I can receive unlimited protection; my parents handed me over to the state.

The Pangu Temple returned to Earth with a ship full of treasures.

This time, not only China, but the whole world was in an uproar.

Lu Yuan stood at the highest point of the temple, looking down at the dense crowd below. He knew that Earth was no longer the small, vulnerable planet it once was, at the mercy of others.

Su Lie and Qian Sen walked over.

"Lu Yuan, the Security Council wants to see you." Su Lie's tone was somewhat complicated. "They say they want to discuss the issue of 'universal resource sharing' with you."

Lu Yuan scoffed. Sharing? When the Void Hunters came, why didn't they talk about sharing? Now that I've brought back so many good things, they've lost all shame?

He waved his hand. No. Tell them, if they want resources, let their superhumans join the Legion of Gods and go to the Chaos Trial Grounds. Those who can handle it, I'll give them equipment. Those who can't, go find somewhere cool to stay.

Qian Sen sighed from the side. "Lu Yuan, you're a global 'god' now. A single word from you can decide the fate of a nation."

Lu Yuan stared intently at the Cleaner Core in his hand. God? I have no interest. I'm just a blacksmith.

He turned around and walked towards his master craftsman's workshop.

For the next month, Lu Yuan locked himself in the workshop and refused to see anyone.

He was using the top-tier materials he brought back from the Void Nest for one last major upgrade.

He wants to create a true 'cosmic hub'.

A month later, the Pangu Temple rose into the sky again.

This time, it looked completely different. The original metal hull was now covered with a layer of translucent dimensional armor, shimmering with a dreamlike light.

The Chaos Annihilation Cannon at the bow of the ship has now been transformed into a 'Dimensional Decomposition Array'.

Lu Yuan stood on the deck and gave orders to the entire army.

Brothers. We used to fight for survival.

Now, we are fighting for development.

He pointed to the deep starry sky.

There are countless resources and countless civilizations there.

Some are friendly, some are evil.

Our principles are very simple.

Friendly, let's do business.

The evil thing is, let's just dismantle it and use it as materials.

The legion of gods shouted in unison.

Just then, a violent fluctuation suddenly came from the depths of the starry sky.

A will ten thousand times greater than the Cleaner descended upon the Solar System, traversing countless galaxies.

That is... the will of the universe itself. Or perhaps, a higher level of civilization.

【Mortals...you have crossed the line.】

The voice was devoid of any emotion, yet it made the entire solar system tremble.

Lu Yuan raised his head and looked at the distorted starry sky. He felt no fear; instead, a wild smile appeared on his lips.

Crossing the boundary?

He held in his hand the Chaos Cleaver, which had evolved to the 'cosmic level'.

This universe originally had no boundaries. I don't recognize the rules you set.

He suddenly swung his knife.

A golden blade of light spanning the entire galaxy severed the descending will.

Starting today.

I'll set the rules here.

At this moment, civilizations throughout the universe felt the domineering presence emanating from Earth.

Lu Yuan turned around and glanced at his teammates behind him.

Gu Tianye was gnawing on a new dragon bone, Xiang Batian was sharpening his axe, Mu Bingli was tuning her zither, and Yan Ji was playing with fire.

He smiled.

Let's go.

Let's go see where the next 'mine' is.

Chapter 51: The Ordinary Life of Master Craftsman Lu Yuan (Final Chapter)

Ten years later.

Earth has become the center of the Milky Way galaxy, no, the center of the entire known universe.

The threats of the Void and the crises of the Abyss are now just historical stories in textbooks.

The Pangu Temple still floats in geosynchronous orbit around Earth, but it now serves more as a symbol, or... a giant cosmic marketplace.

Lu Yuan rarely makes a move now.

He returned to Jiangnan City and opened an inconspicuous little blacksmith shop on the old street.

The shop's signboard was very simple, just two words: Divine Craftsman.

