Chapter 364: First Smelting (1/2)

Under his father's directions, Gravis named a lot of different materials and their properties. Though, since he didn't understand the underlying concepts, he could only quote what the booklet had said. One could argue if being able to recite all of this information was knowledge or not. After all, he didn't understand the deeper meaning of the materials. He could only quote something.

Gravis only knew the what, but not the why. Yet, a vast sea of what was required to understand the why. There was no way around this. After Gravis had recited the different materials and their properties for around two hours, his father grabbed a piece of ore.

”Look,” he said.

BZZZZ!

A purely white bolt of lightning appeared and enveloped the ore in the air, and Gravis immediately felt the familiarity with this lightning. It was Punishment Lightning, the same lightning Gravis had. Yet, Gravis wasn't really surprised that his father could use such lightning. His father had also said in the past that people generally understood this lightning further down their cultivation path. This meant that there were a lot of people able to use it.

As the material floated in the air, the lightning bathed it, heating it up quickly. After a while, it started becoming malleable. Gravis knew the specifics of the material, so he knew how much power his father was using. On top of that, due to his affinity towards lightning, he could also feel the power with his being. It wasn't very strong. Gravis could create such powerful lightning without any issue.

Slowly, the ore started taking the form of a standard sword. After around three minutes, it had completely taken the shape of a sword. Yet, it didn't have sharp edges.

”You need to use your Spirit to form the material into a weapon,” his father said. ”It's quite a bit of stress on your Spirit and concentration, which is where your concentration training comes into play. You need to keep the finished product's shape in mind and use appropriate force with your Spirit. Too much, and you might damage its composition, too little, and it will break.”

Gravis nodded as he kept looking at the sword-embryo.

”The edges of a sharp weapon need many times more concentration than just creating the weapon-embryo. When the material is much weaker than your current Realm, you can simply force it.”

SHING!

In nearly no time at all, the sword's sides compressed, forming a very sharp cutting edge.

Whoop!

The sword reverted to its previous, dull form. ”If you forge with such weak materials, you only need to force the borders of the sword into a sharp edge. At that point, depending on what material you used, you only need to follow the material's properties while cooling it down. Of course, I skipped the step of the Formation Arrays here.”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Many small thunderclaps resounded throughout the room as many small bolts of lightning concentrated on the edges of the dull sword-embryo. The normal lightning still kept the material at the appropriate temperature while the small lightning bolts put more force on the edges.

Gravis' eyes narrowed as he realized how much focus this needed. The small lightning bolts for the edges would also increase the material's temperature, and if it got too hot, its composition would change, making it worse. His father was moving the small bolts of lightning around so that they still put more pressure on the edges yet didn't make them too hot.

On top of that, his father was adjusting the balance of the remaining lightning to counteract the heightened temperature around the edges. This required a lot of subtle and minute movements. It was like a person doing four different things at once with their four limbs.

”If you want to forge something actually useful to you, you will be working with materials that you can't force into shape with your Spirit alone. At this point, you need to do what I'm doing right now. Use your control over lightning to compress the material around the edges without damaging it. It requires a lot of concentration and fine control to use this method effectively, but it's not nearly as consuming to your Spirit as the previous one.”

Whoop!

Suddenly, the sharp edges vanished again to reveal the blunt sword-embryo again. When Gravis saw that, his eyes shone. ”You didn't cut off part of the material to make an edge, but compressed it,” Gravis commented.

His father nodded. ”There are different ways to forge a weapon. Theoretically, you could grind the edges into a sharp shape, but that's not as effective as this method. Materials have different properties and can achieve different levels of power. That's referring to the Material Rank inside the booklet I gave you.”

Gravis nodded. ”This material is at the Early Unity Rank.”

”Exactly. This means that the most powerful weapon you can make with this material is one appropriate for someone at the Early Unity Realm. Yet, you need to keep in mind that this is the upper boundary. It only shows the most powerful state of the material.”

”Now,” his father said, ”If I were to grind it down like this,”

CRRRRRRRRR!