章 114: Forced Labor (2)

"Anyone knows the identity of the disciple inside of Master Jiang Lei's Personal Forge?" one of the staffs inside the Weapon Hall questioned his colleagues about the mysterious disciple that went inside.

"I'm the one that put him inside the room. If I'm not wrong, his name is Zhang Wu Ji." the one that leads Zhang Wu Ji into the room replied to the question.

"Zhang Wu Ji? Are that the one that destroyed Cheng Hao Ran's weapon a few days ago?" another one join into their conversation.

"Guys, shall we start betting about how long can he last inside of the Forge? I remembered that Brother Yan wins the last bet, so I wanted to win back the lost this time. Who's with me?" the one leads Zhang Wu Ji into the room followed with the conversation.

"Who's afraid of who? I bet 50 Qi Accumulating Pills that he won't last more than three days." the first one started.

"I bet he won't last longer than four days." Brother Yan added.

"I bet he will come out in two days." the one leads Zhang Wu Ji into the Forge is the last one to add in his bet.

"Great, a total of 150 Qi Accumulating Pills. The winner takes all." Brother Yan holds the pill for the time being.

"What Did You Say!!!" a shout came out from the Forge belonged to Master Jiang Lei.

"Impossible! One day?" the three of them immediately felt shocked from the ability the youth possess to cause their master's anger.

"Kid! Repeat what you say without missing a word!" Master Jiang Lei steps into the Forge and stares at Zhang Wu Ji with his fiery eyes. In term of physical features, Master Jiang Lei is more or less similar to a dwarf with a height between 1.4 to 1.5 meters tall.

"With this incomplete blueprint, even if you put ten more years it will still fail!" Zhang Wu Ji repeated what he said earlier. The action not only turned the Master face into Scarlet Red, but his strength of an early Inner Qi Lord is also bursting out from his pores.

"Master Jiang Lei. This youth is a Celestial Designer as well. Based on my experience, this is an Incomplete version of Metal Puppet Blueprint! And to be more accurate, it's a stolen Incomplete Blueprint!" Zhang Wu Ji voices out his claim.

"Woosh!" with a simple swing of his hand, Master Jiang Lei shut the door behind him and steps closer to Zhang Wu Ji. From how his face turns from Scarlet Red into a healthier skin color again, Zhang Wu Ji can confidently assume that this master is somebody looks reckless from the outside, but calm inside.

"What is your relationship with the Puppet School?" he questioned.

"This junior has no relationship with the Puppet School. My answer is only an estimation because of a few remarkable details." Zhang Wu Ji cupped his hand and bows to the Master of the Weapon Hall.

"Tell me, where did this blueprint betray me?" Master Jiang Lei added.

Given the chances to prove himself, Zhang Wu Ji pointed at the right bottommost corner, where the ink of the blueprint is fading. Following from his first point, Zhang Wu Ji led the pair of eyes into two blurry drawn lines that shape the skeleton frame of the Metal Puppet.

As for the third hint, it was the material they required!

"Master Jiang Lei, please forgive this junior to raise his voice... Why does the heart require Tomb Silver to be used? The Tomb Silver is an ingredient filled with the Element of Death! Death is used as a heart, what can be worst than this?" Zhang Wu Ji raised his voice towards the master.

"Ah! Ah! How can this be!"

"AHHH!!!" Master Jiang Lei screamed in horror! His stubbornness that been motivating each step of his action is the one contributes him to overlook the most common knowledge about the Tomb Silver!

"I'm a failure as a blacksmith. How can I overlook this matter!" Master Jiang Lei yelled at himself. But after a moment of venting his mind, his expression turned into the usual calm dwarf human.

"Junior. That's a great help. But do you have any experience in assembling a Metal Puppet?" Master Jiang Lei appreciates his part of knowledge, but still, his task is related to Refine the Metal Puppet.

"Junior has no knowledge at all." Zhang Wu Ji replied.

"Honest. Knowledge and experience can be learned, but honesty comes from the heart. I can tolerate people with no experience, but not people without honesty." Master Jiang Lei speaks out what is inside his mind.

"And, congratulation. How about becoming one of my assistants? As long you have this status, you will be given complete support on forging anything to sell." Master Jiang Lei immediately gives him an offer to become his assistant.

"Junior thank Master Jiang for his offer, but for now, junior's only motivation is to earn enough Heaven Points to be exchanged into a Leniency Favor." unexpected to Master Jiang Lei, Zhang Wu Ji actually rejected his offer to become one of the assistants.

"I can let you borrow the Heaven Point if you want..." Master Jiang Lei did not give up his effort to obtain Zhang Wu Ji's help. But at the end of the day, it was still rejected.

"Since we know about the problem with the heart, how about we craft the parts to assemble them together?" Master Jiang Lei suggested that they started the process immediately. And Zhang Wu Ji's reply satisfies him when he said that he will handle a few of the smaller parts.

As each Blacksmith has their own method of preparation, nobody bothered with the other's workload. Although the Metal Puppet alone possesses two thousand three hundred Smaller Parts and four hundred fifteen Main Parts, the former parts are much easier to craft.

