Chapter 800: You Reap What You Sow (3)

The people outside the grotto waited for a long time but nothing seemed to have changed. In fact, the hanging hammer in the sky seemed a lot more lively than before. It kept shaking, but the golden stripes on it had remained at the same number. What was going on?

It had been a few hours. Why was everything still the same? Was it a success or was it a failure? Everyone was confused.

Even the booming sounds had stopped. They didn't know what was happening. In fact, even the weaponsmiths and the Invincibles were confused. Just what was happening?

Was Zhao Li breaking through into the Mountainsea Realm? That hammer looked very powerful, but Zhao Li's sea of willpower had yet to be destroyed. Was his sea of willpower so strong that not even the hammer could harm him? Or perhaps this hammer only looked impressive but was actually very weak?

In short, nobody outside knew what was happening.

Inside the sea of willpower, Su Yu was greatly exhausted. With great difficulty, Zhao Li had managed to form a hammer character technique. But since this was his first attempt, it was rather unstable. It nearly fell apart several times.

That was mainly due to the struggles of the large hammer that was also the main character. But at this point, Zhao Li was once again feeling that he might really succeed. He had a feeling that the large hammer was running out of energy. Even its struggles were no longer as intense as before.

And finally, the ninety-second aperture was opened. Zhao Li had finally completed the two arts. He hurriedly linked them all together before activating both arts at the same time.

Half his sea of willpower was covered by the Myriad Text Sutra while the other half was covered by the two elemental arts. A shiny net slowly spread all over the trembling sea of willpower.

𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

After a short moment, the entire sea of willpower stabilized. Zhao Li was stunned. He could no longer remember how many times this had happened today. Did it succeed? The crisis was over? Just like that?

The hammer surrounded by eleven of his characters felt completely exhausted. After such a long fight, the hammer had failed to defeat them. They seemed to have succeeded! His fusion of eight apertures was also near completion. The speed of aperture fusion would increase in the midst of battle.

"Kid, I think I'm going to complete my breakthrough soon. This hammer is no longer capable of fighting back."

Su Yu nodded. That seemed to be the case. Finally, he was able to relax himself. They had survived the crisis.

After blanking out for a short moment, Zhao Li exclaimed in ecstasy, "I think it's really going to succeed! But the forging is not over yet. Give me a moment. We will resume after I complete my breakthrough!"

Right at that moment, his eight apertures finally completed their fusion.

Boom!

His sea of willpower boiled as a large amount of willpower seeped into his sea of willpower from the void. Su Yu only absorbed a tiny portion of the willpower to recover slightly before withdrawing. Right before he left, he gave the fused aperture a glance.

Fusion of eight into one.

It was quite fast, but Old Zhao had also been preparing for this for a very long time. Thus, there weren't much resistance between each aperture. Normally, this process would take a much longer time.

The exhausted Su Yu was finally out of the sea of willpower. But with the return of his willpower, he was able to exhale in relief. Despite his exhaustion, he was still smiling. The quality of his willpower seemed to have improved after the excessive exhaustion. A tiny transformation had happened as his willpower started roiling while his sea of willpower started expanding.

After a short moment, Su Yu opened his eyes again. His willpower had finally reached the peak second tier. He was now a true peak ninth-stage Skysoar.

The large hammer was also a Soul Expanding Hammer. Thus, he had benefited from the battle. That has always been the nature of the Soul Expanding Hammer. As long as one could survive a beating from the hammer, one would benefit from it.

The little furball also withdrew at the next moment. The little fellow looked very energetic. It seemed like he had benefited considerably from the battle with the large hammer.

Boom!

A large amount of the source qi in the grotto was absorbed by Zhao Li. His aura started rising. And then, it broke through the critical point.

Rumble!

A burst of aura erupted from his body, forcing Su Yu to take several steps backward. After a while, Zhao Li opened his eyes and howled with laughter, "I'm now a Mountainsea!" He succeeded!

"Let's continue, kid. I'm now a Mountainsea. And I'm stronger than regular Mountainseas. I have ninety-two apertures and a basic character technique. I have also restored a weak connection with my main character. Let's continue working on our embryonic heaven weapon! If we succeed in this, you won't be far from the earth grade. Even if you quit fighting in the future, you can live a wealthy and good life just from forging weapons."

Su Yu smiled, "Congratulations, Teacher."

"It's not fully complete yet, so it's still too early for that. But we're eighty percent complete. Hurry up. I'm full of energy right now so I can even teach you something while working on the weapon."

