Chapter 21 – The Sword That Defends

The heat of the forge was particularly blistering today. Even the tortoises were keeping their distance, unable to bear the heat. At the center, where the air was shimmering with the heat, were two young men working at a furious pace.

Tink Tink Tink CLANG. Tink Tink Tink CLANG

The rhythmic sounds of Ren’s hammer were quick and without pause. Beside him, Hua was standing with his arms outstretched, trying to keep away the worst of the heat from them and channel it back into the earth crystal they were working on.

If Ren had to identify his most poorly planned project so far, he would have no hesitation in pointing out the forging of Bao Hua’s heavy sword. Almost from the outset, things had started to go wrong. After Hua had purchased the earth crystal ore, they had struggled to carry it back. Neither of them was strong enough to lift it alone and hadn’t thought to prepare anything to carry it. Not that an ordinary wheelbarrow would have supported the extremely dense and unwieldy chunk of ore.

Only once they had returned and tried to smelt it did they realize that the wood they had prepared did not burn nearly hot enough to melt the ore. They had to bring in a special wood called fossil wood, which burned extra hot. That already set them behind a few days. Then they realized the heat emitted by the wood couldn’t be contained in the smelter and the formations that Ren had prepared. They couldn’t even approach the forge!

Ren had finally splurged and bought the initial stage of a forging technique that would give him some resistance to fire and heat called the Heavenly Sword Smith Art. It was the renowned technique of the Heavenly Sword Sect and was known to be useful even to the core formation stage.

Not one to be left behind, Hua had invested in a technique for manipulating fire qi that would help contain the heat. Between the two of them, they could finally begin forging! After the ore was refined, Ren laid out the design of the sword and explained to Hua what he needed. Then he began hammering it out. Bao Hua would have to redirect the fire qi into the metal along the proper lines to make it malleable enough. Ren’s qi would then infuse the earth crystal to carve out the channels where the qi would flow through.

They had wasted their first attempt when they couldn’t synchronize their actions and their second when Ren realized the earth crystal needed to be cooled immediately after the channels were carved. Otherwise, the qi rushing through the new channels would cause cracks to form and ruin the sword.

On their last attempt, they gathered and polished all they had learned before they even began. They made improvements and adjustments. After meditating to get into the right frame of mind, they began. Now, they were in the final stages. The metal had been shaped to the right dimensions. The channels had been heated by Hua and carved away by Ren. This is where things had gone wrong the last time.

This time, as Ren carved, Hua followed up by siphoning away the excess heat from the metal. This cooled the channels enough that they settled. The two young men were at the end of their qi reserves. They were both flagging under the intense heat, and Ren’s whole body ached as each blow reverberated through him.

“We’re almost there, Brother! Keep going even if you have to cough blood!” Ren shouted out as they worked on the final qi channels. Hua struggled to hold on but kept siphoning away the last of the heat. The moment they were done, Ren let out an excited cry. Then his head snapped towards his friend.

Instead of falling to the ground, drained of qi, Bao Hua was standing in a daze, eyes locked on the still extremely hot metal. Waves of qi were emanating from him. Ren recognized the signs from his past experience; it was a breakthrough but partially assisted by enlightenment. When the waves slowly receded, Bao Hua’s eyes gained focus.

“Congratulations for breaking into the 7th layer, Brother!” Ren spoke with a tired voice.

“Than…” Unable to even finish speaking, Bao Hua fell on his back and began snoring!

Ren couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. He went to pick up the finished sword and heaved it up with a grunt. Standing upright, the sword would reach the middle of his chest. Even with Bao Hua’s tall and muscular physique, it would be a struggle to wield, and that was without taking into account its weight. But that was exactly what Hua’s new technique called for. It would need a little work to sharpen and polish, but the Heavenly Sword Smith Art was a technique refined over ages by the best minds of the sect and could easily take care of such things.

As he sat and meditated to recover qi, Ren thought to himself, if there was any project he learned the most from, he wouldn’t hesitate to point out this one. Learning information from books was one thing, and putting it to use was another entirely. The numerous small things he had discarded as unimportant or those that he hadn’t even considered had their importance underscored at each step.

The information he had learned had, through painstaking effort and costly mistakes, been transformed into knowledge. Just like Bao Hua had advanced at the completion of the sword, he too had gained much. Just like the ore had been refined, so too had his qi. Now he was pushing up at the limits of the 7th layer, well ahead of his plan.

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After recovering a little, he saw that his friend was still passed out without a care. Ren moved his aching body to finish working on the sword. And remembering his promise to himself, carefully etched in the name of the sword in small characters at the hilt. Chuckling darkly to himself, he carried them both back to Hua’s courtyard and left his friend to acquaint himself with his new weapon.

Later that afternoon, an agitated wail echoed out.

“Tortoise Defender??!! What’s with this stupid name? Zhao Ren, you’re courting death!”