Chương 58: Chapter 25 Part 2 (End of Book 1)

Xuan Ji took a sip of her tea, her mind already shifting from the quiet role of a mentor back into the hyper-analytical mindset of a faction leader. The Vanguard had spent the entire night circulating their Qi arrays. If they hadn't exploded by now, they were likely finishing up their Abyssal core absorptions. And if they were finishing their absorptions, they were going to need an immediate gear check.

"Enjoy the morning sun, Evanthe," Xuan Ji said, standing up from the table.

"Remember your mission. You are strictly on bed rest and light reading. I need to go check on the Vanguard's progress." Xuan Ji walked off the wooden deck, navigating back into the sprawling interior of the Morvant Estate. She headed toward the private training courtyard where she had left the mercenaries the day before. As she pushed open the heavy glass doors leading to the training yards, a sharp, metallic SNAP echoed through the crisp morning air. Xuan Ji paused in the doorway.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the faded, chalky remnants of his Qi-gathering array, was Vice Guild Master Durgan. The half-orc was breathing heavily, his chest heaving as thick plumes of steam rolled off his sweat-slicked, dark brown skin. His physical mass had seemingly condensed; he didn't look larger, but he looked impossibly, terrifyingly dense, like a mountain carved into the shape of a man. Durgan was staring blankly at his hands.

Or rather, he was staring at the master-crafted dwarven-steel Axe he was holding. The heavy, enchanted blade was completely snapped in half. Durgan hadn't struck a training dummy. He hadn't clashed with Axel. He had simply gripped the leather-wrapped hilt to test his newly expanded meridians, squeezed his fist, and the sheer, unadulterated force radiating from his newly empowered muscles had violently shattered the dwarven steel.

Garrick and Axel, sitting at the edges of their own depleted arrays, looked just as shocked. Axel was casually holding a standard throwing knife, and as Xuan Ji watched, the dark elf absentmindedly flipped it—only for his newly enhanced speed to cause the steel blade to embed itself entirely up to the hilt in the solid stone wall fifty feet away. They had successfully absorbed the A-rank and S-rank cores. They had broken their mortal limits. And in doing so, they had completely outscaled their entire arsenal.

"Well," Xuan Ji announced, stepping into the courtyard and drawing the attention of her incredibly powerful, entirely unarmed Vanguard.

"It seems we are in desperate need of a blacksmith."

"Do not move a single muscle," Xuan Ji instructed, looking at the stunned Vanguard standing amidst the remnants of their Qi-gathering arrays.

"If you try to spar right now, you are going to accidentally level the entire courtyard." Xuan Ji immediately summoned one of the estate's remaining couriers. She quickly drafted a short, heavily sealed missive and handed it to the terrified messenger.

"Take this directly to the Royal Spire. Hand it to Crown Prince Theron, and tell him the Sovereign of the Morvant Estate requires the greatest blacksmith in the kingdom. Immediately." Within an hour, the heavy front doors of the estate opened to admit High Forgemaster Thrum, the grizzled, broad-shouldered dwarven head of the Royal Crafters Guild. Thrum was a legend in the capital, a man whose hands were entirely covered in thick, silvery burn scars from a lifetime spent working deep-earth magma forges.

He had been practically dragged out of his workshop by the Royal Guard, told only that he was to report to the Heavenly Demon for a royal commission of the highest order. Xuan Ji led the bewildered dwarven master directly down into the sprawling subterranean levels of the Morvant Estate. Vice Guild Master Durgan, Axel, Garrick, and the seven-foot-tall, polymorphed Gold Dragon followed closely behind. The Morvant family's private armory and forge were a testament to their paranoid hoarding of wealth.

The subterranean chamber housed a massive, runic-powered blast furnace designed to melt high-grade siege steel, surrounded by anvils, quenching troughs, and racks of masterwork hammers.

"Alright, Forgemaster," Xuan Ji said, crossing her arms as Thrum set his heavy leather tool bag onto a workbench.

