Peak 74 was a jagged, soot-stained spire of rock protruding from the western slope of the Heavenly Forge Division. Unlike the bustling communal halls below, this peak was completely isolated.
As an Inner Sect disciple, Fang Lin was entitled to a private sanctuary. Peak 74 came equipped with a massive open-air courtyard, a premium refinement furnace forged from deep-earth metals, and a direct conduit to the Sacred Flame vein buried deep beneath the mountain range.
Fang Lin stood in the center of the courtyard, feeling the intense, ambient heat radiating from the stone floor. He closed his eyes.
*The default sect wards are pathetic,* the Dark Flame Spirit sneered within his glabella. *Any passing Manifestation Elder could sweep their divine sense over this peak and see exactly what you are doing. If you want to drop that ridiculous disguise, I need to fix this.*
*Do it,* Fang Lin replied.
A pulse of invisible, primordial heat rippled out from Fang Lin's glabella. The Dark Flame Spirit didn't physically manifest, but its will cascaded down into the peak's core. It violently hijacked the natural spirit fire array, twisting the terrestrial flames into a complex, multi-layered thermal illusion.
To the outside world, Peak 74 now appeared exactly as a standard forging peak should. Any divine sense sweeping the area would simply feel the chaotic heat of a burning furnace. But inside, it was an impenetrable fortress of privacy.
With the ward established, Fang Lin finally exhaled.
He didn't just breathe; he let go.
For the first time in months, he released his suffocating Qi suppression. The mediocre, average aura of "Mu Tie" vanished. His Asura Flesh roared to life, his muscles tightening as faint, green-gold vitality energy rippled beneath his skin. The terrifying gravitational weight of his three Perfect-Grade Cores spun silently in his dantian.
It was absolute relief. The tension of constantly holding back had been fraying his nerves.
"Perfect," Fang Lin whispered, rolling his shoulders. "Now, we work."
***
Time in the Heavenly Forge Division was measured not in days, but in the swing of a hammer.
Two years passed.
During these twenty-four months, Fang Lin's routine became an unshakeable monolith. He did not cultivate his Qi. He did not attempt to break through to the Middle Core Formation realm. He dedicated every waking second entirely to forging and tempering.
Three days a week, he would don his "Mu Tie" disguise and ascend Ember Peak to assist Elder Huo.
The grandmaster was constantly engaged in forging Spirit Manifestation grade artifacts—weapons of terrifying power and volatility. Elder Huo handled the intricate flame arrays and the delicate law manipulation, while Fang Lin served as his sole striker.
It was a brutal, agonizing existence. The kinetic recoil from striking Manifestation-grade metals with the Deep-Earth Lead hammer threatened to shatter Fang Lin's bones daily. The ambient spiritual pressure of the high-tier forge was suffocating.
But it was exactly what Fang Lin needed.
Every strike, every bone-jarring recoil, acted as a passive, agonizing tempering process for his Asura Flesh. His physical body drank the punishment, breaking down microscopic muscle fibers and rebuilding them denser, heavier, and stronger.
Simultaneously, the Dark Flame Spirit secretly observed Elder Huo. While the old man thought he was merely using his apprentice for brute labor, the primordial spirit in Fang Lin's mind was analytically absorbing decades of Manifestation-level thermal energy and impure metal slags.
By the end of the second year, Fang Lin's Asura Flesh had reached a terrifying state of density. He hadn't advanced a cultivation realm, but his physical, kinetic output had multiplied drastically.
***
On the first day of the twenty-fifth month, Fang Lin stood alone in the courtyard of Peak 74, staring at the graveyard against the far wall.
It was a mountain of failures. Over the past two years, he had ruined dozens of monthly allotments. Shattered hammer hafts, deformed chunks of black metal, and cracked anvils littered the stone tiles. The *Nine-Fold Titan Strike* was notoriously brutal; balancing extreme kinetic force without shattering the metal required absolute physical mastery. He had destroyed countless prototypes before finally dialing in the exact kinetic resonance of his Asura Flesh.
In the center of the courtyard sat his final, massive pile of raw Earth-Core Magma Iron, glowing faintly in the dim light and radiating a blistering, suffocating heat.
"It's time," Fang Lin murmured.
He stripped off his shirt, revealing a torso that looked as if it were carved from iron and jade. He walked to the furnace and engaged the *Nine-Fold Titan Strike*.
He didn't take just one piece of the Magma Iron; he took hundreds of pounds of it. He hurled the raw, glowing metal onto the massive anvil.
Fang Lin raised the Deep-Earth Lead hammer. He simply unleashed the pure, violent kinetic force of his Asura Flesh.
*CLANG!*
The shockwave cracked the stone tiles of the courtyard.
