Longevity by Grinding Skills

Chapter 433: Chapter 433: Another Farewell

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Inside the Celestial Craft Cave, Earth Fire surged fitfully within the Profound Iron Furnace, casting the entire cavern in a flickering, uncertain light.

The moment Xu Yunfan stepped into the Artifact Refining Room, the crimson Flame Marrow in the Earth Fire Pool suddenly churned, surging into the Weapon Casting Furnace. The clamor of CLANGS and BANGS was incessant.

Zhan Yan, who was in the middle of forging, didn’t even turn his head. The Heavy Hammer in his hand crashed onto the anvil with the force of a thunderclap. Yet, the scattering sparks froze abruptly three feet from Xu Yunfan, as if halted by an invisible hand, the fine points of light dissipating in midair like tiny embers.

"Master!"

Xu Yunfan’s voice was soft.

This was the master who had truly guided him onto the Martial Dao; naturally, he held him in the highest regard.

Xu Yunfan gazed at the mottled stone walls of the Celestial Craft Cave, his heart filled with emotion.

’If I had missed the Celestial Craft Cave back then, if Zhan Yan hadn’t found me, I might still be drifting through the Mortal World.’

’With my aptitude, reaching the peak of the Martial Dao was only a matter of time, but I can’t even begin to imagine how much blood I would have shed or how many swords I would have broken along that path.’

’I might have even missed the arrival of the Primordial Sect disciples, completely losing the chance to travel to the outside world and ultimately wasting my entire life away in the Divine Martial Realm.’

’Every choice has its consequence. Who can truly say what might have been?’

The firelight in Zhan Yan’s single eye flickered. The hammerhead, suspended in midair, trembled slightly. He turned, looked at the familiar face, and set down his Iron Hammer. He wiped his coarse hands on the leather apron he wore, wanting to rush forward but instinctively stopping in his tracks.

A smile couldn’t help but creep onto his face as he suppressed the excitement in his heart.

"So you still know how to come back, you little rascal?"

The old blacksmith’s voice was as rough as sandpaper on iron, but it couldn’t hide the slight tremble at the end. "Hasn’t all that immortal dew from the Upper Realm softened your bones?"

"I haven’t even had a taste of that immortal dew yet," Xu Yunfan replied with a smile.

When he had left for the Taihua Spirit Ruins Realm, he had no idea when, or if, he could ever return. He might have come back a century later, only to find that times had changed, all his old friends were gone, and there was nothing left to reminisce about.

He looked at his master’s knuckles as they gripped the hammer. The same joints that could once crush Profound Iron with bare hands were now swollen like tree burls, with purplish-blue veins bulging like worms beneath wrinkled skin.

Zhan Yan had spent his entire life forging iron, and now his very frame was steeped in the aura of metal and fire.

He suddenly dropped to one knee.

"Your disciple has come to bring you with me. I’ve kept you waiting, Master."

Zhan Yan hauled Xu Yunfan to his feet.

"Enough of that. What’s with the sentimental nonsense? I’m not dead yet."

Zhan Yan clapped Xu Yunfan on the shoulder. "You’ve been under a lot of pressure in that... whatever-it’s-called realm, haven’t you?"

A warmth spread through Xu Yunfan’s heart. Even for someone of his disposition—a man who could kill without batting an eye, a veritable Demon—he couldn’t stop the bridge of his nose from stinging.

"Master, I..."

"Stop!"

Zhan Yan snatched up a pair of tongs and pulled the glowing red Sword Embryo from the furnace. He was very satisfied; it was heated to the perfect temperature.

"Don’t go spouting any sentimental mush. Get over here and help me finish this sword."

He glanced over with his single eye, the firelight flowing through the wrinkles on his face. "It’s been a while. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten how to hold an Iron Hammer?"

Xu Yunfan laughed at his words. He casually pulled off his Cloud Pattern brocade robe, revealing an upper body that looked as if it were cast from Refined Iron. Three years of Foundation Establishment in the Taihua Realm had long since tempered his Mortal Body into Jade Bone.

As Magical Power flowed through him, the Black Tortoise Dao Pattern on his skin pulsed faintly with his every breath, and every inch of his muscle seemed to shimmer with a starlike Spiritual Light.

CLINK!

The moment the Iron Hammer was in his hand, the aged patina of the handle fit perfectly against the memory in his palm.

The arc of Xu Yunfan’s swing was flawless. But when the hammer fell, what erupted from the Sword Embryo was not the sparks of Mortal Iron, but a cyan glow suffused with True Martial Evil Qi.