"My Vanguard has shattered their mortal limits. Their raw output have completely outscaled standard dwarven steel. I need you to forge an arsenal that won't snap when they swing it." Thrum grunted, crossing his thick, muscular arms. He possessed the innate pride of a master craftsman.

"With all due respect, Lady Ming, standard dwarven steel is the finest mundane alloy on the continent. If you want something stronger, you need higher-tier materials. Materials that the Royal Vaults don't just hand out to mercenaries."

"Materials are not an issue," Xuan Ji replied smoothly. She turned to Lithia. The towering dragon-woman let out a low, rumbling hum of amusement. She reached a hand toward her chest, her fingers dipping into the glowing golden sigil of her sub-dimensional pocket. With a heavy, echoing CLANG, Lithia casually dropped five massive, glowing ingots of pure metal onto the nearest anvil. The metal radiated a faint, warm light and hummed with a highly conductive, ambient mana. Thrum's jaw instantly dropped.

His eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"By the Ancestors' fiery beards..." Thrum whispered, reverently running a scarred finger over the glowing ingots.

"That is raw Sungold. It hasn't been seen in the capital for centuries. It's the most highly mana-conductive, resilient alloy in the natural world. It absorbs kinetic shock perfectly. Where did you get this?!"

"I have a very extensive collection," Lithia answered cryptically, her vertical slit-pupils narrowing with quiet pride.

"We are going to alloy the Sungold," Xuan Ji added, tapping her heavy silver void ring. A flash of spatial distortion illuminated the dark forge, and a heavy pile of shattered, glowing golden scales materialized on the floor.

"With these." Thrum staggered backward, completely overwhelmed. He recognized the ambient, terrifying solar heat radiating from the fragments instantly. Ancient Gold Dragon scales. The ultimate, absolute pinnacle of natural physical and magical mitigation. The Forgemaster took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to calm his racing heart. He looked at the materials, and then at the massive runic furnace sitting in the center of the room.

"Lady Ming," Thrum said, his voice trembling slightly with sheer professional tragedy.

"These are the greatest materials I have ever laid eyes upon. But I cannot forge them. The melting point of Sungold is astronomical, and those mythic scales... they were born in a solar furnace. The forge, even operating at maximum runic capacity, will barely make them warm to the touch. I cannot melt the un-meltable."

"You don't need to melt them, Master Thrum," Xuan Ji stated calmly, rolling up the wide silk sleeves of her hanfu.

"You just need to shape them. I will provide the fire." Thrum looked highly skeptical, but he didn't dare argue with the woman who had pacified the apocalypse. He walked over to the massive anvil, retrieved his heaviest, rune-etched forging hammer, and carefully placed a thick ingot of Sungold and a jagged piece of dragon scale into a heavy mythril crucible.

"Whenever you're ready, Lady Ming," Thrum grunted, gripping his tongs.

"Show me this fire." Xuan Ji stepped up to the anvil. She closed her eyes, centering her breathing. The profound, boundless ocean of her Dantian roared to life. She didn't cast a spell. She didn't chant. She simply unsealed her True Fire Samadhi. A terrifying, localized supernova of pure, unadulterated Yang Qi erupted from her hands. The golden flames were so blindingly bright that the shadows in the subterranean forge were entirely annihilated.

The ambient temperature in the room skyrocketed, instantly flash-boiling the water in the quenching troughs into thick, hissing steam. Thrum shielded his eyes, crying out in sheer disbelief. Inside the mythril crucible, the indestructible Ancient Gold Dragon scale and the legendary Sungold ingot didn't just warm up. They instantly began to glow a furious, blinding white, seamlessly liquefying into a swirling, molten pool of supreme draconic alloy.

"By the gods!" Thrum roared over the deafening crackle of the flames.

"Hold it! Hold the heat exactly there!" Xuan Ji nodded, her absolute, supreme micro-control locking the True Fire Samadhi at the precise temperature required to keep the alloy malleable without vaporizing the crucible. Thrum didn't hesitate. He was a master of his craft, and he recognized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He grabbed the crucible with his tongs, poured the glowing, molten alloy into a heavy casting mold, and brought his hammer down. CLANG!

