Divine-Querying Master Smith

To forge divine weapons with the power of "Suihuang", none but a master craftsman can do it.
The enormous Suiyang, like a "deep blue sun", has already sunk into a deep sleep, and yet in drawing its fire, a single moment of carelessness is enough to fall into a hallucination of the mind.
The people of the Xianzhou live forever and do not age, and the long, drawn-out years have piled up too much love, hatred and resentment in their hearts, so that even a small tremor on an ordinary day can be magnified into a hallucination enough to break a person.

Since the founding of the Xianzhou Zhuming, no one knows how many inexperienced craftsmen, and even famous smiths, have had their consciousness stolen away by the Suiyang over the slightest wavering of temper, and have either slaughtered one another in a rage, or gone mad and turned into demons because they could not forge a work that satisfied them.
When General Huaiyan took up the post of Furnace Master, he specially made this fire beast mask, so that artisans whose temperament was not yet steady could avoid being eroded by the heat and could keep their clarity.

But there are always those who refuse to follow the rules.
The old Ribhus who guard the Forging Palace remember it very clearly: that genius of the short-lived races named "Yingxing", when he entered the palace to forge a sword, did not want the mask blocking his vision.
They had met far too many young people who relied on their talent and looked down on the world, and they were only waiting for him to go mad and be possessed, so that they could let him taste suffering and grind his temper down.
One quarter of an hour, one full hour, one day and one night; more and more people came to the Forging Palace to watch, and the young man's figure warped in the smoke, but the sound of iron on the anvil never once stopped...

They cannot forget the moment the tempering was completed, when the blade was as clear as autumn water, reflecting that young man's gaze, like ice and snow.

The gauntlets made by the Ribhus cannot easily be used by anyone without extraordinary strength in the arms.
He recalled when he had just arrived at Zhuming: one swing of the hammer, and a jarring pain came through the gauntlet into his palm. But when he thought of the tragedy of his homeland slaughtered by the Abundance abominations, he let the fresh blood drip from his palm, and even swung the next blow faster than the last.

"To become a master smith, you must first learn to cherish your most important tool: your own hands."
Huaiyan shook his head, and he seemed to understand something.
A soft sword bending like a willow branch, sharp enough to cut a hair blown across it, mechanisms layered one upon another, delicate and complex... He could feel the flex and the character of every kind of metal, his hands were like his measuring rule, and even a difference of a hair's breadth could be caught by his fingertips.
He took apart and reassembled the most complex machines, and the Aurumaton weapons made by his hands quickly became a powerful aid to the Xianzhou in facing the Abundance abominations.

Later on, both his hands were wrapped in bandages, and even the simplest swing of the hammer would draw blood.
Enduring ten thousand strokes of the sword, he grasped that person's blade again and again, as though he were begging for something, and as though he were repaying something.
"Do you remember?" that person said.
He did not answer.
In torment that pierced through to the heart, regret was like a blazing flame, burning away that past bit by bit.

Wearing the "Furnace Master" uniform did not change his habits either.
The person is like the weapon and the weapon is like the person; what weapon to make, and for whom to make it, still depended entirely on his likes and dislikes.
"If it pleases my eye, I take not a single coin. If it offends my eye, ten thousand in gold means nothing to me."

According to the nature of each person, the smith stripped away and polished down designs that had once pursued perfection, until they truly suited the fighting instincts of the one who would use them.
The fire on the anvil flickered, and what was reflected in the depths of his eyes was no longer cold iron and stone, but the mighty figure of a swordbearer winning merit and building a legacy.

The Dragon Lord commands the great waves, mighty in power, and can use a long spear to break through armor.
The swordsman moves nimbly, and his sword stance is sharp and hard to defend against, suited to a keen blade that cuts through light.
The pilot often ventures into places of danger, isolated and without support, and needs a curved bow to defend herself.
The youth carries a bellyful of strategies, so following his wishes, forge him an eighteen-foot longblade, imposing and majestic, to wait for the day he grows up.

Breaking Zhushan, slaying Panli, hunting Mingxiao, capturing Hoolay... news of victory came flying back thick as snowflakes.
Wherever the sword points of the Cloud Quintet turned, the Abundance abominations were swept away.
"For blades and swords, wearing down in battle is their fate. Use them without worry, and if you break one, come find me!"

But a long time afterward, he still had to bury with his own hands the weapons he had forged himself.
"I would rather... that all of us had died with no place to be buried..."
On the lonely island of Insumousu, they had grown old, while he was still young.

The closer one comes to "Suihuang" in the core region, the more terrifying the gravitational field becomes.
To resist the gravitational field, the artisans of Zhuming created boots fitted with a reactive levitation mechanism, and thanks to them they could move about freely in this area.

At some point he could not name, the core region where he had once moved about freely now cost him a little effort just to lift a foot.
His master, his friends, the peers around him were all exactly as they had been at their first meeting, but graying hair had begun to show at his temples.
"You are not one of the long-lived, so rest for a few days, and it will not be too late to forge again once you have gathered enough strength..."
The general's advice had brushed past his ears countless times, and he would only smile and let it go.
"Master, I am actually glad that I am growing old, do you know why?"
Without waiting for Huaiyan to answer, he pressed a cup of strong liquor into his master's hand...
"At least I will not have to go through the grief of losing everyone. Consider it a favor I am asking of you: when the time comes, you must shed a few tears for me!"

In his life he forged countless divine weapons, but he had never tried to take the flesh and blood of the Abundance as iron and steel, and forge anew a life that had already gone.
Even with all his strength poured out, his dear friend could only be brought back in the shape of a monster, causing a great disaster with countless casualties.
When he opened his eyes again, the starlight of the smith was gone from them, leaving only a patch of dead ash in a gloomy furnace, never to be put out.

He took off the master smith's garb, the name "Yingxing" scattered like ash, and the brilliantly gifted "Furnace Master" became history as well.
Whether smiths wish to follow him, criticize him, imitate him or surpass him, not one of them can ignore the marks he left behind. To this very day, the smiths of Zhuming, once they are admitted, must still study with reverence the works he left behind in those years.
But he had already stepped onto a different road.
In endless hatred, he took himself as the billet and the rest of his life as the tempering, forging a "possibility" that perhaps can never reach salvation.