"Boss, my cleaver has a chip, can you fix it?" An older woman walked in carrying a broken cleaver.

Lu Yuan was wearing baggy shorts and flip-flops, with an ice pop dangling from his mouth.

"It can be repaired. Five yuan." Lu Yuan took the knife and casually rubbed it a few times on the whetstone next to him.

If Qian Sen saw that whetstone, he'd probably be heartbroken. It was made from the spine of a scavenger.

The woman took the knife and tried it out. "Wow, it's quite sharp. The owner's skills are pretty good."

Lu Yuan chuckled. That's right.

As soon as the older woman left, a low-key yet luxurious speedboat pulled up in front of the door.

Gu Tianye and Xiang Batian jumped out of the car.

Boss! Stop sharpening your knives! Atlantis has sent over another batch of top-quality seafood, saying they're inviting us for drinks! Gu Tianye's loud voice hasn't changed.

Xiang Batian was carrying a bottle of wine. "Boss, my axe feels a bit dull lately, could you add some more seasoning?"

Lu Yuan glared at them. "Get lost. I'm retired now."

At this moment, Mu Bingli and Yan Ji also walked in.

Both women were dressed in ordinary casual clothes, but their ethereal气质 (qi zhi, a kind of refined elegance or otherworldly charm) was still undeniable.

"Lu Yuan, Lin Ziling said they discovered a new mineral planet in Andromeda, with very high-grade materials," Mu Bingli said softly.

Yan Ji leaned closer and took Lu Yuan's arm. "Come and see, aren't you bored sharpening your kitchen knife here every day?"

Lu Yuan sighed and put down his work.

He looked up at the azure sky.

There, countless starships are traversing the cosmos, and humanity's footprints have spread across the vast expanse of space.

He felt quite proud.

This prosperous era was built by him, hammer blow by hammer blow.

"Alright." Lu Yuan dusted himself off and stood up.

Let's go take a look.

But let me make this clear first, this time we're going on vacation, not raiding homes.

Gu Tianye and Xiang Batian exchanged a glance and chuckled.

Got it! Going on a trip! And bring back some local specialties while you're at it!

Lu Yuan shook his head, walked out the door, and closed the shop door behind him.

He glanced back at the simple signboard.

Master craftsman.

In this universe, as long as he exists, humanity will always have confidence.

Because everything can be forged.

If you dare to dream, you can even shatter your destiny and start over.

Lu Yuan stepped onto the flying car and waved his hand.

set off!

Our goal: the stars and the sea!

......

In the lounge of the Pangu Temple, light streamed through the star-crystal porthole, illuminating the natural wood coffee table. Lu Yuan leaned back in a rocking chair, his feet propped on the table, holding a chipped enamel mug filled with goji berries and a few leaves of an unknown starry grass.

Yan Ji walked over with a plate of sliced ​​blue frost fruit, casually shoving the plate into Lu Yuan's arms before sitting down on the edge of a chair. Mu Bingli was tuning her zither at the other end, her fingers plucking the strings, the sound waves sending the fruit peels on the table flying into the trash can.

"The old man said we'd get some good stuff on this trip." Gu Tianye rummaged through drawers in the corner. "Where's the meat? We still have half a leg left from that Void Octopus last time, who hid it?"

Xiang Batian didn't even look up, the whetstone in his hand scraping against the axe blade, making a harsh sound. "You won't starve if you skip a couple of meals; that's for when you get back and have some wine."

Lin Ziling stepped out of the cockpit carrying a data panel, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses. Red and blue lines intertwined on the screen, displaying a map of the star system ahead.

"Professor Lu, we're almost at the Andromeda K-9 mining planet. There are signs of unregistered fleet activity in the vicinity." After reporting, she habitually took out her notebook to jot down the parameters.

Lu Yuan took a sip of tea and spat the tea leaves back into the container. "Who cares who registered it? This 'Mining Star' thing is first come, first served. I'm here to buy goods, not to rob anyone. I'll just do normal business."