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The concussive shockwave of the hammer strike echoed through the estate. What followed was a brutal, grueling, highly synchronized dance of creation. Xuan Ji acted as a living, sentient blast furnace, effortlessly applying and withdrawing the supreme heat of her Yang Qi at the exact microsecond Thrum demanded it. The dwarven master worked with a frenzied, beautiful desperation, his hammer falling in a flawless, rhythmic blur.

He folded the draconic alloy, compressing the raw Sungold and the mythic scales over and over again, forcefully weaving their structural integrity together. The ambient mana in the forge whipped into a frenzy, drawn directly into the glowing metal with every strike of the hammer. Lithia stood in the corner, her arms crossed, watching the process with deep, silent respect.

Mortal tools were usually beneath her notice, but the sheer synergy between the Heavenly Demon's supreme fire and the dwarven artisan's lifetime of honed skill was producing something genuinely remarkable. The process did not take minutes. It took hours. For half the day, the subterranean forge rang with the deafening, rhythmic heartbeat of the hammer. Sweat poured down Thrum's scarred face, his muscles screaming from the sheer physical exertion of shaping the heaviest, most resilient alloy on the continent.

Xuan Ji didn't break a sweat, but her brow was furrowed in deep concentration, maintaining the flawless thermal balance required to keep the metal from fracturing. By the time the sun began to dip below the horizon outside, casting long shadows across the capital, the final hiss of steam erupted from the quenching troughs. Thrum collapsed against his workbench, completely utterly exhausted, his chest heaving as he gasped for air. But a massive, delirious smile stretched across his soot-stained face.

Resting on the heavy stone tables were four masterpieces of martial engineering. The first was a colossal, double-bladed battleaxe forged for Durgan. The deep-earth ironwood haft was wrapped in drake-leather, and the Sungold-scale blades hummed with heavily carved, glowing crimson runes. It was a terrifying weapon, designed to absorb and exponentially multiply the half-orc's terrifying new physical density. The second was a towering, full-body shield for Garrick.

The sheer weight of the draconic alloy should have rendered it completely unliftable. But Thrum had masterfully folded the mythic scales, utilizing their innate affinity and runic anti-gravity enchantments to make the massive slab of indestructible metal feel lighter than a wooden buckler. The third was a weapon forged purely for speed and lethal precision, tailored entirely for Axel's fighting style. It was a slender, impossibly sharp longsword.

The Sungold blade was perfectly, flawlessly balanced, designed to conduct the dark elf's lethal aura and slice through heavy dwarven plate armor as if it were wet parchment. And finally, resting delicately on a velvet cloth, was a weapon for Evanthe. It was an elegant, lightweight longsword, the hilt wrapped in crimson silk.

The Sungold alloy had been specifically tempered to act as a supreme, unbreakable conduit for elemental friction, capable of seamlessly absorbing and filtering the chaotic clash of her Yin-Yang constitution without shattering. Unfortunately for Lynx, a dagger made of such material is beyond his control and the material cannot work with the enchantment he want anyway. So he has to be satisfied with a mythril dagger, a masterpiece of Master Thrum.

Xuan Ji allowed the True Fire Samadhi to recede, plunging the forge back into the dim, ambient glow of the runic lights. She wiped a stray smudge of soot from her cheek and looked down at the weapons.

"Master Thrum," Xuan Ji said, her voice filled with genuine, profound respect as she admired the flawless craftsmanship.

"You are truly an artist." The exhausted dwarf let out a booming, breathless laugh.

"Lady Ming... working with your fire... it was the absolute honor of my life. I have peaked. I can retire tomorrow and die a happy man." Xuan Ji turned to the three hardened mercenaries standing in the doorway. Their eyes were wide, completely transfixed by the glowing, mythical arsenal resting on the table.

"Well, Vanguard," Xuan Ji smirked, gesturing to the spoils of their grueling, half-day crafting raid.

