Tale of an Ordinary Cultivator

“Look closely at how I am doing it. Every strike has to hit the right spot, at the right angle, and with the right amount of energy. As long as one of these aspects is off, the result will not be ideal.”

“Understood, Senior Martial Brother Tian,” Zhao Yunxiao nodded profusely.

Before his eyes, a senior martial brother was hammering away while giving him a brief explanation of what he was doing.

“Don’t do it blindly as well. Look for spots of non-uniformity, be it in terms of shape, thickness, gas bubbles, grain structure, or anything else,” Tian Mingre explained. “As a smith, you don’t hammer for the sake of hammering. There must be a reason behind every strike.”

As he spoke, Tian Mingre continued to hammer on the piece of metal on the anvil, holding it firmly in place with a large pair of metal tongs.

From the side, Zhao Yunxiao was responsible for maintaining the furnace fire as a duty disciple, making sure that he kept it at the ideal temperature.

The explanation that Tian Mingre gave was clear, informative, and concise at the same time, allowing Zhao Yunxiao to easily appreciate his thought process behind every action.

It was not as though Zhao Yunxiao was a complete novice who needed guidance on every little thing either.

On the contrary, after so many years of working at the Forge, the current Zhao Yunxiao actually knew much more than most other disciples.

After all, supporting visiting disciples like this was only a part of the job. Apart from that, duty disciples had to do actual smithing work too.

And that was not even considering the fact that Zhao Yunxiao had always been making his own equipment outside of his job at the Forge.

All things considered, he was someone with plenty of experience under his belt!

Yet despite that, Zhao Yunxiao strongly believed that there was always something to learn from others, even if it was only about what not to do.

Of course, Tian Mingre was not nearly that bad, and his guidance was actually quite on point.

But while the theoretical aspect was perfect, Zhao Yunxiao could not help but feel his heart ache with each successive hammer strike.

Tian Mingre clearly understood what he should do, but the result simply did not match up to what he wanted to achieve.

One might understand what they needed to do, but actually doing it was a whole nother matter altogether.

That was on top of the fact that perfect motion and energy control was simply far too difficult to achieve!

A hammer strike just slightly missed the right spot.

Another miss.

Wrong angle.

Too much energy applied on that strike.

Yet another miss.

Too little energy applied.

Zhao Yunxiao bit his lower lip as he saw the piece of metal slowly approach completion in Tian Mingre’s hands. He understood that at this rate, the completed work was doomed to be a common quality one.

While it was still usable, that was certainly not what Tian Mingre had been aiming for.

Nevertheless, duty disciples like Zhao Yunxiao were not supposed to interfere with the main smithing process.

This was not just a common practice, but a rule that had been set in place.

After all, the act of smithing was not a simple one, and precious materials had to be expended in the process.

With this rule in place, the Forge was trying to protect both the disciples who were here to use the Forge’s facilities, as well as the duty disciples at the same time.

As long as the duty disciples did not interfere with the main smithing process, the disciples visiting the Forge could be assured that they would have full control over the process. That meant not risking the entire process failing because of mistakes made by the duty disciples.

But by that same reasoning, the duty disciples also could not be blamed for any mishaps that happened during the smithing process if they were not participating in it.

In the past, there had been multiple occasions when the duty disciples were told to help out during the process, and the process ended as a failure.

Many a times, the visiting disciples ended up blaming the duty disciples for the mistakes and asking them to compensate for the lost materials, causing their relationship to sour.

That was the main reason why the Forge implemented such a rule, to put an end to such matters once and for all.

Then again, even if there was no such rule in place, Zhao Yunxiao would not step in to help Tian Mingre anyway.

While he could see that things were not going as planned, it was not like he was confident of fixing it.

In fact, he was pretty sure that as an inner disciple, Tian Mingre could see the mistakes just as well as he did!

If even Tian Mingre could not fix it despite having noticed the errors, what could an outer disciple like him ever do to help?

