[the true art of forging is a lie, every material made and every method used is unique and would only work best for the smith implementing it. But regardless of the art or the method, the true pinnacle of smiting is to one day eventually, forge a soul.But such a peak has not been reached yet, not unless by the great G.o.ds of the forge, chief amongst them being Hephaestus the G.o.d of fire…. I know this because I have face him in battle he is or rather was a man whose ferocity was unmatched, and even greater than his ferocity was his intellect and ingenuity.
With every swing of his hammer, Hephaestus could forge the most intricate of machines, weapons, armor and he would give them life! Give them power to rival the G.o.ds themselves and the invaders they face. If it wasn"t for the help of those ent.i.ties…. the alliance would have fallen to this beings, to these G.o.ds who had decided to hide themselves away in this tiny blue planet in the middle of the universe.
But even though countless amount of years has pa.s.sed, till this day I still see the look on his face, the grin, the peace and the concentration of a man who was capable of giving life to even something as mundane as paper. I realize that even if we wore…. we"re nothing compared to the G.o.ds, for they have mastered the true art of forging, the art of making life.]
It was time to forge, his earlier moment with Anya had for all intents and purposes filled with him with a fervor and zeal unlike any other. There was a lot to be said about how extravagant and crazy a woman in love could be, but a man could be much worse, of course he"s actions would be a lot more subdued, but there"s no denying he would be able to do a bunch of great things at that moment in time, and that was exactly how pumped up Alex was feeling right now.
He was going to be forging both swords at the same time, so he was using an immortal forge that could mult.i.task rather than focus on one single forge. This was a lot better, no matter how capable man was, no matter how powerful, they still couldn"t compare to the efficiency of the machines they made, but giving life to a forge was still something the smith had to be responsible for.
The stellar Mythril and sky steel quickly found their ways into the respective port, Alex injected his spirit energy into the forge to start it up, then he quickly activated his windfire, drawing the billowing green flames from the power of the fire mask without even having to activate the fire mask. Alex had obviously become a lot stronger and more in sync with his spirits, as it stood his body could probably withstand being possessed by Nezha for as long as ten minutes.
Ten minutes with the power of a destructive fire G.o.d, he would probably make a hole the size of Madagascar in the earth with that time period. Either way, immediately he injected the windfire, the ores began to undergo refinement, it didn"t take long as their impurities were quickly removed, and black ore with silver veins was remaining from the ma.s.sive chunk of Stellar mythril, while there was dark blue ore with white veins left from the Sky steel.
Keeping his attention on both ores, Alex moved them to the side as the Dark wind emerald and the spirit crystal found its way into the port and quickly underwent refinement. Now came the extremely difficult part. During his first forging attempt, the spirit crystal had been made into a hilt for the weapons, so while it was a part of the whole, it wasn"t integrated fully into the blade.
Alex had since rectified that flaw for both Louis and Yun Fao"s forged weapons. This time he would still be making the hilt from the spirit crystal, then he would coat it with a very careful combination of Stellar mythril and Sky steel. It should make for a very durable hilt and complement the power of the blade, but before that he had to make sure he gets all of the ores to properly meld together.
The dark wind emerald was the least valuable material in this combination, but it wasn"t a common material either. Stellar Mythril and sky steel cost a fortune, but Dark wind emerald cost a quarter of a fortune, give or take a few thousand gold. Either way it was a wind attribute material., and it would be the catalyst to make sure both swords were aligned to the wind element.
Honestly while Alex hadn"t been too keen on having the wind element in the beginning, he had come to understand the value of it and the true power it held. It was freedom and it was rage, and it was responsibility as it was life. Unlike water, or earth, the wind was everywhere, air was the most constant element of life, not darkness and not light.
Alex let out a deep breath as the ores all melded together, with spirit energy as their bonding agent, they became one, transforming in to something new. The sky steel ore was a deeper blue with green veins, while the Stellar Mythril was so black Alex felt as if it was sucking all of the light from the world, however its veins had changed into a sparkling gold.
Alex could feel the power from those ores in ways he had never felt from another piece of ore, he was pouring all of his energies into the process as he moved them to the hammering plate. A pair of glimmering golden hammers were picked off the resting place as Alex was situated in between two metal plates with clamps over the ores, the moved forwards and backwards as Alex"s hammers began to fall, following a specific rhythm and tempo that belonged to Alex lone.
*ting! Bang! Bang! Ting! Ting! Ting! Bang! *
They rhythm didn"t slow down as Alex kept on hitting at the ores, hour after hour he worked away, pouring all of his energies, be it spirit, mana or qi straight into the ores, shaping them and breathing life into them. No matter how good a spear user he was, Alex had still not discovered Spear intent. But the first day he decided to train with a sword, under the supervision of his father and uncle, he had discovered and developed sword intent.
The sword was a part of him in a way other weapons couldn"t compare, and as he banged away he poured out his love, his experience, his blood, his sweat and his tears. He was in a very difficult yet strange state of mind. Stories have been told about smiths who got enlightenment when forging, and that they would be in a serene state of concentration. Alex was experiencing something similar, but he was not serene or calm, his emotions were akin to a turbulent storm over an ocean.
And they poured into the swords until they had transformed from red hot ores to dull black and blue shaped blades that held a significant amount of power. Alex stopped, his eyes terribly red as he pulled out a dagger and slashed both his palms, and then held his bleeding hands over both blades, using his blood to quench them.
The blades absorbed the blood and released sizzling sounds, as a plethora of shapes began to form over them. Eventually they all coalesced and formed a weird hexagonal symbol, that if Alex looked at little closer, would notice was actually a combination of the different masks he had. Alex blinked his eyes and moved on to the next part, he pulled out the Five vein element treasure from the mantle and unceremoniously picked out two petals.
A black one that was cold to the touch, and silvery blue that sizzled with electricity. He placed the blue petal on the sword with the sky steel base, the was East Cloud, and the moment it did so, the sword lit up in a blaze of sizzling lightning as an exquisite and zig zagged symbol danced and was formed on where the blunt edge of the blade would be. Lightning was born from wind and was a variation of the element, an aspect of it.
The black fell on West Wind and spiral like snowflakes dotted the back of the blade too. Ice was born from wind and water, but this wasn"t ice, but something similar, something that made it. This was cold wind, the wind responsible for the deep freeze of winter, this was Frost Wind. Alex released a breath and his fogged out breath could be seen in front of him, he shook his head and stepped back as he sent what was left of the five Vein element treasure back into the mantle.
There was still work to be done as right now, all these blades looked like were ugly chunks of metal that had beautiful designs on it and were already powerful. But for now he needed to take a break, sharpening the blade, creating the hilt and inscribing the wards and arrays would come next, but for now, West Wind and East Cloud had returned into the world!