The spaceship's exterior didn't use the original Pangu Temple's design. That Cleaner's shell was too conspicuous, attracting attention wherever it went. For this trip, Lu Yuan personally welded a sheet metal shell onto the temple's exterior using a bunch of scrap metal scraps. At first glance, it looked exactly like a secondhand mining ship on the verge of falling apart.

The communicator emitted a noisy radio wave. A projection appeared in the center of the cabin, showing an alien with four eyes and green skin.

The alien pointed at the camera and cursed in Common. "Where did this piece of junk come from? Get out of the Star River Trade Alliance's private star system right now. Pay a toll of 100,000 star coins, or we'll take you and your ship."

Lu Yuan, too lazy to get up, gestured with his chin towards Lin Ziling. "Check it out, what's the deal with this alliance?"

Lin Ziling flipped through the data. "A third-rate interstellar conglomerate. They made their fortune by acquiring land everywhere and collecting protection money, and they like to bully backward civilizations with cheap firepower. They discovered high-purity 'Starstone' on the K-9 mining planet and just blocked the surrounding shipping lanes."

Lu Yuan placed the enamel mug on the table and stretched. "The deal fell through. I was planning to give them some money for their work, but they insisted on giving it away for free."

Seeing that the spaceship was not moving, the green-skinned aliens immediately ordered to open fire.

Dozens of laser beams struck the hull of the secondhand mining ship. The scrap metal, which Lu Yuan had hastily welded together, crumbled away after being hit by the beams, revealing the ghastly white Scavenger Dimensional Armor underneath.

The laser hit the armor surface without even scratching it or causing any reflection.

The green-skinned alien stared at the screen, its four eyes wide open. This armor material, capable of completely absorbing energy weapons, could fetch an astronomical price on the black market.

"Stop firing! Release the tractor beam and drag that ship back! It's a big fat sheep!" The green-skinned alien slammed his fist on the table excitedly.

The tractor beam enveloped the temple's outer shell. The spaceship swayed.

Lu Yuan stood up and stretched his neck. "I haven't stretched my muscles in so long, people are even daring to shine light bulbs on me now."

He walked to the weapons rack, but instead of taking the Chaos Knife, he grabbed a small iron hammer he usually used for blacksmithing. "Tenno, Batian, time to get to work."

Gu Tianye overturned the box, roared, and cracked his bones. In the blink of an eye, he transformed into a giant beast the size of a small hill, smashed through the isolation pod door, and rushed out.

Xiang Batian followed behind, chuckling as he carried the Heaven-Opening Axe in one hand.

Lu Yuan walked last, wearing flip-flops, as he stepped out of the hatch. The weightless environment of space had no effect on him; the laws of gravity automatically formed steps beneath his feet.

The green-skinned alien fleet consisted of over thirty warships. The encirclement tightened, and the main cannons began charging, preparing to deter the few carbon-based creatures who had foolishly ventured out of the ship's hold.

Lu Yuan raised his hammer. Without any fancy moves, he aimed it at the empty space in front of him and smashed it straight down.

when.

The crisp sound of hammering echoed through the vacuum, defying the laws of physics. It was the echo of space itself being struck by a hammer.

At the point where the hammer struck, a visible spatial crack spread outwards. Wherever the crack passed, the energy shields of all the warships shattered inch by inch, and the engine flames went out.

"What's going on?" The green-skinned alien crashed onto the command room floor, its instruments completely malfunctioning and red lights flashing erratically.

Before he could even get up, Gu Tianye had already pounced on the glass of the main ship. The giant beast's claws gripped the bridge, and it opened its blood-red maw, biting off the barrel of the main gun in one bite, crunching it in its mouth like it was chewing candy.

"Pah, it smells like diesel!" Kotenno spat the crushed metal fragments into space with a look of disgust.

