficient knowledge, so pay a visit to the 1st floor of Knowledge Pagoda and went through some of the manual first, that will solidify your cultivation further before you recklessly advance." he did not went to the differences of Inner Qi and Fighter Qi for now because he believes that based on Tang Yuan's ability to understands the manual, it will be easy for him to finding out the differences.
It will also be beneficial to this subordinate, because with a sufficient guidance to advance in his cultivation, what he needs is not by giving them all the best thing he could, but to guide them using the correct method to promote their growth carefully. In his mind, a proper education worth ten times better when they were given the chances to find what's wrong in their path.
With his word is delivered, Zhang Wu Ji allowed Tang Yuan to leave, while he himself entered the Blacksmith Department and requested to be given the opportunity to visit their library, which is also treated as the vault for the workers to store their precious products inside. It was an atrocious request to be given free access into the vault at first, where he received a complete rejection by all the junior, senior, and elder blacksmith.
Even the assistant rejects his request to enter the vault and added another sentence that ignites the burning temper inside the youth.
"Do you know that the content stored in the vault is worth over 100,000 Qi Sensing Pills? That's 100 Million in gold coins! It is impossible for us to allow you to enter. Who knows what you might take a thing or two out without us noticing?"
"So, that's what you were worried about?" Zhang Wu Ji was angered after he receives a total rejection to entered the vaults. He scanned his surrounding, and walk towards the smelter section, where a few apprentice blacksmith and slave disciples were busy placing in the crushed ores the high-temperature furnace to be smelted.
Waving his palm outwards, he signaled the apprentice to leave the spot for him, before he selects a few of the ores within the cart and proceeds to crush them into smaller chunks of mineral ores. By having a copy of Fist of Destruction Qi within him, he can easily activate the Middle-Grade attack to strikes the crusher to crush the ore even further, until they were enough to fill the crucible.
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Reaching to the bellows placed not too far from where he stands, Zhang Wu JI utilized his strength as an Inner Qi Fighter to send the flow of pressurized air into the burning firestones and increased the strength of the flame even further. The moment the temperature of the furnace reaches 1500 Fahrenheit, the Iron Mineral hidden inside the mineral rock melted and producing a molten mixture of slags and metal ores.
The moment he stopped sending the pressurized air into the furnace, the top part of the molten liquid were started to solidify, whereby using a metal rod, he turns the rod slowly to collect the yet to solidify slags out from the crucible before he repeated the firing process once again. Only after repeating this process for three times he was satisfied with the end product and poured the molten liquid metal into two casting mold.
The two casting mold with the beginning to solidify metal are soon placed inside a bucket of cold water for quenching, and the moment it was out from the casting mold, Zhang Wu Ji did not let the two Ingot rest, and placed them back inside another furnace to begin refining them! Each of his steps is perfectly executed, without a hint of waste movement is seen in his steps!
The two pieces of Pure Iron Ingot is soon being fired into their near melted temperature before they were hammered on the anvil to remove the impurities! The hammering occasionally released little chunks of silicate layer that were the remnants of silica residue inside of the Ingot, and also some shattered crystals that looked like broken beads. This was the impure form of Crystal Iron, but the skill to properly extract them weren't available to the blacksmith until now.
The hammering process to remove the impurity soon was over, with himself Launching a total of sixteen strikes, eight on each ingot to bring them into their 40% purity. The results were stunning when his two recently forged ingots overcome all the metal ingots in the working area and bring all their metal ingots into shame. If the ingots can turn red because of that, perhaps all of the ingots is going to become pig iron at the end of the day.
"High... High... High-Quality Ingots! It's a High-Quality Ingots!" one of the senior blacksmith seated not too far from their spot were shocked until he tosses the piece of Iron blade he was working on aside, and stands near to where the two High-Quality Ingots were placed. Using both hands, he lifts the Pure Iron Ingot like it was a fragile infant in his hand, as he smells it, softly knock it, and then used a piece of unlit Firestone to scratch its surface.
"It is! It is a properly crafted High-Quality Pure Iron Ingot! Even I cannot produce such a quality without working on the ingot for at least five days, and I am not confident to produce them at all! You're skillful, I admit my mistakes to stop you from entering the vault. You're far more qualified than all of us here to enter the vault!" the senior blacksmith said the word in his mind.
In fact, most of the blacksmith were people with a straightforward and simple mindset. In their eyes, the capability was important, and the better the blacksmith is before them, the higher the respect they will receive from their fellow friends and colleagues. In the eyes of the Blacksmith, the crafted products were their child, the Ingots were their infants.
They can eat less, sleep less, but they can't survive without the mineral ores and their products by their sides. This kind of obsession was indirectly shaping their attitude and life, giving birth to this profession call profession Forging Master. And in this whole Ping An Continent, each single of them were worshipping the one and only acknowledge Forging Master, which is well known in this whole continent.
Forging Master, Gou Jian, who was brought to fame in his ability to forge the weapon used by the Northern Imperial Kingdom's Emperor, a 78% Purity Low-Tier Spirit Grade Imperial Sword! Using this sword, the emperor met nobody that can be a match to him at all, where the Imperial Sword has devoured the lives of over 100,000 swords in its life before its master sat on the Imperial Throne.
