983 Memory
“Midnight? That’s not too bad a name, I guess,” Godslayer said. “But it will never beat mine, Godslayer.”
“That’s arguable,” Alex said softly.
“Try me. See how strong the sword is,” Godslayer asked.
“Sure,” Alex said and poured his Qi into the sword. The turned black once again, matching its name.
Then, Alex tried swinging it around. “Wow, I actually think it is heavy,” he said. “It’s been a while since I thought something was heavy.”
“Quit looking at the weight and try out the skill in the sword,” Godslayer said.
“Oh, there’s a skill?” Alex was surprised. He poured in more Yin Qi and sent out a slash toward the wall in the distance.
Suddenly, a black slash was released from the sword, stronger than what Alex’s cultivation base could release.
“Wow, that feels strong,” Alex said. “That isn’t your skill, but the sword’s skill right?”
“Yes, it is not my skill. However, I can empower the sword with what death and darkness aura I gather,” Godslayer said. “However, I don’t know how long I can keep that up.”
“Hm? What’s wrong?” Alex asked.
“Goddammit, your newly formed spirit is already trying to fight back. It recognizes me as a foreign threat,” Godslayer said.
Alex was surprised, and maybe even a little happy when he heard that. “Are you saying that my little sword spirit is so strong that he is already threatening you?” he asked.
“What? Of course not. It’s incredibly weak,” Godslayer said. “It is so weak that if I do anything than just ignore it, it might just die.”
“Oh,” Alex’s smile went away when he heard that. “I guess I should be happy at the fact that the sword already has a spirit.”
“Yes,” Godslayer said. “It’s weird how quickly it formed too. But I suppose there is something special about your body and soul. You were able to fight off my temptation when you were barely a True realm cultivator.”
“I… suppose,” Alex said as he fell into thought too. He never really thought about how strong his soul was, only ever his body and mind.
‘I am in the saint realm, so soon I will have to worry about my soul too,’ he thought. ‘Although, Saint Soul realm is still quite far away for me, so I should be fine.’
Alex tested the sword for a while, enlarging it to see how big it would get, and compressing it to see if he could make it smaller.
He could use the sword normally without using Yin Qi, but when he did use Yin Qi, it turned black, and only then he could use the sword’s skills.
“It’s a nice sword if I do say so myself,” Alex said. “Quite comfortable at the hand too.”
Godslayer had already gone back to Alex’s mind and spoke from in there. “You will need to make a better handle. Try making one with the metal too.”
“I should,” Alex said. “But right now, I should focus on something else.”
Alex had spent a few too many weeks making various swords to learn, and now he was finally going to make his cauldron.
For the cauldron, he needed 30 tons of Ice Iron, 10 tons of Pale Onyx, 20 Tons of Violet Obsidian, and 100 tons of Starforged Tungsten.
The alloy made from these 4 components wasn’t as strong or durable as just Starforged Tungsten by itself, but Alex was using the component for some other reason.
This was the composition that was used to make the forge back in the Snowsuit city that could easily melt Starforged Tungsten. So, on top of being relatively strong, it was resilient against incredible amounts of heat, which was exactly what Alex needed at the moment.
Ice Iron, Pale Onyx, and Violet Obsidian were something Alex had asked the mad immortal to gather. As for the 100 tons of Tungsten, Alex spent the next few days smelting and refining it.
In about 2 weeks, he was finally ready with all the ingredients to finally make the cauldron.
Alex realized that he had too much metal to work at once, so he needed to do it in part. He needed to do it all in 10 parts where each part would have 16 tons altogether.
That way, everything could fit in the forge where Alex could merge the 4 different metals in an alloy.
Making an alloy required precise amounts of the parts, and then Alex had to mix them together as smoothly as he could.
Most of it was fine thanks to Alex’s use of Daos, but he couldn’t help but find it annoying at how much mental strength it required for the task.
He hadn’t noticed it back when he made Midnight, but now the weight of the ingredients was 20 times that of Midnight, so Alex was definitely feeling the struggle.
“If I was making these all together, I would have definitely not been able to make it at once,” he thought.
One by one, Alex made 10 different blocks of the tungsten alloy which he then compounded until it was 16th times as small as the original one.
With 16 times less volume, the alloy finally became usable as a whole.
So, Alex finally mixed all 160 tons of the alloy together on top of the anvil and started tempering it.
The rhythmic strikes of the hammer rang in the room as Alex continuously struck the metal alloy. He struck it so much that he fell into a zone where all he heard was the rhythm that he followed while hitting the alloy.
Alex didn’t realize how much time had passed before he heard a clear ringing sound from the metal, letting him know that it had been properly tempered.
Alex stopped and walked away from the glowing hot metal and took a deep breath as he was done with the hard part of the task.
Now, it was time to design a cauldron.
Alex had seen many different cauldrons and knew many shapes, but the one he cared about was still the one his master had given him.
He wasn’t an artistic person anyway, so the best he could do was copy what the others had done.
Alex closed his eyes and remembered the broken cauldron. He had used it so many times that he knew it’s every nook and corner.
He knew its rough inside, its golden edges, and its jade handles. He knew its sharp ridges, its swirly designs, and its three curved legs at the bottom.
Alex’s hands moved as the Doa of heat and Dao of Metal worked at once. The heat made the metal soft enough to mold, and the metal dao did the molding.
Alex created a sphere out of the molten alloy on the anvil. The sphere was hollow and that would be the main body of the cauldron.
He cut off the top of the cauldron, which would become its lid. He made the top a little wider and curved.
He created 3 legs at the bottom for the cauldron to stand on. He made the ridges, the edges, the handles. He added the designs and whatever else he could remember.
As the cauldrons slowly started taking shape and were all but done, Alex finally put in the Qi lines.
The Qi lines wouldn’t do anything but make it easier for the Qi to pass through to the ingredients on the inside.
As he put in the Qi lines, Alex immediately pulled out a bit of blood as well and poured it onto the cauldron as well.
As he did, he felt another bit of his spirit and soul get taken away by the cauldron.
“Wait, are you blood refining this too?” Godslayer asked with a hint of shock in his voice. “Your soul might get hurt if you do too much.”
“It’s fine,” Alex said. “I feel fine.”
“Well… if you feel fine, then maybe it is fine. But still, don’t do that again. You will seriously get hurt. I do not know what will happen to me if your soul gets hurt,” Godslayer said.
“This is the last one, I promise,” Alex said.
The cauldron got stronger than it was before and more durable in every way. Being blood-refined made it far better than how it would be without being refined.
Alex wondered if there was a new spirit in this newly formed cauldron too.
The hot cauldron was quickly cooled using water and only then could Alex see the final form of the cauldron he had just created.
“Wow… it looks so weird without the gold and green,” he thought to himself. The cauldron was the spitting image of the cauldron that was given to him by his master, without the colors.
Instead of gold and green, the cauldron was instead gray and sparkling.
Alex put on the lid and slowly lifted it with his Qi. “Oh thank god,” he thought. After being refined, the cauldron felt incredibly lighter than it actually was.
He had been worried that it would be something that couldn’t be easily moved, but it turned out to be plenty portable to his Qi.
“That’s a relief,” he thought.
He expanded the cauldron to test it out. The cauldron which was already one of the bigger cauldrons Alex had seen, became 16 times as large when expanded.
The cauldron filled the room easily with its massively hollow size, which Alex had to quickly shrink down.
“This is incredible,” he thought. “Now I must give you a name.”
Alex thought for a bit and gave it a name he thought fit it best.
“Memory”.