Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

Alex poured his Qi into the furnace as he sped up the process behind the melting of the metal.

Not doing anything would also work in this situation as there was a formation being used to heat up the metal inside, but since he was being apprenticed, he did as asked.

Once the metal was melted, he pulled out the crucible and poured the metal onto a mold. He waited just long enough for the shape to solidify, and then pulled the still burning hot and red metal out from the mold and onto an anvil before starting to beat it with a hammer that he had received.

He hit the metal for as long as he could before it solidified to the point that hitting simply made no difference anymore. After that, he put it back on the furnace to make it soft again.

His teacher sat on a stool not far away, watching every little move, but not teaching him anything at all unless he made some mistake.

Having remembered everything, Alex made no mistake. At least, for the most part.

Alex struck the metal as hard as he could and tried to have it be as equally distributed throughout the metal as he could, but it was hard for him to tell what metal was tempered and what wasn't.

"Try to compress it," the saint spoke after seeing him struggle at that part. "Compressing usually helps with tempering the metal and also makes it strong."

"Yes," Alex said and started heating the metal once more. He put it back in the furnace for a bit again and pulled it out once more to continue hammering it.

After doing the same thing a few more times, it was time for him to pour some Qi into it and make some Qi lines.

He put the sword into the furnace once again and looked towards the saint. "For the Qi lines, you said that they sometimes randomly make skills right?" he asked.

"Yes," the saint said. "What about it?"

"Well, can I try and make some myself?" Alex asked.

"Oh… you want to make some skills huh? How do you plan on doing that exactly?" the saint asked curiously.

"Uh, just make some random squiggly lines. Will that hurt my sword's grade?" he asked.

"No, as long as there are enough Qi lines, your sword won't suffer from it. But that also means you will have to spend quite a lot of focus and Qi on it. You think you can do it?" the man asked.

"I… I think I can," Alex said. He wasn't fully confident as this was the first time he was making anything artifact, but he was sure he had understood what he needed to do enough so that he knew what he was doing.

Once the sword was out of the furnace, he got to work.

As he hit the metal in locations where they were uneven to even out the overall thickness of the sword, he also poured in Qi from the side as it branched off into multiple sections, which quickly started curving around itself as Alex tried to take as much path as possible.

Having made 9 pills at once in 3 different cauldrons while cultivating at the same time during a period where he also had to make mental tracking of what ingredients went in next and what the temperature had to be for the cauldrons, this task felt very simple for Alex.

He was calm the entire time as he struck the metal continuously, making sparks fly off, while in the meantime he covered the entirety of the sword with Qi lines.

For being his first time, Alex was actually doing not very bad. In fact, he was doing exceptionally well.

After a few minutes of hitting and drawing lines, Alex was finally done and he plopped the sword into the barrel full of water.

The sword sizzled as it cooled and Alex stepped back in wait. He still had to put on the handle and hilt, and then sharpen the sword, but those were rather easy.

"You said this was your first time, right?" the man asked.

"Yes," Alex said.

"Then how are you so good at concentrating?" he asked. "Do you make something else?"

"Uhh… yes," Alex said. "I dabble in Formations and Talismans as well."

There was no way in hell he was ever going to tell the man that he knew alchemy. That would, as far as he knew, be a death sentence in most cases.

Although the rules seemed lax in the State of Dong for alchemy, and it was the teaching of alchemy that was more frowned upon, Alex still wasn't going to tell anyone that he knew how to make pills.

"Oh, what grade?" the man asked curiously.

"I… can reach Heaven grade for both," Alex said.

"What?" the man's eyes widened a bit. "You're a True Heaven formation master and a True Heaven Talisman forger?"

"Yes," Alex said.

"Then why would you try and learn forging? Just focus on those two, get your skills to immortal grade, then artifact forgers will come begging to take your work. You don't need to make it yourself," the man said.

Alex chuckled when he heard that. "It's alright. I'm doing this because I want to learn," he said.

"Well, I guess I can see where the True Heaven rank for the other two professions come from," he said.

Alex didn't say much and focused on his work. Once he was done with making the sword, putting the hilt, and sharpening it, he checked it.

The sword was… average. Not as good as what the Saint had made, but it was still pretty good. The Qi lines made it easy to pour Qi into the sword, but sadly, no skill seemed to be there.

Alex showed the sword to the Saint and was told that he did pretty well, for being his first time.

Then, he took the sword to a formation, which used metal tongs to snap the sword in two.

"Hmm, you need True Emperor 7th realm to break the sword. Not bad," the man said. "However, a True rank sword is considered mediocre if it can be broken by a True realm cultivator. Make one that needs at least Saint realm cultivator to destroy it."

"So, make it again?" Alex asked.

"Yes," the man said as he tossed the broken sword back. "There's your metal. Redo it until you've tempered it to be very strong."

Alex took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay," he said.

After placing the metals back in the furnace, he restarted. He heated the metal pieces until it was down to being fully melted and then poured them back onto the mold.

Then, he started hitting it again. The problem was with tempering, he needed to temper it better.

He struck metal hard with the hammer and repeated it again and again. The sound of his hammer was lost in the many noises of the smithery, but someone heard it, loud and clear.

So, when he came to see what was happening and saw that Alex was forging a sword, he frowned at the striking technique he was using to temper the metal.

"That's not how you do it, kid," he spoke into Alex's ears. No, into his mind.

Alex paused for a second. "Godslayer?"