Chapter 6: "What the hell did I just see?"
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In this workshop, from what he remembered, there were a total of four people working, including Han Tiezhang, who had his own small area set aside where he worked.
The others each had their own station.
The one that was given to him was, by coincidence, the very same one he had used in his past life.
"For now you'll use this station here," he said, pointing to the spot while taking something out of his pocket.
"You said you have the technique, so let me show you the three most basic objects that even a beginner blacksmith should know how to make," he said as he pulled out three small items.
A nail, a knife, and a hammerhead.
Seeing them, Zhu Rong didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
These objects, which on the surface looked like nothing special, were actually a good way to test a person's mastery over the various basic forging techniques.
The nail, for example, might be a tiny piece of metal, but it required a proper amount of precision and temperature control to get a perfect result.
You could tell whether someone had good control over their hammering and flame regulation.
Now, regular everyday nails didn't need to be forged one by one, because it would take too long for something that didn't need it.
It was quicker to use molds where liquid metal would be poured in.
So depending on the type and use of the nail, the method used mattered.
Same went for the knife.
The blade had to be solid and straight, with a good temper to avoid snapping or bending,
a sharp edge that could hold its cut, and a good balance between the blade and handle.
All of this wasn't something you could properly achieve with a mold technique, so it had to be forged by hand one by one.
The creation of this item could help tell if the blacksmith knew how to give it the right thickness, sharpen it well, and temper it properly to make it tougher and more resistant.
Same story for the hammerhead.
All three objects had their own use in this test, and for a blacksmith who still hadn't gotten the hang of the basic forging techniques, these three things wouldn't be an easy task.
That said, for Zhu Rong, who had had centuries of life to train his forging technique and raise it to a very high level, these three objects were nothing short of child's play.
He almost felt embarrassed to forge these when he was capable of so much more.
It was like asking a Nobel Prize winning physicist to go teach elementary school.
Humiliating, to say the least.
He could only shake his head as he moved over to the station and started getting what he needed ready.
'To think that one day I'd be back to making nails and knives.
Tch, fate really loves to screw people over,' he grumbled in his head as he started working on the piece he'd chosen.
The hammerhead.
At first, he'd thought about starting with the knife, but then the idea of beginning with the hammer came to him.
It would be his chance not only to do the test, but also to forge a personal hammer.
A personal hammer for a blacksmith was really important, since it would accompany them in the creation of many works for a long time.
Replacing it with a better one would require a lot of time, and more importantly, resources.
In his past life, he had forged a hammer of spiritual grade that could be continuously improved, basically a tool that grew together with its wielder.
It was one of the few creations that had followed him through nearly his entire journey as a blacksmith.
Zhu Rong wondered whether that hammer had survived the tribulation, or if it had perished along with him.
That said, in this life he neither had the strength nor the materials to forge a high-grade hammer yet, so he decided to make one with what he had.
He grabbed a piece of raw steel from the pile that had been placed at his disposal and immediately got to work.
First of all, he needed to heat the steel and get it to the optimal temperature for working.
He placed the piece inside the furnace and began adjusting the flame.
This was the first phase of the forging process , and one of the crucial stages, since it wasn't just about adjusting the flame to bring the piece to the right temperature for shaping, but also about making sure it heated evenly.
Han Tiezhang, who had been watching from the start, immediately noticed the speed and precision of his movements, and couldn't help but approve silently in his mind.
He could tell this wasn't the first time he'd done this.
That said, this was only the beginning, depending on how he handled the rest of the steps, he'd be able to gauge his basic mastery of forging.
'Let's see how you handle the hammering,' he thought, patiently waiting for him to finish heating the piece of metal.
The time needed to heat a piece of that size could vary from a few minutes to several dozen, depending on the temperature it was done at.
An experienced blacksmith could do it in under 10 minutes, while a less skilled one might take more than 15.
Han Tiezhang expected Zhu Rong to go beyond 10 minutes, but he soon realized he was wrong.
After about 7 minutes, Zhu Rong began pulling out the now red-hot piece and immediately placed it on the anvil, ready to begin the hammering phase.
Seeing this, Han Tiezhang was surprised for a moment but quickly regained his composure.
He had to admit, the boy had good flame control and solid metal heating technique.
But he wondered if he would be just as good with the rest of the steps.
The time to produce a hammerhead could easily reach 2 or even 3 hours, depending on who was making it.
He expected Zhu Rong to finish the piece within the 3 hours he'd been given, but he soon realized he had vastly underestimated the boy's skills.
As the hammering process progressed, the 3 hours he'd expected slowly turned into 2 in his mind, a result that was already surprising for a novice blacksmith.
But it didn't stop there.
After a few more minutes:
' 1h 30 min '
His expression changed when he noticed that at this rate, the boy would finish the hammerhead in under 2 hours , and from what he could see, that time was still dropping.
1 hour and 20 minutes.
1 hour and 10 minutes.
1 hour.
At that point, Han Tiezhang had stopped guessing and was just standing there, staring as Zhu Rong put the final touches on the hammerhead.
"What the hell did I just witness?"