Six months.
In the mortal world, six months was enough time for seasons to change, for harvests to grow, and for kingdoms to wage minor wars. But inside Smelting Hall Number Seven, time did not exist. There was only the eternal, suffocating heat, the blinding roar of the obsidian blast furnaces, and the deafening crash of iron on stone.
For one hundred and eighty consecutive days, Fang Lin stood at Crushing Station Four.
His routine was unyielding. He arrived before the shift bell rang, stripped off his outer robe, and began swinging the heavy granite hammer. He never complained. He never faltered. He processed exactly enough Black-Veined Iron Ore to earn double merit points, and he fueled Gate Nine with absolute, mechanical precision.
He could have easily crushed ten times that amount. His Asura Flesh skeleton barely registered the strain, and the ambient heat of the blast furnaces felt like a mild blanket against his skin. But Fang Lin intentionally spaced out his output. He knew that advancing too fast or displaying too much anomalous stamina would draw the sharp, scrutinizing eyes of the inner sect elders. He needed to be seen as a hardworking, talented rogue cultivator, not an impossible monster.
By the end of the second month, the other outer disciples stopped ignoring him. By the fourth month, they spoke of him with a mixture of awe and fear.
They called him "The Anvil."
While others collapsed from Qi exhaustion, their lungs scorched by the sulfurous air, Mu Tie simply took the heat and the pressure, day after day, without ever breaking. He was a fixed point in the purgatory of the hall.
And true to his cautious nature, Fang Lin never probed the blast furnace again. He knew the massive, ancient suppression rune was down there, and he knew it resonated with the cosmic void energy of his grey seed. That single, terrifying fact was safely locked away in his mind. To touch it again without the proper authority or strength would be suicide.
*Clang.*
Fang Lin brought the hammer down, shattering the last chunk of Black-Veined Iron Ore into perfectly sized fragments. He wiped a thick layer of soot and sweat from his brow, resting the hammer against the anvil as the shift-ending chime echoed through the cavernous hall.
He picked up his coarse grey robe, slipping it on, and walked toward the overseer's platform.
Senior Brother Ma Teng was waiting for him, an iron clipboard in hand. The cynical, ash-stained overseer looked up as Fang Lin approached. For six months, Ma Teng had watched this unremarkable, average-built youth grind away at the stone without a single word of complaint.
Ma Teng took out his jade stylus and made a sharp, definitive mark on Fang Lin's registry tablet.
"One thousand merit points," Ma Teng said, his hoarse voice cutting through the ambient roar of the dying furnaces. He looked at Fang Lin, the deep cynicism he always had towards the outer sect disciples in his eyes was replaced by genuine respect. "In my ten years overseeing this hall, I've seen thousands of ambitious fools walk through those doors. Maybe one in a hundred survives the heat for a month before begging for a transfer. You lasted six."
"The heat hones the body, Senior Brother," Fang Lin replied, his tone calm and steady.
Ma Teng let out a rare, dry chuckle. He reached into his robes and pulled out a small, rectangular jade token, tossing it to Fang Lin.
Fang Lin caught it. It was smooth, cool to the touch, and radiated a faint, stabilizing earth-attribute Qi.
"That is your entry token for the Heavenly Forge Division practical exam," Ma Teng said. He then tapped his stylus against the bottom of the token, leaving a faint signature of his own spiritual energy embedded in the jade. "I have marked myself as your guarantor. Don't embarrass me, Mu Tie."
"I will not," Fang Lin said, clasping his fist respectfully before turning and walking out of the suffocating heat of the hall.
***
Two days later, Fang Lin stood in the Heavenly Forge Examination Hall.
The contrast to Smelting Hall Number Seven was staggering. Located on the middle-upper tier of Broken Hammer Peak, the Examination Hall was a place of pristine, quiet refinement. The floors were polished dark jade, and the ambient temperature was perfectly controlled by intricate cooling arrays set into the high, vaulted ceiling.
Dozens of high-grade earth fires burned steadily within perfectly uniform, waist-high obsidian forges.
There were roughly thirty other outer disciples present, all holding jade tokens, all looking nervous. They were the elite of the lower peaks, those who had scraped together enough points and confidence to attempt the jump into the sect's most prestigious division.
For Fang Lin, however, it was smooth sailing. There were no arrogant young masters looking to cause trouble, no sudden rivalries, and no unnecessary friction. It was a professional, strict environment, overseen by the heavy gaze of the Heavenly Forge Deacons.
An older Deacon, wearing the dark-red robes of an inner sect examiner, stepped up to the central dais. His eyes were sharp, evaluating the candidates like raw slabs of meat.
