Chapter 223: The Forging Business

Chapter 223: The Forging Business

After the tempering process, Lu Heng went to see Guru Master and showed him the two A-class weapons he obtained from defeating Alex Austin.

These two A-class weapons were, of course, the Star Shield and the Thunder Hammer.

The Star Shield had been split in two by a Rift Slash, but the Thunder Hammer remained intact.

"Master Guru, do you think these two A-class weapons can be used as materials to perform a three-fold forging for the Aurora Blade?" Lu Heng asked.

Hearing Lu Heng's intention to perform a three-fold forging on the Aurora Blade, Guru raised his eyebrows and replied, "A three-fold forging will elevate it to S-class, and it requires divine materials. The difficulty is immense."

In truth, even Guru wasn't entirely confident, as he had never forged an S-class weapon before.

The Black Iron Dwarf's forging techniques were once formidable, but after the Abyssal Descent, the tribe had to migrate multiple times, becoming weaker with each move. While the forging techniques hadn't been lost, the tales of crafting S-class divine weapons had become a part of the Black Iron Dwarf's historical legends.

Lu Heng was well aware of the immense challenge of crafting an S-class weapon. Now that the Aurora Blade had reached A-class, he was determined to push for S-class.

If it didn't succeed the first time, they could always try again.

"I understand. Isn't history meant to be created? If we can forge an S-class divine weapon, perhaps we can restore the glory of the Black Iron Dwarf tribe."

Guru's eyes lit up at these words, and he clenched his fist, saying, "You're right! We must reclaim the glory of our tribe. We will forge an S-class divine weapon!"

"Follow me. Let's see how our ancestors managed to forge S-class divine weapons." With that, he grabbed Lu Heng's arm and ran towards the library.

The Black Iron Dwarves were incredibly strong; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to wield such heavy forging hammers.

Lu Heng was dragged along as they rushed into the library.

Guru pulled out a pile of ancient books, some of which were even forged from iron plates.

Some unknown technique had been used, as they showed no signs of rust despite being sealed away for so long.

"Here, the materials needed to forge an S-class divine weapon..."

Guru scanned the books, muttering, "The difficulty is too high. It requires the horns of a Demon Blood Wyrm, something I've never even seen before."

Lu Heng leaned in to take a closer look. Indeed, using just two A-class weapons as forging materials might not be sufficient to create an S-class weapon.

For the forging of an S-class weapon, divine materials were necessary.

According to the Black Iron Dwarf's ancient texts, their tribe had once forged an S-class divine weapon using the horns of a Demon Blood Wyrm as material.

This Demon Blood Wyrm was described as a Wyrm subspecies.

Even as a subspecies, it was an incredibly powerful existence.

The fact that the Black Iron Dwarves could once confront such a creature was a testament to their former glory.

Obtaining the horns of a Demon Blood Wyrm seemed like an absurdly difficult task.

Guru continued muttering, "It would be best to use dragon blood for the tempering process, as it would increase the chances of a successful forging."

While tempering and forging were two different processes, they weren't entirely separate.

During the final stages of weapon forging, tempering was often employed to increase the chances of a successful forging and solidify the weapon's grade.

In reality, the grade of a forged weapon wasn't fixed at a specific value.

The Aurora Blade was currently at A-class, but that didn't mean all A-class weapons had the same attributes as the Aurora Blade.

The attributes of a forged weapon were arranged in a linear fashion, and they would display the grade corresponding to the attribute's range.

Sometimes, A-class weapons could have attributes close to S-class weapons.

These types of weapons were often referred to as A+ or quasi-S-class by metahumans.

However, these were just colloquial terms used by metahumans, and they wouldn't appear on the weapon's data panel.

On the data panel, A-class was A-class, and S-class was S-class.

The reason S-class weapons were called divine weapons was that, upon forging, there was a chance for divine effects to manifest, which was the true reason for their classification.

The final tempering process was crucial to activating divine materials and infusing the weapon with divine effects, thus creating a genuine S-class divine weapon.

...

