904 Metal Compounding

On his free weekend, Alex went to mine once more and mined about 30 tons of the ore this time around.

He spent 2 days mining there and only stopped around the evening of the 2nd day.

He closed the formation and turned around to leave when a bunch of Saint realm cultivators passed by next to him on their way in.

When they saw the giant hole in the wall, they stopped.

"What the hell?" one of them said.

"Who did that?" another person asked.

"Was it here 5 days ago? I don't remember seeing this," a woman spoke.

They saw Alex right next to them, but his cultivation was… they couldn't really tell what his cultivation was, but he wasn't in the Saint realm and that was all that mattered to them.

"Junior, stop," one of them spoke. Alex turned around, his spiritual sensing falling on them all as he checked them out.

They were all wearing different forms of clothes, but Alex did recognize one of them as belonging to the Blue Spring sect, which meant at least one of these cultivators came from the far east from the State of Shuang.

"How can I help you, senior?" he asked.

The group was a little surprised to see that Alex had spiritual sense, and his mask made him look a little eye catching.

"Did you see who did this to the wall?" one of them asked.

"No," Alex shook his head.

"Really? You were working on this section though," the woman asked.

"I merely thought it was good because it was already broken into," Alex said. "However, it isn't as good as it looks. Even with a hole, the wall is still as hard to get into as ever," Alex said.

"Of course, we know. We don't need a True realm cultivator to tell us that," the woman said.

Alex didn't reply. "If you don't have any other questions, then I will leave," he said and turned around.

The group watched him walk away and a few of them put on an appalled face.

"His gall to turn away while we're speaking. Let me teach him some manners," the woman said and was about to walk out when the man from the Blue Spring sect stopped her.

"Don't waste your time. We need to gather as many ores as we can in this month and return back to Shuang state," he said.

The other saints nodded and one by one, they separated from there to go to different locations in the cave and mine for ores.

Alex returned back to his room and started cultivating once more.

His apprenticeship continued from tomorrow on, until the next 5 days, so he prepared for it by remembering what he had learned in the last 5 days.

Aside from the sword, he learned to make spears, sabers, daggers, axe, hammers, bows, and arrows.

He was also taught how to make armor and shield and was even taught the design behind the Qi lines that came to make armor with barrier capabilities.

Alex learned it and made some armor, but they didn't come out as great as he would have hoped. He had tempered the metal perfectly, but an armor was more than just metal.

It also included leathers and clothes that Alex wasn't used to and ended up making an acceptable but not great armor. He wasn't really worried about that, however, his only interest here was in making a sword after all.

The next day, Alex went to the smithy early morning and arrived just as everyone was starting to get the furnaces working.

"Oh, you came already?" the Saint looked at him. "Uhh, can you make this sword for a while? I need to make a sword myself. A customer came after you left yesterday and paid extra money to get it made as soon as possible, so I will have to work in the back today."

"Work in the back?" Alex was curious. "They brought the tungsten ore?"

"Yes, they want a sword out of it, so I will have to work there the whole time," he said.

"Can I watch?" Alex asked.

"You want to watch?" the Saint made a confused face. "There's nothing to watch though. You already know how to make a sword and you already know how I extract the metal from the ore."

"I have always been curious about one thing," Alex said. "The weapons that use the Tungsten can increase and decrease in size for some reason. I want to learn more about it."

"Ah! You want to learn about metal compounding huh? It's a little advanced, but I guess I can teach you. Come with me," he said and took Alex to the back of the smithy.

They went into one of the rooms with the tungsten furnace and Alex watched the Saint break the ore apart as best as he could and then melt the ore twice as it was too big to do it at once.

Once he obtained the relatively pure metal, it was about 1 ton in weight.

Alex watched the volume of the metal and it was quite a lot. The 1 ton of metal would make at least 2 swords, if not more. He was surprised at how large it actually was.

"We're making a single sword?" he asked.

"Yes," the Saint said. "But first, we need to make an alloy," he said. He brought out some materials, only half of which Alex had interacted with before, and put them in the furnace.

As it melted, he put the metal into the furnace too, and used his Qi to mix them together so they blended together properly.

Once it was all done, the Saint poured out the massive pool of molten metal alloy that could certainly make about 4 different swords now.

He switched it over to a metal bed that lay on the ground in the room and brought out his hammer to start beating on it.

Alex heard the uniform sounds of the beat as he recognized the man try and listen to the metal's rhythm and follow it.

He had only succeeded twice in the last week, but he still tried. Still, even when he didn't fall into a rhythm, just trying to stay in one made a massive difference.

Alex watched the metal shrink a little as the impurities were removed. However, the man kept striking and somehow the metal kept shrinking.

Alex could see heat being constantly passed onto the sword as the man worked on it and saw the metal shrink even further.

What started as a metal that could be turned into 4 or more swords, had now shrunken in size to the point that it could only make 3 swords.

But the saint kept on going. He continued striking the metal with his hammer and the metal kept shrinking.

Alex wanted to ask what was going on, but he could see an incredible focus in the man's eyes and could even see him struggling, so he decided not to speak and only watched for now.

The metal continued to shrink. From 3 swords, it went to being the size of 2 and a half swords, and from that to 2 swords.

The focus and strain on the man's face were even greater now that he continued hammering away at the metal to shrink it more and more and more until there was only enough metal to make a single sword.

Then, he started making Qi lines and hammered away at locations to make the sword even.

Half an hour later, he finally stopped and slumped onto the ground as if he had lost all stamina.

He breathed heavily, while Alex approached him.

"What happened to the rest of the metal? Did you compress it?" he asked.

"Yes," he said. "In the artifact forging field, we call it compounding. Few metals work like this and can be compressed to such a point. When you use Qi on it now, it reveals its original size."

"Oh," Alex finally understood what he had been curious about for a very long time now. 'So that's why they were so freely compressing and expanding their weapons.

"Is there a reason why you make an alloy and not just used the ore?" Alex asked.

"Heavier is better most of the time, and despite being an alloy, it's barely any weaker than if it had been made with pure tungsten," he said. "Also, having more metal to work with is much better when you plan on compounding something."

"I see," Alex said. "A 3-ton weapon with a lot of tungsten would obviously be much better than a 1-ton weapon that is all tungsten. Thank you for teaching me that."

"I'll teach you what to do in theory later on. For now, go back and make the sword I told you to earlier. I'll come to check after I'm done finishing this up."

Alex nodded and returned back to the smithy at the front and worked.

The 5 days that week, Alex spent learning the little crafts. Like making handles, or hilts or cutting leather, and such; Skills that didn't seem fancy from the outside but were rather integral to every artifact out there.

While Alex didn't learn how one could make the more weird and fantastical artifacts, what he did learn, he was very grateful for.

With this, he would be able to make the many swords he wanted, even though he wouldn't make it until he was in the Saint realm and learned a few Dao.

On the final day of his apprenticeship, Alex was given a small test, which he passed with flying colors.

Then as a gift, Hwan Fulin gave Alex an anvil and a hammer so he could continue forging no matter where he went.

Alex thanked his two weeks long Master and left the smithy, never to be seen there again for a long time.