And now, before this group of Blacksmith which weren't qualified to even be called as an apprentice Forging Master, was witnessing the creation of a 40% High-Quality Pure Iron Ingot in their making. What's more, the person that smelted this two piece of 40% High-Quality Ingots were only in his fifteenth years old and three months! If he wasn't a prodigy, then who is?
Witnessing the ordeal with their pair of eyes, all the blacksmiths in the Department with their hammers are hitting the anvil nonstop, where it was a gesture of approval towards what they saw. It was a complete turnover, from disagreement to complete approval. Without wasting any of their time, the crowd personally escorts him to the vault, and allow him to have a look on their collection up to date.
Facing such a situation, Zhang Wu Ji can only smile as he followed them to the vault, inside this huge underground vault, it was a surprise to him because the total amount of smelted products completed weapon and armor were all stored properly here for the sake of finding a suitable partner. But under the watchful eyes of everyone here, it was the product are not qualified to be accepted by this young prodigy!
"Dear seniors, please allow this junior to put his heart in reading the books and appreciating the products made by so many seniors!" Zhang Wu Ji cupped his fist together and requested to be left alone inside the vault. After a few exchanges of pleasantries, the door to the vault is closed, leaving him with all the treasures kept within.
He paid attention to their footsteps, and the moment all of them were gone from the underground, Zhang Wu Ji relaxed and added a sentence he hesitates to say.
"How can you call this stack of unrefined trash as treasures!" he exhaled and was disappointed by the quality of the stored ingots, minted coins, weapons stored I here. Touching them one after another, it was another row of disappointments.
Ten thousand Seven Leaves Swords were stored inside here, but none of them were carrying the similar durability and status. Each of them was varied from 4 to 6 points in attack and 2 to 4 points in defense. Their durability is even worst, carrying only 16 points although they were made from Pure Iron. None of the ten thousand swords carries a special ability within, which can only be described as a stack of military quality weapons waiting to rust before they can be used.
The armor and shields that were custom made for certain elders are even worst. He thought that if the elder were even using this kind of weapon, they are no different from being a slave disciple. How can they use such a crap to defend the sect? It was an utterly pathetic sight in his eyes, making him become speechless even more.
Luckily, the records of the book placed on the three shelves were better in quality, he did not spend any more of his time to inspect the products in the vault but used them to went through the books instead. It did not take him too long to read those more important books, but after he compiles most of their useless records, Zhang Wu Ji came out with two of his own created manual, which he named them as;
[Compilation of Smelter's Record]
[Iron Working and Forging Process]
He did not further upgrade them nor purposely rewrite them to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the written manuals, but so far, after he compiled all the information be taken from the book, its natural effect were already sufficient for them to manufacture Copper Base Product into 50% Purity, and Iron Base Product into 40% purity.
Given the reading material provided by the three full shelves of books, this where all he can do in return for them. Of course, he copied another three more techniques Manual for his own usage, which were worth rewriting and upgrading in his own opinion. But he did not consider to contribute the rewrite version if it was done, because the sudden rise of knowledge and skills a department may not be a good thing.
With his motive to visits and copied some reading materials from the Blacksmithing Department's Vault is completed, Zhang Wu Ji prepared himself to leave, but before he did, a hint of regret, forgiveness, and pity appeared deep inside of his heart. It did not come from the fact he copied the few manuals because he has left them with two similarly precious copy of compiled records that will greatly enhance their productivity.
With only the Mulberry Xuan Paper in his hand, Zhang Wu Ji couldn't think about another method for him to leave them a message. Since the production of Mulberry Xuan Paper came from his own, it wasn't ridiculous for him to say, "it wasn't a waste at all, I made them myself right?"
Cutting them to about a row of words large of messages, Zhang Wu Ji rearranged the difficultly stored ingots that were kept until now, and slit a piece of paper on each of them. On the paper was the instruction of how many hammering and refining process they should go through before they were qualified to be called as a proper Ingots.
Feeling that he no longer left any regrets remained inside of the Vault, Zhang Wu Ji left. It was until the next morning when the apprentice entered the vault they noticed the two compiled copy of the manual, where it was collected and brought to the Department Elder for his inspection. Being the best Blacksmith among everyone in the department, the Department Elder were no strangers to the inspection on the manual and records brought back by some disciples and elders for their vault's collection.
But after he went through and experienced the wonderful guidance brought by the two manuals, his confidence was completely shattered into pieces, and bring this elder down on his knees.
"This! Who leave this two manuals inside of the vault?" the Department Elder is very emotional as he asked the question.
"Department Elder, this two manuals is left by the Master Senior Ninth. He visits the Vault yesterday before noon and left before midnight. Except this two manual, junior found out that each ingot was rearranged according to the number of refining process they should go through before they were qualified to be called as proper ingots."
"Master Senior Ninth? He's the one that left this two books after he entered the vault?" he cannot believe what he heard.
"Yes, Department Elder. Do you have anything to order this junior?"
"Tell the two Vice Department Elder to come here. Tell them that we need to hurry and go ask the Master Senior Ninth to take the three of us as his disciples!"