Guru continued flipping through the Black Iron Dwarf's ancient books and explained, "There are many divine materials that can be used for weapon forging, such as Demon Wyrm horns, Abyssal World Holy Relics, Demon Lord's Heart... All of these are materials that are virtually impossible to obtain."

After finishing the book, Guru gave a very honest assessment.

The materials listed in the ancient texts for forging S-class divine weapons were indeed absurdly difficult to acquire.

After understanding this, Lu Heng said, "It's all about fate. If we have the opportunity to obtain these materials, we can attempt the forging."

"Good, as long as we obtain divine materials, we must forge an S-class divine weapon and reclaim the glory of the Black Iron Clan." Gru clenched his fist, his eyes filled with determination.

He made up his mind, "Starting today, I will practice my forging skills. I'll get Little Lin to bring me more weapons to practice with later."

Lu Heng swallowed, thinking to himself that Gru's words were too blunt.

Although it was indeed for practice, these were business orders. If he spoke to customers like this, how could they continue doing business? However, leaving these matters to the Flame Emblem Club to handle was fine.

The club was already in charge of the Tempering Castle's tempering services, and adding forging services wouldn't be a big issue.

...

Before today, Gru had always had a laid-back attitude, rarely personally tempering and only forging when the opportunity arose.

Lu Heng understood his mindset; after all, Gru was the last Black Iron Dwarf in Tempering Castle.

In his heart, he might have felt that the Black Iron Dwarf clan had been wiped out.

As the last of his kind, he had lost his drive, merely waiting for the true end of his clan.

However, since meeting the leader of the Banseer Tribe and hearing from Lu Heng that there were other Black Iron Dwarves scattered in the Abyssal World, a spark of hope ignited within him.

Sometimes, people live for a single hope, even if it's faint and may never be fulfilled in a lifetime. But as long as there's hope, there's the motivation to carry on.

Gru now had that motivation and officially decided to start the forging business.

...

When Lin Zeyu heard that Master Gru was going to take on forging jobs, his eyes lit up.

This was an opportunity to expand the business of the Flame Emblem Club, adding another profitable venture alongside tempering.

Lin Zeyu immediately gathered the club's management for a meeting, personally visiting Gru to understand the requirements for the forging business and discuss how to promote the new service.

The forging service would only cater to cold weapons like swords and knives, as heat weapons couldn't be enhanced through forging.

Heat weapons operated on a different system.

Similarly, energy weapons couldn't be enhanced through forging either.

If Gru had started the forging business half a year ago, the number of business orders he could have received wouldn't have been many.

At that time, metahumans were keen on using firearms as heat weapons.

With lower Origin Energy levels, a pistol could easily take down a metahuman.

As the number of metahumans with first-tier job advancements increased, cold weapons began to have a chance against pistols.

Once metahumans mastered second-tier job abilities, they could handle rifles more easily with cold weapons.

Now, at the end of October in the Abyssal Descent, metahumans were no longer as fearful of firearms.

Especially those with B-class skills, many had ways to counter firearms.

From this point on, the number of metahumans using cold weapons would gradually increase.

In fact, the tempering business orders already reflected this trend.

Half a year ago, out of ten tempering orders, nine were for firearms.

Now, it was more balanced, with a fifty-fifty split.

With more metahumans using cold weapons like swords and knives, the demand for forging naturally increased.

Thus, it was the perfect time for Gru and Tempering Castle to start their forging business.

Lin Zeyu arranged for this, leaving the actual operations to the club's management.

...

The Flame Emblem Club, following Gru's instructions, began promoting Tempering Castle's forging services and demonstrated the effects of forging.

Weapon forging could directly enhance the level of weapons, and the improvement was significant.

This was especially true for some C-class weapons that had undergone tempering; their base level might be low, but their tempering level was high.

In such cases, an awkward situation arose.

Due to the weapons' low base level, continuing tempering required significant investment with little return.

Moreover, if higher-level weapons were obtained later, all the tempering resources invested would be wasted.

Now, with Tempering Castle offering forging services, lower-level weapons had a chance to be enhanced.

In fact, the secondary profession of forgers had already emerged among metahumans, but forging required an entire forging chamber, not just a tempering forge.

