Chapter 376: V5C53: Forge of Perfection

Even with her best attempts to get things done in time, she ended up leaving the district and travelling upon the disappearance of the sun from the sky, and so she arrived at the Ze District as the moon was only beginning to do the same.

At this moment, most of the people in the district sat within their homes, sleeping or cultivating, for there was little reason to be outside in the mostly dreary night of the Central Plains, and they had few resources to mine or extract within their domain. Some were up and working on various projects, or performing deeds that were frowned upon by the waking world, but they were in a significant minority, barely making up a small portion of the total population, making them irrelevant in the face of the whole.

As one might expect from the district of perfection, a place that had studied perfected stages far more so than any other, there were significantly more people there that had at least one perfected stage than the rest of Yi City as a whole. It was incredible if one wasn’t a cultivator whose every single stage was perfected, or if one compared it to the state of the Master of Yi City, who had certainly mastered a large number of perfected stages and might have even gotten a perfected realm.

Their techniques were specifically made with the intention of promoting perfected stages over all else, disregarding certain functions that cultivation methods of other districts had built into their very core. From her knowledge of this place, they did not place as much value on their perfected stage attainment as the people of the Wu District placed on their martial arts, but it was still considered proper to have acquired at least one perfected stage every hundred years or so. Otherwise, with the incredible techniques of the Ze District, how could one not achieve at least that much while still living on the land of the district?

Despite the Ze District’s immediate placement to the right of the Yi District, it did not communicate much with it at the time of her life in the Yi District. As such, even when Great Light and Great Dark had mentioned it to her once or twice, they did not know as much about it as they did about the Chen District, Shun District, or even the Lan District, which was accessible most easily through the Ze District.

There was nothing like the general aversion to outsiders often seen in the south, nor the abnormal openness of the people to the north. Instead, it was simply that the overall impression of the district was sufficient to discourage many from even attempting to enter its borders, making them take routes around it or pass through it as quickly as possible without taking the time to understand it. In fact, it could very well be said to be the most abnormal in overall appearance and structure, not to mention its odd and uneven shape.

The reason was that, rather than usual walls, mountains or anything else that might be used to create the borders of a district, the Ze District had… a mixture of those, in a way.

At the centre was a crater caused by a powerful impact from many years ago, and the sheer power of it had formed numerous cracks within the ground. Some had resulted in jagged spires and walls bursting out of the ground, various materials and metal pouring out onto the surface, and a great wealth of earth fire coming so close to the surface that it was only natural to make use of it to create a forge. This became known as the Forge of Perfection, the place where the Ascendant wished to forge a blade with which to strike at the Great Leeches once again.

Although this provided the people with great wealth and plentiful materials to be significantly more casual with expending them than other districts, this also meant that much more of the terrain was rather unpleasant to live near at best, and completely inhospitable at worst.

The Ning District was an extreme example where every single metre was used as effectively as possible, as necessitated by the tall walls created by Kong Shi Meng. It likely reached ninety-nine percent utilisation of the space available to it, very much an impressive achievement no matter how one looked at it. On the other hand, out of all the land available to the Ze District, no more than twenty-five percent were actively being used, and only fifty more percent were actually available to be travelled by those beneath the sixth realm. After all, the hot magma that brimmed beneath the surface was significantly warmer than the typical light of the sun, or the fire of a bonfire made by a casual traveller.

At the sixth realm, it was significantly easier to resist the earth fire, and thus it was possible to traverse it and utilise the heat or material itself for whatever purposes one had. Mostly, blacksmiths were those that found the most uses for it, but there had been a few pill refiners that had managed to produce a pill or two through the particular conditions created by it.

For Wei Yi, that didn’t matter as much as the Forge of Perfection, but she couldn’t just barge her way in and take hold of it for a while without causing a number of issues for herself and others. The former were naturally more significant to her, as the interruption of a lengthy and complex forging process that she could only begin to guess at would be rather devastating, and would force her to sit by for a few weeks just waiting for the Artefact Combinator to reproduce enough shards infused with her energy to the point that they would be sufficient for a different blade.