"Gear up. We have a faction to build." The subterranean forge had finally grown quiet, the roaring runic furnace was dialed back to a low, dormant hum. But up in the grand courtyard of the Morvant Estate, the air was vibrating with the sheer, unadulterated excitement of three hardened veterans discovering their new limits. Durgan stood in the center of the yard, gripping the deep-earth ironwood haft of his colossal Sungold-scale battleaxe. He took a slow, deep breath, anchoring his boots to the earth, and swung.

The blade didn't just cut the air; it tore through it with a deafening, concussive BOOM. The glowing crimson kinetic runes carved into the metal flared brilliantly, absorbing the terrifying physical density of the half-orc's newly expanded meridians without a single micro-fracture in the alloy. The displaced wind from the swing violently rustled the leaves of the willow tree fifty feet away. Durgan let out a booming, rumbling laugh of pure martial joy, resting the massive weapon on his shoulder.

"It holds! By the gods, it actually holds!" Across the courtyard, Garrick was repeatedly slamming his own massive shoulder into his weightless adamantine-scale tower shield, marveling as the draconic alloy perfectly dispersed his kinetic force into the ground without bruising his arm. Axel was practically a blur, testing the flawless balance of his new Sungold longsword, the blade leaving faint, lingering streaks of golden light in the fading evening sun.

Ming Xuan Ji watched them from the wooden deck, a satisfied smirk on her face. Her frontline was officially indestructible. But as a seasoned raid leader, she knew a party composed entirely of heavy damage-dealers and tanks was functionally incomplete. A faction required logistical support. It required eyes in the dark, and it required someone who could brew a health potion when the fighting finally stopped.

"Durgan," Xuan Ji called out, raising her voice over the whistling of Axel's sword.

"Gather the rest of our guests. Meet me in the main study."

Several minutes later, the heavy mahogany doors of the master study opened. Stepping into the room, looking incredibly out of place amidst the opulent imported rugs and towering bookshelves, was Lynx. The halfling guide was clutching his worn leather cap in his hands, his curly hair a mess, looking nervously between the towering, heavily armed Vanguard mercenaries standing guard by the walls. Right behind him walked High Apothecary Silas Vane.

The esteemed healer wore the crisp, pristine white coat of his royal station, carrying a heavy medical satchel. He looked exhausted, rubbing his temples as if fighting off a migraine.

"Lady Ming," Silas greeted, offering a polite but strained bow.

"I received your urgent summons. I was under the impression Lady Evanthe's core was completely stabilized. Has there been a complication?"

"Evanthe is in perfect health, Silas. Thank you for your continued care," Xuan Ji replied, sitting behind the massive desk. She gestured to the two empty leather chairs opposite her.

"Sit down, both of you. This isn't a medical emergency. This is a job interview." Lynx blinked, scrambling up into the oversized leather chair. Silas frowned, taking his seat with a bit more aristocratic dignity.

"A job interview?" Silas repeated, highly confused. Used to being an outcast despite his abilities, no one could support him and his crazy idea.

"I am aware of your credentials, Silas. That is precisely why I want you," Xuan Ji stated practically. She turned her dark eyes to the nervous halfling.

"And Lynx. You guided me through the Twilight Zone of the Grand Abyss. You didn't panic, you knew the miasma currents, and you possess an excellent, pragmatic survival instinct." Lynx swallowed hard, gripping his cap tightly.

"I... thank you, Employer. But I'm just a dungeon rat. I navigate the dark. I don't belong in a fancy sovereign estate."

"My estate is a fortress, and I need eyes in the dark," Xuan Ji countered smoothly. She reached into the sleeve of her silk hanfu and placed a beautifully crafted dagger on the desk. It wasn't forged from the loud, glowing Sungold. It was forged from pure, light-devouring mythril. The blade was wicked and curved, explicitly enchanted by Master Thrum with high-tier sound-dampening and light-bending runes.

"I am officially offering you the position of Head Scout and Informant for my faction," Xuan Ji told the halfling, sliding the mythril dagger across the polished wood.

