Chapter 524 - Rivals

As Tang Wulin got into the flow of blacksmithing, his arms became whips. He brought his hammers crashing down with roaring thunder and soon conjured a whirlwind around him. The blue coppertite shuddered with each booming blow, each impact spreading to shake the hall. With the stacked hammers effect amplifying each strike, Tang Wulin’s blacksmithing table was like the target of a soul cannon bombardment.

Lin Yuhan was the complete opposite. While Tang Wulin was a raging tempest, she was a steady mountain.

Lin Yuhan’s hammers crackled with electricity and pounded the energy into the coppertite. Every time they struck, they rested on the blue coppertite for one second, showing no sign of rebounding off of it. The swirling pattern on the metal changed rapidly under this purification of lightning.

Zhen Hua eyes hardened as he observed all of this. She has a lightning-attribute martial soul!

Refining a metal with lightning was an extremely difficult process that required exceptional skill. Lin Yuhan had to have extraordinarily high spiritual power to execute this method of refining.

As the two young blacksmiths continued hammering away, Zhanggong Yan and Zhen Hua stared at each other’s disciples in awe.

Zhanggong Yan couldn’t feel any soul power fluctuations from Tang Wulin. This meant Tang Wulin was forging with pure strength of muscle! Although he didn’t think much of the heavy silver hammers, he was well aware of the fact that heavy silver became exceptionally heavy once they were spirit refined. Yet the hammers were whirling through the air as though they weighed nothing and crashing down upon the metal with at least ten thousand kilograms of weight!

This left Zhanggong Yan in absolute awe of Tang Wulin’s innate divine strength. Anyone who possessed innate divine strength were undoubtedly suited to blacksmithing. They would always hold an advantage over other blacksmiths. Soon enough, he also noticed how Tang Wulin delivered each strike perfectly, landing them in the best place to disperse the waves within the coppertite. He clearly had a high comprehension of metals.

Damn! The Blacksmith’s Association had a genius after all! He has to at least be at the fourth rank. No wonder Zhen Hua was so confident.

A boom echoed from the center of the hall, and beams of light soared from the two forged pieces of coppertite at the exact same time. A minute had yet to even pass, and they had already finished hundred refining their metals. Both pieces of blue coppertite were much purer than before, but neither competitor showed any sign of stopping. Both were still wholly focused on their work, not sparing so much as a single glance to the other.

In spite of the violent tempest that was Tang Wulin raging right in front of her, Lin Yuhan maintained a steady pace. She delivered swift, electrifying strikes to her metal. Her hammers crackled with increasing intensity as time went on, and as she poured more soul power into them, her soul rings rose one by one. In total, four appeared. All were purple. She was a four-ringed Soul Ancestor! Considering how old she was, that made her a genius soul master as well!

Lin Yuhan’s eyes saw only the blue coppertite. She wielded her hammers as extensions of her own body, bringing them down time and time again. Every strike thundered five times each, imbuing the coppertite with electrical might.

Tang Wulin’s storm raged on, each hammer strike crashing down upon the metal like meteors upon the earth. The blue coppertite visibly transformed with each strike.

Their blacksmithing styles were completely different, but their goal was the same: Refine the metal!

It was then that a pair of overlapping booms rang out, happening so close together that it was nearly impossible to distinguish between the two. Both pieces of coppertite had been first-grade thousand refined! Beams of light shot up from the metals, rising a meter and a half high. There were no clear differences between the beams of light. They had even risen at the same time.

Tang Wulin and Lin Yuhan finally stopped forging for a moment, looking up from their respective tables to lock eyes with one another. They were astonished that their opponent had achieved such a feat and had to acknowledge each other as equals.

However, the fact that Zhanggong Yan dared to challenge the Blacksmith’s Association meant that thousand refining couldn’t possibly be the limit of Lin Yuhan’s abilities. In much the same way, this couldn’t be Tang Wulin limit either. He was talented enough to represent the illustrious Blacksmith’s Association and earn Divine Blacksmith Zhen Hua’s recognition.

The moment passed and the two returned to their work with renewed vigor.

Lin Yuhan’s hammers hummed with power as they steadily came down over and over. The light around her piece of blue coppertite fluctuated, answering the song of her smithing.

Zhen Hua frowned. Forging blue coppertite with hammers made of blue coppertite was undoubtedly an advantage, and that was especially true with hammers that possessed the nurture effect. Lin Yuhan would have an easier time spirit refining blue coppertite, and the odds of her succeeding were much higher as well. It wouldn’t be easy for Tang Wulin to defeat her in this round.

Tang Wulin, on the other hand, didn’t hold any particular advantage. In fact, his torrent of hammer strikes had slowed down. Three purple soul rings rose from beneath him, and only then was he prepared to begin spirit refining.

Zhanggong Yan’s lips pressed into a thin smile at the sight of Tang Wulin’s three rings. As a blacksmith advanced, soul power became more and more critical. A few ranks of it could mean the difference stagnation and progression.

All of the blacksmiths in the crowded hall were stunned by the talent of their two young peers. Tang Wulin’s foundation was unbelievably strong and seemed to have come straight out of a textbook. He had laser focus and always hammered the blue coppertite in the spot that would most effectively call forth the metal’s life and spirit.

As the two continued to steadily forge, the auras of their blue coppertites began to diverge. The spiral pattern on Lin Yuhan’s piece of blue coppertite was perfectly symmetrical and orderly on all sides. The electric might of her strikes no longer served to purify the metal, but instead charge it with energy, dying its spirals black. Gazing at it now, sparks bursting from its surface, was like peering into a world of storms.

Tang Wulin’s blue coppertite looked beautiful as well, but it was clearly no match for Lin Yuhan’s. Everyone could tell that even if he succeeded in spirit refining it, the end product wouldn’t hold a candle to hers. The difference in equipment and methodologies was too great.

The clock ticked on, and soon half an hour passed. Lin Yuhan swung both her hammers down as she did before, but this time was different. The moment they touched the coppertite, a deafening rumble filled the hall. Lightning surged through the hammers and into the metal. It shuddered from the infusion, and wisps of lightning danced across the surface as it glowed with life. A ring of light manifested around it, a faint cry of joy marking the metal’s birth. She had successfully spirit refined the blue coppertite!

Lightning continued to crackle and arc around Lin Yuhan’s body for several minutes after she finished before finally fading into nothing. Her piece of blue coppertite was now one-third its original size and was a deep, dazzling blue. The spirals churned with life, like an electricity-charged whirlpool in the sea.

This was no ordinary spirit refined metal. It was an element-imbued! In addition to its original properties, the metal now possessed the power of lightning! It was worth at least triple that of normal spirit refined blue coppertite. The fact that a teenager no more than sixteen years old had forged this metal was jaw-dropping. Not even a fifth-rank blacksmith could achieve such a feat. At that moment, everyone watching was thinking the same thing: Tang Wulin had lost. He had yet to finish spirit refining, and he only had three soul rings in comparison to Lin Yuhan’s four! No one saw any way he could win this round.