Ch.111: Preparing the forging process
Awkward, Xie Yi ducked his head, prompting Shi Yue to let out an amused chuckle.
“Ah well. Yes, that’s correct. I’ll take you over as my succeeding disciple. That way, it will be even easier to keep an eye on you.”
“So I’ll be accompanying you everywhere from now on, right?”
“Yes. Be it meetings or missions, you can now always come along. As long as I am allowed to enter somewhere, you will be as well.” He gave him a stern look. “Don’t exploit it!”
“Won’t, won’t”, Xie Yi hurriedly asserted. “So when is that ceremony-thing?”
“Postponed. It needs a lot of preparation and I need to invite people. It won’t be for a while.”
Xie Yi acknowledged his master’s plan with a simple nod.
Shi Yue breathed out through his nose. “On the topic of Yao Ming, he returned to the sect last night. He is fully healed as well, I imagine his family must have given him a number of expensive pills to heal him up.”
“Master, what can I do about him?”, Xie Yi complained with a pout. “I don’t mind fighting against him - he is annoying so fighting is a relief, but it’s bad if he had things that can actually damage me."
“Xie Yi. Restrain yourself.”
“...He might be annoying, but it’s bad if I fight him all the time. Moreover, he has things that will seriously hurt me. ...Better?”
“Hm. To be blunt, I fear you won’t be able to get rid of him soon”, Shi Yue sighed. “His family is strong and killing a fellow sect member is not something that can be done or hidden easily. The suspicion would fall onto you immediately. Besides, we’ve gone over this before.”
“Bah.” Xie Yi made a sound of disgust. “So I endure?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like that strategy.”
“Oh believe me, neither do I. But if people could act lawlessly as they please, the world would sink, no?”, Shi Yue tried to soothe him. “If it would endanger your own life to keep him alive, then you should kill him. Otherwise, please avoid it.” 1"I can't believe I need to warn someone about accidentally killing a cultivator" - Shi Yue
Xie Yi sprawled himself over the table, staring out into the sect. Once in a while, you could see spiritual beasts pass by.
Suddenly, he made a sound.
“Ah! My ring! Did my storage ring get picked up, too? I’ve got the material in there that I need to give to… to… the forger! He will test me if I bring it”, he shouted, half standing up.
Shi Yue leaned back in surprise at the abrupt movement and then smiled lopsidedly when he heard his disciple’s words.
“We do have it. I’ve got it at my place, you can fetch it before you leave. You still intend to forge your own weapon?”
“Definitely. It’ll have my spirit”, Xie Yi huffed with full certainty.
“I’ll be looking forward to your work”, his master honestly replied. He was indeed curious what Xie Yi’s sword would be like.
To tell the truth, he had a good feeling about Xie Yi forging. It was just that he was uncertain since Xie Yi had never touched a forge.
Unless he had done it somewhere in secret, which was absolutely a possibility considering that the person he was talking about was his dear disciple Xie Yi.
The brat who randomly broke through barriers if he wanted things.
Now that the topic was breached, Xie Yi was too fidgety with the desire to run and finish his mission. He pretty much ran into the house, took his stuff and ran towards the forger who jolted when his door was thrown open.
“Weren’t you unconscious?”, Tang Jiu asked with a dumbfounded expression.
“I’ve got your materials”, Xie Yi declared, ignoring his question and walking right in to show him what he had brought.
Tang Jiu looked at the materials, then at Xie Yi and sat down. He placed his face into his hand. “Alas. I’m seeing what Master Li meant when he said you can’t be stopped.”
“Can we start my test now?”, the disciple complained unhappily. His foot was tapping up and down.
“Do you even know how to work a forge?”, the man sighed.
He swallowed all his words mere minutes later.
Grandmaster Shi Yue was mentally preparing himself when he saw Tang Jiu walk in with a black face. The man did not even sit down.
“If he says he can forge it, he can”, Tang Jiu grumpily reported. “You might as well gift him his own forge. Kid is better than most professional forgers I know.”
“That’s impossible”, Shi Yue exclaimed in surprise. The ones Tang Jiu associated with had devoted their lives to forging. That was nothing you could make up with pure talent.
“He behaves like someone who has spent dozens of years practising”, Tang Jiu elaborated, his dark eyes narrowing. “It is insane. If he was not your disciple, I’d believe he is a Grandmaster in disguise.”
“He absolutely can’t be”, the white-haired man thoughtfully replied, staring into nowhere. “You can’t hide it to that extent. Maybe if he had the help of an Immortal or deity, but Xie Yi has gotten hurt too badly too many times for it to be an act.”
Tang Jiu shrugged. “Anyway, I’m only giving my opinion. Let the brat forge what he wants to do. He can do it.”
“Thank you for your help on this matter”, Shi Yue ended it, leaning on his elbows.
Tang Jiu left his office and Xie Yi peeked in.
“Soooo?”
“Xie Yi, you are the most suspicious existence I have ever met.”
“...Soooo, I passed?”
“Yes.”
Xie Yi grinned and walked in, throwing himself into the chair. “You said you’d give me materials too, right? Can I have some?”
“Right now?”, Shi Yue asked, exhausted.
“Yeah, I’m starting right now.”
“How about planning?”
“I’ve planned it. I have a list of what I need. Please?”
Xie Yi bobbed up and down in his seat. His cheeks were excitedly flushed.
Shi Yue looked at him for a while. It was hard to reject him when he looked excited like that.
“What do you need?”, he gave in moments later. Xie Yi pulled out a sheet of paper.
Next to the Ink-Drop Ore and Mingtian’s horn as base material, Xie Yi was planning on using an approach directed towards defence.
Surprisingly, Mingtian’s horn could be attributed to ice and the ore itself was of a water attribute with hallucinatory effects.
Xie Yi formally and politely asked whether he could ask Xue Hua for one of his feathers, to which both Shi Yue and the bird himself agreed.
With Shi Yue’s help, Xie Yi soon had his spatial ring full of the other materials he wanted. Gold was part of it, as well as a few higher-ranking beast materials.
Shi Yue had inquired why Xie Yi completely avoided materials from demonic beasts, but the youth had not replied.
Once they were led into the room prepared by Tang Jiu - towards the walls of the sect, a quiet area -, Xie Yi brought out all materials and ordered them.
Shi Yue stayed while he meticulously prepared them as he needed.
The ores were placed to one side. They would have to be melted. Mingtian’s horn was placed completely separately.
“I want to make the core of the sword with it”, Xie Yi explained at Shi Yue’s questioning look.
The cores were turned to powder, mixed with a special type of springwater and ashes from a certain type of tree to create an almost gooey mixture that was gathered in a bowl.
One of Xue Hua’s feathers was turned into a quill and a second one was plucked until it was nothing but separate parts.
Xie Yi looked over everything.
If you forged a sword, you forged the blade itself. You also had to make a hilt and a scabbard.
Xie Yi would forge the blade. He had no plans for anything else - if his sword would awaken a spirit, its hilt and scabbard would form by itself.
He brought out the tiny crystal from within his clothes and placed it next to Mingtian’s horn.
Shi Yue watched him work seriously from the side, finally relaxing. Xie Yi was not joking around. He was determined to make this work. It was a relief to see it.
The forge worked mostly like a normal one.
Xie Yi started the fire, then made it burn bright with the convenient array etched into the walls of the forge.
It burned white, the heat so great that Xie Yi coughed once when the hot air entered his lungs.