Blacksmith: The Tempering Begins With One’s Flesh - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: No Fear of Death

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Since he had decided, Lin Feng began to prepare for the forging of his own body.

After all, this was not like simply forging a weapon. Forging his own body came with extremely high risks.

If he failed with a weapon, the worst that could happen was he might have to start over again.

However, working with his own body allowed not the slightest room for error.

The smallest slip could lead to his death!

Lin Feng understood that, of course. Although he did not fear death, who would rather die when they could live?

Besides, if he could successfully forge his own body, he might even be able to take to the battlefield like those frontline warriors. He could join the battle against the demonic beasts!

His blood boiled at the thought, his eyes shining with a light of hope.

Sitting at his desk, Lin Feng went through draft after draft. 

Before he knew it, half a day had passed and he had created a stack of blueprints.

Thankfully, he had God-level Forgery to help him. Without it, his lifetime’s experience of forging low-level weapons would never have allowed him to construct so many blueprints.

While God-level Forgery was useful, though, it was still a manual on how to forge weapons. There was nothing in it about forging his own body.

In that case, Lin Feng could only rely on himself!

He used God-level Forgery to run one mental simulation after another.

Although he could not guarantee his success, he eventually came up with a plan that was most likely to work.

Since he had set his mind on it, the next step was to find the materials for his forge.

He looked around his shabby workshop. All he had that looked even remotely promising was a bunch of low-level ores.

There was no helping it. His smithy was only so large, so he barely had any customers aside from the jobs assigned to him by the higher-ups.

All his life, Lin Feng could only just earn enough to cover his own expenses.

As his finances were tight, Lin Feng had no choice but to use what little he did have to execute his insane plan.

Not long later…

Lin Feng managed to finish his forgery blueprint. The moment he drew the final strokes, his wrinkled face lit up with excitement despite himself.

He laid the blueprint out across the desk and then brought over his materials.

Next, he lit the forge and prepared his tools.

As the temperature in the forge rose, Lin Feng started tempering the ore.

The clanging of his hammer reverberated through his smithy.

Low-level ores contained many impurities. Now, Lin Feng had to temper the ore over and over again to try and remove those impurities.

After a whole hour, the ore was finally slightly more purified.

Lin Feng threw it into the forge.

As the ore slowly melted into a liquid, Lin Feng wiped the sweat from his forehead, a smile on his face.

It was only when the ore had completely melted that Lin Feng finally took his crucible out of the forge.

He looked at the boiling molten iron in the crucible and then steeled himself. Before he could change his mind, he stuck out his arm and poured the molten iron over it.

At the same time, Lin Feng used the Holy Flame to surround his arm, preventing the molten iron from touching his skin directly.

Thanks to the insulation of the Holy Flame, the boiling hot iron did not injure his body at all.

That was when a black smoke rose from the molten iron.

Based on his experience, Lin Feng knew that the black smoke was the remaining impurity in the material, the part that he could not temper out of the ore.

Even normal flames could not burn those impurities out of the ore, which just showed how powerful the Holy Flame really was.

After all that, the molten iron that remained was the purest of the lot.

As the Holy Flame continued to burn, the molten iron began to gradually melt into Lin Feng’s body.

Lin Feng did not feel any discomfort at all in the process.

Two hours later, the scalding molten iron had completely fused with Lin Feng’s left arm. He could clearly feel the strength in his left arm increasing.

It felt as though he had forged his left arm into a weapon.

Lin Feng clenched his left hand into a fist and smashed it into his forging table.

There was a loud metallic clang.

The next second, he saw that he had left a punch mark in the pure-metal forging table.

Lin Feng’s eyes shone brightly when he saw it.

It worked!

Although he had only forged his left arm, it was already much stronger than he had imagined.

With that, Lin Feng no longer held any hesitation. He immediately grabbed more ore from the side and began to forge the rest of his body.

Lin Feng spent the rest of the day locked in his workshop. He did not take a single step out of the door.

That went on for the second day, too.

As he forged his body, though, he decided to complete his orders at the same time.

Since he had gotten physically stronger, naturally he could forge weapons faster too, and the weapons he created were of much higher quality as well.

Of course, Lin Feng did not go out of his way to mention that when he submitted the completed order.

Once he dealt with the messenger sent here to collect his wares, Lin Feng went right back into forging his own flesh.

For several days in a row, Lin Feng forged his body.

It was an insane plan, but it resulted in a direct increase to his forging quality.

Before, he was only a normal One-Star Forger. In a matter of a few days, though, he could already feel that he had reached the level of a Two-Star Forger.

He could not tell how much his forging skill had improved because he had God-level Forgery, but he could definitely see an improvement in the quality of his products.

He had noticed as much when he forged the weapons for the order.

At the same time, he had made a new discovery regarding the Holy Flame.

Activating the Holy Flame cost him energy, so he could not keep it burning at all times. After a certain amount of use every day, its effects would diminish.

Thankfully, it also recharged itself the next day.

Four days later…

Lin Feng had completed the forging of both his arms and his right leg. Right now, he felt his body brimming with power.

On the fifth day…

Lin Feng began work on his left leg.

After another long day of toiling away, he finally managed to reinforce all of his four limbs before the fall of night.

Next, he had to do his head and chest.

These were the most critical parts.

Early the next morning, Lin Feng got out of bed and immediately got to work.

After the past few days of forging work, he had discovered a new time- and energy-efficient technique to get things done.

After he melted down the materials, he tempered it once with Holy Flame. That was enough for him to completely skip the time and steps he used to clear out of the impurities, and the result was every bit as good.

If it were not for the limitations on his Holy Flame usage, he could even just use the Holy Flame to melt down the ore. That would save him even more time.

The Holy Flame was so powerful that it could even speed up the melting of the ore.

Once the ore was melted and purified, Lin Feng immediately pulled the molten iron out of the forge and doused it over his chest.

At the same time, the Holy Flame appeared across his body and surrounded the molten iron, allowing it to slowly seep into his body.

After a long while, he was done with the forging of his chest, and Lin Feng instantly felt himself grew a bit stronger.

With that, Lin Feng decided to just go for it and prepared the materials for the forging of his head.

Having decided that, Lin Feng wasted no time in taking out his remaining ore and throwing them into the forge.

Time ticked past.

Once Lin Feng was done forging his head, a bright system notification chime rang by his ear.

[Ding! Congratulations, the host has forged a Grade-Three Weapon, Centi-Forged Body.]