Longevity Martial Arts: Grinding Experience in the Chaotic World

Chapter 300: Chapter 171: Crafting Specialty Arrows

The room wasn’t small, roughly fifty square meters in size, with a finely-crafted forging furnace at its center. Flames surged inside, and waves of heat rolled outward.

On one side of the room sat a display cabinet, lined with materials used in casting. Below the materials was a thin wooden board listing their prices.

Next to the forging furnace was a sizable table, covered with various tools, nearly all that might be needed in the craft of forging could be found here.

”This is our casting room. Charges are calculated by the hour—fifty taels of silver per hour. If you need any materials from the cabinet, just let me know, and our merchant business will immediately deliver them to you. Additionally, our business can provide casting masters to assist you.”

”Please send over two hundred jin of pig iron!”

Although refined iron was directly available for purchase at the Mu Merchant Guild, Gu Sheng decided to craft it himself starting from pig iron.

The level of expertise among casting masters varied, and the quality of refined iron they forged was inconsistent. The arrows he was making this time were meant to serve as his trump card, so there was no room for sloppiness.

The Mu Merchant Guild was highly efficient; in less than five minutes, two hundred jin of pig iron had already been delivered to the casting room where Gu Sheng was working.

Pig iron wasn’t expensive—five jin cost only one tael of silver, so two hundred jin cost just forty taels. Gu Sheng didn’t know how long it would take to forge everything, so he directly handed Qingqing a silver note worth five hundred taels. ”Take this first. Once I’ve finished forging, you can refund the excess or charge the difference.”

After Qingqing left with the silver note, Gu Sheng stripped off his upper garment. Though his muscles weren’t exaggerated, their definition was clear, and his eight-pack abs were strikingly visible.

Conventional arrows were typically forged with refined iron for the arrowheads, while lighter materials were used for the shafts. This design created lightweight arrows with fast flight speeds, but the downside was obvious—their load-bearing capacity was weak. If the force was slightly stronger, the shafts would collapse entirely. Therefore, Gu Sheng decided to use refined iron to craft arrow shafts this time, pairing them with the deadly quills of hallucinogenic wild boars for the arrowheads! Although this approach would increase the weight of the arrows, Gu Sheng didn’t mind. The power of the Stone-breaking Crossbow was immense; its original arrows were already nearly one jin each, primarily due to their broad and thick arrowheads.

Broad and thick arrowheads could deal greater damage and had higher destructive power. However, the arrowheads Gu Sheng chose this time were quills of hallucinogenic wild boars, boasting even greater strength.

The hallucinogenic wild boar quills were light. Thus, the saved weight could be allocated to the arrow shaft instead!

The forging furnace wasn’t particularly large, and Gu Sheng could only melt thirty jin of pig iron at a time. First, he heated the pig iron until it glowed red-hot, then used tongs to extract it and place it onto the forging platform, raising a large hammer to strike it vigorously. This step was for purification.

Although this was only the first stage of forging, it was crucial; if the hammering at this step was subpar, the hardness and elasticity of the final product would suffer.

Gu Sheng used the hammering techniques from Helian’s Weapon Casting Method to exert powerful strikes on the glowing iron slab. Sparks flew, and the casting room was filled with the sound of clanging metal.

As the strikes continued, Gu Sheng gradually entered a peculiar state of mind. The sensation was reminiscent of the time he chopped wood. He felt as though the piece of pig iron had come alive beneath his gaze, allowing him to clearly perceive its impurities and original pathways. With his hammering, these impurities transformed into sparks and flew away.

After half an hour, Gu Sheng completed the first round of forging. The original thirty-jin iron slab had shrunk visibly. He then placed the fully-cooled slab back into the forging furnace, heating it until it glowed red again before resuming his hammering.

As the impurities diminished, the required hammering time grew shorter and shorter. Gu Sheng repeated this process continuously, only stopping after one hundred rounds of forging. He then immersed the finished slab into a special quenching oil for tempering.

Seeing the bright sheen on the iron slab, a smile spread across Gu Sheng’s face. ”Phew! Tempered steel—there’s nothing quite like it!”

Putting down the tempered refined iron, Gu Sheng moved on to splitting the next slab of pig iron, repeating the forging process until all slabs had been turned into tempered refined iron. Only then did he begin cutting the tempered refined iron into smaller pieces and crafting arrow shafts!

Crafting the arrow shafts proved to be much simpler, as the Mu Merchant Guild provided specialized molds. All he needed to do was melt the forged material into molten iron and pour it into the molds.

The subsequent steps had little difficulty—Gu Sheng poured the molten iron into the molds. Once the temperature dropped slightly, he inserted the hallucinogenic wild boar quills.

When all 132 arrows were finished, Gu Sheng eagerly opened his interface panel to check.

[Name]: Gu Sheng

[Age]: 17

[Realm]: Bone Refining Realm (Copper Bone)

[Martial Arts]: Chopping Wood (First-level Splitting), Archery (First-level Penetration), Iron Stone Fist (First-level Heavy Strike), Shapeshifting (First-level Strong Body), Snake Breath Skill (First-level Snake Breath), Flying Thunder Leg (First-level Extreme Speed), Golden Body Skill (Perfect 30%), Blood Activation Skill (Perfect 44%), Helian Weapon Casting Skill (Small Success 75%), Shadow Concealment Skill (Entry-level 8%)

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”Not bad! Increased by six points! Looks like I’ll need to dedicate more time to crafting in the future!”

Seeing the progress in Helian Weapon Casting Skill, Gu Sheng couldn’t help but smile and firmly resolved to spend more time forging in the days ahead. After all, Helian Tielian had told him personally—once Helian Weapon Casting Skill reaches Great Success and is paired with the forging techniques she would provide later, he would be able to create Treasure-class weapons!