Chapter 877: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 30)

Seeing that little wyrm who was cutely considering taking a bath in molten dragon steel, Aster chuckled as he patted Espi’s head.

"Molten dragon steel is harmless for living beings so you can even bath in it if you want, but integrating it into your scales won’t be really helpful, it has to be combined with an inorganic material for it to shine", he said, which made the little wyrm look downcast for a second, until Aster added.

"But you can try plaques of shock nullifying steel with molten dragon steel, I bet you’ll get a nice pattern for those pretty scales of yours".

"Hisss~", Espi’s eyes cutely sparkled as she heard the previous, when she integrated pieces of steel into her scales, she got a silvery pattern to appear on them, so if she used metal with molten dragon steel into it, she will probably get a pretty gold pattern instead.

Not like the little wyrm cared about the aesthetic aspect of it, what she wanted was to have a material with Aster’s blood in it, integrated into her scales, which reminded Aster of a little something he had in storage for Espi, which he made earlier during the candy making session with Mylene.

"It’s only one, but I made a little special treat for my "companion", here", said Aster as he took out a marble sized reddish candy.

"Hisss!", Espi suddenly got all happy as she opened her mouth to let Aster feed her the candy in his hands, that was a blood candy made with Aster’s refined blood, which is Espi’s favorite and it’s been a while since the little wyrm had one, so she was really enjoying it as the bright smile on her pretty face, as she finished applying the molten dragon steel to the fullers of the her works, suggested.

Naturally, paying too much attention to the little wyrm, made the other little girl who had been focusing in her own work on the anvil, pout, until Aster walked towards her and fed her a candy too.

"It’s not made with my blood as the main ingredient, but I divided an energizing elixir into a dozen of candies so you two can eat them as a snack, you are in charge of administrating them so that Espi won’t eat them all in a single day", said Aster as he patted Kana’s head.

Though those two equally love sweet things, Kana has more self-control than Espi in that aspect, so Aster put her in charge of the "cookie jar".

"Mm~".

With both little girls happily enjoying a little treat while they continued focusing in their respective works, Aster checked on Blair who unlike Espi had yet to start pouring the molten dragon steel on the fullers of her daggers.

She had scooped a bit with her index finger and was observing it, since it didn’t react to organic materials, even if the five-minute period passed it won’t solidify so she could look at it as much as she wanted, it wasn’t going to give her the answer she wanted though, as Aster’s next words suggested.

"No matter how you look at it, you won’t be able to see past the fact that "amplifies", for now at least", jokingly said Aster to which Blair sighed.

"I guess I’m still too green to try and get one on the master from whom I’m learning all these obscure "weird" blacksmithing and craftmanship techniques", she said.

That short red haired girl is usually rather serious, the only exception would be when it comes to blacksmithing related matters, so at some point when she was learning from Aster, she started to get competitive and even joked around here and there, it was amusing.

’I hope elder Riley doesn’t take it against me for "corrupting" her disciple’, jokingly thought Aster.

While originally Aster indeed taught the girls of the blacksmith peak a bit of mortal blacksmithing perspective, which was enough for them to question the "common sense" of things in the cultivation world, which was the actual reason for which Aster did it.

It is also true that things have gone past mortal blacksmithing with these especial materials, and the energy of the beliefs, but unlike before, those girls who have broken out of the mold of a "cultivator" should be able to advance on their own, they are talented girls so Aster only gave them a little push.

Blair is the perfect example of it, what she was seeing in today’s blacksmithing session, couldn’t be described as either mortal nor spirit blacksmithing, it was obscure "weird" blacksmithing knowledge indeed.

But there was a time at earth where "alchemy" existed and it was considered an obscure profession too, anyone who takes the role of a pioneer for any new or emerging field can fit into a similar description, so despite her joking tone, that short red-haired girl had nothing but respect in her eyes every time she was imparted that "weird" knowledge, which she was to pass on to her sister blacksmiths later.

