"Then one hundred coins it is! Here," Xiaoyao counted out one hundred copper coins, handed them to the stall owner, then took the crystal mineral ore and left.
"..." Nangong Suxin felt something was wrong. The more she thought about it, the more problematic it seemed, She had been played by this small servant again.
Looking at the small servant's attitude just now, he seemed to be targeting that crystal mineral ore, not the item in her hands.
So she followed Xiaoyao.
"Miss Nangong, you're going the same way too?" Seeing Nangong Suxin following, Xiaoyao asked in return.
This time, Miss Nangong didn't say she was going the same way as before. She said very directly: "No, this time I came to ask you. What is this?"
Nangong Suxin held up the item she'd just bought and placed it before Xiaoyao!
"Didn't I say? It's garbage, an ordinary magnet. You can throw it away directly," Xiaoyao replied.
"...You're not lying to me?" Nangong Suxin asked.
"How would I dare lie to you? You're the Nangong family's young miss. This thing is truly worthless. I took it just to prevent that owner from discovering my purpose. What I really wanted was this." Xiaoyao said very helplessly.
"..." Nangong Suxin wanted to strangle someone. Why did she repeatedly embarrass herself before this small servant? And it seemed the other party wasn't wrong, He had already warned her.
Could this small servant be my nemesis? No way - I must have Divine Calculator read my fortune when I get home.
"One last question, what is that item in your hands?" Nangong Suxin asked. She was very interested in what Xiaoyao had schemed to obtain, knowing it definitely wasn't ordinary crystal ore.
"This? Actually it's just a relatively rare mineral ore that can forge a pretty good weapon for my boss." Xiaoyao replied casually. He didn't give specifics but provided an answer.
"Good weapons can be worth hundreds or thousands of taels, you made a profit." Nangong Suxin said.
"Can't say I profited, I still need to collect other materials, plus labor costs are expensive." Xiaoyao shook his head.
"True, but you're with the Mo family, labor costs are your own anyway. Though Mo family weapons aren't the finest anymore, they're still decent." Nangong Suxin didn't forget to step on the Mo family, and to prove something, took out her sword.
This sword was forged by a renowned master craftsman. Whether material or workmanship, both were world-class. the Mo family simply couldn't forge this level.
"Though your sword is sharp and solid, it lacks flexibility. If it encounters harder weapons, it will definitely be damaged!" Xiaoyao looked at the sword. "Extreme rigidity breaks easily. Seems whoever forged it didn't think much, or this is defective!"
"..." Nangong Suxin wanted to cut someone down. Though her sword wasn't top-tier, it definitely wasn't defective.
"Even so, encountering equal-level swords is difficult, no need to consider those." Nangong Suxin snorted coldly.
"True, there definitely aren't any in Qingyun City. However, perhaps there will be one soon," Xiaoyao said.
"What do you mean?"
"What I forge for my boss will definitely be extremely resilient! Better than yours."
"Oh, then I'll wait to see your results."
Nangong Suxin was very dismissive because she didn't believe Xiaoyao could forge better swords. The Mo family lacked this technology, if they were truly capable, their top-tier weapons wouldn't be from others.
She just didn't know that Xiaoyao's "forging" meant doing it himself, not the Mo family. He knew some swordsmithing, well, a little!!
—
The fifteenth of the first month. Lantern Festival!
This evening was the perfect time for "moon above willow tips, people meeting at dusk!" The Young Miss wanted to arrange meetings today, more precisely, find opportunities to arrange meetings.
Before finding opportunities to arrange meetings, the Young Miss needed to find someone to help. Today, she felt this person's importance was especially prominent, she had to find him.
According to recent servant rumors, this person had been helping at the sword forging workshop recently, from morning to night. Even after others left, he stayed inside. No one knew whose orders these were, but no one cared either.
Because this person was working after all, and doing better work than many others, naturally no one had objections.
So the Young Miss went straight to the Mo family sword forging workshop and directly grabbed Xiaoyao who was adding fuel to the furnaces. Xiaoyao was currently watching several furnaces of different sizes with correspondingly different crucibles, using different furnaces to smelt molten metal according to different conditions.
Molten metal here was a general term, not actually all liquid iron from melted iron, or rather, not purely one type of iron.