She had also taken the time to begin saving her energy in fragments for the forging process ever since she came to the Wu District and completed the processing of all shards of Demon Killer. Those pieces of concentrated cosmic light were formed into the intermediary shapes of the new weapon, so that she could blend the energy with matter and reinforce each step of the process. In theory, the changes in the state of the artefact fragments would permit her to add on a few more layers of energy to empower the future blade further, and if that worked, then the eventual creation would be significantly more powerful.

All that she considered did leave her a little worried about one thing – the name. Everything she had already decided on left the things she hadn’t significantly more blatant, and she could hardly disregard the significance of the name within her own mind, as well as those of others.

For all the times that she laughed – or shouted in anger – at those who called out the names of their techniques, she did know that these things mattered a great deal to others, and to herself as well. Her Dao of Law, Ascendancy, the alternate name for the Greats and all kinds of other matters were all of immense importance to how she viewed them, and how she presented herself to the world around her. There was no good reason for her to dismiss the naming of something that could very well come with her all the way to her peak, and so she had to ponder it for a while.

This could be done while working on the blade and, before that, making her entrance into the Ze District. After all, she was getting quite a bit ahead of herself.

With her fourth realm movement method, she moved herself into the Ze District and looked for the nearest guardian or Patriarch, finding that it was the latter that was most convenient to come to for the moment. He was standing beside one of the large jagged stone walls that made up an inner wall of the district and had a number of bridges attached to it to allow people to traverse the lake of magma that flowed around both sides of the jagged walls, in addition to a few structures built atop it.

At the moment of her arrival, he was making use of his energy to stabilise the structure and reinforce it, so ensure that the million-year-old unnatural formations did not break down and collapse into naught, leaving the district with even fewer places to travel and construct structures. Theoretically, it would be feasible – and rather easy – to construct additional jagged spikes much like this, but there was a problem in that the natural arrangement was actually significantly tougher than anything made less naturally.

Again, saying that it was natural wasn’t accurate, but rather than being made deliberately, these jagged walls appeared from an intense collision with the ground, bringing up a great number of natural resources and the like. This made the earthen walls far stronger than anything made without involving the exact same materials and decades of earthen compression, both of which needed significant effort to replicate to a sufficient capacity. Combining this with the fact that the rest of the terrain would need to be affected in order to allow these structures to be as stable as the natural ones, it was usually far easier to reinforce the existing ones before they could be eroded by the constant magma flows throughout the Ze District.

By the looks of it, the restoration was well underway and nearly compete when she arrived, so she simply stopped nearby and watched on without hiding it.

The Ze Patriarch noticed her presence almost immediately, as obvious by the way in which his technique was nearly broken and his efforts wasted, but he stabilised his emotional state and got on with his work a little more quickly. His subordinates did not appear to notice this momentary occurrence, and instead focused on assisting him, allowing the process to be completed within a few minutes of her appearance.

Once he was done, he instantly dismissed his subordinates with reasons that did finally cause them to notice something, but they did not question further and simply departed as instructed. When left on his own, he turned directly to the Ascendant, looking at her with some worry in his eyes.

“I recognise you, especially now that your aura has elevated to such a level. You are the Ascendant, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. I want to use your forge.”

His expression softened a little, “Ah, so you did not come here for the sake of conquering our lands?”

“When have I done that, aside from the Ping District? That place deserved the conquering, by the way, although I would have avoided the destruction of it had I been able to do so at the time,” she said, “Have the Great Leeches been spreading misinformation, or have you just misunderstood my actions a little?”

“Not relevant. Since you speak of a forge, you must mean the Forge of Perfection. It is a very significant item, so I cannot just leave it to you for however long you need it.”

“Personally, I would rather get things done and then discuss finer details. I’m in a bit of a rush, whereas you should want the Greats gone as soon as possible so that you can improve your district’s overall state. Once I’m capable of keeping the situation in check with a new weapon, we can have lengthy discussions about various conditions, trades and so on,” she suggested, glancing out in the direction of the Yi District while she spoke.

The Ze Patriarch frowned at her words, looking out in the same direction for a while before he turned back to her and only deepened his frown, for he had many of the same thoughts. Time was of the essence in a number of matters, but to throw away certainty prior to action was unpleasant.