Speaking of which, after Espi and Blair applied the molten dragon steel to their works, and waited a couple of minutes for it to solidify, they started with the heat treatment on them and then while waiting onto that, they worked in other pieces of equipment and so on.

Kana was the same, with Aster’s instructions she also used the molten dragon steel, the difference is that she only worked in two pieces, namely two swords, while Espi an Blair in the couple of hours that it took for their first works to complete their heat treatment, pulled of making another round of equipment each, one didn’t have to be a genius to know that the little girl wanted to dedicate her first ever created equipment to her admired big brother, which earned her a few head pats from Aster.

...

A few hours later after at least one round of work from those three had finished undergoing heat treatment, and after an extra half an hour in which they sharpened the edges and did the initial finishing details like putting leather to the handles in the case of Blair and Kana, while the little wyrm mounted her spearheads on staves Espi herself had prepared earlier.

"Mm?", as if feeling that something was coming to "disturb" their fun, both Kana and Espi who were just finishing sharpening their sword and spearheads, respectively, suddenly at north, towards the forest to be accurate and then exchanged gazes as they both thought.

’Sister Alice will be here soon’.

Seeing those two noticing Alice’s presence approaching at high speed from quite the big distance by the way, Aster couldn’t help but chuckle, one noticed it because well, she is a dragon too, while the other noticed it because Alice is a massive mass of "disharmony" in nature.

"Calm down, there is still enough time to test your creations", said Aster as he petted those two to then pick up a few shields from reserves of equipment that he has made and place them against some trees.

Then he handed Espi a reserve spear, Kana a reserve sword and Blair a reserve dagger.

"Diminish your strength to the limit and then charge to strike your respective weapons against those shields", he said as he pointed at the shields.

"Mm!", with a quick nod, those three as they were told and rushed towards the shields to then slash and stab their weapons respectively.

"Clang!", without putting their backs into it but with momentum built due to them rushing towards their targets, those three managed to half tear through the shields, it wasn’t enough for the shields to be destroyed, but their attacks broke through the frontal layers of the shield and made the inner part bent inwards noticeably, the produced sound was that of metals colliding mostly.

And in case you think it’s a lacking result, especially for the little wyrm, you should remember that the whole frontal and inner parts of the wood shields is reinforced with shock nullifying steel, also Espi used a spear which she wielded with her tail and not her tail itself, otherwise she would have managed to broke through the inner layer of shock nullifying steel even at her lowest strength, though she would have still been unable to make the shield crumble apart.

Because that’s what the shields were made for, to remain in a single piece even if they take "devastating" damage, be it in single explosive instances which is what should be appearing more "commonly" when the girls of the sect start dealing with actual high ranked enemies.

"Okay, now return here and use these ones", said Aster as he passed newly made equipment, he himself forged at the same time as he worked in the energy resistant plaques of steel with molten dragon steel for the new layer of defense for the brigandines.

"These are regular weapons", said Blair as she received a dagger from Aster, to "show off" a bit, he made the same kind of equipment those three worked in, in other words, in the time it took even Blair and the little wyrm to finish four pieces and Kana two, Aster made a sword, a dagger and a spear, while also continuously working in plaques for the brigandines, resulting in many dozens of them going through heat treatment currently.

This is not only because he has much more experience in mortal blacksmithing, but because he can keep "full focus" efficiency while working in many different pieces of equipment at the same time, Blair and Espi can work in multiple pieces as they showed, but they can’t be too different from each other, which is why they made two daggers and two spearheads per round, respectively.

"Yes, I want you to first see the level that our "normal" weapons will have thanks to Guardian’s contribution to the camp", said Aster to then point at the shields, to then add.

"The inner structure of the shields should be fine, use minimal strength again but don’t rush, walk towards them and then strike".

This time Aster removed "momentum" from the equation, which might make you believe that the result should be around the same level since the weapons were the ones that could react to energy, but no.