Before long, the smithing process ended, and Tian Mingre lifted the resulting sword with a bitter smile. “Haha, seems like the outcome is not that good this time... how embarrassing!”

Strictly speaking, he still managed to forge a treasure sword in the end, so it could not be considered a failure.

However, the completed sword was only of common quality, which certainly did not match up to Tian Mingre’s initial expectations.

That was still a failure in his eyes.

“Perhaps Senior Martial Brother Tian is a little tired today. Going by your usual standard, the result would definitely have been better,” Zhao Yunxiao said.

“Haha, perhaps you are right. I do feel a little tired after spending too much energy on recent activities,” Tian Mingre agreed hesitantly. “Perhaps I should have waited to recover before coming.”

“I did learn a lot from Senior Martial Brother Tian today though. For that I am grateful,” Zhao Yunxiao clasped his fists towards Tian Mingre in gratitude.

“Right... that’s all that matters,” Tian Mingre nodded in satisfaction. “As long as you managed to benefit just a little, this is not a completely wasted trip. Well then, I shall take my leave now that I am done here. Can I trouble you to clean up here?”

“Don’t worry, that’s my job after all,” Zhao Yunxiao nodded. “Farewell, Senior Martial Brother Tian.”

Now that his work here was done, Tian Mingre promptly left the Forge while Zhao Yunxiao remained to clean up the used furnace room.

Unlike the last time he was here, this was a busy shift at the Forge.

With the sheer number of appointments lined up, Zhao Yunxiao barely had any time to clean up after the completion of each session.

Thankfully, Tian Mingre was generous enough to share his insights about the art of smithing, which allowed Zhao Yunxiao to learn on the job.

It was times like this that made him feel that all the hard work was well worth the effort!

Unfortunately, people like Tian Mingre were still a small minority.

Most of the time, disciples preferred to safeguard their own secrets and know-hows.

After all, it was definitely easier to shine when they had the ability to do things that no other disciples could accomplish!

As he cleaned, Zhao Yunxiao continued to think about what Tian Mingre had said previously, comparing it against what happened in reality to determine the reasons for the failure.

At the same time, he also compared it against what he had learnt previously, be it from manuals or from other senior martial disciples.

Just like that, Zhao Yunxiao ran countless mental simulations on what could be improved and changed, repeating the process over and over as he tried his best to come up with a way to prevent such a thing from ever happening to him in the future.

Zhao Yunxiao’s speed of cleaning naturally slowed down as his mind was preoccupied.

By the time he finished preparing the room for the next session, he did not have much time to rest before light knocking came from outside the door.

“Please come in,” Zhao Yunxiao called out while opening the door.

But when the door opened, Zhao Yunxiao could not help but feel surprised.

“Senior Martial Brother Nie? This...!” Zhao Yunxiao blinked blankly as he saw a familiar face at the door.

It was Nie Hanchang, the same person who had managed to excavate a relatively large amount of grimiron ore from Yellowshell Mine a few days ago.

Zhao Yunxiao was still wondering what happened to the ore over the past few days since it did not appear on the market, but now he finally knew where it was.

Nie Hanchang had a cart by his side, on which the same large piece of grimiron ore was placed.

So he had been keeping it with him these few days...

“Greetings, Junior Martial Brother Zhao. May I enter?” Nie Hanchang asked.

“Sure,” Zhao Yunxiao quickly stepped aside to allow Nie Hanchang through the door.

Nie Hanchang nervously pushed his piece of grimiron ore in. “I guess you will be helping me with the furnace fire?”

“Yes...” Zhao Yunxiao felt the corner of his lips twitch. “Is this Senior Martial Brother Nie’s first time at the Forge?”

“That’s right...” Nie Hanchang said awkwardly. “I will be relying on Junior Martial Brother Zhao for your guidance then.”