"You will command your own network of informants in the lower rings. You will have unlimited access to my treasury to purchase information. Your days of scrounging for silver in dungeon miasma are over." Lynx stared at the mythril dagger, his mouth hanging slightly open. A weapon of that caliber cost more than his entire life's earnings multiplied by ten. He reached out with trembling fingers, picking up the blade.

The moment he gripped the hilt, the metal seemed to drink the ambient light around his hand, perfectly cloaking his grip.

"I... I accept," Lynx stammered, tears of pure disbelief prickling his eyes. He hurriedly stood up on the chair and offered a deep, clumsy bow.

"I won't let you down, Boss. You'll know every secret in this city before the Crown Prince does."

"Good," Xuan Ji smirked, turning her attention to the older man.

"Now, Silas."

"Lady Ming, I meant no disrespect," Silas began again, raising a placating hand.

"But I don't think a private estate, no matter how wealthy, could supply a High Apothecary."

"Is that so?" Xuan Ji mused, feigning innocent curiosity. She raised her right hand. Her heavy silver void ring flared with a blinding spatial distortion. With a soft, rustling thud, a massive pile of raw, unrefined flora materialized directly onto the center of the mahogany desk. The pungent, overwhelming scent of ancient magic instantly filled the study.

Resting on the polished wood were dozens of pristine, glowing Abyssal Frost-Lotuses, thick bundles of deep-cave Mandrake roots vibrating with necrotic energy, and massive, perfect cuts of S-rank Wyrm marrow. Mixed into the pile were hundreds of extremely rare, high-grade medicinal herbs harvested directly from the untouched, deadly depths of the Zel'Mora forest. Silas Vane's voice completely died in his throat. His eyes bulged out of his head.

He slowly stood up from his chair, leaning over the desk as if a magnetic force was pulling him forward. His hands were hovering over the pile, trembling violently, terrified that if he touched the ingredients, the illusion would shatter.

"By the gods..." Silas whispered, his professional, aristocratic composure entirely, catastrophically shattering. He gently picked up a glowing blue Frost-Lotus, holding it to the light.

"This... this is a Frost-Lotus. It has been functionally extinct in the upper realms for years. The alchemical density... the purity... you could brew an Elixir of True Resurrection with a single petal!"

"I have two hundred more in my inventory," Xuan Ji noted casually, inspecting her fingernails. Silas whipped his head up, staring at the Heavenly Demon with madness in his eyes.

"The Crown Prince's supply lines are a joke compared to my spatial ring, Silas," Xuan Ji stated, dropping her hand and locking eyes with the apothecary.

"I am offering you the position of Chief Alchemist of the Sovereign Estate. You will have a blank check to build whatever laboratory you desire in the subterranean levels. You will brew for my Vanguard, and my Vanguard alone. Do we have an agreement?" Silas Vane looked down at the pile of legendary ingredients. He looked back at Xuan Ji.

"That is… That would be an honor," Silas declared, his voice breathless with sheer, manic alchemical excitement.

"I will have my equipment moved here by midnight. Just... just please don't let those Mandrake roots dry out!" Xuan Ji smiled. A genuine, highly satisfied expression that reached her dark obsidian eyes. She stood up from the desk, walking over to the tall glass windows of the study. Outside, the last rays of the sun were dipping below the towering walls of the capital, casting the Morvant Estate in the deep, quiet shadows of twilight. She looked at her assembled faction.

Vice Guild Master Durgan, the immovable heavy bruiser. Garrick, the absolute shield. Axel, the lethal swordmaster. Lynx, the eyes in the dark. Silas, the master alchemist. Upstairs, her prodigy disciple Evanthe was resting her perfectly balanced core. And currently occupying the ballroom, incubating her child in a pile of magma, was a Mythic-Tier Ancient Gold Dragon. The foundation was entirely set. The party was fully equipped, wildly overpowered, and fiercely loyal.

Ming Xuan Ji crossed her arms, a gamer's thrill running down her spine. The Sovereign Faction was getting ready for war. — End of Book 1