"Crack!" halfway through those two’s slashes and thrust, respectively, there were some grey shinny particles appearing close to the steel parts of the sword, dagger and spear, and then those three’s attacks landed and this time they half broke the shields apart, as in they destroyed the shields during the initial clash, but ended up exhausting their impact before making the shields split either horizontally, vertically or laterally depending on the trajectory used by each of those three.

"And this was with "average" strength level in the camp!", exclaimed Kana as she let go of the sword which was stuck into the shield, her lowest strength was on par with the average for the girls of the sect in this place, courtesy of her monstrous grip strength, to which Aster smiled as he moved the shields with weapons stuck in them away, and placed completely new ones to then say.

"Okay, now you can use your own creations, same conditions as for the previous test", each girl grabbed their own weapon and walked until they were in front of the shields, to then slash and thrust them.

"Swooosh!", the first difference is that from the moment those three put the weapons in motion, shiny silvery particles floated around the steel parts, and like it would happen with spirit energy, they moved the air aside producing whistling sounds, to then land on the shields.

"Boooom!", the weapons destroyed the shields and then landed on the thick trees behind of them, where they ended up stuck.

"...", those three were lost for a second.

"It felt as if I was using a spirit weapon for moment!", exclaimed Blair.

"Woah, did you saw those shinny particles gather around them, Espi!", said the little girl.

"Hissss!", the little wyrm hissed something along the lines of "It was like the normal weapons but then I felt Aster’s "presence" and booom!", clearly Espi was quite ecstatic over the previous, and that’s because she got an idea of what it would be like to integrate plaques of shock nullifying steel with molten dragon steel in them, into her scales.

The new basic weapons reacted to energy "weakly", so rather than gathering those particles from the atmosphere, they were radiated by the weapon itself, which is why the quantity was really small and it exhausted itself at the initial clash, so you can’t expect to be able to draw out that amount of attack power from them at all times, but it’s a nice trump card for the girls of the sect to have.

Then you have the ones that were reinforced with the molten dragon steel, with the "amplified" energy reacting property, the equipment went from radiating energy to gathering it around it.

And the reason for the previous is simple, if the normal weapons are comparable to early-stage body tempering realm spirit treasures in terms of energy conduction, the reinforced ones are at the peak of the body tempering realm where a cultivator has already saturated their bodies with spirit energy and starts resonating with the one in the outside world, in preparation to stablish their foundation and reach the realm with the same name.

As amazing at the previous sounded, those three’s attention was drawn back towards Aster as he added.

"Now, imagine what the result would be like if I activate your finished creations with my galaxy forge’s technique".

The previous naturally resulted in sparkling eyes looking at Aster, only for him to chuckle as he added.

"Unfortunately, you three little girls will have to wait for tomorrow, because I’m still missing 1% to reach 30% in the progress of galaxy forging, and even then, I can tell that I will be limited to activate one or two pieces of equipment daily at most".

"Big brother is bullying us, right Espi", mumbled Kana to which the little wyrm nodded.

"Hisss", those two put on "pitiful" expressions on their pretty faces, while Blair sighed, unfortunately the puppy eye tactic won’t work this time, because while Aster indeed made their interest grow to then tell them they will have to wait, to tease them, it is also true that he can’t use second activation yet, the steel they used was already activated by the way, it is shock nullifying steel with energy reacting properties.

Shock nullifying steel is the staple in the camp as it can be used for both weapons and defensive equipment, it helps so that those girls can freely use explosive amounts of strength without hurting themselves, alongside protective gloves of course.

"Even if you look at me like that, today’s class is over, now go and "show off" your creations to all your sisters, you can play a little game and try to guess to whom will the first pieces of equipment with second activations I will make, will go to", said Aster as patted not only Kana and Espi but also Blair this time, which eased the mental fatigue that had accumulated on them due to working with a completely new material.

"Mm, that sounds fun~", said Kana as she grabbed her swords.

"Hisss~" the little wyrm nodded as well and then held her spears as she left alongside Kana.

As for Blair, she who was experiencing a head pat for the first time not only wasn’t against it, she in fact looked quite ecstatic as she thought.