Xiang Batian leaped directly between the warships. Each swing of his Heaven-Opening Axe cleaved a warship in two, leaving a smooth, clean cut. He remembered Lu Yuan's instructions: do not damage the warship's energy core, but target the insignificant outer shell.

Mu Bingli sat on the spaceship deck, her hands caressing the strings of her zither. As the notes danced, the escape pods, just ejected, froze into ice blocks halfway through their flight, drifting along the flight path.

Lu Yuan, carrying a hammer, slowly walked to the command room of the main ship. Through the glass, he looked at the green-skinned aliens trembling like leaves inside.

Raise your hand and tap lightly.

The explosion-proof glass shattered into powder. Lu Yuan strode inside and found a relatively intact chair to sit down.

"Who exactly are you?" the green-skinned alien asked, his voice trembling as he raised his four hands above his head.

"A blacksmith." Lu Yuan placed the hammer on the control panel. "How much did you say the travel expenses were again?"

The green-skinned alien shook his head repeatedly. "No, I don't want a single penny! You can use this entire star system as you please!"

Lu Yuan sighed. "A tycoon like you has absolutely no integrity in business. How can you just say you don't want the agreed-upon 100,000 star coins?"

He turned and shouted into the communicator, "Ziling, bring Ling over. Check the accounts. Transfer all the money from their alliance account. Consider it compensation for emotional distress."

In less than fifteen minutes, the Star River Trade Federation's fleet in Andromeda was completely looted.

Yan Ji refined the inferior ore piled up in the warship's warehouse, removing the impurities and keeping the pure, and burned it into several large jars of high-purity liquid ore, which she then threw into the storage area of ​​the Pangu Temple. The warship hulls that had been cut in half were tied together by Xiang Batian with ropes and hung at the tail of the spaceship like candied hawthorns, ready to be taken back to Earth and sold as scrap metal.

Lu Yuan wasn't particularly interested in these pieces of scrap metal. He had the spaceship land on the surface of the K-9 mineral planet.

The planet appears grayish-brown from the outside, its surface covered with craters of varying sizes, sparse vegetation, and an extremely thin atmosphere. A strong smell of sulfur permeates the air.

Lu Yuan stepped down the gangway and onto the hard rock. He bent down, picked up a stone, tossed it in his hand, and squeezed it hard with his fingers. The stone turned into powder, leaving a silver crystal the size of a grain of rice in the center.

"This is the Star Stone?" Xiang Batian leaned closer. "It's not that big."

Lu Yuan put the crystal in his pocket. "The good stuff is all at the bottom. This is just some dandruff."

He looked around and his gaze settled on a towering, extinct volcano. The volcano had a peculiar shape, with a gentle slope and an unusually large crater surrounded by regular cracks.

"Tianye, go dig a hole at the foot of that mountain, dig it deep." Lu Yuan assigned the task.

Gu Tianye complained a couple of times, then obediently transformed and went to act as a tunnel boring machine. Dirt flew everywhere, and the rock layers were roughly turned over.

Lu Yuan stood at the edge of the cave entrance and looked down. A low humming sound came from underground. This sound was not from geological activity, but rather the breathing of some kind of creature.

The entire planet began to tremble rhythmically. The cracks in the volcanoes started to widen, and ash and soil fell away, revealing a dark golden cuticle underneath.

Mu Bingli walked to Lu Yuan's side. "Is this planet alive?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "The Starry Sky Giant Turtle. Its lifespan is longer than the Milky Way. This thing usually sleeps in space, its back accumulating dust, which eventually turns into a planet. The so-called Star Stone is nothing more than the old mud that it produces through metabolism."

"Should we kill it?" Gu Tianye crawled out of the cave, shaking off the dust covering his body.

"Screw it!" Lu Yuan kicked him. "Tortoise shells are innate spatial materials. Killing them will destroy the regular patterns inside. We need to adopt a sustainable development strategy."

