I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1338: Birth of the Forger

Northern stared at the long list of talents he had gathered over two years, surprise flickering across his face.

”Wow. I really do forget.”

He was seated at the edge of a hexagonal pit. The pit itself was deep and fiery, its walls radiating a reddish glow while vapor rose in waves that warped the air above. The heat shimmered and danced, distorting the far walls into something almost liquid. Beside Northern sat a basket of blue glowing materials.

He swiped away the holographic screen and stood at the edge of the depth, peering into it with a wrong glee on his face.

”Looking nice.”

Northern exhaled and leaped into the fiery pit with an indifferent gesture, as if he was merely jumping into a river.

He landed in the fiery depth. The space warped with steam and the heat was strong enough to incinerate metal ten diameters thick in a matter of seconds, but Northern felt nothing. It was slightly warm, yes, but aside from that it was as normal as it was outside this place.

He appreciated the slight warmth though.

Northern sat down on the ground, thinking for a while.

’What do I need to forge my hammer?’

He had an idea, actually, but that idea was too far away. Still, he wanted it, so he decided he was going to wait. Northern brought out a shadow and shapeshifted it into a hammer, the darkness solidifying in his grip.

He stood up with the help of the wind and walked closer to the anvil that stood in the center of the pit. Northern looked at the molten metal that had been prepared here before he jumped in. He waited and watched the redness of the metal boil higher, bubbling with barely contained energy. Then he grabbed the pot with his bare hand and poured the liquid into the greatsword shape carved on the metal table.

His hand was steady. His eyes were focused. The red hot liquid metal rolled across the carved space to the edge, filling every groove and channel with molten light. As it reached the lip, Northern pulled the pot away and set it down. He readied his arm and watched the liquid solidify with the help of the cold mist seeping from his body.

It wasn’t too much, but enough to speed the cooling process.

He placed the sword on the anvil and raised the shadow hammer in his hands. Having willed the [Supreme Shadow] to take on the properties of metal, he slammed the hammer down on the molten form and began to beat it into shape.

Each hit exploded a shockwave of steam that battered against the walls of the newly built pit.

Northern paused at some point, a flicker of worry crossing his mind. A forge inside his own soul was the only way he saw himself being able to forge to the satisfaction of his power. Because there was no way an ordinary structure could survive this.

The Forgehouse spanned the entire caldera of the volcano. It would have easily contained a city. Each strike of Northern’s hammer against the metal sent shockwaves of steam hammering against the reinforced metallic walls, walls he had created with rethium, ice crystals, and molten crystals fused together. Those materials alone gave the structure a level of durability that had never been heard of. Aside from being capable of releasing bloodlust, it could also withstand the fiercest heat and the most brutal cold.

Northern had built this in consideration for places he would be going. He suspected his own body state would most likely affect his soul state. Granted, he had done all this planning without knowing he would go and become a new race that was neither affected by heat nor cold.

Still, the structure was a terrifying one. If it wasn’t for this, whatever building made of bricks or ordinary metal that Northern would have been in instead, would have melted down by the heat of the pit before being shredded apart by the shockwaves of his hammer against the shaping sword.

Northern did not mind all of this detail. He was too focused on his resumption to forging after such a long break. And he had decided to do something random for a first try.

He didn’t even know what he wanted to create. But at the very least, he had taken the Kirithon’s bone and decided to use it as a prototype. If things went well, he would use it to mass produce weapons for the armies of Ryugan.

In fact, even as he was doing this, there were two other clones pulling apart the bones of the Kirithon elsewhere in the soul space.

’I’m glad that bastard died in my soul. Now, as for that dragon. It better still be there!’

Northern slammed the hammer on the sword over and over again. The rhythm was familiar, settling into his muscles like an old friend returning after a long absence. He picked up the edge with his hand and dipped it into water, enjoying the sizzling hiss that erupted from the metal, steam rising in a furious column.

He raised it out of the water and turned it over a few times, examining the cooling surface where orange still threaded through the darkening steel, before placing it back on the anvil to continue beating it into shape.

For this prototype, Northern had two goals: awaken his slumbering skills, and test whether what he truly wanted was possible.

Creating an item.

Aoi would be responsible for that part. Northern figured it shouldn’t be that difficult. [Soul Thread] and his ability to name things would do most of the work.

Northern continued to hammer the metal. For hours he stayed in the pit, each strike sending shockwaves that slammed against the volcanic walls. The rhythm became meditative, almost hypnotic. Strike, turn, strike, the metal sang under his attention.

He beat it until the color transitioned from angry red to a cooler blue, until the edges grew sharp and clean. Only then did he raise the blade and examine it properly.

A smile crept across his face.

Things were starting to get interesting.