’I could work at my top condition at the smithy if I receive a head pat midway through the day, truly a reward worth putting effort to earn~’, like previously stated, she goes kind of crazy when it comes to blacksmithing, similar to how those three sword maniacs do for swordmanship.

And for a good reason, Blair’s profession is "Fiery Blacksmithing Genius", the fiery part is both referring to the fact that she has a fire related attribute and to how "heated up" she gets when it comes to blacksmith-related matters, which is why she was taken in by elder Riley whose school of thought is calm but strong and also open to improvement, rather than the most common stuck up traditional spirit blacksmithing, one sees in the upper ranked blacksmithing sects of high grade stellar systems.

"I triggered my unique mission... can I ask for a head pat everyday if I complete it?", asked that short red-haired girl to which Aster chuckled.

"Only if you promise to keep an eye on body fatigue too, in this place the effect of my yang energy is mostly noticeable at easing mind fatigue, but don’t let your mind trick your body, you still need to rest", he said to which Blair nodded.

"Mm, thanks", she said as she turned around to then grab her daggers and leave, it was around 5:30 pm currently, which means that there were still quite a few hours for daily tasks not to mention dinner time and resting before going to sleep, and yet Aster continued working on plaques for the brigandines and the shields in a "rush".

Why, because of something that happened fifteen minutes after those three had left.

"Rustle!!!", continuous loud sounds of leaves being moved aside echoed through Aster’s smithy area, which made him chuckle as he left the burning hot piece of steel with which he was working, on the anvil for a moment.

Right in time for a honey brown, red and black "flash" to emerge from the forest around the smithy to then descend from above and land onto Aster.

"Crack!", there was a loud shattering sound produced by the ground below Aster’s feet, due to the impact caused by that multicolored flash as it landed on Aster.

"Ahh, I missed you so much I was about to go crazy~", said the wild dragon princess who had jumped at Aster after gaining momentum for who knows how long given that she rushed through the branches of the trees on the forest around the smithy, and probably did the same through the whole forest earlier to arrive before the others, considering that Aster couldn’t see Tiana and the others in the camp yet.

Alice was now stuck to him, using her tail and legs to secure her body around Aster who had remained standing still even after that strong impact which would have shattered the bones of probably any other guy in this place, like he told to Valentina, Alice surely is beautiful, she doesn’t lose to Lilia when she was her age in the slightest, but besides him, there is no one who would be able to handle the wild dragon princess’s love.

"I properly participated as a team and didn’t slaughter every one of those guys on sight, so I want my reward~", said the wild dragon princess as she rubbed her face against Aster’s.

’Well, she is actually in a better state than what I expected, this is pretty much her usual needy self, but it’s just in the open more than normal’, jokingly thought Aster.

Alice controlled herself by letting go of the brakes, as contradictory as that sounded, her violent urges are basically overwhelmed by her own personal desires, which basically put anything but Aster in second priority.

"I’ll spoil you as much as you want, but first let me go for a moment, I have to call Valentina so that she takes these plaques and start working in modifying the brigandines", said Aster which made Alice slightly pout.

"I rushed all the way here and you are thinking on other girls, that’s not fair", mumbled the wild dragon princess as she bit on Aster’s shoulder, that was not with the intention of hurting him of course, it was a "rougher" dragon-way of showing affection, the gentle one was to rub one’s face against the one of the target of said affection, which Alice already did earlier.

"What a needy dragon princess, fine, you can stick to me during the rest of the day, but I still have to do a few more things okay", said Aster as he placed his hand on Alice’s tail and then caressed that cute thing which was in soft cuddly mode as it wrapped itself around Aster’s body.

"Mm~", surprisingly enough, the wild dragon princess instantly agreed, but it’s not that Alice was being "reasonable", as her inner thoughts revealed.

’This way I can brag on the face of the ice princess and all those little girls~’, she thought as she reaccommodated herself to hug Aster from behind to not impede his movement, but she was also stuck to him even closer than before.