To comprehend all laws and attain immortality

There are three kinds of hardship in the world: rowing a boat, blacksmithing, and grinding tofu.

Gu Fan hadn't experienced the other two, but he was somewhat addicted to the hardship of blacksmithing.

Inside the mountain belly of Shenji Peak, the dragon head statue spewed out scorching earth flames, causing the air in front of them to distort.

Gu Fan stood there with his arms bare, utterly lacking in decorum. Sweat streamed down his neck and chest, and his chiseled muscles gleamed in the firelight.

The Earth Flame flew to within three feet of Gu Fan and then stopped, as if drawn by a force field, dispersing into dozens of strands, like fiery snakes, which coiled around the spirit iron ore on the stone platform.

In no time, the jet-black iron ore turned a deep red from the heat. Gu Fan used his left hand to control objects and fix the iron ore in place. He then raised his right arm high, swung a square iron hammer the size of a fist, and smashed it hard onto the ore.

With a loud clang, sparks flew from the black iron ore, which was slightly deformed by the impact.

Gu Fan brought down his hammer, and using the recoil, he raised his arm again and struck again, and then the hammer blows came down like a storm.

The sounds of metal clashing echoed throughout the mountainside.

In a short while, the black iron ore shrank by three-tenths of an inch, and impurities were released as the hammer struck, leaving a layer of black dust on the stone platform.

Gu Fan stopped hammering the ore until it became a rough, square iron ingot.

With a casual flick of his fingers, Gu Fan caused the stone sculpture to immediately stop spewing earth flames, allowing the iron ingot to cool on the stone platform. He then sat down cross-legged, closed his eyes, and inhaled the rich fire-attribute spiritual energy in the air to restore his magical power.

The operation just now seemed easy and effortless, but in fact it consumed a lot of mana. After each forging, it was necessary to recuperate for a while.

Today marks the tenth day that Gu Fan has been taking on the blacksmithing chores.

On the day he was assigned the miscellaneous tasks, Tang Yuan personally assigned Gu Fan a position and took him to receive the forging tools, which were the iron hammers he had used when forging the ore earlier.

Don't underestimate that unassuming iron hammer; it is actually a magical artifact, even more valuable than the gray scissor issued by the sect.

Each time it is forged, only a trace of magic power needs to be poured in to double the force of the hammer blows. Not to mention that the metal that makes up the hammer head is exceptionally hard. If it weren't for its poor transmission of magic power, it would definitely be an excellent material for forging flying swords.

At first, Tang Yuan taught Gu Fan how to use Earth Flame, hoping to see him make a fool of himself.

Given that he joined the sect not long ago, even if he had exchanged for the fire control spell in advance, he might not be able to comprehend it.

Tang Yuan was unaware that Gu Fan had already mastered the Flame Spirit Technique using the Myriad Manifestations Eye. Seeing that Gu Fan had immediately controlled the Earth Flame, Tang Yuan glanced at him with surprise, gave him a few instructions, and left dejectedly.

In fact, when the earth's fiery energy erupted, Gu Fan also mentally wiped away a cold sweat.

Although he had only mastered the basics of the Flame Spirit Technique, he usually used it to control flames to boil water and brew tea. However, he still felt quite pressured when facing the surging earth flames.

But the mysteries of the Flame Spirit Technique go far beyond that.

The function of this technique is to solidify the scattered flames into countless threads, allowing cultivators to freely control the location and temperature of the burning.

During his time cultivating on Lingxi Peak, Gu Fan could only divide his flames into three streams. After ten days of practice, he was able to divide his flames into dozens of streams.

According to the description of the technique, splitting the flame into a hundred streams is considered a minor achievement, while splitting it into a thousand streams is a major achievement.

However, after reaching several dozen, Gu Fan felt the difficulty increase sharply, and the speed at which the flames differentiated actually slowed down.

But Gu Fan's rate of progress was already astonishing in the eyes of others.

During the break, someone subtly probed, asking Gu Fan which cultivation family he belonged to and how he had fallen so low as to need to earn merit by blacksmithing.

In their minds, it would have been impossible to make such rapid progress without the guidance of teachers.

When they heard that Gu Fan was a disciple of Lingxi Peak, they all shook their heads in disbelief.

Eight out of ten of these blacksmith disciples were from Lingxi Peak, and all of them were people with good comprehension. However, they had never seen disciples who progressed so rapidly.

To this, Gu Fan could only say believe it or not; my extraordinary wisdom is hard to explain to you.

With the blessing of the All-Seeing Eye, Gu Fan's magical power flows and is released along a fixed route every time he casts a spell, which has become almost instinctive after ten days of training.

What limits Gu Fan is actually his ability to control his magical power.

How to control the output of mana to avoid waste; how to manage multiple streams of mana and control each flame – these are the problems that give Gu Fan a headache.

After all, the Myriad Manifestations Eye can only help him quickly get started with spells; he has to work on improving his proficiency himself.

Fortunately, Gu Fan's magical power is also growing at a rather impressive rate.

Gu Fan never missed his daily morning and evening Qi gathering practice. Practicing both techniques simultaneously made his magical power exceptionally strong, and his cultivation level steadily advanced towards the second level of Qi Refining.

At this rate, it will only take one year to reach the second level of Qi Refining.

Without the aid of elixirs, advancing to the second level of Qi Refining in a year by practicing a high-grade cultivation technique is already extremely fast, comparable to the cultivation speed of a low-grade technique.

With the support of his powerful magic, Gu Fan devoted all his energy to practicing the Flame Spirit Technique.

With each practice session, Gu Fan could feel himself making rapid progress, and each additional flame he created gave him a sense of accomplishment.

This obvious positive feedback made him extremely addicted.

The benefits of blacksmithing were not only the improvement of his magic; in ten days, Gu Fan had forged ninety-five pieces of spirit iron.

Aside from not being proficient enough in controlling the flames on the first day and only forging three pieces of spirit iron, he improved to five pieces on the second day and more than ten pieces on the fifth day, far surpassing the average novice.

The disciples who forge iron here are all at the early stage of Qi Refining. Once they break through to the middle stage, they can start to refine magical artifacts, so they naturally don't care about the income from forging iron.

Gu Fan regulated his breathing for a moment, then stood up, put the slightly cooled iron ingot into his storage bag, and took out a new piece of ore, placing it on the stone platform.

Another advantage of superior cultivation techniques is that, due to the opening of the meridians, the speed of mana recovery is also faster.

Gu Fan planned to forge five more pieces of spirit iron to make a total of one hundred, enough to exchange for some merit points, and then end his work for the day.

Today, an inner disciple will be coming to Shenji Peak to teach the art of weapon crafting, and Gu Fan is determined not to miss it.

The clanging of blacksmithing rang out again, and under the reflection of the earth's heat, Gu Fan's two pupils seemed to be burning with two flames.

......

In Tiangong Pavilion, Tang Yuanzheng lay listlessly on a large recliner, a ray of sunlight shining in from the doorway, landing right on his round belly.

Tang Yuan was enjoying the warm spring sunshine with his eyes half-closed when he suddenly noticed a dark shadow in front of him, and he couldn't help but open his eyes wide.

"So it's Junior Brother Gu. The sermon is about to begin in an hour. Why are you so late?" Tang Yuan said with a smile.

Gu Fan laughed heartily, "I just washed up in the quiet room, which took a little longer."

Tang Yuan nodded slightly, indicating his understanding.