"But... but Elder!" the second guard protested nervously, prioritizing his duty. "He is completely unregistered! If the Deputy Headmaster inspects the logs—"
The old man's aura suddenly flared. The ambient temperature in the corridor instantly spiked by fifty degrees, causing the guards to break out in a terrified, blistering sweat.
"Did I stutter?" the elder barked harshly, his voice echoing off the stone walls like a striking hammer. "This is my hearth. It is my pavilion. Whoever I want to let in, I will let in. The Deputy Headmaster can come down here and complain to my hammer if he has a problem with it. Just do your duty and open the damn doors!"
The guards immediately shut their mouths, deeply regretting their protest. They scrambled backward, pushing the heavy iron doors open with all their might.
"Yes, Elder! Forgive our insolence!"
The elder huffed, his oppressive aura instantly vanishing as if it had never existed. He gestured with his head toward the open doors. "Follow me, kid."
Yoriichi didn't hesitate. He fell into step beside the old man, crossing the threshold into the Earthfire Pavilion.
The moment he stepped inside, a wave of blistering, suffocating heat washed over him. But the sight before him was breathtaking.
The pavilion was an unimaginably vast, subterranean cavern. Dozens of glowing, deep-orange magma trenches crisscrossed the stone floor, channeling the natural geothermal heat of the earth into hundreds of individual, highly advanced forging stations. The air rang with a deafening, chaotic symphony of hammers striking hot steel.
Dozens of older academy students, stripped to the waist and shining with sweat, were fiercely working at their anvils. The sheer scale and quality of the facility made the Xiao Clan's private smithing hall look like a child's playground in comparison.
As the elder walked down the central aisle, the busy students who caught sight of him immediately stopped their hammering. They bowed deeply, showing absolute reverence, before quickly returning to their work. Many cast confused, side-long glances at the pristine, cool-looking youth trailing behind their supreme master, but none dared to ask questions.
"Impressive, isn't it?" the elder spoke, his raspy voice effortlessly cutting through the deafening noise of the forge.
He suddenly stopped, pointing a blackened finger toward a muscular senior student who was rhythmically striking a glowing ingot of Xuan-iron.
"See that?" the elder instructed, his tone shifting into that of a strict, passionate teacher. "Look at how focused he is. Look at the specific pattern of his hammering. He isn't just mindlessly bashing the metal until it's flat."
Yoriichi observed the student closely. His Transparent World vision noted how the senior was pulsing his Dou Qi into the hammer right at the absolute microsecond of impact.
"Blacksmithing isn't an easy profession, young man," the elder continued, crossing his thick arms. "The outside world fawns over Alchemists because they create pills that grant immediate power. But a true blacksmith is just as complex, if not more so. You need to know every intricate detail of the ore. You need to know exactly where to hammer, at what specific angle, and how continuously to strike to align the molecular structure of the steel."
The old man looked at Yoriichi intensely. "It could take minutes. It could take hours. For a high-tier weapon, you might be standing over an anvil for days without sleep, enduring heat that would boil a normal man's blood. Do you understand this?"
"I understand perfectly, Elder," Yoriichi nodded, his crimson eyes reflecting the glowing magma. He appreciated the man's profound respect for the craft.
Yoriichi then paused, deciding to voice the logical discrepancy in the situation.
"Elder," Yoriichi asked, his tone respectful but deeply curious. "I understand the philosophy of the forge. But why did you help an unfamiliar, unregistered student like me so suddenly?"
The old man stared at him for a second, then let out a booming, boisterous laugh that echoed over the ringing hammers.
"Unfamiliar?" the elder chuckled, shaking his head. "Boy, I know exactly who you are. That Zhan girl told me about you."
Yoriichi's eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. "Elder Zhan Yue?"
"The very same," the elder nodded. "She comes down here occasionally to have me repair her silver longsword after she abuses it in the deep mountains. A few months ago, she wouldn't shut up about this 'genius student' she spars with in the middle of the night. She mentioned that you didn't just fight, but you also had a profound understanding of smithing, judging by how you maintained your blade."
The elder looked at Yoriichi, a gleam of genuine, analytical respect in his eyes.
"I was shocked," the old man admitted. "To spark the interest of that battle-crazed, hardheaded girl is a miracle in itself. I thought she was exaggerating. But seeing you now... feeling your aura? You are a Three-Star Dou Shi, yet your physical density and internal compression are monstrous. Your foundation is harder than cold-forged Xuan-iron."
The elder grinned, a predatory, excited smile. "A body like yours... you will be an absolutely excellent blacksmith. I had to see it for myself."
They continued their walk, bypassing the main cavern and entering a secluded, heavily reinforced tunnel. The heat here grew exponentially, shifting from a dry warmth to a suffocating, blistering inferno.
They finally arrived at a massive, private forging chamber. In the center of the room sat an anvil made of pitch-black, star-meteorite steel. Beside it was a specialized hearth that glowed not with orange magma, but with a terrifying, localized pillar of pale-blue earth-fire.
The heat was so intense it would have instantly melted the flesh off a standard Dou Zhe. Yoriichi simply adjusted his breathing, letting the extreme Yin of his Aqua Ginseng seed passively cool his internal organs.
The elder walked over to the anvil, patting the black steel affectionately. He then turned fully to face Yoriichi, his eccentric demeanor vanishing, replaced by the absolute, towering authority of a Grandmaster Smith.
"Alright, kid. The pleasantries are over," the elder commanded, his dark eyes burning with intense scrutiny. "You said you have your own materials. You said you want to forge."
The old man stepped back, gesturing to the anvil and the pale-blue flames.
"Let's see what you can actually show this old man. No holding back. No academy rules. Now, Xiao Ning..." The elder's voice dropped to a heavy, challenging rumble. "...start your forging. Create the absolute highest-tier weapon you can make."
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Sorry for the delays guys. I want to tell u something.
This Nepal disaster was shocking. Not only the Nepalis, but foreign travelers have also been affected. They are all like brothers and sisters, and we hope more of missing people be saved. I have donated some with this patreon fund.
If u want to help, u can donate by searching: pm disaster relief fund nepal (click on top article).
Lastly, I just want to share this: if we take care of nature, nature will take care of us.