An hour later, Sage was standing in front of a forge. To the side was a huge stack of Fire Stones, ready to be put to use heating the forge to more extreme temperatures. For now, there was a mundane fire simmering within the forge. The huge pile of coals was maintained by an apprentice that stopped by every few hours. While this forge wasn’t anywhere near as well equipped as those back in the Holy Flame Sect, it was nonetheless one of top quality for a place like Plum Lantern City. It was probably one of the top three workshops in the city, and was equipped to handle every problem a Blacksmith might face.

On the other hand, the equipment was nowhere near as refined or powerful as the ones back in his sect. The differences between a crafting sect and a large business were apparent. Thousand Treasures shared access to a high quality set of workshops that would put most small or mediums sized sects to shame, but it was also just a business. Of course their workshops wouldn’t match those of a massive and powerful sect of craftsmen. Still, this workshop would serve for Sage’s purposes. Given the capabilities of the Universe Ring, Sage wouldn’t have even needed a workshop if he had stopped at the sect before coming to Plum Lantern City. His standards had just been too high to settle for any normal workshop equipment, wanting to instead get the good stuff.

Sage first performed a thorough examination and test of all the equipment in the workshop, not being stupid enough to assume anything about their performance. Next, he brought out all of his planned ingredients and started to test them as well. Not every material was created alike. A piece of metal from one mine might be very different from one from another mine, even if they were both the same type of metal. The differences between living creatures was even more pronounced, so more time was given to testing the Grimfire Gryphon’s talons, the Enigma Silk, and the sky bison horns.

He’d never actually built a set of matching flying swords to use in a Sword Formation, but that didn’t mean he was helpless. Knowing the theory behind their creation, Sage first brought out a set of similar, but lower leveled materials to practice with. Spirit Steel instead of Cloudmetal, Manticore claws instead of Grimfire Gryphon talons, and Spiritworm Silk instead of Enigma Silk. These materials were much cheaper, but similar in style and also from singular sources just like his other materials.

It was a little tip he had picked up from a book back in the sect’s library. It was a general knowledge blacksmithing book so it didn’t go into specifics, but he saw a small introductory passage on creating item sets. Sets of items were an uncommon creation among smiths because of the increased difficulty and consumption of resources. For this reason, it was a mostly ignored art excepting in certain special situations. The important tip, and the one he was following now; was that an item set would be many times more powerful than normal if each item in the set was crafted from the same source materials. Not just the same type of metal or beast, but the exact same source. One large lump of ore from the same spot, parts from a singular beast, etc. The more congruous the ingredients were, the more unified the resulting set would be.

Sage’s plan was to extend this concept not just to the ingredients, but also to the forging process. He was going to forge each of the swords in a set at the same time, forging them step by step and side by side. This was bound to lead to problems keeping each blade in a similar state, dividing his attention in so many directions and inviting problems. This was the main reason he’d purchased practice materials. If it were just creating items from the high leveled materials, he’d just need to get more to make up for a few initial failures. Instead he’d purchased more than double and planned to make twice as many swords as was necessary for the set.

As for the practice materials? He had enough to forge over a hundred swords. Drawing in a deep breath, his Qi compressed the air into his lungs and with a slow exhale, the flames blasted heat outwards. Divine Breath was being put to its original use once again. Sage slapped a spirit stone onto a fire stone and tossed it into the forge, instantly enveloping the room in a surge of raging heat. Using a huge crucible he slowly refined the rough ore, sifting out the impurities with a few rounds of treatment, eventually pouring it into a sand mold in the shape of bars. Spirit Steel was already a refined product, but Sage wanted to bring the metal up to his standards. It was, after all, just ordinary steel with powdered spirit stones mixed in. Sending it through a second round of refinement let him understand its current condition and also gave him an opportunity to increase the quality by a level.

Before starting any work, he started the process over again, this time using the Cloudmetal and the special charcoal that it required. This coal was essentially a secret product, named merely ‘Cloudmetal Charcoal’ and it had only a few suppliers. It was only used to strengthen and alloy Cloudmetal into Cloudsteel, but it still cost a pretty penny due to its limited source from only a few suppliers. The Cloudmetal Consortium had a monopoly on Cloudmetal Charcoal, so they happily charged exorbitant prices for it. Sage performed the same process of melting and refining the Cloudmetal as he had done with the Spirit Steel. Then he performed the special process of adding the Cloudmetal Charcoal and transforming the Cloudmetal into Cloudsteel. He was very careful and cautious during this process, aiming to get a result consistent with that of the Spirit Steel. The closer the two sets of metals were, the better it would help his tests.

The next day, Sage stood in front of two pyramids of metal bars. With a thought, a boy with white hair and a pot belly appeared beside him.

“Oh great, Tao Ba. What do you think of these metals? Have I made them uniformly enough for an item set?”

He was no longer within the workshop and instead had taken the finished metal bars into the Universe Ring, asking for the opinion of the powerful existence that lived within.

“Hmm… about seventy percent pure, and eighty percent homogeneity between the bars. Not a horrible result. They’re passable, for such low quality items at least.”

Sage refrained from cursing at Tao Ba about his standards, instead convincing himself that it was a good thing this helper of his had such a high bar. It meant that he’d be able to keep getting help, far far into the future. He just had to put up with an arrogant little brat… it was a price he could pay.

With the main ingredient properly prepared, Sage also asked some advice from the haughty boy about his plans for the array formations. Showing the simplified symbols he’d planned. There was a delicate balance he had to maintain. The more specific the symbols he chose the less flexibility there would be in the Sword Formations, but it would also increase the power. The most extreme option would be to engrave the ‘Heaven Destroying Sword Formation’ that Song Lu Tian used into the swords as their main formation. While that would boost their effectiveness, it would also mean they would be nearly useless for anything other than employing that specific formation. If Song Lu Tian later switched his main formation, or wanted to use them in normal combat he would need other swords.

“Is that it? What a puny Sword Formation. Here, just use these.”

Tao Ba flicked his fingers and beams of energy flew through the air, forming array symbols in mid-air. The many strokes and slashes hovering there in the air for Sage to study. He quickly brought out his Memory Forge and copied down this vision in the sky. Tao Ba looked at him like he was admiring a pet.

“Is it so surprising? Those are just some higher level array symbols. No need to specialize them, just use the strongest. Sword. Destruction. Heaven. Power. Speed. See, easy.”

For some reason Tao Ba just made people want to smack him, while at the same time overwhelming others with his immense knowledge. Sage could only flatter him, showering him with praise and brewing him a pot of tea. Afterwards, he returned to the workshop and got to work!