Ch187 – Malicious Scheme in the Dark
Bai Susu was extremely fearful of Bai Yichen, so she didn’t dare to say anything more as soon as she heard his name.
Bai Honghu also remained silent. Although reforging wasn’t his strength, as a member of the Bai family, and especially a member of the more valued portion, he had naturally practiced reforging before, so he could still compete with the others.
Moreover–
Attack weapons that required reforging were more prone to causing uncontrollable and unpredictable accidents in the crafting process. Even if someone was accidentally injured or killed, it wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary.
Since the remaining six Bai family craftsmen onstage didn’t put forth any opinions, the others would naturally not say much either. The majority of craftsmen looked to the Bai family as the authority on crafting.
Huangfu Jin secretly thought that this Bai family’s young master, who rarely ever made an appearance, indeed held an extraordinary and supreme position within the Bai family. He gave out a competition topic so difficult that even a layman like Huangfu Jin felt that this was too inconceivable, yet these Bai family craftsmen actually didn’t even dare to make a single objection.
He clicked his tongue in admiration. Someday, when he had time, he would go to this Bai family’s young master to ask for some advice on releasing such a sovereign and imposing aura without even needing to be angry.
Huangfu Jin deliberately spoke to Lin Xuanzhi, “If Craftsmen Lin has any opinions, let’s hear them.”
Lin Xuanzhi thought in his heart, the content of this competition was obviously determined already, so there’s no way anything would be changed just because of a single disagreement from him. Clearly, Huangfu Jin still has a bone to pick with him.
So Lin Xuanzhi calmly replied, “I have only one question.”
“Let’s hear it.” Huangfu Jin’s eyes twinkled slightly. He waited for Lin Xuanzhi to express his dissatisfaction so that Huangfu Jin could grab onto that opening and mercilessly slap his face with it–
These days, he didn’t know whether Leng Jixue had fallen under an enchantment or some other form of possession, but he unexpectedly brought up Lin Xuanzhi’s name multiple times without rhyme or reason, which infuriated Huangfu Jin so much that his lungs were about to burst from anger.
Lin Xuanzhi didn’t express any dissatisfaction, as if he had seen through Huangfu Jin, and instead asked, “I want to know — if these broken treasures are completely destroyed in our hands, will we have to provide compensation?”
Huangfu Jin, “…”
Huangfu Jin glared at Lin Xuanzhi as the corners of his lips twitched, “Of course not. The Huangfu family has not yet reached the point where we can’t even afford to part with these few items.”
It seemed that these treasures, which were close to becoming complete trash, were sponsored by the Huangfu family.
“Then what if they were successfully reforged?” Lin Xuanzhi continued to ask, “Would the items belong to us, or to the Huangfu family?”
Huangfu Jin stood with both his hands clasped behind his back and looked askance at Lin Xuanzhi as he spoke with some disdain, “As I said, the Huangfu family hasn’t yet reached the point where we can’t even afford to part with these few items.”
Lin Xuanzhi turned a blind eye to it, as if he hadn’t seen Huangfu Jin’s contempt and the laughter coming from the audience below. He nodded, “In that case, I can rest assured.”
Huangfu Jin’s eyelids twitched — rest assured? What are you rest assured about? How come I suddenly don’t feel assured?!
Regardless of whether Huangfu Jin felt assured or not, Lin Xuanzhi had already thrown out the forged stones he prepared in advance when the hourglass began to count down, simultaneously using his soul force to lift up the broken longsword and starting to form his hand seals…
Huangfu Jin wanted to rush over and take back the broken sword, but his reasoning was still there. He fought back the strong urge and took a deep breath to calm down.
Like hell he could calm down!
He’s probably the most nervous person on the stage right now.
Not one of, but the most.
Baili Yunshan was so agitated that he scratched at his head. He had never done anything like this before and couldn’t find anything even after probing with his soul force.
Ordinary mortals’ swords and spears could be forged by hammering away at the metal, but cultivators’ treasures required vigorous refinement by soul force and various exquisite craftsmanship techniques in order to be crafted.
