Instead of entering the large building after defeating the Lords guarding it, they merely collected the corpses before moving onward to attack and kill the other two groups.
Only one of the two groups was resting while the other group was guarding a small smithy. Interestingly enough, the sound of something heavy hammering on metal rang out from the smithy. It attracted Michael’s attention and he decided to enter the old, abandoned smithy once all enemies had been taken care of.
It was already extremely hot in the open, but the temperature in the abandoned smithy was even higher. A blazing flame filled the forge, while a heavy-looking hammer and tongs moved through the air magically. The tongs and the heavy hammer were moving on their own, forging a sword.
“What is that?” Michael could only ask aloud, not sure what to think about the magically moving hammer, tongs and the other tools that seemed to be busy at work.
He was fully aware of the forging process a blacksmith had to use to forge a high-quality armament, yet the forging technique used by the magical tools seemed to be on a completely different level. At the first glance, it looked weird and nonsensical, but his initial assumptions changed upon realizing that the final result was much better than expected. 𝒏𝒐𝗏ℯ𝓵𝐍𝗲xt.𝗇𝓔t
It didn’t require an expert to tell that the sword forged by the magical tools was of extremely high quality despite the low-grade materials that had been used to forge it.
Somehow, Michael and the others ended up spending several hours watching the magical tools moving and hammering the searing hot piece of metal as it slowly shaped into a fearsome sword.
The process of shaping the sword was completed quite quickly, and with great precision. It was quenched, and properly treated before the magical tools sharpened it. At the end of the forging process, the sword was moved to a small barrel where more than ten of such swords had already been stored.
“Were the Lords waiting for this?” Tiara asked, not sure if the weapons were worth the Lords’ time.
She knew that the forging process had been exceptional, but that didn’t mean they were worth the wait. Tiara thus approached the barrel and picked up one of the swords. She swung it around, channeled origin energy inside it and tested out a few things, only to freeze in her tracks at last.
“Forget about my doubts. This is crazy,” Tiara exclaimed, handing the sword to Michael before picking up another one which she handed to Masked Saber.
Michael wielded the longsword carefully. He was not a weapon-expert but he had some knowledge about weapons.
The blade was double-edged and perfectly sharpened. Meanwhile, the entire blade was balanced to a near perfect degree. It would be quite difficult for master blacksmiths to create a sword like this – in such a short time at that.
The Magical Smithy required only six hours to complete one of those swords, and they were all of the same quality. The material used wasn’t the best, but the forging technique used by the Magical Smithy was quite extraordinary.
“If the blacksmiths in our territory could learn how to create such exceptional armaments, we would be able to upgrade the military’s equipment by leaps and bounds!” Masked Saber uttered in surprise as he felt a burst of strength passing through his body when he channeled origin energy into the blade.
Michael did the same and realized another perk of the blade, “Why does it feel like this sword enhances my physical strength and agility as much as a natural 3-Star Tier-1 Weapon Artifact would?”
Masked Saber’s gaze flicked over to Michael when he heard what his Lord said, “…because that’s exactly what it is… This sword. No… these swords are like Natural 3-Star Tier-1 Artifacts, even though they’re not Artifacts. Everyone can wield them.”
Michael’s heart skipped a beat hearing Masked Saber’s word.
If they could mass-produce these armaments and distribute them to his army, nobody at the same rank would be able to defeat them even in a one-on-one battle. Their opponents would definitely lose in terms of strength and agility, providing a significant advantage to their people.
“But I don’t think that we can accelerate the forging process any further. The Magical Smithy needs exactly six hours to complete one sword. That means we’ll end up with less than 20 finished products until the Lord Rift closes…” Tiara mumbled, looking over to Michael as if he had an answer to all the problems.
“Let me test something first before I accidentally break this masterpiece,” Michael said, approaching the Magical Smithy while retrieving some of the remarkable ores he had extracted from the mountain range not too long ago.
He wanted to see if the Magical Smithy could use other ores to produce a sword using a different type of ore. However, he didn’t know how to access the configurations of the Magical Smithy – if something like that existed in the first place.
At first, Michael simply stood there, holding the ores out thinking that the Magical Smithy might be able to detect better ores. But that didn’t work out as he expected.