“At most, I can give you access to the Forge of Perfection, but nothing more. No materials, no assistance, no trade, nothing of the sort, do you understand that?”

“I can speak our common language, yes. Don’t speak down to me just because I, apparently, only look to be twenty years old. I am forty-one, and you are not the first Patriarch that I have spoken with at this point,” she responded, pointing her right index finger at the Forge of Perfection, “So, am I able to go over there, or do you have some problem with that?”

“Do so. I will observe.”

“Alright. I may also grab your spatial stabilisation point in the process, albeit somewhat unintentionally but very much in my favour.”

“… Explain yourself.”

“The creation of a weapon as powerful as the one that I wish to make will be extremely impactful, possibly resulting in a number of phenomena and a breakthrough or two, for me in particular. At that point, I would have to put some significant effort into preventing the spatial stabilisation point from being claimed, and given that I control similar points in the Jiang and Lan Districts… means that I might actually need to slow it down exactly as I had described,” Wei Yi slowed down as she shifted her gaze slightly from the Forge to the north, where an ancient ruined district stood, “Yeah, I will lay claim to it, but delay activation for just a little bit. I won’t be able to stop it entirely, though.”

The Ze Patriarch’s frown got even more intense, “Out of the experts I have previously met with, you might very well be the strangest. Nevertheless, so long as you don’t let in anyone through the gateway that will form above the spatial stabilisation point, I will accept it.”

“How kind of you. Ask nobody to bother me, because I might accidentally cut into anyone that does so. Again, not intentionally, but it might be if they decide to get annoying.”

“Just go.”

She nodded and disappeared from the spot, appearing beside the large anvil placed in the very centre of the chamber. It, and a number of other implements placed around it, were lit by the earth fire that flowed right through the area, providing some heat to the anvil and significantly more to a pool specifically marked out to be used for heating materials that one was working with.

There was no hammer placed at the scene, nor too many other tools, so the Ascendant reached out and willed a number of pieces of metal to drop out of the House of Gold. Keeping them in the air with her energy, she applied her Red Shaper’s Grasp in order to shape them quickly and reinforce them with vast quantities of energy, infusing them with as much as she possibly could before mentally reaching for the Artefact Combinator.

With a few of the spare artefacts that she had, she was able to infuse each of the tools with some properties to reinforce them and allow them to function at the level that she was going to act at in order to create something that would be worthy of being used against the Greats.

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During her work, she could apply further enhancements to her tools, so she didn’t need to instantly bring them up to the highest level that they would need to reach by the end. The beginning of the process would be least difficult and intensive, so even tools sufficient for the fourth realm would be fine for now.

She left everything to float in the air once this was done and removed a series of metal shards from the House of Gold, putting them beside the magma pool not far from her. After a moment, she also put a large planar stone there, considering a use for it that would need to be experimented with in order to be sure of it. Another moment passed, and she glanced into the House of Gold and looked at the shard taken from the Wu District.

Within the otherworldly gift, it was labelled as a Shard of Warfare. The description was rather minimal, but it mentioned a vast quantity of killing intent being contained within. This suited her just fine.

‘This might be rather good for me, actually. If I invest some more energy into this, then employ it in the sword, then perhaps my new weapon will reach a level that is sufficient to confront the Primordial Deities in the future…’ she considered, making use of some of her stored energy pieces to enhance the Shard of Warfare as much as she was able to with how expensive it appeared to be to provide it with any level of improvement. In a way, this was rather fortunate for her, since it would minimize the chances of somehow damaging the artefact shard and removing one of her options.

After obtaining the shard from the Wu District, much to the uncertain displeasure of the Heavenly Masters, she had directly put it into the House of Gold and not looked at it personally, so she wasn’t certain exactly what she could obtain from it, but she had a slight suspicion that there might be information stored within it.

Killing intent was, after all, a projection of one’s emotions, and they were not formed without context or reason, even if the reason may be poor in some cases. The immense quantity of killing intent within the Shard of Warfare may well have come from one source, or a million, but there would be clear memories and knowledge contained within. So long as she was able to perceive them, she might even learn of the origin of the shard, as well as what had caused the shattering of the weapon it came from.

