owlsbooks #244 - Do you also know how to refine weapons?
#244 - Do you also know how to refine weapons?
Pushing open the stone door was none other than a creature with black and white fur, short limbs, and a protruding belly, looking incredibly adorable.
“Iron Eater?” Yang Tao recognized the uniquely-featured beast as the elusive creature they had been searching for all these days, and he was overjoyed.
However, he immediately noticed the figure on the beast's back.
It was a young woman who looked not much older than them, with a slender figure, long legs, and strong, powerful arms, her whole body exuding a sense of strength and beauty.
But the most striking features were her bronze skin and her ear-length short hair, quite rare in this era.
“You are…” Yang Tao paused, stunned.
“Chi, weren’t you looking for me?” The short-haired girl on the Iron Eater frowned.
As soon as she spoke, Lu Jing and the others recognized it as the rough voice that had come from the cave earlier.
For a moment, the three of them couldn't help but look at each other in surprise.
Lu Jing recalled again, realizing that Ye Gongmei hadn't specifically mentioned Chi's gender, only referring to her as "she."
However, Lu Jing had been preconceived, assuming that someone obsessed with forging should be a man, and thus took Ye Gongmei's "she" as "he."
In addition, Chi's voice did sound rather masculine, which was why the three were surprised to see a young woman sitting on the Iron Eater's back.
“Senior Ye wants to borrow my Iron Eater?” Chi continued to ask in her unique, rough voice, her gaze towards the three of them somewhat suspicious.
“No,” Lu Jing hesitated, eventually choosing to tell the truth. “We want to borrow the Iron Eater. The three of us were punished by Warden Huang for trespassing in the forbidden area, and we were sent to Zhujing to cut bamboo. A friend happened to see Senior Chi’s… uh, Senior's Iron Eater on the mountaintop and reminded us that we could use it to deal with the iron-hard bamboo in Zhujing.
“I went to Senior Ye first, and only learned from Senior Ye’s guidance that Senior Chi lives in seclusion here. Then I came to visit with two friends.”
Chi didn't commit to anything upon hearing this. She looked at Lu Jing and the others, then said, “Your lightness skills are quite good, daring to jump down such high cliffs, but… you're going to make a wasted trip this time.”
Before Lu Jing could speak again, Chi continued, “It’s not that I’m unwilling to lend you the Iron Eater. In fact, when my master was still alive, many students who were punished to cut bamboo in Zhujing thought about borrowing the Iron Eater for help.
“At that time, my master would usually have them exchange for minerals, depending on the quantity and rarity of those minerals, to decide how many days to lend the Iron Eater to them.”
“We can also exchange for minerals,” Xia Huai said at this moment. “My father is an official in Mei Prefecture, where the mineral deposits are quite rich. You can have as much as you want, Senior.”
Chi seemed somewhat tempted upon hearing this, but quickly shook her head again and said, “No, it’s not that I’m stingy, it’s just that you’ve come at the wrong time. Don’t even mention you, even if Senior Ye himself came to borrow the Iron Eater, my answer would be the same.”
Chi had said things to this point, and it seemed that the three were destined to return empty-handed this time.
However, afterwards, Lu Jing still asked with a try-it-and-see attitude, “Senior Chi, would it be convenient for you to tell us the reason why you can’t lend out the Iron Eater?”
“Well, telling you to make you give up completely is fine,” Chi nodded proudly. “I am trying to forge the strongest weapon, and the key to this lies in the Iron Eater.
“Speaking of which, this was the path that Senior Ye pointed out for me. She told me that I could try to use the Iron Eater’s ability to digest impurities, allowing the Iron Eater to repeatedly devour the same material, extracting the essence of the essence. So now I must strictly control its food and not let it eat anything else.”
After Chi finished speaking, she found that the faces of the three people in front of her had become strange.
Especially Xia Huai, whose gaze towards the Iron Eater was full of sympathy. The girl felt that eating her own excrement was already miserable enough, and having to eat it repeatedly was simply even more miserable.
The Iron Eater looked so simple and honest, and she estimated that it had been bullied a lot on weekdays.
Chi seemed to have noticed something and quickly explained, “No, it’s not what you think. I didn’t let it eat it directly, it was all fed to it after being smelted.”
“…”
It would have been better if she hadn't explained, but after explaining, it didn't sound like it was any better.
However, after hearing her say this, Xia Huai and Yang Tao also knew that Chi would not be able to lend them the Iron Eater again. After all, it seemed that this Senior Chi was determined to use the Iron Eater to refine her strongest weapon, and they could only think of other ways to cut bamboo.
Just as the two were about to leave, they turned their heads and found Lu Jing frowning.
Lu Jing wasn't worried about where to report someone suspected of abusing a giant panda, but he was thinking of something else. He asked Chi, “Senior, can you let me see the materials you are preparing to use to refine the weapon?”
“What, do you also know how to forge?” Chi asked in surprise upon hearing this.
“I know a little.” Lu Jing said, after all, he had learned basic chemistry knowledge in high school.
Chi looked a little hesitant. Her master was the most famous forging master in the Sitianjian. Even the teachers who are currently teaching forging classes in the academy would respectfully call her master 'Senior' when they saw her.
Therefore, as a direct disciple, she was naturally arrogant, but as a forger, she did not refuse to have some exchanges with her peers.
She was also not afraid of Lu Jing stealing her forging methods, after all, she was the only one in the world who possessed the Iron Eater, and other people who wanted to imitate her would be directly stuck in the material step.
So afterwards, she said to Lu Jing and the others, “Okay, you can come in with me.”
After saying that, she reached out and patted the seated Iron Eater, and the latter turned its round body and walked towards the inside of the cave.
Along the way, the three of them also gained a lot of knowledge. Everywhere they looked, there were all kinds of weapons, including many treasures that looked quite sharp, which would cost at least a thousand taels of silver outside, but in this cave, they were casually thrown on the ground or inserted into the walls.
In addition to these normal swords, there were also some strange weapons, and no one knew what the people who refined them were thinking at first.
For example, two gleaming blades were inserted in the middle of a long spear, and the blade of a scimitar was abnormally opened inward, which made Lu Jing involuntarily think of a man with a cross-shaped scar on his face.
In short, this place looked like a garbage dump composed of weapons, and after walking through this long garbage passage, the three people's eyes finally opened up, but they had already arrived in the belly of the mountain.