He then moved to the small crate where a bunch of Silverstream iron ores were piled up. Silverstream iron ore was a somewhat rare Tier-1 ore with great energy conductivity. The energy veins inside it were extremely strong even though they were highly susceptible to getting damaged in the forging process.
Michael stored the Silverstream iron ore inside his spatial pouch before putting the ores in his hand down onto the crate.
He expected the Magical Smithy to pick up the ores, but instead it seemed to stop working.
“Does it not work with other ores?” Michael wondered, feeling slightly disappointed. He had hoped to be able to forge better Artifact-like armaments even if it was just for Masked Saber to use.
His disappointment was clearly visible on his face, but before he could turn gloomy something from the corner of his eye attracted his attention.
The blazing flame inside the forge was flickering, seemingly trying to pull his attention toward it.
“Maybe…” Michael mused, picking up the ores in the crate before throwing them inside the searing hot forge. The blazing flames inside the forge exploded into a small cloud of fire and felt restlessly alive.
In response, the tools of the Magical Smithy began to move once again.
“Great. It’s working with other ores as well,” Michael said, subconsciously nodding in satisfaction.
Afterward, he folded his hands on his chest to intently watch the reduction process of the ore and how the ingot was processed. When the impurities within the ingot were removed by the heavy hammer using a special forging technique, Michael stepped forward. He used Extraction and removed most of the impurities to hasten up the forging process.
After that, Michael chose to wait a little bit until he turned around to Masked Saber and Tiara.
“Let’s take a look at the other building the Lords were guarding. It looked like a library, but it doesn’t make sense for someone to guard it if they cannot just plunder everything. There must be something similar to the Magical Smithy,” Michael said, only for Tiara to tilt her head.
“What about the Magical Smithy then? And don’t you want to extract the corpses of the Lords and Awakened first, Master?” She asked, feeling that it was not safe to leave the Magical Smithy alone.
However, Michael was not too worried.
He retrieved the corpses of their enemies and extracted them quickly. They didn’t provide much additional loot from the Lord Rift since they had been guarding the Magical Smithy and the other large building, but Michael still made great gains, including his wealth by 1195 SoulStar Fragments – after he dismembered the Soultrait Symbols he had just extracted.
Upon adding the SoulStar Fragments, Michael had more than enough accumulated to upgrade a 4-Star Soultrait to a 5-Star Soultrait.
The only question was which Soultrait he should upgrade.
He could upgrade Spirit Whip once to see how strong the Soultrait would grow, or he could directly divert his focus to the other Soultraits.
‘What is the Soultrait I’m using the most? It’s clearly Enhancement. I use it in every battle to enhance my Artifacts’ sharpness, durability, and their external enhancement. Then I use it on my Soultraits and my body as well. I should really upgrade it,’ Michael concluded quickly, ignoring Spirit Whip, Glacicle and his other Soultraits.
They might be great for combat, but Enhancement could even be used on Extraction to increase the extraction efficiency outside the battle.
There was no need to think about it any longer. He spent 3,000 SoulStar Fragments without hesitation, manifesting a fifth star on the Symbol of Enhancement.
Streams of information entered Michael’s mind slowly as he upgraded Enhancement, giving him a more profound understanding of Enhancement and the changes after it had been upgraded to a 5-Star Soultrait.
“The first two layers of Enhancement are extremely cheap to apply, and the enhancement percentage increased from a third to a whopping 50%. That’s pretty crazy. If I use two or three layers of Enhancement on my 4-Star Soultraits, their power will be comparable to 5-Star Soultraits!”
Michael was not sure to what extent he could upgrade Enhancement, but it was definitely an extremely powerful Soultrait. He couldn’t even fathom how powerful it would become upon upgrading it to a 6-Star Soultrait.
In comparison, the upgrade of Soultraits like Taming lacked in comparison. Michael didn’t feel such a drastic difference after upgrading Taming from 4-Star to 5-Star. Of course, that might also be the case because he rarely used Taming.
If he used Taming a little bit more, the Soultrait’s charm would probably be more apparent. Michael was certain about that.
‘It’s not like I’m in a rush to upgrade my other Soultraits. Let’s focus on the here and now,’ He told himself, diverting his attention back to the others.
“We can leave the Magical Smithy as it is. I doubt anyone can take it from us,” Michael said, waving his hand lightly before he added, “Even if someone does, we can just snatch it back forcefully!”