It was time to return to work. The complete golden stripes on the earth weapon had surpassed their initial expectation. There were seventy-seven golden stripes on it. After his advancement, Zhao Li had grown stronger and recovered from his injuries. Thus, the forging process felt much easier to him now.

Su Yu stopped talking and took out his hammer before soaring into the sky with Zhao Li. A short moment later, Zhao Li's main character reappeared. This time, it was a lot more obedient than before. It stayed still and allowed the two to hammer it.

Bang!

The pounding sounds returned. They were louder than before. The entirety of Great Xia seemed to have blanked out momentarily. Zhao Tianbing was also blanking out. They succeeded?

No, it wasn't a complete success yet. But since Zhao Li had the energy to continue, he must have reached the Mountainsea Realm. He had actually survived the breakthrough! On the hanging hammer in the sky, the seventy-eighth golden stripe formed partially. Then, Zhao Li stopped working on it and started forging the seventy-ninth stripe.

The pounding sounds continued on and on. From the sounds alone, it was obvious that Zhao Li had more than enough energy to spare. In fact, some could even sense a trace of joy and excitement from these hammer strikes.

At the same time.

Even Su Yu was enjoying himself. The vibrations no longer felt as strong. He took the chance to temper his body while hitting the earth weapon. Zhao Li did not mind that as he continued guiding the kid while working on the weapon. With a hearty laugh, he said, "It was not supposed to feel this easy, but this hammer is a lot more obedient after my character technique assimilated it. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yeah, I understand. Previously, it was a free-range animal who was refusing to return home. Now, it has finally been tamed and brought back home again."

"Hahaha, that's right!" Zhao Li laughed and said, "Keep hitting the weapon. This is my main character. The stronger we make it, the stronger I'll be. And the moment it becomes a proper heaven weapon, I'll automatically become a Sunmoon."

"Today, I'll forge a truly powerful weapon. I'll let the world know that I, Zhao Li, am better than my senior brother!"

Su Yu nodded with a smile. Yes, Old Zhao was great. But he had to first focus on reaching the peak earth grade before dreaming about his beautiful future.

Su Yu continued tempering his body with the recoil from hitting the weapon. This was actually a very fast rate of improvement.

Zhao Li had said that Su Yu's biggest benefit from this would be his weaponsmithing skills. But Su Yu had not cared too much about that. Even if he could become an earth weaponsmith, so what? Actual strength was the most reliable thing to have.

And he had indeed grown considerably in strength while working on this weapon. His willpower, characters, soul techniques, and body had all grown stronger. In fact, he was nearly done with his tenth body forging.

Time continued passing as the pounding sounds continued. Before anyone knew it, the 1st of June arrived. That day, a total of ninety-nine golden stripes had been forged on Zhao Li's weapon. Seventy-seven of them were complete stripes while the rest were incomplete.

The observing earth weaponsmiths were all gasping in amazement outside the grotto. What did that signify? Zhao Li's strength was not enough to forge a weapon like this alone, but his skills had reached the peak of the earth grade. Reaching a hundred golden stripes would fully showcase that Zhao Li had the weaponsmithing skills of a peak earth weaponsmith.

Of course, he had to first last that long without running out of energy and failing. This was why people were saying that his cultivation was limiting him. Nobody doubted his skills. He only lacked cultivation.

When night arrived, the pounding sounds that had persisted for the entire day suddenly slowed down. Abruptly, the sky itself trembled. The one-hundredth golden stripe had appeared.

"Peak earth grade!"

Hu Qi was gasping in shock while looking at the sky.

Elder Chen was also looking at the sky. He had a helpless smile on his face. Zhao Li had surpassed him. The only thing Zhao Li lacked was cultivation. Otherwise, he would have been able to forge a hundred complete golden stripes, becoming a proper peak earth weaponsmith.

One had to note that there were only three peak earth weaponsmiths among humanity. The best among them was Zhao Tianbing. As for the other two, one was Heavenly Forge King's first student and the other was the First Divine Sect master. Yes. The First Divine Sect master was one of them.

Without him, the cult wouldn't have been able to get their hands on so many cultural weapons. However, the First Divine Sect master's weaponsmithing skills had mostly been overshadowed by his cultivation as a ninth-stage Sunmoon.

These three were the only peak earth weaponsmiths humanity had to offer. And now, the fourth might appear soon. Zhao Li only needed some time to enter the Sunmoon Realm and reaching that level would probably be easy for him.

