“It’s time to split this up and form this part of the armor!” I said, then turned to Little Spring. “Are you ready to focus on the flames while I shape everything?”

His eyes focused on the furnace. “How hot do you need it?”

“The highest you can go for now. And when I give you the signal, use this seal.” To demonstrate it, I clapped my hands then — while keeping them together — I pointed them into two sky-shooting finger guns, just before lowering my left hand.

He nodded and took over control of the earthen flames. This kid was good at a lot of things, but he was still new to forging. If any other child his age was asked to do what I demanded of him, they would utterly fail. Hopefully, I wasn’t wrong about putting my trust in him.

Regardless, I’d rather risk failure by trusting a kid than expose my hard won advanced techniques to a master spiritual armorer. Just remembering all the hazing I went through and all the contribution points I spent learning techniques from those stuck up assholes... A majority of those ‘amazing secrets’ weren’t even worth it, making me feel like I’d been scammed.

With a mere flip of my finger, I raised the molten alloy into the air. Since I’d need space inside the furnace for what I was going to do, I used my spiritual energy to pull the crucible out and back onto the shelf. It landed with a thunk that echoed around the smithy.

With a twist of my hands, I divided the heavy liquid metal into various large sections. Then I split one of those up into even smaller parts. After doing a series of complex hand seals, I stomped my foot. A wave of energy washed over the small pieces, forming them into very basic belt latches and connecting rings.

It would be nice if I’d had the energy, materials, and tools to make armor that attached itself to the body using spiritual energy, but I didn’t. These would have to do.

I set aside a few small pieces of metal to be added to the boots I’d make later. They formed small bars of reddish-golden metal. Since I had good leather and the Spiritual Rubber Tree, I would do something very special for them. Something... flighty. Muahahaha!

I would have to create those when I went to finish the entire set. Unfortunately, I only had the energy and stamina to create the metal parts and fabric today.

Next, I pulled out my large hammer and sent it flying into the forge. By controlling it with spiritual energy, I knocked out simple shapes for the pauldron, creating two layers for it. Then, two more for each vambrace.

Since Little Spring couldn’t increase the temperature as much as I could, the armor was already cooling a bit, allowing it to keep its shape easier. This was also part of my considerations and why I was working so swiftly.

I swung the large hammer to crash down on specific spots in an order I’d perfected over the years. My energy drained with each hit, but the basic forms turned from looking not unlike a blobfish, to smooth and relatively armor-shaped.

With a grasping gesture, I pulled the large hammer back. Then I grabbed the small one and sent it flying in. With a flick of my wrist, I smashed it against precise areas, further strengthening it while also shaping it.

Finally, I flung my chisel into the forge. With a curve of my finger I had it carve out lines then circles, careful to account for how the metal would morph later. With a speed unmatched by any smith at my level, I finished drawing the spiritual armor enchantments. But they weren’t done yet!

Now that the initial carvings were in place, I sent in a bit more of the gold flakes and a dozen mid-tier spirit stones. Frankly, watching as they broke up into little pieces and vanished into the carved areas of the metal made my heart bleed. So much money, so many contribution points... But they were both needed to solidify the enchantments. Otherwise, I’d have to continuously pump my spiritual energy into the armor and nobody had the stamina to do that during a fuckin’ fight.

With the enchantment finished, I covered them with the second layer. No good armorer would ever allow their enchantments to be visible. At higher levels, I could even make them vanish into the alloy altogether.

“Now!”

Little Spring formed the finger gun seal and lowered the overall temperature. It was still hot inside the furnace, but now the metal would keep its shape better. There was also something special about this hand seal — while it lowered the general temperature, it kept one area in the center extremely hot.

I used that intense, heated spot to turn the edges of the overlapped pieces cherry red. With a gesture, I quickly hammered and combined them. Then I used a hand gesture to fold the edges together several times to create a lip that both looked good and served the purpose of keeping the two halves together.

It took a while, but I did this for each large piece.

Using two layers of spiritual alloy like this might make the top layer crack easier; however, it helped the enchantment stay safe in the type of lower ranked armor we were creating. Enchantments, more than anything else, made the armor work. Without it, I’d have to rely on the base protective abilities of the metal and spiritual polymer, which was good, but not that impressive. Without the enchantment, how could those materials prevent the tribulation lightning, from turning me into a moth-cultivator flying into a heavenly bug zapper?

I set the larger pieces up so the tops were close to the intense heat. Then I signaled to Little Spring that he needed to keep it up. In quick succession, I downed several cups of spiritual spring water and used up a few dozen spirit stones.

And once I finished my short break, I grabbed about half of the leftover red dust and gold flakes and threw them into the furnace. After forming a special hand seal, the titanium and gold landed on the surface of the armor, coating and strengthening the outer surface.

Seriously, who needed electroplating when there were hand seals and spiritual energy?

I grinned. Now came the fun part.

I pulled the large hammer back in and repeatedly struck the armor in a certain strength-enhancing pattern that would further help the platting fuse into the surface. The sound I made changed from clanks to pleasing gongs, allowing me to literally hear the armor increase in quality. Beautiful! Perfect! It was all coming together so well! “Muahahaha!”

I sent in another half of the red powder and used it to create a beautiful and strengthening filigree that spread over each piece like a spiderweb of art.

Finally, the metal part of the armor was complete!

“Cool it!” I pulled it, the rings, latches, and bars from the forge and allowed them to hover in midair.

With a sweating forehead, the kid stepped forward and braided his fingers together in a technique that quickly cooled down the metal while allowing it to keep its shape. Since we would need to heat it again and quench it when the time came to complete the set, this form of cooling was perfect.

