bestfiction Chapter 405
Chapter 405
Zhong Ming submitted a report. He had no choice; as someone whose duty was to guard the warehouse, going out to investigate a blacksmith was simply too much to handle...
While everyone was on edge, Zhong Ming swaggered out of the camp.
Everything in Cliff City remained orderly. The destruction of the Zhou family, the explosion of the artillery battalion... these were all topics of conversation among the people. Faced with the sheer size of this city, even the biggest events would eventually be overshadowed by the towering buildings and the everyday atmosphere of the city.
At the most dangerous moment for Cliff City, half of the city was engulfed in war. On the front lines, swords flashed and thunder roared. Medical and combat teams were running around everywhere. Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, inns remained open as usual, and taverns continued to be filled with customers.
This place is so vast that what Zhong Ming is about to do is just a trivial matter, something that may have nothing to do with the 134th Artillery Battalion. Perhaps a merchant guild asked him to forge something, which delayed him, or perhaps the auction house next door is going to auction his masterpiece and invited him to attend a long auction. Or perhaps he forgot the time when he went out to "cultivate with someone".
In short, Zhong Ming will pay a visit as a guest.
He walked up to the blacksmith's building. Unlike ordinary wooden structures, this building looked like it was made of obsidian. Underneath its dark exterior, terrifying heat was accumulating. As soon as Zhong Ming got closer, he felt waves of heat rushing towards him.
Unlike the previous places where you asked others to forge scale armor, this place is only accessible to truly "wealthy" blacksmiths. Legend has it that this was once the end of a great war.
In the ancient past, a powerful being with unparalleled cultivation mastered a destructive and powerful strange fire. This fire was born of nature and nurtured by the heavens, a treasure that was close to the self-evolving Dao of the heavens, and eventually gave birth to intelligence.
Like some stone spirits and tree spirits, this fire-born intelligence gradually gained enlightenment over countless years, eventually becoming capable of communication.
That great being did not tame it, obliterate it, or refine it.
He married it.
He kept his promise and stayed with her through thick and thin.
In the end, he and its soul perished in that great battle.
The victors were surprised to find that this powerful flame, which had lost its intelligence, had become extremely volatile. Even with powerful beings of similarly peak cultivation suppressing it, they were still unable to refine it. In fact, several cultivators were even devoured by the flame during the refining process.
Through repeated attempts, they discovered that using his corpse as a shield would prevent it from attacking again.
From then on, this physical body became a treasure to suppress it, and people built this obsidian fortress here.
Too much time has passed, and the originally powerful source of flames has been exhausted in the repeated use of fire to refine weapons and pills. It has gradually become unable to meet the requirements of Nascent Soul and Spirit Transformation cultivators. Now it is just a low-level weapon refining center with Golden Core cultivators in charge and Foundation Establishment cultivators as the main group.
However, they should not be underestimated. Although they are only a "battalion-level" casting group, they actually hold a very high position in the Flame Wolf Army, and almost no one will bother them.
Unlike others, all new recruits with forging talent are first-choice members of the Flame Wolf Army and the Golden Wolf Army. The forgers here are the best among the seven wolf armies. There are quite a few geniuses here, but their talents are not in combat.
Zhong Ming waited a long time before he was finally "summoned," like an emperor summoning a lowly foreign envoy in his spare time, which lowered Zhong Ming's opinion of him.
Walking through the fortress's corridors, the heat intensified, not like the scorching heat of the blazing sun, but more like a stifling heat. Even though the temperature wasn't too high, it was difficult to breathe and sweat poured down my face.
A waiter led him there, and his magnificent armor seemed less like an "ornament to please the guest" and more like a display of the blacksmith's skill.
"It's right here, you can just go in."
He did everything he could, including ringing the doorbell.
Zhong Ming took a deep breath, pushed open the stone door, and stepped inside.
An indescribable metallic smell wafted over, mixed with a strange herbal scent, like the smell of straw and corpses rotting together under prisoners in a jail.
"Hello." The man was dressed in a black robe and wore a bone-white mask. He was curled up on a dark floor. The black robe covered his entire body, making it impossible to tell whether he was sitting or squatting.
Zhong Ming bowed to him and said, "Master Cuihong of the guard team, please have Master Heli forge a magic weapon for me."
"A magical artifact? Hmm, a top-grade magical artifact?"
He sized up Zhong Ming. As a Foundation Establishment stage weapon refiner, he could naturally tell that the man in front of him had already reached the late Qi Refining stage. Under normal circumstances, he would either be earning military merit points for Foundation Establishment Pills or risking his entire fortune to refine a spiritual weapon first, so that it wouldn't be useless after just a few days when his cultivation level broke down.
"Yes, a magical artifact. I have some connection with a grandmaster brewer and want to craft a wine gourd, or any other type, as long as it can be carried on my person and can hold spiritual wine."
He pondered for a moment, and Zhong Ming took the opportunity to observe him carefully. Just now, he could not tell whether the man was male or female, or whether the man was young or old. He must have used a minor spell to conceal his voice. He could only make a judgment from the tone of his voice.
The bone-white mask moved slightly. "What kind of wine is it? Different wines have very different storage requirements, I think you should know that."
“Yes, but I believe in another path.” Zhong Ming smiled slightly. “As long as the spiritual energy is rich enough, storage conditions can be ignored.”
The other person almost couldn't hold back, and immediately came to the conclusion that this was an amateur, a country bumpkin.
Zhong Ming laid out five spirit stones, which the man glanced at casually and said, "Five mid-grade spirit stones as a deposit is a bit too little."
"No, what I mean is that this magical artifact is best powered by spirit stones. By inserting spirit stones of different attributes, different effects can be produced to maintain the environment needed for the wine."
"That would require five sets of spirit runes, five times the price."
Zhong Ming shook his head. "Fellow Daoist is joking. Even if some people can only use inferior methods to stack five sets of spirit patterns to make it, they only need one set of materials. How could it cost five times the price?"
"You've really annoyed me, so I've decided to raise prices."
Before Zhong Ming could reply, he added, "I won't pay back the money if we meet."
Zhong Ming continued to smile at him, "What are your ideas?"
The man glanced at the strange fellow in front of him with surprise, and suddenly had a feeling.
'Could this guy be a competitor trying to find out what's going on?'
"My ideas? They're valuable too."