Therefore, even if there were forgers among metahumans, they would struggle to complete the forging process independently.

As a result, no faction had been able to provide forging services until now.

When the news broke that Tempering Castle was accepting forging jobs, it caused a stir.

With the reputation of the Flame Emblem Club and Tempering Castle, no one doubted the authenticity of the forging services.

With the news out, the Flame Emblem Club received numerous forging appointments and inquiries. However, the materials used for weapon forging were not fixed, and different materials were required based on the weapon's characteristics.

Therefore, for clients who wanted to forge their weapons, meeting with Guru was a valuable opportunity.

...

Starting from that day, the Flame Emblem Club officially began accepting forging orders.

Only one person was allowed to enter the Tempering Castle each day to discuss forging plans with the forging master, Guru.

After examining the weapon to be forged, Guru would provide the required forging materials, and the client would then have to source them themselves.

Lin Zeyu had previously acquired forging materials when Lu Heng upgraded his Aurora Blade.

Once the news of the Tempering Castle's forging services spread, the prices of forging materials in the market skyrocketed.

What had happened with the tempering materials now repeated itself with the forging materials.

Lin Zeyu seized the opportunity to make a fortune, laughing in his sleep every night.

...

As the Tempering Castle's forging business caused a stir among the metahumans, Su Muyu used a spatial anchor to teleport to the Sekis world and back.

Upon her return, she handed over a storage device to Lu Heng.

"It's all done, just as you instructed."

"Good," Lu Heng put away the storage device and didn't discuss the matter further.

"Do you need any help?" Su Muyu asked, feeling a bit concerned as she had previously sensed a mysterious person around Lu Heng.

The mysterious person she had noticed was naturally Number 27, so she knew Lu Heng had secrets.

Lu Heng wasn't intentionally hiding it from her; it was just that telling her wouldn't serve any purpose.

Moreover, she was unaware that the Creator Club treated her better, as many secrets inherently carried danger.

In his previous life, Su Muyu had joined the Creator Club first, and Lu Heng followed suit later.

In this life, Lu Heng was already a member of the Creator Club, but Su Muyu was still unaware of the organization's existence.

Lu Heng had considered this matter and decided it was better not to involve her in this murky situation.

The nature of the Creator Club was difficult to define.

In Lu Heng's memory, the organization hadn't engaged in particularly heinous activities, but it wasn't a charitable organization either.

In simple terms, the Creator Club was a neutral force, acting solely for the organization's goals.

However, after his rebirth, Lu Heng's experiences with the Creator Club during several missions left him with a negative impression.

First, several targets were invited, only to be killed by Lu Heng.

Including the already-joined Itada Masahiro, Lu Heng had eliminated three Number 29s in total.

But there would be no more Number 29s in the future.

The Creator Club never reused the same number.

The previous three Number 29s existed because the first two hadn't officially joined the Creator Club yet.

Itada Masahiro, on the other hand, had officially joined and received a formal number.

In other words, if the Creator Club were to invite the next member, the number would be 030, and 029 would never appear again.

After returning from Fusang, Lu Heng had been waiting for Number 27 to show up.

Although Itada Masahiro was dead, and Lu Heng's number was higher, killing an official member of the organization was a serious matter that couldn't be left unresolved.

Lu Heng waited for three days, but Number 27 didn't appear.

It was unclear if the high-sequence members of the Creator Club were discussing the handling of this matter or if Number 27 was busy with another task.

On the fourth night, Lu Heng finally encountered someone on the training grounds.

A person who suddenly appeared, wearing a cloak covered in black feathers and a hood, concealing their face.

This person bore a resemblance to Number 27, but they didn't have the distinctive multicolored eyes.

In fact, Lu Heng had never seen Number 27's appearance; he identified him solely by his colorful eyes.

The person before him didn't have those eyes, so it wasn't Number 27.

Instead, this person's eyes emanated a dark and mysterious aura.

"Who are you?" Lu Heng asked after a moment of staring.

The mysterious person replied in a raspy voice, like that of a black crow, "I'm your new contact. You can call me Number 13."

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end