Douluo Continent: The Book of Witness and Peerless Tang Sect

Deep-sea silver is extremely heat-resistant, and ten thousand years ago, processing it essentially required softening it through vigorous hammering. Even ten thousand years later, calcining deep-sea silver remains a highly complex process.

But Long You was at least a semi-modern blacksmith in his previous life. Regardless of his skill level, he'd seen plenty of different equipment. For metals that a small charcoal furnace couldn't smelt, there was always an electric furnace!

Because his strength was still low, Long You didn't rush to prepare the forging hammer and carving knife. However, he had already modified the electric furnace for calcining rare metals long ago.

With a "clang," the deep-sea silver, which had been heated to a semi-molten state, was lifted from the sinking electric furnace and transferred to the cutting board.

"Thump, thump"

The moment the deep-sea silver was in place, Long You, who had already adjusted his state, swung his hammer. The continuous, rhythmic, and increasingly powerful strikes echoed throughout the well-soundproofed forging room.

The Chaotic Cloak Hammering Technique consists of eighty-one hammer blows per round. After a complete round, the unforged rare metal will undergo its initial ten-stage forging process, removing impurities.

In the first round of eighty-one hammer blows, Long You's hammering speed wasn't particularly fast. After hammering, the deep-sea silver had cooled down, so Long You simply put the deep-sea silver on the anvil back into the electric furnace to continue heating.

While heating the deep-sea silver, Long You adjusted his breathing and relaxed his muscles. The next stage of hammering would be more demanding; Long You needed to complete three rounds of the Chaotic Cloak Hammering Technique before the deep-sea silver cooled down, bringing it to the Hundred Forging level.

After being forged a hundred times, it is then heated. Next, it is necessary to control the rhythm of hammering and heating, and use the Six-Wheel Chaotic Cloak Hammering Technique to forge the deep-sea sunken silver into a rare metal of the thousand-forging level.

After a thousand forgings, if you want to continue spirit forging, the deep-sea silver can no longer be heated. Not only can it not be heated, but you can't even swing the hammer. The reason for emphasizing strength here is that you can no longer borrow leverage; you need to rely purely on muscle strength to swing the forging hammer.

If the process of going from ten forgings to a thousand forgings is like the process of drastically removing excess material when carving a work of art, then the process of going from a thousand forgings to spirit forging is like the process of refining the knife after the basic shape of the work of art has been carved.

During this process, Long You needs to infuse his soul power into the deep-sea silver with the action and rhythm of the hammering. The soul power that enters the deep-sea silver needs to work in conjunction with the external force vibrations generated by the hammering to continuously reposition and adjust the still scattered metal bonds inside the deep-sea silver.

A whole hour passed, and the rapid, heavy tapping sound transformed into a gentle, tinkling sound.

Despite being quite familiar with the state of the deep-sea silver before him, Long You's observation glasses continued to analyze its internal structure. Each hammer blow could only generate a short-lived external shock; the penetrating soul power had to seize the opportunity and combine with this external shock to shake those stubborn metal bonds.

As more and more metallic bonds formed, a peculiar fluctuation began to emerge within the deep-sea silver. Initially, this fluctuation was not obvious; it was merely a faint, intermittent ripple appearing in the vision of the Longyou Martial Soul Insight Glasses.

However, as time went on, the ripple grew stronger and stronger, and even without using the vision glasses to see it, Long You could perceive it through his mental power.

These ripples were merging with Long You's soul power fluctuations and the vibrations from the hammer strikes. Long You knew that if he couldn't adjust the position of the metal bond before these ripples completely merged with the latter two, and if he couldn't successfully spread these ripples to every corner of the deep-sea silver, then this attempt at forging the rare metal would end in failure.

Fortunately, after his physical fitness improved, Long You's strength attribute increased significantly. The hammer's striking speed remained constant.

The vibrations generated at this speed wouldn't be very strong, simply dispersing the still-developing spiritual energy fluctuations of the rare metal. Nor would they be very weak, slowing down the speed at which the soul power vibrations helped the metal key adjust its displacement.

His arms started to ache, but having simulated this situation hundreds of times in the Pearl of Imagination, Long You had long anticipated this kind of arm ache and was experienced in dealing with it. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, but Long You completely ignored the sweat that might drip into his eyes.

"Buzz buzz..."

The spiritual energy emanating from the deep-sea silver grew stronger and stronger, and the entire Chenhai Yin even trembled slightly under the influence of this spiritual energy. This was undoubtedly unfavorable for Long You to find the right spot to strike, but no problem, this level of trembling was not enough to affect Long You who was fully focused.

"Ding-dong-buzz--"

It only took Long You one hour to transform an unrefined rare metal into a thousand-refined deep-sea silver. However, it took him a full two and a half hours to cross the threshold from thousand-refined to spirit-refined.

Leaning the forging hammer gently to one side, Long You took two steps back and plopped down in the swivel chair.

For a Soul Master at the Soul Venerable level, three and a half hours isn't a time that would completely deplete their energy, unless it's extremely strenuous exercise. However, Long You must admit that he is now utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally.

However, Long You did not feel tired. Although his limbs were trembling, he did not feel tired because a strong sense of excitement filled every cell in his body.

Just ahead of Longyou, the deep-sea silver, which had been forged for more than three hours, was now emitting a stable and straight silver-white spiritual light.

Long You released his spiritual power outwards, and vaguely felt a kind of attraction, as well as the joy of the birth of life.

Although the Deep Sea Silver has only been successfully forged, and its radiant spiritual light does not yet contain any soul fluctuations, life is life. Plants are silent, but the moment they break through the soil, they also embody the awe-inspiring power of life.

With trembling hands, Long You pulled himself toward the chopping board.

Admiring the magical metal he had forged, and watching the spiritual light emanating from the deep-sea silver gradually fade, Long You told himself, "Don't be impatient, it's not the right time yet."

This is the first time Long You has completed the spirit forging of rare metals. He created a piece of rare metal with its own spirituality through forging. Long You had long decided to nurture the spirituality of this piece of deep-sea silver through blood sacrifice, but it is not possible now.

The optimal time to use blood sacrifice is when the metal is forged into shape (manufacturing complete, not refining complete). Currently, Long You is unable to forge this piece of deep-sea silver into the forging hammer he desires.