As if the heavens blessed our work, even as charred as it looked, it still glowed with a rose-gold light of potential. What would it look like when we finished the whole set? Never, have I created such a low rank armor of this quality before.

I set the pieces by the bolt of fabric. This was enough for today.

Grinning, I held out my hand for a fist bump. He reluctantly gave me one while staring at the half-finished armor.

“It doesn’t exactly look pretty.”

I scowled at him. “Once it’s all combined and polished, it will shimmer with beauty.”

Actually, part of me was shocked that we had succeeded so smoothly. There were too few bumps. I mean, I’d half-suspected we’d fail on the first try. I couldn’t help but think that part of our success was due to the combination of our energies.

As much as I wanted to work on it more, I needed a break. This had taken more out of me than I originally suspected. It must be my younger, smaller body. I was still growing, though not for much longer. In my last life, my height topped out at thirteen at five feet four inches. In my original life, by the time I reached my current age, I had reached five feet exactly. I never grew any taller.

Fuck, I was so exhausted that my mind wandered too much.

Tomorrow. Everything could wait till tomorrow. There was only one thing I needed to know right now.

“How was your first official forging experience?”

Instead of answering me, he took a long drink from a cup filled with spiritual spring water, then threw it into his bag.

“I think I’d like to learn more. At least enough so I can make and mend my own tools.”

“Knowing that is one of the best things you can learn. This way, even if I’m not there, you’ll still—”

“I thought you agreed that you won’t leave without me?”

Maybe this kid was a little too attached. To get him to think, I flicked his glabella. “Trust me, someday you will want to go off on sect missions on your own.”

He rubbed his forehead and scowled up at me. “Doubtful.”

That was what all the kids said… then they became grumpy hormonal teenagers.

“Let’s talk about a situation that might really happen. For example, we could go to a secret realm, become separated, and have to navigate it on our own. There are plenty of other ways too. Don’t overthink my words just because I’ve wanted to leave you here in the past.”

“Yes, Sister Lin!”

I sighed. “Now, get some sleep. You have lessons in...” Oh fuck — “A few hours.”

***

“You’re late!” Garlic put her hands on her hips and raised a brow at us as we landed our flying swords in her kitchen’s courtyard. Other students ran around doing chores. The few that looked our way quickly averted their gazes and ran for cover like we were about to throw down again. I mean, it only happened once!

I winced. Okay, so we’d overslept. Our bodies were still growing, damn it! And sometimes it was hard to wake up.

“He learned to forge and needed time to recover.”

She glared at me as if she judged me and found me wanting.

Now I remember it... This was the look that made me utterly disregard her in my last life. If it weren’t for her excellent teaching of my martial brother, I’d do the same thing in this life, too. For those who had no respect for me, I had zero time or energy to humor them. It was a habit I’d developed in my past life after encountering too many trolls on the internet.

“I carve out a portion of my day to teach Little Spring. The very least I ask is for him to be here in the mid-mornings and not.” She pointed to the sun that was high in the air.

Still. Like fuck was I going to back down. Maybe I was a little late, but not showing up happened to cultivators all the time. It should be expected that employees and students would abruptly become absent or have to leave if they had a sudden breakthrough or injury. We were living in a Xianxia universe for fuck’s sake, and not an uptight school drama. “He needed to recover and process the knowledge he gained.”

“Recover from what? He’s already at the peak of Qi Condensation so, unless he suddenly calls down his tribulation he’s not going to have a development in his cultivation that would require being absent from my lessons. And I doubt he could have picked up that much about the forge since studying spiritual item-making takes time.”

“Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. You see, Little Spring helped me forge yesterday.”

Her expression that was once disdainful turned delighted, then she turned to the kid. “Are you going to get good enough to make your teacher some wonderful kitchen supplies?”

His eyes widened, then hardened. “I’ll definitely sell you an excellent tool or two when I make one!”

She placed her hand on the top of his head and squashed him. Even though her smile didn’t disappear, a vein ticked on her forehead. “I’m teaching you for free, you know.”

“This is this, that’s that.”

I wanted to give the brat two thumbs up. This was exactly the type of shameless behavior I expected from a Xianxia Protagonist who wasn’t a murderhobo.

Besides

“Are you trying to tell me that you want to chop up bad vegetables all day?”

I had to give it to the brat, he stood firm in his resolution.

She scowled then whispered “If you say anything other than this, she won’t teach you anymore, will she? Smart idea, your little girlfriend is crazy.”

I placed my hand on the hilt of my hairpin. “I am not!”

“What? His little girlfriend or crazy?”

Calm, calm. I couldn’t let her get to me. This is what she wanted and if I gave in she would win. I also might develop a heart demon.

Like the adult I was, I took my hand off my sword hairpin and rolled my eyes. Not responding was the only way to win against trolls. A frustrating truth that was hard-won. I’d wasted far too many hours in my past life arguing with people who were wrong and refused to change their minds, especially when presented with evidence that countered their narrow worldviews.

Actually, in my last life, it was scientifically proven that people almost never changed their views when presented with facts that opposed their beliefs. But that just made petty revenge and face-slapping so much more satisfying. Muahahaha!

I’d have to think of something good to get back at her for this. Maybe creating an alchemical powder that I could spread over her vegetables that would turn everyone's hair lime green.

With swift movements, I flicked my sleeve, turned, and lifted off on my flying sword. I had other more important things to do. Things that would get me back on track to being fully prepared that the lightning tribulation that loomed over my head.

When I heard her laughter coming from behind me I flipped her off.