Forging different weapons, different grades, different requirements all required different proportional adjustments. So-called adjustments meant adding raw materials by proportion, iron, copper, etc.
Put simply, this was manufacturing alloys.
This continent used cold weapons and was a world where strength reigned supreme, so cold weapon forging techniques had developed to extremes.
Generally, forging cold weapons was collectively called sword forging because swords were most commonly used, had the most users, and best represented cold weapons.
Therefore, so-called sword forging workshops didn't only forge swords but many other weapons too, requiring correspondingly different molten metals.
During this period, Xiaoyao watched the furnaces daily. If someone paid careful attention, they'd discover something strange, one furnace had never stopped firing since he started helping here. That is, whatever was inside still hadn't been completed.
If someone noticed this, they'd wonder what weapon material required smelting this long. Smelting was just one step in sword forging - if this one step took so much time, how long would forging this weapon take?
The Mo family's most successful weapon to date was the Ink Water Sword worn by the family head. According to records, this sword took one hundred days to forge, but smelting only took ten days. Most time was spent on forging, with some time for quenching, polishing, etc.
Even so, this Ink Water Sword's position on the Weapon Rankings wasn't very high. Since then, the Mo family never had any pure weapons make the rankings again.
Right, only pure weapons. If weapons with some mechanisms were included, there were still several. Don't forget - the Mo family was an equipment forging family, not a sword forging family.
Simply put, equipment forging was the Mo family's main business. Sword forging was just one of many side businesses, supplying some mid-to-lower level martial artists and equipping Mo family disciples.
Now, the materials Xiaoyao threw into the furnace had been smelting seven days - nearly matching the Ink Water Sword's time. The Ink Water Sword was completed using all Mo family financial and human resources. If Xiaoyao had anything, it was private - could it compare?
If people had to choose an answer, it would definitely be impossible - after all, he was just one person!!
Therefore, Xiaoyao's work was either his own miscalculation or he didn't know sword forging. But both seemed impossible.
Xiaoyao had previously forged several good weapons for the Mo family - all first-class weapons. Though not Weapon Rankings level, they could please many experts.
However, no one knew Xiaoyao was the forger of these weapons because no one noticed who forged them. Occasionally the Mo family sword workshop produced such high-level weapons, so no one investigated.
Often, sword forging depended on timing and luck. Sometimes when luck came, producing several good weapons was normal. During those times, Mo family members only felt their luck was good recently - not one person suspected individual reasons.
This was understandable. First, Xiaoyao didn't intend for people to know and was very low-key. Second, sword workshop work was divided - everyone handled their part. Except for those supervisory master craftsmen, but generally they only supervised without actually crafting.
Xiaoyao was an exception in the sword workshop - he wasn't permanently there but came to help. He could appear at any position, so through clever arrangements, he could complete entire processes, personally forging weapons from start to finish.
Like this time - his sudden extended help at the sword workshop was to forge a sword for Guxing. Among the materials, most important was the crystal mineral ore he'd bought.
As Nangong Suxin guessed, what Xiaoyao schemed so hard to obtain naturally wouldn't be ordinary goods.
If that stall owner knew what the "garbage" he sold Xiaoyao for one hundred coins really was, he'd definitely curse Xiaoyao as shameless, a swindler, a robber, and whatever else he could think of. Even earning ten taels from selling the magnet to Nangong Suxin was far from this ore's value.
Within this crystal mineral ore was a small piece of meteoric iron. This meteoric iron was already extremely rare and valuable. Even ordinary meteoric iron this size could be worth hundreds of taels of gold.
(End of Chapter)
Below were a few paragraphs that were in chapter. I don't think this belongs in chapter, so I cut it out. However, I also want you to see them, so I added them after the chapter.
Content Introduction: Using a small piece of Nine Heavens Mysterious Iron obtained, plus techniques he learned and created, Xiaoyao forged a unique eight-sided Han sword with a sword hidden within.
Also, due to the Lantern Festival, he was dragged out by the Young Miss to guess lantern riddles. Unexpectedly, he played a Righteous Song on the yangqin, shocking the entire venue...
Meanwhile, the Dragon Gate Tournament continued...
Cover Character: Nangong Suxin, a proud genius girl in palace dress, background of Lantern Festival flower lanterns at night...