The Earth Fire Pool suddenly began to boil. A Black Tortoise Illusion formed from the Flame Marrow actually coiled around the hammer’s head on its own, branding a Turtle Shell Pattern onto the Sword Embryo.

"You little rascal..."

Zhan Yan’s single eye went wide, and flecks of soot were shaken loose from his eyebrows.

He saw every cluster of sparks condense into a miniature constellation in midair, and the rhythm of the hammer strikes secretly aligned with the movements of the True Martial Seven Stars.

What was even more terrifying was the Mortal Iron Sword Embryo itself. It was now greedily devouring the Magical Power overflowing from Xu Yunfan, and droplets of crimson-gold liquid, like the Essence Blood of a Black Tortoise, were seeping from the cracks on its surface.

A Foundation Establishment Daoist Master was forging a weapon. Although Xu Yunfan didn’t yet know any specific Artifact Refining Skills, his Foundation Establishment Cultivation Realm naturally elevated his Celestial Craft Forging Technique.

Amidst a flurry of hammer-shadows, every one of Xu Yunfan’s strikes landed precisely on the point three inches and seven fen down the Sword Embryo.

The True Martial Evil Qi seeped through the hammerhead into the iron embryo. He even infused it with a few stray wisps of Arctic Demon Vibration Qi and Demon Suppressing Earth Evil Qi, which actually managed to etch the star pattern of the Big Dipper onto the surface of the Mortal Iron.

When the ninth wisp of Flame Marrow from the Earth Fire Pool coiled around the hammerhead, the entire sword suddenly let out a clear, sonorous dragon’s cry.

CLANG!

As the final hammer strike fell, the entire Sword Embryo erupted in a blinding cyan light.

All the iron implements in the cave began to tremble in unison. The seven Ancient Swords hanging on the wall slid three inches out of their scabbards on their own, their tips all pointing toward the Forging Platform, like subjects paying homage to their king.

The tongs in Zhan Yan’s hand fell to the ground with a CLATTER.

The newly-formed Eight-sided Han Sword hovered in midair. What flowed across its body was no longer a metallic sheen, but a starlight that seemed to exist somewhere between illusion and reality.

Seven star-like apertures lit up one by one along the sword’s spine. With each one that ignited, the blade’s edge gained a sharper intent capable of sundering heaven and earth, and the Longsword itself grew more Spiritual.

"A... a Tier Eight Divine Weapon?"

The blacksmith’s voice trembled.

The sword’s reflection in his single eye grew brighter and brighter, until it was so piercing he had to raise a hand to shield his vision. The sword was absorbing the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi on its own!

Given enough time, it might even become a legendary Tier Nine Ultimate Divine Weapon, capable of spontaneously generating its own Spirituality and forming a weapon spirit.

Xu Yunfan ran two fingers along the blade, the True Martial Evil Qi and the star patterns blending together perfectly. "Your disciple only used a few wisps of aura from the Celestial Spirits and Earthly Fiends to forge it."

With a flick of the sword’s tip, the Sword Testing Stone thirty feet away split silently in two, the cross-section as smooth as a mirror.

Even more frightening, the residual cyan light in the fissure continued to corrode the stone, and in the blink of an eye, the entire Sword Testing Stone disintegrated into dust.

Zhan Yan’s calloused fingers hovered three inches above the blade’s edge, never daring to actually touch it.

He had been forging for a full sixty years and had handled no fewer than ten thousand weapons, yet his most prized creation had only barely touched the threshold of Tier Seven.

And now, this Tier Eight Divine Weapon that breathed Starlight had been casually hammered into shape by his disciple in a few strikes. The Anomaly it triggered upon its completion was even more astonishing than the birth of the Divine Martial Pendant Sword he had witnessed all those years ago.

The fire in the old blacksmith’s single eye gradually dimmed, but the corners of his mouth pulled into a smile of relief.

He was finally certain: the boy who had once poured his sweat out before the Forging Platform, who had swung his hammer like a blazing fire, had long since broken free from the shackles of this world.

Like a dragon returning to the sea, he could no longer be contained by the shallow shores.

"Care to try it, Master?"

Xu Yunfan suddenly flipped the sword, offering the hilt.

The instant Zhan Yan took the sword, his entire right arm was covered in a layer of frost.

What he felt from the hilt wasn’t the coldness of metal, but the pulsing of a living thing. Yet Xu Yunfan merely let out a wisp of his aura, and the Longsword’s Spirituality was suppressed, becoming as obedient as a dog.

Zhan Yan subconsciously swung the sword in a diagonal slash. The blade left a seven-foot-long trail of cyan flame in its wake, cleaving the Earth Fire Pool clean in two.

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