But that was a concern for another day. Today, Wu Ying needed to clean himself and make it to blacksmithing class. As he stood, Wu Ying stretched and eyed the glimmers of sunlight peeking over the top of his roof. As the sun moved to rise earlier, Wu Ying could not help but note winter was nearly over.
“You’re late.”
“My apologies, Elder Gan. I was cultivating,” Wu Ying said.
The Elder regarded Wu Ying, eyes narrowing in consideration. “You have opened another meridian?”
“Yes.”
“Your aura suppression needs work. You are leaking again.”
“Yes, Elder.”
“Get to forge six.”
Wu Ying took off to the forge. By his side, Bao Cong, his former partner, was already working at his own forge. The pair shared a quick nod of greeting, the persistent and loud clanging around them foiling any attempts at conversation. Over the past few months, the pair had thawed their initially frosty relationship to something almost cordial. It helped, in Wu Ying’s opinion, that Bao Cong cared less for Wu Ying’s background and more for his attempts at improving. As for Bao Cong, Wu Ying found the noble decent and even, on occasion, helpful. For a noble.
As Wu Ying finished shoveling coal into his furnace and turned to the bellows, the cultivator could not help but contemplate what it would be like to make something other than mundane tools. There were only so many asps, horseshoes, pots, and rakes one could do before one became bored with the work. Over the last few months, quite a few of the beginners had given up on blacksmithing as they realized Elder Gao would not allow them to move on to anything more interesting—like weapons—without meeting his minimum standards. That the class considered his minimum standards absurdly high went without saying, but there was absolutely no give in the Elder’s opinion.
Which was why Wu Ying was back in class once again, getting ready to work on another set of… A glance at the order sheet provided to him made Wu Ying sigh. Door hinges. Not exactly difficult to make but exacting. Still, better than horseshoes.
Hours passed as Wu Ying hammered out hinge after hinge. Even though a simple mold created the basics of the hinges, Wu Ying still had to pour the molten iron into the molds, let the iron cool, then extract the hinges before cooling, cleaning, and creating the gaps. Once he had a large enough batch ready, he would shift to the work of making sure the pieces fit together.
The work was exacting, and learning to hit the metal at the right angle rather than just whaling upon it was important. A couple of times, Elder Gao arrived and showed him how to adjust his hammering method to make it more efficient or point out Wu Ying’s unnoticed flaws. Most often, Elder Gao would mutter that Wu Ying should think thrice before hitting once, before leaving Wu Ying alone to figure out his mistakes. In the end, the hours of practice were what he needed, not any esoteric technique.
When Wu Ying was finally done with the initial orders on his list, hours had flown by. As Wu Ying banked his furnace before grabbing a warm lunch, he could not help but feel somewhat proud of his latest work. They were a long way from masterwork, but a significant improvement over the scrap metal he had created at the start. A long guzzle of water later, Wu Ying was slurping down hot noodles when Elder Gao made his appearance, a familiar set of hinges in his hand.
“Elder,” Wu Ying said, standing and wiping his face.
“Wu Ying. This is your first decent hinge,” Elder Gao said, idly playing with the work. “It took you two and a half months to make something acceptable.”
Wu Ying stayed silent, unsure of how to respond. Was it good? Bad? He had no context.
“Do you know why I have you working beside Bao Cong every class?” Elder Gao said.
“No, Elder.”
“It’s because Bao Cong has a future as a blacksmith.” Left unsaid was that Wu Ying did not. “He has the gift, the touch to do so. You are nothing more than average.”
“Does everyone have to be a genius?” Wu Ying said grumpily.
“No. You can struggle on, become a blacksmith. In a few years, you could make decent mortal weapons. Maybe a decade from now, you would be able to craft spirit-level weapons,” Elder Gao said, continuing to flex the hinge between his fingers. “But eventually, you will hit your limits. Maybe at high-tier spirit. Maybe even saint-level. But you will never have enough time or ability to make immortal-level weaponry.”
Wu Ying shook his head, trying to find the gap in the logic. “Few are ever able to make immortal-grade weaponry. Even blacksmiths who make high-tier saint equipment are unusual.”
“Are you a true immortal cultivator or merely passing through life?” Elder Gao said. “A supporting occupation for a true cultivator is not something you dabble in for money or fun. It is part of their dao. It is what contributes to their climb to immortality. A supporting occupation that you cannot progress to at least saint tier is nothing more than a hindrance.”
Wu Ying opened his mouth then shut it. Elder Gao was mostly correct, though Wu Ying also mulishly disagreed. Mostly because there were no certainties in the path to immortality. The journey was a thousand li long and each path was different, with stops and diversions galore. Sometimes those diversions led to immortality via cultivation. Sometimes those diversions led to the peaches of immortality, skipping all the hard work of cultivating.
But. What Elder Gao said was the most commonly held belief. To argue against it, especially as a new inner sect member, would be disrespectful. Instead, Wu Ying kept his mouth shut and his thoughts to himself.
“You disagree,” Elder Gao said, having read Wu Ying like a scroll. “It matters not. Finish the class. But consider what I have said. For you are”—Elder Gao flexed the hinge one last time, the overstressed metal parting with a ping—“still far from competent.”
Wu Ying caught the tossed pieces as Elder Gao left, staring at the broken hinges he had worked so hard to create. Lips pressed tight, Wu Ying stared at the broken metal before he placed it aside to add to the scrap pile. Perhaps Elder Gao was right. Perhaps being a blacksmith was not his calling.
Wu Ying looked at the sweat-stained back of Bao Cang working away at his forge with focused intensity and sighed. He certainly did not have Bao Cang’s passion for metal. It was too dead, too simple for Wu Ying’s tastes. And, Wu Ying had to admit, it was way too hot in the forges. Though now that Wu Ying had cooled down, he was beginning to shiver from the sweat that had collected on his body.
After drinking another cup of water, Wu Ying stood and headed back inside. Whatever the decision, Wu Ying still had to put in the hours to finish today’s job.
“Before you are five different pill cauldrons,” Liu Tsong said, gesturing toward the cauldrons that had been placed on the stage.
Everyone had seen them when they streamed in, and more than a few students had milled around the edges of the stage to stare at the metal strangers. The cauldrons ranged from a small, pot-sized pill cauldron that could easily be carried when traveling to a massive cauldron so wide Wu Ying would not be able to place his arms around it.
Size was not the sole differing factor. The smallest cauldron was the simplest in design, looking much like a cooking pot a housewife would use, but the cauldron was thicker than normal pots and had a heavier base. However, beyond those minor differences, it looked similar to an actual iron cooking pot, even coming with a simple black lid. The other cauldrons were obviously made of different, more exotic material, with some having secondary vents along the sides, which could be closed off, or heavier lids to keep heat and steam trapped. The cauldrons all had a variety of sheens: dark steel, green, grey, silver, and white running through their materials. The metals or alloys were unknown to Wu Ying, a mark of their rarity and the difficulty in working with the alloys. Wu Ying knew many metals were compounded with both demon stones and the body parts of spirit creatures to give them more strength. It was the kind of technique and material use that differentiated spirit-tier and mortal-tier blacksmithing.