Chapter One Hundred and Sixty One Forging the Sword Billet
The Stalagmite Fire suddenly grew as though oil had been poured on the fire. The flame jumped in height, the presence increasing along with it.
Zuo Mo couldn’t help but become nervous. The most important moment had come.
The large Stalagmite Fire spat like a furious beast, the cold and explosive presence spreading into the surroundings. Even Zuo Mo’s channels were affected, feeling like they were pierced by needles.
Su hurriedly took back her ling power. At this time, her ling power was unable to help Zuo Mo, and would only distract him.
She opened her eyes and saw Zuo Mo trembling as he sat in front of her. His forehead was covered in a layer of frost.
Such a powerful cold fire!
Su was shocked inside. She stared nervously at Zuo Mo. If the merging this time failed, then there definitely wouldn’t be any forging of her sword billet.
Zuo Mo’s heart was in the air. He had done what he could do. The rest was up to fate.
As time passed, the restless Stalagmite Fire slowly quieted. The flame continued to shrink down and finally stabilized.
The new Stalagmite Fire had formed!
The present Stalagmite Fire was completely different compared to before. First, the size was about one third larger than before. The biggest difference was the past Stalagmite Fire had been milky white but the present Stalagmite Fire was surprisingly divided into three levels.
The outermost layer was the same milky white flame as before, and the middle was a dark red flame. What surprised Zuo Mo the most was the black fire in the very center. Even though it was just a thread, it was still easily detectable. The three levels were clearly divided.
The white flame was the Stalagmite Fire, the deep red flame was the Lava Earth Fire processed from the Intense Fire Dan, then what was the thread of black fire? Zuo Mo was slightly curious.
After investigating, he finally understood. This extremely thin strand of black fire was actually the toxin which had infected the flame when he had processed the Inky Black Lotus seed last time! If it wasn’t for the abnormal change this time, he wouldn’t have detected that his fire seed contained such a powerful toxin. What he hadn’t even thought about was that toxins could turn into flames!
The new flame was very different from the past Stalagmite Fire and it felt different to control.
The cold and yin energy had greatly decreased but the shift between ice and fire was more easy to accomplish. What Zuo Mo did not understand at all was how the thread of black fire could be used. In this three leveled fire, the Stalagmite Fire was of the lowest grade, then it was the Lava Earth Fire. The highest grade was this black fire which Zuo Mo knew nothing about. Upon further thought, Zuo Mo felt it was normal. This thread of black fire was received through processing the fourth-grade Inky Black Lotus Seed. That was fourth-grade!
The Stalagmite Fire was just a second-grade fire seed.
He didn’t hurry, slowly exploring the new flame. This was a completely new flame. Even the [Yin Fire Bead Chapter] did not describe this kind of flame. This meant that Zuo Mo could only explore and understand on his own.
Being deep in his investigation of the new flame, Zuo Mo forgot the passage of time.
Su noticed Zuo Mo’s body had resumed normal. The frost on his forehead had disappeared. She released a breath. Seeing that Zuo Mo seemed to be in meditation, she didn’t hurry him, sitting down at the side to recover her ling power. She had waited so long, she didn’t care about a few more days.
———
Zuo Mo sat for three days.
When he opened his eyes again, other than exhaustion, there was a light that was unable to be disguised in his eyes.
Su’s heart relaxed.
After another day, Zuo Mo had recovered to his optimal state and was finally going to start forging the sword billet.
Zuo Mo did not allow Su to watch. If people watched, it was easy for the forger to be disturbed. He went into a seclusion room. The materials he needed had already been placed there. There was also a pile of jingshi for Zuo Mo to recover his ling power.
Zuo Mo snickered. He naturally would take the jingshi. Starting from now until he successfully forged the billet, he would stay inside the room. Su personally stood guard outside.
He took out a jade scroll. The jade scroll contained all the formations that needed to be carved onto each sword billet as well as the method to forge the sword billet. There was nothing exceptional about the forging method. Zuo Mo only needed to glance through it to understand the process.
His mind was quickly attracted to the four kinds of formations.
These were four kinds of formations he had never seen before. Just this was enough for him to be full of interest. To allow the forger to be able to successfully finish the forging, the jade scroll had extremely detailed descriptions of the four formations.
After he finished, Zuo Mo couldn’t help but inhale sharply.
A fourth-grade formation!
Four kinds of completely different fourth-grade formations!
Now he understood why Su hadn’t managed to find someone to forge the sword billet until now. Each sword billet needed to have a fourth-grade formation carved onto it. Four sword billets, four completely different kinds of fourth-grade formations.
Also … … there was a strange connection between these four formations.
Zuo Mo had thought that he had properly prepared, found that the difficulty in forging the sword billets was much higher than he had predicted. It was much much higher!
He helplessly shook his head. He really was going to take a loss on this job! This difficulty, he could have asked for a much higher price. Zuo Mo felt deep regret for having lost such a good opportunity, especially since he was now penniless.
His attention went back to the formations. The first step he needed to do was understand these four formations.
If he didn’t understand the formations, how could he carve the formations on the small sword billets?
If this was before the Sword Test Conference, he would have definitely patted his ass and left. Four kinds of completely different fourth-grade formations was definitely outside of his abilities. Zuo Mo had just upgraded his fire seed and bathed in the introductory formations of the jade scroll from Kun Lun, leaving his confidence at its peak.
