"Good, I hope you will accept all the strength and honor of this name and glorify it and the Tan clan!" the master said confidently, standing up. "And now you can stay here if you haven't rented an apartment in the city yet. Tomorrow, our classes will begin at six o'clock in the morning."
"Thank you, master, for your kindness, but I have already settled in the city, so I will go to the rented apartment," I said, although I hadn't found a place to stay yet, it was easier not to settle with them initially than to move out later when Jiaxing Er returns.
"Then you can go. Tan Yu, escort him," the master said dryly and left the workshop.
"Well, let's go too," said Tan Yu and also left the workshop, I followed him.
He led me to the same exit through which I entered. After saying goodbye, I headed to the city, I still needed to find lodging. Fortunately, all large cities have hotels that operate around the clock. So, with some difficulty, I managed to find a place to stay. For the first time in three days, I was finally able to sit down and cultivate, before I was too busy, even yesterday, preparing for today's exam, I fell asleep with a book in my hands.
Immersing myself in my inner world, I noticed that all my small stars were enveloped in golden inner energy. It was like a blanket covering them like little children. Now my stars were calm, the winds did not rush through the nebula as usual, the lightning was not capricious when working with them, and the spaces had moderated their pride and obeyed all my commands, arranging themselves into the necessary stellar paths. As soon as I imagined the structure, they were already in place. It was an astonishing speed!
I tried to create two lightning stellar paths at once, and I succeeded! Surprise easily, but I couldn't build three at once, there were only two stars left, and they would all be composed simultaneously! The same situation was with the wind stars.
Also, while studying this phenomenon, I realized that the stars are undergoing some transformation thanks to the inner energy, but it is happening very slowly. After I found this out, I started thinking about the reasons for this behavior of the inner energy. Due to the fact that my soul, in some unknown way, ended up in this body, it can pass inner energy into my inner world, and magical energy from the inner world into the body. Since the awakening of inner energy, it has enveloped my nebulae and stardust, gradually making them stronger.
But apparently, due to great moral tension, at the moment when I was caught in a cage, it received a push and developed, enveloping the small stars as well. I can't imagine what will happen next, I have too little knowledge about this. Yes, I am even sure that no one has this knowledge, so I will have to figure everything out myself. It looks very interesting and I think it can make me even stronger in the future. And based on such an unexpected turn of events, I became interested, what will happen if I strengthen the stars with souls now?
But alas, for this, I need to improve my tooth, it has long been a witness to the readiness for a breakthrough, but no matter how many fragments I feed it, it remains indifferent to this. I have a theory that it needs a strong, whole soul for evolution, not fragments. However, I need them for earning money too, which is also important, but I think for the sake of progress in cultivation, I can moderate my greed a little and let it absorb several leader-level souls, from them there should be a maximum effect.
Further cultivation was as usual without any oddities, with the usual, already standard for me, slightly increased speed, thanks to the tooth and the old man's healing elixirs. The next day, I got up very early and quickly went to the master's house, I couldn't make a bad impression on such a person. I was met again by a rather cheerful Tan Yu, it was clear that going to bed late and getting up early had become his habit.
"Oh, you're here, it's not even half past five yet," he said in a cheerful voice. "Let's go, I think the master wouldn't mind starting earlier." After these words, he waved his hand and led me to the same workshop as yesterday, only now, in addition to electric light, there was sunlight streaming from the few small windows.
"Greetings, master," I said, bowing slightly. "Apprentice Tan San has arrived for the beginning of his training."
"Too formal, you can do without it," the master waved his hand, turning to me. "Like all personal blacksmiths, you will have a personal forge where you can hone your skills and fulfill orders. It will be ready in three days, so as soon as I finish teaching you, you can practice yourself. And for now, I will teach you my family's secret forging technique, it is called: 'Heart of the Hammer'."
"Thank you, master, for the honor, but doesn't the name seem strange to you?" I asked, as it was indeed quite an unusual name.
"No, this name perfectly conveys the entire essence of this technique," the master began to explain, and Tan Yu, under the guise of this, disappeared somewhere. "Using the hammer technique, you direct your blow from your heels, through your heart, to your hand, and then to the hammer. At the same time, your heart becomes the heart of the hammer, you must strike in rhythm with your heartbeat. Five heartbeats - one hammer blow. Only then is maximum harmony achieved and the blows have the necessary force, and the hammer literally lands on the workpiece itself."
"I see, master, could you show me this, at least with one example?" I asked.
"Of course, I will show you how it's done correctly, but only once. Everything else will be explained to you by Tan Yu, if you don't understand. I'll also tell you right away, today I will teach you the method of forging, tomorrow, the method of melting and smelting alloys, combining parts of monsters and metal. And on the last, third day, you will go through the entire forging process from beginning to end, and if I decide that you have grasped the initial understanding of my method, then you will be able to participate in the bet we made and win the right to independence."