After all, he was only a Mountainsea at the moment. Perhaps he didn't even need to become a Sunmoon. Reaching the late-stage Mountainsea Realm might be enough for him.

"It's near completion."

"This is a blessing for all humanity."

"The weaponsmithing field is going to welcome yet another grandmaster."

"The fourth principal's legacy is truly terrifying. This feels even better than Heavenly Forge King's legacy. There are some earth weaponsmiths following Heavenly Forge King's teachings, but only one of them has managed to reach the peak. But the fourth principal's teachings have produced two such peak weaponsmiths."

"..."

Some of the weaponsmiths there could only gasp with admiration. As of this moment, Zhao Li's status had changed completely.

Inside the prefect's residence, Zhao Tianbing exhaled in relief. Great Han King said, "Looks like it's a success."

Zhao Tianbing nodded and said, "I only hope that he won't keep doing anything rash like pushing to the 109th golden stripe or something. As long as he stops here, he will definitely succeed. I can sense that he actually has some energy to spare. It's also quite surprising that Cui Lang is able to keep forging until now as well. He has probably benefited from this forging session as well."

He was quite surprised at Cui Lang's performance. That was incredible. That kid was an earth weaponsmith in the making.

Great Song King said, "This is worthy of celebration. Your junior brother will be the next peak earth weaponsmith of humanity in a few years. In fact, he seems to have the potential to become a heaven weaponsmith before you. Heavenly Forge will probably regret not coming here to witness this scene."

Zhao Tianbing smiled, "I hope so as well. At that time, my junior brother will be able to provide humanity with more heaven weapons. Our Invincibles and late-stage Sunmoons will have access to more weapons suitable for their cultivation."

The Invincibles smiled and nodded when they heard that. Nobody said anything. But that was naturally something they would welcome. Then again, there was a hidden meaning in Zhao Tianbing's words. He was hinting at these Invincibles to protect Zhao Li. Of course, there was no need to speak about that openly as it would be pointless.

And beside them, Marquis Xia was grinning so widely that he nearly strained his face. Zhao Tianbing gave Marquis Xia a glance and snorted coldly. The fuck was this fellow smiling for? Why was this damn bastard so happy?

Marquis Xia ignored the snort and continued smiling. What could Zhao Tianbing do about it?

Right at that moment, the 101st golden stripe appeared. At the same time, Su Yu completed his tenth body forging. He had actually managed to complete two body forgings while forging a weapon.

Of course, he had also sacrificed a lot for this. He had used nearly a hundred portions of heavenly source qi. Both he and Old Zhao had absorbed a lot of heavenly source qi. On top of that, he had also crushed two Sunmoon characters.

All in all, those resources were worth over two hundred thousand merit points. But in exchange, Zhao Li was able to complete his weapon, become a Mountainsea, recover from his old injuries, and increase his weaponsmithing rank. This was completely worth it.

Su Yu did not regret parting with all those resources. He only felt joy for Zhao Li.

As for Zhao Li, he continued striking the weapon while saying, "You can take a break. I can finish this myself. But after your rest, start forging a new weapon for yourself. I want to see you complete a peak profound or even an earth weapon. After that, both of us can exit seclusion together and show the world just how amazing we are."

He already had a plan in mind. They would exit the grotto with an embryonic heaven weapon and a peak profound or an earth weapon and dazzle the world with their brilliance. He wanted to prove that even weaponsmiths could shock the world with their actions.

Su Yu was only nineteen yet he was already a peak profound or even an earth weaponsmith...but unfortunately, he was now Cui Lang. A thirty-five years old weaponsmith. Damn it!

If Su Yu was able to reveal his actual identity here, Heavenly Forge King himself might rush over to take Su Yu as his student. Zhao Li had a complicated expression as he looked at Su Yu.

You reap what you sow. His success today was greatly related to Su Yu. And Su Yu had only helped him so much because of their relationship in the past.

A heroic mood rose from Zhao Li's heart as he said, "Continue! I will forge 109 golden stripes!"

"..."

Su Yu stared at Old Zhao blankly. This old man should stop messing around. Was he crazy?

Zhao Li laughed heartily and said, "That was a joke. But I will definitely produce a true heaven weapon within ten years!"

He was not that crazy. This was already the limit of what he could. If he really forced himself to forge 109 golden stripes, he could very well fail it and cry with regret.