For three continuous days and nights, the sound of thunder echoed within the concealing formation of Peak 74. Fang Lin hammered the Earth-Core Magma Iron, literally beating the impurities out of the metal through sheer, catastrophic force. He folded the molten iron over and over, compressing it until its natural red glow darkened into a dense, terrifying black-crimson hue.
Despite his massive growth over the two years, Fang Lin remained calculating. He intentionally held back on the final folds, allowing a marginal amount of slag to remain. He brought the metal to a brilliant ninety-two percent purity—a prodigious achievement for a Core Smith, but not an unnatural impossibility.
When the fires finally died down on the fourth morning, two identical weapons rested on the anvil.
They were Dual Warhammers.
They were brutally unadorned. There were no intricate spiritual arrays carved into the heads, no fancy gold inlays, no aesthetic flourishes. They were simply blocks of hyper-compressed Earth-Core Magma Iron attached to thick, leather-wrapped hafts made from Demon-Ape Femur bone.
They were ugly. And they were devastating.
Fang Lin stepped forward and gripped the handles. Each hammer weighed close to ten thousand pounds. A normal cultivator would require Late Core Formation Qi just to drag them across the floor.
Fang Lin lifted them simultaneously with bare physical strength. He twirled them in his hands, feeling the extreme, localized gravity they generated and the passive, searing heat of the Magma Iron.
"Magma and Ash," Fang Lin whispered, naming the twin crushers.
***
An hour later, Fang Lin—fully disguised as the sweaty, average-built Mu Tie—walked into Elder Huo's courtyard on Ember Peak.
With a deafening *THUD*, he dropped the Dual Warhammers onto the stone floor, cracking the paving stones.
Elder Huo, who had been inspecting a sword blank, turned around. His hawk-like eyes immediately locked onto the twin hammers. He walked over slowly, his massive frame casting a long shadow.
He reached down and picked up one of the warhammers. He didn't use his Qi, and for a brief second, the sheer weight of the weapon made the Manifestation Smith's arm muscles bulge in surprise.
Elder Huo inspected the dense, black-crimson head. He felt the terrifying compression and the ninety-two percent purity. He looked at the unadorned, brutal design that completely ignored standard array-carving conventions.
For a long moment, the courtyard was silent.
Then, Elder Huo threw his head back and unleashed a booming, manic laugh that shook the ash from the surrounding trees.
"Ninety-two percent purity on a Core Formation metal! Dual-wielded!" Elder Huo roared. He looked at Fang Lin, his eyes burning with absolute pride. "You didn't just learn to strike, Mu Tie. You learned to conquer the metal. But sect rules are sect rules. To become a Rank 2 Core Smith, a weapon must be certified at the Testing Grounds."
Elder Huo grabbed the dual warhammers, his massive frame radiating anticipation. "Follow me. It's time the Division saw what real forging looks like."
***
The Central Testing Grounds of the Heavenly Forge Division was a heavily reinforced stone arena, perpetually crowded with elders and disciples evaluating new artifacts.
When Elder Huo and "Mu Tie" arrived, a group of disciples from a rival faction—known for their delicate, array-heavy forging techniques—were currently testing a newly forged Core Formation sword. The blade, glowing with intricate wind arrays, hummed with sharp Qi.
"Elder Huo," a rival elder sneered, noticing the massive, unadorned blocks of black-crimson metal in Huo's hands. "What is that ugly slag? Did your apprentice forget how to carve a basic array?"
Elder Huo just grinned, tossing the dual warhammers to Fang Lin, who caught them effortlessly despite the massive crater their impact would have otherwise caused.
"Mu Tie," Elder Huo boomed, his voice echoing across the arena. "Certify them. Standard durability clash."
Fang Lin stepped into the testing ring opposite the rival disciple holding the glowing wind-sword. The rival sneered, raising his blade to strike the slow, cumbersome hammer.
Fang Lin didn't bother dodging. He simply swung the right warhammer, *Magma*, in a direct, unadorned arc.
*CRACK!*
The collision wasn't a contest of Qi; it was an execution of physics. The hyper-compressed density and raw kinetic weight of the Earth-Core Magma Iron met the delicate, array-carved steel.
The rival's Core Formation sword shattered into a dozen pieces instantly, the wind arrays breaking like fragile glass. The rival disciple was thrown backward by the sheer concussive shockwave of the hammer's swing.
Silence fell over the arena. The other elders stared in disbelief at the shattered fragments of a premium sword, destroyed by a weapon with absolutely no spiritual arrays.
Elder Huo's booming laughter broke the silence once more. He strode forward, pulled a heavy silver medallion from his robes, and slapped it onto Fang Lin's chest in front of the stunned crowd.
"From this day forward," Elder Huo declared to the arena, "Mu Tie is a Second Rank Core Smith of the Ironblood Faction. Anyone in this sect who wants a heavy weapon for Core Formation will have to go through him."
Fang Lin gripped the medallion, bowing deeply.
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