"Crushing ore is labor," the Deacon's voice echoed, cold and authoritative. "The Heavenly Forge requires refinement. We do not care about your cultivation base, and we do not care about your flashy martial arts. Here, the hammer is your brush, and the metal is your canvas."
The Deacon pointed to the forges. On each anvil sat a single, raw block of Black-Veined Iron, exactly like the ones Fang Lin had crushed thousands of times.
"Your task is simple. Take that raw ore. Heat it. Hammer out the impurities. Form a flawless, perfectly balanced sword blank. You are forbidden from using complex Qi-carving arrays. We are testing your foundational hammer control. You have two hours. Begin."
The hall immediately erupted into a flurry of activity as thirty disciples rushed to their forges, frantically channeling their Qi to stoke the earth fires and raise their hammers.
Fang Lin walked calmly to his assigned forge.
He did not rush. Having spent six months in the sect, meticulously building his foundation and his identity, he knew it no longer mattered if he was recognized as a genius in forging. The timeline justified his growth. His physical endurance was already legendary in the lower halls. Now, it was time to drop the "dumb brute" act.
He picked up the forging hammer. It was lighter, better balanced, and made of far superior steel than the crude crushers in Hall Seven.
Fang Lin closed his eyes for a brief second. In his mind, he didn't see the pristine Examination Hall. He saw a small, soot-stained smithy in Willow Alley. He heard the rhythmic, hypnotic hammering of Uncle Zhang, a mortal blacksmith who had spent decades perfecting his craft.
Fang Lin opened his eyes. He blended the countless hours he had spent watching Uncle Zhang's flawless, rhythmic precision with the brutal, intimate understanding of Black-Veined Iron he had gained from six months of crushing it with his bare hands.
He gripped the tongs, placed the ore into the earth fire, and waited until it glowed a dull cherry red.
Then, he brought the hammer down.
*Ting.*
It was a light, testing strike.
*Clang.*
A heavier, shaping blow.
Fang Lin did not use a single trace of Frost, Life, or Death Qi. He didn't need to. His Asura Flesh provided absolute, terrifying microscopic control over his muscle fibers. Every strike was powered by physical strength, honed by perfect memory.
*Ting-ting-clang.*
His rhythm was hypnotic. It didn't sound like a cultivator frantically trying to force metal into shape; it sounded like a song. The other disciples in the hall were grunting, sweating, and struggling against the stubborn impurities of the black iron.
Fang Lin simply forged.
He struck the metal exactly where it needed to be struck, folding it, drawing it out, and letting the heat naturally purge the ash and slag. The stark contrast between the suffocating purgatory of his past six months and the refined clarity of this moment made his mind incredibly sharp.
In less than an hour, Fang Lin set his hammer down.
Resting on his anvil was a sword blank. It glowed a faint, uniform red, cooling slowly in the ambient air.
When the two-hour mark arrived, the Deacon called for all hammers to cease. He stepped down from the dais and began walking down the line of forges.
"Imbalanced. The core is brittle," the Deacon said, dismissing the first disciple.
"Too much Qi forced into the edge. It will shatter upon tempering. Fail," he said to the next.
One by one, the Deacon dismissed the hopefuls. Out of thirty, perhaps three were told to stand aside as borderline passes.
Then, the Deacon reached Fang Lin's forge.
He picked up the cooling sword blank with a pair of specialized spiritual tongs. He ran his eyes along the edge, checking the thickness, the weight distribution, and the alignment of the spiritual veins within the iron.
The Deacon paused. He turned the blade over, inspecting the spine. He looked at the edge again.
The blank was geometrically flawless. The impurities had been utterly eradicated, leaving a structure so stable and pure that it rivaled the work of seasoned inner sect refiners.
The Deacon slowly looked up, his sharp eyes locking onto Fang Lin's unremarkable, average face.
"What is your name?" the Deacon asked, his voice losing its cold edge, replaced by a heavy, evaluating intensity.
"Mu Tie, Elder," Fang Lin replied calmly.
The Deacon set the sword blank down gently on the anvil. He looked at the jade registry token resting on the workstation, noting Senior Brother Ma Teng's guarantor signature.
"You are not a brute, Mu Tie," the Deacon said softly, ensuring the other disciples couldn't hear. "You are a true talent in the forge."
The Deacon reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a heavy, intricately carved badge made of dark grey iron, depicting a hammer striking a mountain.
He handed it to Fang Lin.
"Welcome to the Heavenly Forge Division."
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