Chapter 86 - Physique +4 (1/2)

When the carriage finally stopped, Ou Yangming and Ni Yinghong returned to his residence along with the two ores.

The two ores were the smallest in size, hence they could easily be carried. Ou Yangming looked at Ni Yinghong with antic.i.p.ation after putting down the ores.

“Master Ni, please guide me.”

Ni Yinghong’s eyes wandered around before she said, “It’s neither difficult nor easy to embed a precious stone in a piece of equipment, it all depends on your sense and perception of it. That said, based on your ability, Brother Ou, I believe that it’ll be a piece of cake for you.”

Ou Yangming was stunned as he was not used to the sudden change in the way Ni Yinghong addressed him.

Ni Yinghong continued, “This first step of combining the two is to use the spiritual fire… Oh no, the Military Fire to refine the gem. Firstly, you have to change the gem’s size to fit into the groove.”

Ou Yangming furrowed his eyebrows and asked, “If I change the gem’s shape on my own, won’t that affect its attribute?”

“It will,” Ni Yinghong answered without hesitation.

‘If it will, how am I supposed to do it?’ Ou Yangming twitched his mouth and wondered.

“But I know a secret smithing art that’ll allow you to preserve the attribute as much as possible during the smithing process.” Ni Yinghong grinned, then casually taught Ou Yangming everything about the secret art.

Ou Yangming listened quietly while he pondered. He slowly realized that the secret art taught by Ni Yinghong was actually a method that allowed his mental power to be in resonance with Heaven and Earth. In order to execute the method, one needed to transfer mental power and sense the change of energy in a gem. The more the mental power transferred, the more detailed the energy change that could be sensed, and the stronger the method’s effect.

For other people, even if one had mental power, it would be difficult to transfer it as one wished and to sense a gem’s energy in detail. Even if it was not a h.e.l.l-like process, it was at least a nightmare to do so.

However, Ou Yangming was instantly delighted after hearing about the secret technique.

The transfer of mental power was no longer a difficult task for him. Perhaps it was slightly tougher than eating and drinking, but it was definitely easier than running and chopping wood.

As for the sensing of a gem’s energy change, which was feared by many…

Ou Yangming said to himself, ‘Since I have the Military Fire, is that even a problem?’

After going through his thoughts again and confirming that he did not miss anything, Ou Yangming took a deep breath and took the gem in Ni Yinghong’s presence. The instant his Military Fire burned, Ni Yinghong was in a daze.

She did not expect Ou Yangming to be so impatient that he would begin smithing right away.

As the Military Fire burned, the gem’s surface melted quickly, and its size changed according to the groove’s size.

Ni Yinghong’s face changed when she witnessed the process. Although she did not possess a spiritual fire, she was born with a good eye, and had, because of her family, watched gems being embedded numerous times.

A gem would undergo change each time a spiritual fire burned, but the margin of change was not big. Every blacksmith would try their best to keep a gem in its perfect state so that the mysterious energy contained within would not be damaged due to the external changes.

Needless to say, it was just a wish. No matter how careful the blacksmiths were, the parts that were bound to be damaged would inevitably be damaged.

Despite that, when Ou Yangming smithed, the gem did not change in an orderly manner, but at an exaggerated speed.

After only roughly 15 minutes, the gem in Ou Yangming’s hands had been remodeled to fit the groove size.

Ni Yinghong was dumbfounded. Instead of looking surprised, she looked extremely helpless because she was certain that Ou Yangming had failed to transform the gem.

This was because n.o.body had ever completed the transformation of a gem in such a short span of time. A master who had decades of experience could not even achieve such an impressive feat, let alone Ou Yangming, a blacksmith who had just come across a gem.

Ou Yangming exhaled deeply as he put down the gem. He expressed with a smile, “Thank you… Brother Ni, this method is very useful!”

“What?” Ni Yinghong was struck dumb. She asked after suddenly realizing what had happened, “Did you… Succeed?”

“Of course,” Ou Yangming answered with a smile, then handed the gem to Ni Yinghong.

Ni Yinghong studied the gem carefully after reaching her hands out to receive it. The gem’s pattern was extremely different from its original form. She would not have believed that it was the same gem if she had not been informed.

Nonetheless, when Ni Yinghong took a closer look, she shockingly realized that the gem’s color and l.u.s.ter had not changed as it was still dazzling and clear. It seemed as though only its appearance had changed, whereas its interior remained the same.

‘But how is this possible?’ She wondered.

She had witnessed the gem being retrieved from a raw gemstone. The gem was completely natural, hence no changes were allowed.

In actual fact, there were normally two ways to handle gems like this. One of them was to change the gem’s size according to the groove, which was what Ou Yangming had done, and the other way was to customize a piece of equipment according to the gem’s original size.

Though the latter was more troublesome, it could fully unleash the gem’s Unique Attribute.

That being said, Ou Yangming had started smithing before Ni Yinghong finished explaining.