Commanding Wind and Cloud

One hour… Two hours… Three hour

At first, Qian Jin was using [Forging Breathe Technique] to power his strikes, but after three hours, his body couldn’t handle more heat energy by inhaling it, and his arms started to feel insanely sore. He had to use his warrior energy to empower his body to continue.

After another three hours, Qian Jin’s warrior energy and strength were mostly depleted. Every strike took him ten times more warrior energy to execute since his arms were giving up.

However, after taking a quick breath, his could use [Forging Breathe Technique] again when his warrior energy ran out.

“Your forging proficiency improved…”

“Your [Forging Breathe Technique]’s proficiency improved…”

“Your forging proficiency improved…”

“Your [Forging Breathe Technique] leveled up…”

During the boring forging training, the System Wizard sometimes popped by and notified Qian Jin about what was happening. However, Qian Jin was so focused in the forging training that he didn’t even notice the notifications.

For the final hour, Qian Jin was getting better at swinging that first strike; he didn’t mess up even once in a hundred strikes. Blake, who was hiding in the corner, was staring at Qian Jin so closely that he forgot to suck on his pipe.

“Stop!”

Tink!

The hammers hit the floor, and Qian Jin instantly laid on the floor with his arms and legs spread out as if he collapsed. This forging exercise was a hundred times tougher than the sharpening he did. He truly didn’t even have the strength to crush a bug; all the muscles in his body were twitching on their own. The difficulty of this one strike was thousands, if not tens of thousands of times harder than everything he had learnt so far!

Player: Qian Jin

Blacksmith: Level 8

Forging Skill: Level 8

[Blade-washing]: Level 1

[Sharpening]: Max leveled

Special Technique: [Forging Breathe Technique] Level 1

Warrior energy: Level 6

Special Technique: [?? Eighteen Strikes] (First strike not yet learnt. Experience: 1,500)

“I need 9,000 experience points to learn the first strike?” Qian Jin complained to himself. “What kind of technique is this? Why isn’t there a name? Why is the first strike so hard to learn?”

After closing the status screen, Qian Jin felt very satisfied. The hard training that he did in the Endless World had boosted his overall strength significantly.

“Not bad.” Blake blew out a mouthful of smoke as he walked up to Qian Jin. “There is still some time left. Let me tell you more about the basic knowledge that a blacksmith should know.”

Qian Jin gathered all the strength he had in his body and slightly nodded. “You are finally going to teach me the basics now. For the last few days, I’ve been feeling guilty as more and more people appraised me on my forging skills. I don’t know any basics in the blacksmith industry, and I don’t dare ask other people too much,” he thought to himself.

“[Blade-washing] is essentially a high level [Sharpening] skill.” The old man didn’t mind the dirty floor and sat down beside Qian Jin as he spoke. “As a warrior, I’m sure you know that every weapon and item has a lifetime, just like us humans.”

By this time, Qian Jin recovered some of his strength. He felt that lying on the floor wasn’t too respectful, so he forced himself to sit up and nodded to Blake. As a warrior student, he somewhat learned about the lifetime of weapons and such in the academy.

What was a lifetime to a weapon? For example, a knife would become dull after a duration of use, and it would require sharpening again. However, there was a limit to how many times a weapon could be sharpened. When this limit was passed, the weapon would become ruined or ‘dead’.

The same knife could be sharpened by an ordinary blacksmith only seven times, but a more experienced senior blacksmith could sharpen it twelve, or even thirteen times.

Warriors had to try their best to maintain their weapons and items such as armor to reduce the time they needed to be repaired. This would extend the lifetime of their weapons.

“What I taught you was [Blade-washing]. It’s different from [Sharpening] in that it can revive weapons that are already dead.” A proud smile appeared on Blake’s wrinkled face. “As a true Forging Master, repairing all kinds of weapons and items is a mandatory skill on top of forging. Otherwise, would you forge a new weapon every time your old weapon becomes dull or dies?”

“Forging Master?” Qian Jin swallowed his drool out of surprise. He had heard all kinds of amazing things about Forging Master during the day. “Could I have the opportunity to become a Forging Master? If this is the case, would the old blacksmith Franklin be shocked to death?” he thought.

“Eh, if you work hard, you will get the chance.” Blake added more tobacco to his pipe and smoked a little bit before he talked again. “You are already a Level 8 Blacksmith. When you become a Level 10 Blacksmith, you can advance to a Forging Master after you pass the advancement exam. By then, you will start learning to forge the simplest weapons.”

“Level 10?” Qian Jin got so excited that he ignored his fatigue. “Does that mean that I could also refine [Level 10 Refined Iron]? I know that [Level 10 Refined Iron] is the fundamental material needed to create a Warrior Weapon! That means I could have the chance to forge my own Warrior Weapon!”

“Yuck! Your standards are so low!” Blake spit onto the floor as he looked at Qian Jin disappointingly. “Do you think you know Warrior Weapons? A Warrior Weapon that is made out of [Level 10 Refined Iron] can only be considered mid-tier, no… low-tier! No! The very bottom-tier in terms of material!”

Qian Jin instantly shut his mouth in front of the professional as he listened to Blake’s explanation of Warrior Weapons carefully; he didn’t dare to get distracted at all. Any warrior would dream of owning his or her own Warrior Weapon, or even a Warrior Weapon Set!

Although any kind of weapon could conduct warrior energy, due to the quality of the weapons, the way they conducted warrior energy was very different. Good weapons could conduct warrior energy faster and condense warrior energy better. Strong warrior energy could even shatter and break the weapon during conduction. Therefore, the quality of weapons was very important to warriors.

To better classify weapons, there were a few criteria. As long as a weapon surpassed a certain quality, it would be considered a Warrior Weapon. However, certain criteria such as quality, warrior energy conductibility, and warrior energy condensing ability set Warrior Weapons apart.

“A true Warrior Weapon should be built by using [Purified Iron], not [Refined Iron]!” Blake pointed out his finger as he said, “Although there is only a one word difference, the real difference is huge. You couldn’t forge it even if you became a Forging Master. It required its own forging technique. Otherwise, you can only use luck, a Forging Master’s forging basics, and a ton of precious metals to create it.”

Qian Jin nodded as he listened closely; if this wasn’t the case, the price of Warrior Weapons wouldn’t be that high.

“There are two ways to create [Purified Iron].” Blake was excited as he talked about his profession; it was rare to see him filled with such energy. “One way is to forge it using a bunch of iron; the [Purified Iron] forged out this way is called a [True Purified Iron]. The other way is to mix in a bunch of precious metals, and that iron would be called [X Purified Iron].”

“Then which one is better?” Qian Jin asked. He felt like Blake had opened a window that he had never seen before. He really wanted to understand all of this.