About two hours later, the quietness of the other corner inside his forge puzzled Master Jiang Lei. He questioned himself at first if he's too confident with the youth's skills. But when he turned around to have a peek, he was totally overwhelmed.

Without a sound of cutting, shaping, and hammering, the youth completely three-quarter of the Smaller Parts required to assemble the Metal Puppet.

"How did he complete everything so fast?" the results shock him because from where he peeks, every piece of the Smaller Parts is very well sanded into their peak condition. Perhaps not even a lubricant is needed to assemble all of the parts into the Skeleton Frame.

"Junior. Is everything fine at your side?" he calmed his mind and questions the youth.

"Replying to senior, the junior is almost done with his work." Zhang Wu Ji replied him politely.

"Almost done? That's two thousand three hundred parts. How can it be done so quickly like he was accustomed to the creating process of the parts? There are at least sixty different shapes, each of them come with two to five differences in diameter, numbers, and sizes." the master is puzzled by the reply.

Without further ado, he stopped his work and came close to the youth's side. Here, he was greeted with a pile of Blacksmithing Sand, a very durable Casting Sand suitable to be created into molds. Not only that, he was surprised by the fact Zhang Wu Ji completed all the required casting, and was wasting his time in sanding and smoothen the edges of all his parts.

"Why did I not think about casting! Although it was a difficult job, it was not as difficult as beating the metal into the desired shape." Master Jiang Lei caught his lack of consideration on his choice of preparation method.

He was not entirely wrong in his decision, but Zhang Wu Ji wasn't entirely correct. His method of process guaranteed perfection in all his works, but Zhang Wu Ji's approach reduced the time needed to prepare the two thousand and three hundred parts.

"Master Jiang, do you need junior's help?" Zhang Wu Ji offered his assistance. In the short period of the Master Jiang's inspection, he completed all two thousand and three hundred parts flawlessly.

"How about you help me handle the parts needed for the heart of the Metal Puppet?" Master Jiang Lei happily delegates about eighty pieces of the Main Parts to the youth.

"Master Jiang, oh, Master Jiang... The more you let me work with this Metal Puppet, the easier it was for me to recreate it again as long I got enough material." Zhang Wu Ji thinks as he accepted the task to handle the heart.

Without fail, Zhang Wu Ji followed the instruction to craft the eighty pieces of Main Parts which nicely assembled into the Casing for the Metal Soul. Of course, this means that the metal parts required to craft the parts have to be in their Low-Tier Spirit-Grade quality.

And luckily, this challenge failed to disturb Zhang Wu Ji due to the existence of Mortal Flame within the Forge. Using this Mortal Flame that can increase the amount of Purity in the Fool Silver he used to form into the parts.

Looking at how the youth able to complete the challenge he arranged, Master Jiang Lei can only sigh because this equals to him losing the opportunity to keep this youth by his side.

But the most surprising thing is when the Casing for the Metal Soul is completed, and unexpected Spirit Sharpening happened! The Heart floats in the middle of the air as the spirit clashed against each another to choose the final victor for the Metal Puppet!

And most importantly, the Casing for the Metal Soul is not an empty Heart with a Spirit inside but loaded with stacks of twenty Small Fighter Qi Weaving Stones. Because each stone carries the capacity of storing 10,000 strands of Fighter Qi, which equals to 10 strands of Warrior Qi. Twenty stones mean that they're capable of storing two hundred strands of Warrior Qi inside of this Heart.

"This Master Jiang Lei is too wealthy. Only from the amount of ingredient required to refine this Metal Puppet is about 50,000 Qi Accumulating Pills." Zhang Wu Ji is partially jealous at his amount of wealth. Luckily, the cost of failure is not included in his calculation.

With the first day used to prepare the parts, the assembling comes in their second day. On the night before, Master Jiang easily infuse some of his Qi into the Small Fighter Qi Weaving Stones. As a cultivator in his Lord Tier and ascend past the Sheng Xian Process, a mere two hundred strands of Warrior Qi is nothing to him.

At the beginning of their assembling, Zhang Wu Ji repeatedly suggests a few different arrangements on their steps to ensure no parts missed in the assembling.

This also means that except the eighty pieces of Main Part used to assemble the heart before today, The remaining Three hundred and thirty-five Main Parts and two thousand three hundred Small Parts are all destined to be put together here.

Starting from the Foot first, they assemble the parts all the way until the Heart. By putting on the heart and the body together, this is the first time the Metal Puppet reacts. As a person that failed for numerous occasions, this situation brings Master Jiang into tears.

"It is moving. This must the sign that say's it's a success. Look at how beautiful it reacts." Master Jiang is so happy with the three-quarter complete results.

"Master Jiang, please focus on the final section. It is still not the time to be relaxed." Zhang Wu Ji said.

With a new motivation in him, Master Jiang Lei's spirit is in his peak as he assembled the remaining parts to complete this Metal Puppet. At the moment the last piece is attached to the Frame, the Metal Puppet happily moves.

But before they can smile and celebrates their success, an unfortunate event happened!

"NOT GOOD!"

"That's the Metal Deterioration Symptom!" the experienced Master Jiang immediately caught the root of this problem. But no matter how experience is him, he will have to take action to stop this symptom from destroying the Metal Puppet's physical body!