Chapter Twenty-One: Exposed! All the Divine Weapons Were Forged by Me!

Heave-ho! Heave-ho! Heh heh heh!

A chorus of shouts burst forth from a house blazing with firelight.

Accompanying the cries was the ringing clang of hammer on iron.

Inside, three towering figures raised and dropped their hammers in unison, taking turns to strike a glowing red iron bar over and over. Sparks shot out, scattering across their glossy, sweat-soaked skin, yet not a flicker of pain marred their resolute faces.

Whenever one of the men tired, another, who was resting nearby, would rise to take his place. Thus the cycle repeated, unceasing and unbroken.

After a full hour, an elder with a beard streaked white and gray finally called them to a halt.

“Stop!”

From his trouser pocket, the old man pulled a handful of reddish-blue earth.

All the men—whether hammering, wiping sweat, or drinking water—craned their necks to see what would happen next.

With a deft motion, the old man scattered the colored dust evenly across every inch of the iron’s surface. Instantly, the glowing bar erupted in a surge of crimson smoke.

The thick smoke curled and twisted, forming a serpentine pattern above the iron.

The snake-shaped plume coiled once in the air, hissed sharply, and then plunged back into the iron.

Bang!

The smoke burst apart, slowly dissipating.

“Master Luo, did it work?” someone asked cautiously.

The old man did not answer; his eyes remained fixed on the bar, watching the crimson glow pulse and swirl. After seven or eight breaths, the light gradually stilled, no longer surging.

“Begin!”

With the elder’s command, the rest of the men broke into grins.

Three of them seized heavy sledgehammers and resumed their relentless pounding, each blow faster than the last.

Meanwhile, the old man chanted an incantation under his breath. A wave of searing heat materialized, pouring over the iron.

A sound like a rushing stream filled the room.

Only now did the old man’s furrowed, white eyebrows finally relax.

“It’s done.”

The old man spoke softly.

“Well done! Well done!” Cries of excitement filled the air, followed by thunderous applause.

Nodding in satisfaction, the old man strode slowly out of the sweltering forge toward a tidy, spotless study in the next room.

Inside, he took out a sheaf of pristine, precious paper, dipped a fine wolf-hair brush in ink, and began to write in deliberate strokes.

“Thirty-seventh attempt at crafting a magic artifact embryo!”

“Success!”

He then carefully recorded the altered materials used for this attempt, the hammering data, the state of the flames, and the temperature changes.

Only after filling three pages did he set his brush aside.

With a gentle breath, he dried the ink, then smiled in contentment.

This bearded elder was known throughout the land as Grandmaster Luo—the legendary artisan. No one knew his true age: perhaps sixty, perhaps ninety, perhaps even older…

No one in the tribe knew his origins, only that he had appeared on a snowy night, bearing a famed sword, and had paid his respects to the chieftain.

Delighted, the chieftain installed him as the tribe’s chief blacksmith.

From then on, he forged one famed blade after another, presenting them to the chieftain and empowering the tribe’s warriors.

In time, others came from distant places, seeking Grandmaster Luo to forge renowned weapons.

Grandmaster Luo would select a few who caught his eye, crafting legendary arms for them. But in most cases, he chose to make swords and blades.

Closing the notebook, Grandmaster Luo let out a long breath.

The pages turned to ash, and his white beard was consumed along with them. He removed his tightly fitted leather cap, revealing a head of jet-black hair. His once-aged features grew bright and youthful again, vigor restored.

He was Luo the Ancestor.

Master of this realm, the Creator—not only the revered blacksmith of the tribe.

He had but one purpose here: to experiment with the forging of magical artifacts.

Now that he had succeeded in the first step, there was no need for further delay.

He could not obtain or control innate treasures, nor even glimpse those legendary relics. Thus, he strove to forge magical artifacts himself.

Yet such things were mysterious to him, so he retreated to his own pocket world and conducted experiment after experiment, testing repeatedly until finally he achieved this result.

He had lived fifty years in his pocket realm, all for this “artifact embryo.”

Fortunately, he had succeeded at last.

During these five decades, he had not remained in one place; he had stayed in various tribes, leaving behind the legend of a master artisan wherever he went.

He also created a so-called “Register of Legendary Weapons” for the pocket realm.

Composed by those with a penchant for such matters, it catalogued fifty famed weapons celebrated across the land.

For practitioners of the Way, possessing such a weapon would yield twice the result with half the effort in cultivation and offer significant advantages in magical combat—benefits beyond measure.

All fifty weapons in the register were crafted by Luo the Ancestor.

Each forged by a different method, leading everyone to believe they had come from different masters.

But what made a weapon truly legendary was the wielder.

Luo the Ancestor merely forged the weapons; of them, only seventeen could be called artifact embryos. The real challenge was the subsequent ritual refinement needed for completion.

In the end, only ten of these weapons were fully realized in the hands of practitioners, becoming true magical artifacts—the top ten on the register.

Moreover, the methods for refining these artifact embryos into full artifacts were indirectly passed on by Luo the Ancestor. Otherwise, how could they have succeeded, and with such a high success rate?

It was only because Luo painstakingly deduced and then imparted the relevant techniques.

Though these methods shared some similarities, each also differed, or else the artifacts would all be much the same, and Luo could never discover the optimal way to forge magical artifacts.

As for the present state of the pocket realm: after the emergence of the Dao Seed Method, Luo the Ancestor abandoned his plan to wipe out humanity and instead began to cultivate human practitioners.

With the spread of the Dao Seed Method and the popularization of magical cultivation, the pocket realm had finally evolved from a world of basic martial arts to one of fledgling immortality.

According to Luo the Ancestor’s own assessment, the civilization and its world ranked as elementary, intermediate, advanced, and supreme, with the ultimate level marked by the name “Primeval.”

Of course, this was only Luo the Ancestor’s personal observation and conjecture, not an authoritative system.

“Chieftain! Chieftain!”

Just as Luo the Ancestor was quietly rejoicing at the successful forging of the artifact embryo, a sudden shout drew him back to the present.

“What is it?” Luo glanced at the sturdy wooden door.

It was Ironhead’s voice, urgent from outside.

He sounded flustered: “Chieftain, our homeland has been taken from us!”

“What?” Luo did not catch his meaning.

“Come in and explain,” Luo said, clapping his hands as a surge of energy opened the tightly sealed door.

Ironhead rushed in, stumbling in his haste, and fell so hard he broke a front tooth.