Baili Yunshan tried again and again, but when this treasure with only a broken section of bamboo strip released a “kaka-bang” sound, it finally completely turned into a pile of gray ash and wasted materials, and only then did Baili Yunshan stop as he scratched his head and guiltily touched his nose.
Baili Yunshan subconsciously glanced down towards the audience.
Only to see his Dage looking at him with a smile and subtly nodding his head in praise.
Baili Yunshan suddenly seemed as though he had been shot full of chicken blood and proudly raised his head–
Wasn’t it just a treasure that had already been broken? If it’s destroyed, then just let it be destroyed. In any case, his family didn’t hold any high expectations of him anyways.
Baili Yunshan turned to study Lin Xuanzhi beside him with this thought in mind.
For Lin Xuanzhi, reforging wasn’t difficult at all.
In his past life, in order to successfully repair the Revert World Mirror that had been broken and unrepaired for innumerable years, he had practiced reforging on countless broken treasures.
It could be said that in the dull thousand years of his past life, he had crafted very few treasures himself, but he had reforged and repaired a higher number of treasures.
The rules of this round coincidentally suited his strengths perfectly.
Lin Xuanzhi deftly held the forged engraving pen as he picked out those fine slivers of spiritual and soul force little by little and covered the materials necessary for repair with them. He then drew, piece by piece, the materials that had been refined into liquid over to the places where the longsword was nicked and used his soul force to press it into a solid state.
The small cracks and nicks were considered repaired and looked completely intact from the outside.
The forged stones continued to emit spiritual qi.
After he repaired the details, Lin Xuanzhi began to repair the biggest problem with this longsword — the sword body that had completely broken into two pieces.
For this kind of attack weapon that had already completely broken into two parts, Lin Xuanzhi preferred to melt the entire sword down before crafting it again. However, his current conditions inevitably didn’t allow for the sword to be melted down. Therefore, Lin Xuanzhi could only step back and settle for the second-best method. He directly picked up a piece of the exact same material used for the body of the sword and started to refine it.
Baili Yunshan watched with keen interest and couldn’t help but wonder, “Why not use a kind of tree resin? Tree resin has the strongest adhesive force.”
Interrupting a craftsman in the middle of crafting was the most taboo mistake. As such, both the people onstage and off-stage maintained absolute silence.
So, when Baili Yunshan opened his mouth, it appeared a little abrupt. He also realized what he had done and immediately stuck his tongue out in guilt, then closed his mouth.
But who knew that Lin Xuanzhi didn’t mind at all and even opened his mouth to reply.
“Even though tree resin has good adhesion, it’s better to not use it on attack items, especially on this kind of slender and long weapon.” Lin Xuanzhi’s clear voice contained a touch of gentleness as he continued pleasantly, “First, it’s easy to have a situation where the materials are uneven. As for the second…”
“How about the second reason?” Baili Yunshan asked longingly.
Others also perked up their ears in anticipation.
“Hehe…” Lin Xuanzhi smiled, “Secondly, don’t you think that after the tree resin is refined into it, the circle of white marks it leaves behind looks particularly ugly?”
Baili Yunshan, “…..”
I’m speechless.
The spectators fell down as well. This was the first time they heard this kind of reasoning.
Bai Honghu sat opposite Lin Xuanzhi. As he was refining, he opened his eyes and looked at Lin Xuanzhi, who was talking and laughing with Baili Yunshan. A defiant impulse that wanted to knock Lin Xuanzhi down the stage suddenly arose within his heart.
This person was too good at finding opportunities to show off. It looked like he wasn’t fazed at all by the topic of reforging treasures. If he allowed this development to continue, then he was afraid that the Bai family would lose a lot of face this time.
Bai Honghu couldn’t sit still anymore.
Out of all the Bai family disciples with actual strength, only he alone participated in this Hundred Families Gathering. As for the others, including Bai Susu, although they looked like strong craftsmen in the eyes of outsiders, Bai Honghu knew that their strength within the Bai family was third-class at most.