“It’s my job, so I will naturally help. But are you sure about this, Senior Martial Brother Nie?” Zhao Yunxiao could not help but ask. “From the looks of it, are you intending to use the grimiron ore for today’s smithing?”

The rare quality grimiron ore in his possession was exceedingly rare, but he was going to use it on his first attempt at smithing?

“That’s right,” Nie Hanchang nodded. “I am here to use the grimiron ore to forge a bow!”

Speaking of this, Zhao Yunxiao could feel Nie Hanchang’s nervousness dispelling, replaced by a strong sense of determination.

Zhao Yunxiao might not be very close to Nie Hanchang, but he had still heard a thing or two about the latter.

Since young, Nie Hanchang had always been wholeheartedly pursuing the path of the bow and arrow as his main weapon of choice.

Even when everyone advised him to abandon the bow and arrow to adopt more generic weapons so that he could receive better advice from his seniors, Nie Hanchang refused to do so, choosing to walk the difficult path instead.

It had not been bringing him particularly great results, but Nie Hanchang continued to insist on his ways with a zealous passion.

Therefore, Zhao Yunxiao was not at all surprised that Nie Hanchang had decided to use this grimiron ore to forge a bow.

And since this was about forging a bow, it was no wonder that he was exhibiting the same level of determination as when he normally did when talking about the bow and arrow.

“Is that so?” Zhao Yunxiao sighed inwardly after seeing that Nie Hanchang seemed firm on his decision. “All right then. Rest assured, I will definitely do my best to support you well. I wish you success!”

“Thank you, Junior Martial Brother Zhao. Let’s start forging this then!” Nie Hanchang felt encouraged by Zhao Yunxiao’s words.

“What would you like the temperature to be?” Zhao Yunxiao asked.

“What should it be to soften the grimiron?” Nie Hanchang asked in return.

“You want to soften the grimiron? Now?” Zhao Yunxiao blinked in confusion.

“Isn’t that how you forge metal?” Nie Hanchang was confused by Zhao Yunxiao’s question.

“Shouldn’t you be starting with smelting down the ore to retrieve the actual metal component?” Zhao Yunxiao asked.

“Oh. Is that how it’s done?” Nie Hanchang revealed a look of surprise. “How do we go about doing this?”

Zhao Yunxiao: “...”

Do you have any idea at all about what you are doing?

“It’s not that I want to say this, Senior Martial Brother Nie. I know you are determined, but you don’t seem prepared for this at all,” Zhao Yunxiao said with a sigh. “Instead of wasting your time and this precious piece of grimiron ore, why don’t you go back and research a bit more first? In fact, I would choose to sell the ore if I were you. That way, you can simply buy a bow with the sect points that you get from the sale. Isn’t that a more reliable method? There’s really no need to forge the bow yourself, is there?”

In reality, it did not matter to Zhao Yunxiao what others decide to do with their time and resources.

After all, it was not as though he would be penalised as a duty disciple simply because the visiting disciple failed the smithing process.

If not because he could relate to Nie Hanchang, Zhao Yunxiao would not have bothered with saying all these and risk offending the other party.

Just like Zhao Yunxiao, Nie Hanchang was an outer disciple who had been in the sect for many years.

Over the years, Zhao Yunxiao could still see and relate to the struggles that Nie Hanchang had gone through, as well as the effort that he had to put into improving himself.

And because of this, he especially could not bear to see Nie Hanchang waste away what could be considered a miraculous jackpot in the form of the rare quality grimiron ore!

He would have nothing to say if Nie Hanchang had made the necessary preparations for this.

But now, it was clear that Nie Hanchang was completely unprepared!

Yes, Nie Hanchang’s determination was surely there.

However, determination was only a good thing when used in the right manner.

Otherwise, it was nothing but a poisonous thought that could lead one straight down the path of destruction!

But even after hearing what Zhao Yunxiao said, Nie Hanchang calmly shook his head in response.