"Yes, master," I said, folding my hands and bowing slightly. "But may I ask, does the heart of the hammer technique also involve a special method of smelting alloys?"
"Of course, although you don't possess fire magic, modern furnaces, with proper handling, allow the use of the power of several such mages at once," he said confidently, stroking his furnace. "Even at the melting stage, hardening and forging begin, so this process is also important. If you create the alloy incorrectly, the connection between you, the hammer, and the alloy ingot you are forging will not be established, and the technique will lose all its effectiveness. As I said, it is called the heart of the hammer technique, and this means creating a special connection in the process, remember this well."
"Yes, master," I answered quickly, bowing slightly.
"Then let's begin," he said, taking an ingot from the furnace with tongs, placing it on the anvil next to it, and simultaneously taking a hammer from the table next to it, there were not a few hammers on that table, about ten, all of them differed in size and the metal they were made of. "The choice of hammer is also important, if the wrong hammer is chosen, the connection will not be established."
Having said this, the master raised his hand with the hammer upwards, bent it slightly at the elbow, spread his legs almost shoulder-width apart, and prepared to swing, simultaneously holding a piece of heated alloy with tongs. At this moment, I felt something very strange, it seemed to me that the master suddenly had inner energy, which quickly passed from his heels, through his heart, to his hand, then to the hammer, and connected the hammerhead and the alloy ingot with an invisible thread. It was very unusual, but I couldn't determine if it was conscious or not, as it was only a brief moment, after which the master quickly lowered his hand, delivering a ringing blow.
The master repeated his strike a couple dozen more times, each time the hammer fell in a new place, and circles of energy seemed to spread across the metal and air. I bet the entire alloy structure was shaken, becoming stronger and stronger. As a result, the master managed to make a perfectly even plate, which he held in tongs. He placed it so that half of it hung off the anvil and with another series of blows, he bent it, turned it over, and with the next series, he completely flattened it in half. After that, he sent what resulted into the furnace.
"I'm making a fire blade, it's an alloy of fire hawk feathers and iron, the artifact should be able to easily cut through monsters of the low chieftain level," the master said dryly. For your information, a fire hawk is a monster of the highest servant level, living in Qing Lin! That is, with the help of such a simple alloy and using this secret technique, the initial material can be amplified many times over! "To achieve such a level, it is necessary to temper the alloy three to five times; if you temper it further, there will be practically no effect. I will let you temper it from the second to the fourth times; if something is wrong, I will fix it on the fifth, and the artifact will not lose quality." he said calmly, even somewhat affectionately and kindly, which was a stark contrast to his usual manner of speaking.
"Yes, master," I said, putting on an apron, leather pants, and blacksmith gloves.
While I was doing this, the master explained to me how to choose hammers for tempering, then handed me the tongs with the workpiece and took my place. Taking it out of the furnace and placing it on the anvil, I remembered the master's stance when he struck, tried to adopt it, and raised the hammer for a blow.
Then something very unexpected happened, my internal and magical energy ran from my heels, through my heart, into my arm and the hammer. I quickly reduced its flow, almost to zero, leaving only a weak connection between the metal and the hammer. If this is just a normal technique that accidentally uses internal energy, I have nothing to fear, but what if this master is a member of a family that uses body tempering? One such family lives in Nanqi. If so, I must not reveal that I have already awakened my internal energy under any circumstances, otherwise, a lot of questions might arise.
I lowered the hammer, delivering my first blow, and a much quieter metallic clang rang out than when the master did it. I paid no attention to this difference and began to lift the hammer; to my surprise, it turned out to be much heavier than at the beginning, or rather, my arm weakened so much that the hammer became heavier! It was surprising, but at the same time, my internal energy received a sharp boost and began to gather, but I suppressed it again. I continued with a series of blows, the master occasionally made some remarks, but for the most part, he remained silent and seemed lost in thought about something. I hope he is not at such a high level that he can notice my internal energy, because I hid it so well that I can barely feel it in my own body!
After I finished and returned the part to its place, I listened to a long lecture about my mistakes. When I did the second tempering, I tried to take them into account, but the suppression, the increasingly agitated internal energy, and the labor-intensive technique drained my strength, so I didn't do much better. The third tempering went the same way, with a heap of lectures during the break, and then an attempt to temper better than last time, hiding my internal energy. After that, the master himself did the tempering, and I watched again. This time he praised my work, saying that few people could do it so well on the first try, and that in his lifetime, he had never met geniuses like me. After the end of the fifth tempering, the master again rolled up the ingot, heated it, and then forged a sword from it, cooled it, and hung it on the wall, letting the metal rest. For the rest of the day, we made nine more such swords; I performed the second, third, and fourth tempering, and the master did everything else. We said goodbye around eight in the evening.