How significant this actually was to her and the current conflict was hard to guess, but she had some hope of witnessing some powerful techniques at the very least.

Before she would even attempt to bring it out of the House of Gold and take on the vast killing intent, she was going to begin the reforging of Demon Killer, and she intended to get far enough to be certain that her plans were going to work, so that her attention could be shifted elsewhere and the forging process could simply proceed as planned. The shard could then be integrated into the design, or if this experiment proves to be unsuccessful in one way or another, it could be excluded and a different arrangement of pieces could be utilised. With the amount of time she had to contemplate this matter, she had a few to choose from.

However, as she went to pick up the first shard and hammer it into place, she paused and thought about the district she had come from. The Wu District gave her the Weapon and Sword Dao, but the former was the most important, as was the confirmation that her affinity was not with the sword.

So, if she was to make a weapon for herself, would making another sword not be failing to take advantage of her strengths? It was the most natural thing to go for, that much was obvious due to the materials on hand, but since she could use the power of Dao and Law and infuse those into the things under her control, her mind went in a different direction, and a new blueprint and plan quickly came together in her head.

 

“Patriarch, what is… is that-”

“The Ascendant has come to our district, and she wanted to use the Forge of Perfection to make a weapon for herself. I have permitted this, but we must pay closer attention.”

“What do you mean?” one of the guardians that had awoken moments prior, upon their Patriarch’s command, asked a little too bluntly and without care. His superior disregarded that, and instead waved in the direction of the Forge, which was, for them, obscured by a small hill and nothing else.

“Since she has come here, on her own, without asking for craftsmen or experts to support her, she is expecting to make a weapon on her own. Even if her own skills are not exceptional, there must be something that gives her confidence in this regard,” the Ze Patriarch explained, “The only terms for our agreement were that she would get the Forge and a spatial stabilisation point, whereas we ought to not bother her. I do not see how observing her actions and studying them would be bothersome, especially from a distance.”

“Ah, so you would have us learn from her work?” another guardian suggested.

“Provided that she is not attempting to trick us, for whatever reason, then we are bound to see some methods that defy our current understanding. Learning them may even advance our attainment of perfected realms, for her cultivation…” he paused, glancing towards the Forge once more while he licked his lips, finding them to be dry all of a sudden, “She might have attained every perfected stage possible.”

There might have been a chorus of questioning voices if not for every single one that heard this statement being far too amazed to get a single word past their lips.

Most of them weren’t especially familiar with the Ascendant, or, rather, the stories told about her, but even from here they were able to tell that she was in the sixth realm, meaning that even if she was just at the first stage, she would have climbed forty-six stages to get there. Forty-six perfected stages by the sixth realm… that was not just unprecedented. It was absurd, impossible, and amazing.

If any one of them knew the method to accomplishing such a thing, they would gladly betray everyone and anyone that knew with only a little shame to ensure that they kept it. After all, such a method would double their power in comparison to another similar cultivator, and it would guarantee that they would have immense fame and respect in most of Yi City, the outside nations, and likely even grant them quite a bit of both in the Daoist Continent. Naturally, not all would be proud of doing such a thing, but the rewards would most certainly be worthwhile.

“She is unlikely to reveal it in an obvious manner, but we may be able to learn something through observing her. In addition, she mentioned that there may be a risk to those that get near, so we must prepare the defensive measures ahead of time. Fortunately, the defensive array has been reinforced a moment before she arrived, so there should be no chance of its collapse at an inopportune time,” said the Ze Patriarch.

Together, they went over the hill and looked upon the centre of the crater, where a lone figure robed in crimson stood beside the anvil. In her right hand was a hammer that glowed with cosmic light while a series of vein-like channels had particular vibrance that stood out from the rest of the glowing energy.

Her left arm, meanwhile, gripped tongs with which she brought a shard of metal onto the anvil, where another already lay.

“Those shards… She is attempting to reforge an artefact of some kind, that much is obvious, but those shards themselves… Why do they look as if they are a million artefacts compressed into one?” the Ze Patriarch noticed the oddity of the shards right away, and realised a moment later that the hammer, as well as every other tool present before her, shared similar traits, “Everyone, spread out and stay near a node of the protective array. This might be significantly more impactful than we believe, for there is nothing that can produce such things within the seven realms available to us.”