He decided to challenge this difficult task!
According to the description on the jade scroll, he started to study the four types of formations. From this, it was possible to see how much help the Kun Lun jade scroll was to him! Having studied the Kun Lun jade scroll, Zuo Mo’s vision and understanding had gone up several levels.
Fourth-grade formations. Naturally, they had places that were profound and cryptic, especially when it was four completely different fourth-grade formations.
But Zuo Mo, in the span of five days, slowly managed to grasp the four kinds of formations bit by bit.
When the four kinds of formations appeared in front of him, his heart was filled with an indescribable feeling of accomplishment. All of his exhaustion washed away. His heart was so free he wanted to howl.
Zuo Mo did not use the double Four-Turn Fire formation that Lin Qian suggested. He planned to use this chance to try out his new fire seed.
In any case, it wasn’t his stuff, he thought heartlessly.
Zuo Mo put the four pieces of Cold Magnet in front of him. When he had cut the Cold Magnet last time, they were not of the same size. However, this was not a big problem for him.
Putting up a Ling Gathering Formation, he sat within the formation, the Five Colored Pagoda floating in front of him. The Five Colored Pagoda could greatly increase his abilities to control the five elements. Control of fire was naturally included.
He flipped his palm and the new fire seed appeared above the tip of the Five Colored Pagoda. Zuo Mo decided to name this new fire seed [Inky Lava White Fire]. Since no one had named it before, it was up to him.
A black center, deep red in the middle flame, and milky white on the outside.
The Inky Lava White Fire silently burned tamely without any of the explosiveness previous.
Zuo Mo’s eyes became serious. He threw the smallest piece of Cold Magnet into the Inky Lava White Fire.
His ling power started to flow towards the Inky Lava White Fire. The flame grew and wrapped around the Cold Magnet. The first step he needed to do was to use the flame to rid the Cold Magnet of any impurities it had. This was just a matter of large amounts of time. However, that did not include Zuo Mo. His consciousness was strong. He could easily detect where the impurities were in the cold magnet. This way, his efficiency was much higher.
He only spent one day to purify the piece of Cold Magnet.
In this time, what he needed to do was maintain a steady output of ling power. With the aid of the mo matrix and the Five Colored Pagoda, this laborious process was extremely easy.
Next was forging the Cold Magnet into the shape of a sword.
Zuo Mo took a deep breath and increased the amount of ling power he was channelling. The Inky Lava White Fire jumped up. In the seclusion room, cold and hot, two different presences, crashed together, and created explosions.
Inside the flame, the Cold Magnet slowly melted until it became a puddle of metal liquid.
What was strange was the metal liquid was not red but a strange black-blue that released a strong chilling presence.
Under the Inky Lava White Fire, the Five Colored Pagoda suddenly spun, faster and faster until it became a five colored shadow.
The metal liquid inside the fire seemed to be pulled by an invisible force and slowly changed shape.
Time passed and sweat appeared on Zuo Mo’s forehead. His breathing became panting, and he seemed to be under a great burden. However, under his control, the spinning of the Five Colored Pagoda did not slow, and still kept on increasing speed!
Inside the flame, the metal liquid slowly flowed until it was almost in the shape of a sword.
At this time, Zuo Mo finally had a chance to take a breather and rest. The Ling Gathering Formation around him had already been expended and turned to dust. He used the change to make another Ling Gathering Formation. The most important step was coming! Zuo Mo widened his eyes, not daring to relax.
The metal liquid slowly solidified. Suddenly, a bright blue appeared on the black-blue metal liquid.
Zuo Mo’s mind jumped. His hands bloomed like flowers, spell after spell were cast from his hands into the sword billet within the flames. The sword billet still did not change. Not good, the flame was not strong enough!
Zuo Mo gritted his teeth, channelling ling power again. The black flame at the very center of the Inky Lava White Flame was like a slender black tongue that licked the sword billet. At the same time, his hands moved again!
Light after light was cast into the flame.
The bright blue sword billet suddenly lit up. As the light of the spells landed on the sword billet, it was as though the light was clearly carved onto the surface of the sword billet.
Zuo Mo didn’t dare to pause. His eyes wide, all the ling power in his body moving, his hair standing on end. He was like a strong whirlpool. The ling power from the Ling Gathering Formation was pulled by an invisible force to flood towards him.
Large amounts of ling power flooded into his body. Even though there was the mo matrix, but Zuo Mo still felt pain.
At this time, he didn’t have the effort to call out in pain. The finger motions of his hands sped up again, the light of the spells continuously feeding into the sword billet.
Such fierce and extreme forging continued for six whole hours.
A stream of fresh blood silently streamed out of the corner of his mouth, snaking down.
The blurring fingers suddenly stopped in front of his body, the last spell accurately hitting the sword billet inside the flames.
Diiiiiiiing!
The sword billet gently hummed!
The light of the sword billet suddenly brightened and then dimmed until it disappeared.
A small black-blue sword billet silently floated in the air.
———
Ten days later.
Guarding outside the door, Su suddenly raised her head, joyous surprise on her face.
Translator Ramblings: The name is a mouthful, bu it is all Zuo Mo’ terrible naming sense.