He walked up to the exposed dark gold keratin layer and took out a hammer.

"Old buddy, are you awake yet? Let me trim your nails and give you a scrub." Lu Yuan said, tapping a crack in the stratum corneum with a hammer.

The force was precisely controlled, and the shockwave seeped through the texture of the tortoise shell.

The giant tortoise of the starry sky let out a soothing roar. Large sections of the planet's surface crumbled away, revealing a colossal tortoise shell stretching for tens of thousands of miles beneath. This old creature had lived for countless years; the grime on its back was thick enough to form a mountain range.

Lu Yuan instructed Xiang Batian to use an axe to scrape off the thickest layers of grime. This was all top-grade starry sky mineral crystals. Yan Ji, meanwhile, used a gentle flame to clean the parasitic vines on the giant tortoise's back.

After two hours of service, the giant tortoise let out a satisfied sigh. Its enormous head emerged from beneath the earth's crust, its two eyes, like two asteroids, silently gazing at the tiny carbon-based creature before it.

The giant tortoise opened its mouth and spat out a mineral core the size of a house. The mineral core was completely transparent, with nebulae flowing inside, exuding a pure aura of spatial laws.

This is considered a tip for the bathhouse attendant.

Lu Yuan unceremoniously stored the mineral core into his storage space. He patted the giant tortoise's chin. "Alright, go back to sleep. I'll come back for maintenance in a few hundred years."

The giant tortoise nodded, retracted its neck, and its shell disappeared back into the ground. The soil and rubble that had been scraped off were then covered back up, and in less than half a day, the planet returned to its lifeless state.

The Pangu Temple returned laden with its cargo. Its hold was overflowing with Starstones and the associated mineral core, and it swaggered away from the Andromeda Galaxy, trailing a string of alien warship wreckage behind it.

On the way back, Lu Yuanqing tallied up his spoils. The associated mineral core was enough to upgrade the God Legion's spatial storage rings. The Scavenger's outer shell was undamaged in the collision.

Everything was under control. Except for the increasingly strange looks Yan Ji and Mu Bingli were giving him.

"A new ring?" Yan Ji toyed with the Starstone in her hand, her tone nonchalant. "Lu Yuan, we've known each other for so many years, and you've been farming rings one after another, all tactical gear. When are you going to be able to farm any other rings?"

Mu Bingli plucked the strings of her zither softly beside her. "Some things can't be forged. It depends on the person."

Lu Yuan pretended to be deaf and dumb, picked up a piece of broken iron and started hammering it frantically. "This material is pretty good, with a very high carbon content. I think it can be used to add a non-slip layer to Batian's axe handle."

Yan Ji walked over and grabbed his ear.

"Hey, hey, be gentle! It's broken, it's broken!" Lu Yuan cried out in protest.

Amidst cheers and laughter, the spaceship leaped forward, heading towards Earth's coordinates.

Jiangnan City, Old Street.

The blacksmith's shop's roller shutter door was half-open. Sunlight made the bluestone pavement gleam. Inside, the furnace was burning brightly, and the bellows hissed and whirred.

Su Lie, carrying two bottles of baijiu (a type of Chinese liquor) and a few packets of peanuts tucked under his arm, bent down and squeezed through the door. "Brother Lu, busy already?"

Lu Yuan was squatting in front of the stove, holding a skewer of grilled meat. The skewer wasn't filled with mutton, but with starry octopus tentacles he had just brought back from Andromeda. They sizzled and dripped oil under the heat of the Chaos Fire, filling the entire street with their aroma.

Qian Sen followed him in, carrying a state-of-the-art material analyzer. He set it up on the table as soon as he entered, scanning the pile of starstone residue while muttering to himself, "The carbon crystal bond structure is unusually arranged... extremely high energy conductivity... genius, a genius's creation."

Lu Yuan flipped the skewers and sprinkled them with cumin. "Old Qian, your crappy machine can't detect anything good. Real materials science relies on this." He pointed to his forehead.