 

A hammer rose into the air, then fell. One sharp, powerful clang of metal rung out throughout the district, slowly awakening the people as they couldn’t help but look out and learn the origin of the noise, as was only natural.

A hammer rose into the air, then fell. A wave of energy surged out from the collision, illuminating the district, prompting all attention to the Forge of Perfection.

The Ascendant’s hand rose and fell once more, a rhythm established based on the metal she was working with. Each fall of the hammer allowed her to squeeze in just a little more energy into the process via the Artefact Combinator, and she made sure not to miss out on a single drop that could be introduced to the equation. She was already investing nearly everything she had right now into this project, so putting in just a little more was only sensible while she was at it.

Slowly, the shards that were turned into artefacts were forced together.

The sky above turned lighter as the moon fell and sun rose, the night turned to day, and she finally moved on from simply hammering some of the pieces together to a vital step of the process that she needed to go through if she wished to improve the potential outcome of the weapon she was making. Thus, she briefly raised her head and met the gaze of the Ze Patriarch, then glancing to the nearest earthen spire next to him. Once she confirmed that he also looked towards it, and would be more prepared to act if necessary even if he didn’t understand the warning she was giving him, Wei Yi returned her focus to the anvil, and brought out the Shard of Warfare.

In an instant, a vast blast of crimson exploded from the centre of the Ze District, passing through the streets and blasting into homes, blasting away a layer of dust that had built up across the decades.

A moment after, the barriers throughout the district activated, vibrant golden light surging out from the various stone outcroppings, spires and walls, The Ze Patriarch drew upon his energy to reinforce this barrier, and the guardians that had been mobilized to the other parts of the district did the exact same thing.

Meanwhile, the Ascendant felt her mind being pulled into a world unfamiliar yet close to her. Dyed by crimson and surrounded by blood, she witnessed a scene from the past, flooding into her head and overwhelming much of her current attention. There, numerous combatants stood side by side, weapons of all kinds in hand, their energy radiating from them and anchors standing at their back, glowing vibrantly with barriers guarding them, marks burning on their surface, channels connecting to the anchors within and halos orbiting the cores. They numbered in the thousands, if not tens of thousands, and yet such an impressive force faced a single foe.

It stood, or, rather, floated, before them, a thing of vaguely human shape yet completely inhuman in nature. A thing that looked to be tearing through the very boundary of the world itself, a rift of humanoid form that threatened to devour all that came its way. From within, the aura of a realm beyond could be felt clearly. The eighth realm, even if most characteristics of it were absent.

Against such a thing, a Primordial Deity of some kind, the entire army could not stand tall, other than a lone man that was before all of them. He had a head of black hair and sharp silver eyes that stared directly at the thing before them, although the Ascendant saw a faint rectangular shape in his eyes that did not match up with reality. In addition to the pure planar energy that flowed throughout his meridians, his identity was obvious.

“Stand tall, men! This thing… the Primordial Invader will not best you!”

The troops could not reply before a chorus of raw madness invaded their ears, even once Kong Shi Meng raised a barrier to stop it from nearing them. It was beyond human comprehension, and even guessing whether it was a language or simply an attack was impossible.

All that one could be certain of was that the noise originated from within the tear that was the Primordial Invader, a thing that should not be, yet was. Its position shifted from a somewhat neutral stance, in which the arms looked to be placed on the sides of the entity, to one where its arms were raised, hands and, presumably, fingers facing in the direction of the sky as the volume of the inane chattering rose steadily, the sounds visibly clashing into the violet barrier and making larger and larger impacts as the volume rose.

Just as the Master of Yi City began to take a step forward, the image flashed out of existence, leaving the Ascendant amidst another strike of the anvil, where the Shard of Warfare burned with the condensed rage and killing intent of a million years ago. It seethed with the battle against Primordial Invader, some Primordial Deity unknown to Wei Yi or, seemingly, Yi Shi Ming.

Nevertheless, as she went to strike with the hammer once more, the images returned.

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