The Bai family felt that it was beneath their dignity to participate in the Hundred Families Gathering, which seemed as if they were merely babysitting the other families, but they also needed to take advantage of this opportunity to show off the Bai family’s strength, so they always had to send several people onstage.
In the past hundred years, the Bai family had always been the indubitable and well-deserved champion in this kind of competition among craftsmen and they could even throw the others off by a large distance.
However, Bai Honghu had a feeling that today, the glory of the Bai family was about to become a relic of the past.
Bai Honghu gritted his teeth as his heart sank in determination.
No matter whether he was thinking with emotions or logic, and no matter what means he used, he absolutely couldn’t let his name go down in history as the sinner who lost the Bai family’s glory.
Therefore, Bai Honghu thought of a sinister move.
When crafting, it was easy for situations where the soul force or spiritual qi couldn’t be properly withdrawn or controlled to occur, which could cause the magic treasure being refined to suddenly fly towards other directions. In these situations, accidental injuries or property damage were very likely.
Bai Honghu opened his eyes and signaled with his eyes to a younger Bai family pupil, who was diagonally opposite of him and on Lin Xuanzhi’s other side.
The younger Bai family disciple immediately understood and subtly nodded to Bai Honghu.
Rest assured, Bai Honghu closed his eyes again and once again focused all of his attention on reconnecting the pieces of his weapon.
Boundless soul force was poured into the broken knife with great momentum.
In the process of crafting, the knife possessed a certain degree of tolerance for the boundlessly-amplified soul force, but the knife in Bai Honghu’s hands was only a mid-grade magic tool, so it had less tolerance for soul force.
As long as there is no Lin Xuanzhi, he will probably be the only one in this competition who can successfully reforge an attack weapon.
Bai Honghu waited for his accomplice to take action.
Some craftsmen were grimacing with long faces while scratching at their heads in an attempt to reforge.
Some craftsmen were carefully repairing the damaged spots.
And there were also some who actually closed their eyes and sensed with their soul force as they used the repair materials to patch up the damage bit by bit.
All of a sudden, they heard the sound of a terrible explosion, and dozens of forged stones with a broken knife that had yet to lose its sharpness mixed in spun in the air and unexpectedly flew directly towards Lin Xuanzhi’s head, swept along by gales sharp enough to sever the air.
“Ah–!” someone cried out in alarm.
Lin Xuanzhi was currently in a state of extreme meditation and had already released his soul force to the maximum. If he was interrupted at this time, he wouldn’t be able to withdraw his internal soulfire and restrain his soul force, which could very likely cause a terrible backlash to him!
And this wasn’t even the most worrying–
When a craftsmen wholeheartedly devotes himself to refining, he will be entirely unaware of his surroundings. There had once been rumors of a craftsman who was crafting in the mountains, year after year. When he finally succeeded in refining a great treasure and laughed hysterically as he came out of the mountain, he discovered that the blue sea had transformed into mulberry fields several times over.
Bai Honghu looked at the scene opposite of him and couldn’t help but curl up his lips. He waited for Lin Xuanzhi to suffer a backlash from his soul force or for his head to be cut off.
However, something that no one expected happened.
Lin Xuanzhi, who originally had both his eyes closed, suddenly opened them, as if he had sensed something. His clear and penetrating eyes, which seemed to see through the true situation, was cold-hearted and merciless, resembling a pool of stagnant water without any fluctuations. His eyes contained an eerie chilliness within them, which made those who gazed into them feel the frigid cold.
Originally, his left hand was making hand seals while his right hand held the forged engraving pen, tracing the fractured location.
Within the span of milliseconds, Lin Xuanzhi’s right hand released the forged engraving pen, and his left hand began to make hand seals after that. With his right hand, he grabbed a handful of forged stones scattered about beside him and, without looking sideways, abruptly threw them with his soul force. The seven or eight forged stones seemed as though they had eyes of their own as they whizzed towards the broken knife’s direction simultaneously.
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