The overwhelming success of Lin Qi at the Summit of Silent Accord—which everyone believed was a demonstration of a sophisticated spiritual weapon—put Sect Master Wu in a difficult position. The other major sects, particularly the Iron Citadel, would now demand to see the Whispering Willow Sect's "revolutionary new armament."
To maintain the façade, Wu decided that Lin Qi must invent a weapon. Wu escorted Lin Qi to the Sect's dilapidated, rarely-used Iron Forge, handing him a lump of the finest Star-Iron Ore—a material notoriously difficult to temper.
"Disciple Lin Qi," Wu whispered, his eyes wide with desperate hope. "You must forge a weapon that reflects your Dao of Cosmic Aggression! Create a blade so terrifying it enforces peace merely by existing!"
Lin Qi, however, wasn't thinking about peace or cosmic aggression. He was thinking about how heavy the Star-Iron Ore was. He decided the simplest way to forge a weapon was to just hit the ore until it looked like a sword.
The Problem of the Primitive Blow
Lin Qi started the forge fire—using a method similar to his disastrous alchemy, throwing in too much fuel and ignoring the temperature controls. The Star-Iron Ore, which required carefully controlled, millennia-long heat cycles, was immediately subjected to chaotic, overwhelming mortal flame.
He then grabbed the largest, heaviest hammer he could find and began to strike the ore. He had no rhythm, no technique, and absolutely no understanding of metallurgy. He simply hammered away with clumsy, repetitive, random blows.
The ore should have been destroyed, turned into unusable slag by the uncontrolled heat and the unskilled, uneven pounding.
However, Lin Qi's sealed Core of Infinite Density again intervened. Every random, clumsy blow of the hammer was imbued with a microscopic, unconscious burst of G-EVS's original power—the "Dao of Forceful Compression."
The ore wasn't being forged; it was being subjected to a series of random, high-frequency Spatial Compression Shocks.
Instead of spreading the metal uniformly, the chaotic blows caused the ore's inner structure to instantly shatter, fracture, and compress simultaneously. The metal was broken down at a molecular level and instantly reformed into a densely packed, spiritually chaotic lattice.
The Birth of the Forbidden Blade
Lin Qi lifted the hammer for the final blow, intending to flatten the metal slightly.
CLANG!
The ore, instantly and completely compressed, was not flattened. It violently exploded into a thousand razor-sharp fragments, which then instantly resealed themselves back together in the shape of a single, razor-thin, jet-black sword.
The resulting weapon was not a single blade, but a composite of a thousand tiny, spiritually fragmented shards, held together by the lingering Cosmic Compression Force from Lin Qi's blow. It hummed with contained, devastating instability.
Lin Qi picked up the sword. It was surprisingly light and felt "fizzy." He frowned. "It broke into lots of pieces first. That can't be good."
The Ultimate Misinterpretation
Sect Master Wu and the Elders rushed in, drawn by the sound of the explosion. They saw the chaos in the forge and the jet-black blade resting in Lin Qi's hands.
They didn't see a fragmented failure; they saw the ultimate weapon.
"The Fragmentation Blade!" shrieked an Elder, recognizing the theoretical properties of the volatile weapon. "It's a forbidden art! The blade itself is unstable—it holds the power of a thousand contained explosions! It can shatter a mountain range with a single cleave!"
Sect Master Wu was near tears. He had asked for a sword; Lin Qi had produced a weapon that violated the laws of physics.
"He used the 'Dao of Deliberate Destruction!'" Wu declared, sinking to his knees. "He deliberately failed the conventional process to achieve the ultimate destructive result! The clumsy blows were the 'Mudra of Chaotic Imprinting,' forcing the material to accept spiritual chaos! This is the terrifying Fragmentation Blade!"
Princess Lianhua, who had been secretly observing from a nearby roof, mentally took notes. The key to forging is not skill, but the willingness to deliberately destroy the process.
Wu grabbed a piece of charred kindling and scribbled his new, petrified maxim:
> "If you seek to forge the ultimate weapon, do not follow the blueprint. Instead, strike the material with the maximum force of your ignorance until the laws of nature are too confused to resist."
>
Lin Qi left the forge holding the terrifying Fragmentation Blade, which everyone now believed was the most dangerous weapon in the Eastern Continent. He didn't use it, however, as he decided it was too sharp and might ruin the sleeve of his robe. He wrapped it in several layers of canvas and carried it like a fragile umbrella.