Two young apprentices were shirtless, forging iron in the courtyard. They were Lu Yuan's newly recruited talents, handpicked top performers from the Divine Legion. They weren't taught cultivation techniques or supernatural abilities; they were given a hammer each to hammer scrap metal for a month.

Gu Tianye and Xiang Batian carried several cases of beer out of the backyard. The two were now honorary instructors of the Defense Alliance, and they were so bored that they would go to the blacksmith shop every day to freeload.

"Come on, fill it up." Gu Tianye opened the bottle and blew directly into the bottle.

Lin Ziling pushed open the door and came in, holding a tablet computer to report the accounts. "Teacher Lu, the accounts transferred from the Star River Trade Alliance last time have been laundered, and the funds have been used to purchase a brand-new mining fleet. Earth's foreign trade surplus has broken records."

Lu Yuan bit off a piece of squid tentacles and mumbled a reply, "Save some money to buy some good meat. These kids can eat too much."

As they were talking, the curtain was lifted, and Yan Ji and Mu Bingli walked in side by side. Neither of them were wearing their battle suits today; they had changed into everyday dresses. Yan Ji's red dress was flamboyant, while Mu Bingli's white dress was as pure as snow.

The two walked directly up to Lu Yuan and opened their palms.

Lu Yuan coughed twice and wiped the grease off his hands on his apron. "What do you mean? If you want pocket money, go ask Ziling."

Yan Ji raised an eyebrow slightly. "Don't play dumb. What did you promise me on the spaceship last time? Where's the ring?"

Mu Bingli added, "It's not a storage ring, it's not an armor ring. If you dare to try and fool us with some iron lump that has spatial rules, you can close this blacksmith shop today."

The firelight from the stove illuminated their faces.

Lu Yuan sighed helplessly. He turned around and walked to the deepest hidden compartment in the shop, where he pulled out a worn-out wooden box.

Upon opening the box, two rings lay quietly inside. They weren't adorned with extravagant starstones, nor were they engraved with intricate chaotic runes. The ring settings were delicate bands refined from the core of a giant star turtle, each set with a small, transparent bead.

That was the ordinary sea monster crystal core he melted with his first divine fire on the East Sea battlefield. It has remained until now, polished to a flawless perfection.

"Wear this, and you won't be able to just take my ore to burn anymore." Lu Yuan handed over the ring, his tone carrying a hint of a resigned bachelor.

Yan Ji snatched one of the rings and slipped it onto her ring finger, then gestured with her chin at Mu Bingli. Mu Bingli picked up the other ring, put it on, and said nothing.

Gu Tianye, who was making a fuss nearby, was slapped on the back of the head by Xiang Batian. "Eat your flesh!"

The atmosphere in the courtyard became lively. Su Lie filled a glass with wine and raised it. "Come on, to our universe's number one blacksmith, cheers!"

Qian Sen was still fiddling with his testing equipment. "Wait a minute, there's something wrong with this data..." Before he could finish speaking, Gu Tianye forced a mouthful of beer down his throat.

Lu Yuan sat on a small stool, picked up the enamel mug containing tea leaves, and clinked it with everyone.

Cups and plates clinked together, and laughter echoed through the old street.

The sky remained azure. The Pangu Temple, orbiting silently, welcomed merchant ships from various star systems. Earth was no longer the trembling prey in the dark forest, but a domineering yet rule-abiding behemoth.

All of this was because of this unassuming blacksmith shop.

After finishing his tea, Lu Yuan picked up the gleaming iron hammer and weighed it in his palm.

The universe is boundless, and good materials are as plentiful as hairs on a cow. Unknown galaxies hide countless ancient monsters and rare minerals.

There's still a long way to go. As long as he's there, the fire in this stove will never go out.

The hammer fell, and the sound of striking metal echoed throughout the courtyard.

The legend continues.