Deep in the small grove by the coast of East China City, a petite, purple-haired figure carrying a large pile of scrap metal arrived at her temporary secret base.
It was none other than the first avatar of Yao Lan, who bore the name of "Genius"—Madam Herta.
"Finally caught up."
Glancing casually behind her, Madam Herta's face gradually broke into a smile. It seemed all the preparation work over the past few days hadn't been in vain! While gathering intelligence recently, she had heard that a forging exchange competition was going to be held nearby, and even a Grand Craftsman was scheduled to attend.
Herta had originally planned to use some method to sneak into the contestant roster and perform an exceptional forging session during the competition to catch that Grand Craftsman's eye. But who could have predicted that she would hook such an unexpected big fish?
Muchen!
She never expected to see an eight-star Saint Craftsman at such a small-scale competition. This instantly made Herta scrap all her previous plans. Rather than standing out slightly among ordinary people by putting on a decent forging display, it would be far better to completely steal the show right in front of this Saint Craftsman by performing a flawless piece of Spirit Forging! Not only would this prevent the trouble that comes with standing out too much and guarantee her safety, but it would also elevate her status in Muchen's eyes. It was truly killing two birds with one stone.
To achieve this result, Herta had only one thing left to do...
Spirit Forging!
Until today, Herta was a Greater Soul Master who knew absolutely nothing about forging. Yet right now, she was capable of directly executing Spirit Forging, a feat restricted to fifth-rank Grand Craftsmen. The reason behind this heartwarming development was simple.
Thanks to the students at the forging exchange competition just now, Herta had gained a clear understanding of forging, and coupled with the Grand Craftsman who appeared at the very end, her comprehension of the craft had reached even greater heights! From knowing nothing to becoming a Grand Master, Herta had mastered it all in the span of a three-hour forging exchange. To this world, she was a terrifyingly monstrous genius!
Yet neither Yao Lan nor Herta was satisfied with this, because this was still not Herta's limit. It seemed as though some vague, intangible restriction had been placed upon her, preventing Yao Lan from reaching the realm of the original Madam Herta...
And that restriction was Yao Lan himself!
After all, Yao Lan's avatars were not created out of thin air; they were genuinely split off from his own body. Therefore, both perception and talent were inevitably influenced by Yao Lan himself.
Such an avatar was merely wearing a Madam Herta skin over Yao Lan. While it made his mind sharper and clearer, wanting to achieve what Madam Herta, member #83 of the Genius Society, could do in the original story seemed like wishful thinking. But let us not forget—Yao Lan's abilities were not limited to mere avatars!
The current Herta avatar indeed had a massive gap compared to the Herta of the original story, but such a gap was not insurmountable. After all, the original Herta never possessed the ability to have an Aeon act as her proxy.
A phantom of Nous flashed briefly across Herta's body, and immediately afterward, a giant hammer longer than she was tall appeared in her hands. This was precisely the weapon held by the chibi Herta in the game.
However, after picking up the hammer, Herta did not act immediately. She slowly closed her eyes and carefully sensed the pile of metal materials before her.
"Simulation, start."
As the mechanical voice echoed, figures began to appear in Herta's mind—they were the figures of youths. Looking closely, one would see that these figures were identical to the student contestants from the forging exchange competition earlier!
"Hundred-refining... Thousand-refining..."
"Correction... Enhancement..."
With the blessing of Nous, Herta managed to elevate her skills to the level of a fourth-rank blacksmith simply by absorbing the techniques of a group of first- and second-rank blacksmiths.
Yet this was not the end!
When the figure of a certain middle-aged man appeared in her mind, Herta experienced an all-around leap in capability. This was the effect brought by that fifth-rank Grand Craftsman.
Although it had only been a substandard Spirit Forging attempt, it was enough for Herta to take another step forward. Neither Yao Lan nor Herta had ever systematically studied any knowledge related to forging, but under the simulation of Nous, Herta managed to directly pioneer her own forging method within mere minutes by observing those forging techniques from her memory, even elevating herself to the level of a fifth-rank Grand Craftsman.
Even so, this was Herta's current limit.
The quality of the materials before her was ultimately limited—after all, they were scrap left over from a competition—and coupled with the fact that Herta herself had never witnessed higher-level forging methods, Spirit Forging was the absolute peak she could reach.
"Well then, let this peeping Saint Craftsman take a good look at my Spirit Forging!"
Meanwhile, Muchen, who was secretly watching, poked his head out. Ever since he started following this brown-haired little girl, he had felt that something was amiss. What was this little girl planning to do? Muchen recognized all the metal pieces she had been carrying earlier—weren't those just scraps left over from the competition? What kind of items could be forged from that garbage? As a Saint Craftsman, Muchen knew the importance of materials inside and out; to forge superior metal, one had to use high-grade materials.
Although those scraps contained a tiny fraction of fine materials, no matter how they were forged, they could never exceed the thousand-refined level. The types of metal within the pile were simply too numerous and too chaotic, making it all the more difficult to forge them into high-grade metals.
Even Muchen himself could only push those scraps to the hundred-refined fine grade at the absolute most, and going any higher was impossible. That was simply the extent of a material's influence.
So how would this girl handle it?
"Is that hammer conjured by a Spirit Ability? How is anyone supposed to forge with that?"
Most blacksmiths would choose a forging hammer suited to their own physique, where strength and speed were both indispensable, because the impurities in the metal had to be expelled at an extremely fast pace during forging. Yet this hammer, which was taller than the girl herself, clearly did not meet the condition of "speed."
To be honest, Muchen was already somewhat disappointed. Initially, he had felt that this girl had some skill, given that she could recognize the flaws in that previous Spirit Forging attempt, but now...
"This girl must be a beginner, just looking for some materials to practice with. Otherwise, she wouldn't have bothered with a pile of utterly useless scraps."
However, just as Muchen shook his head and prepared to leave, the girl's forging... began!
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang—!
Rapid striking sounds rang out rhythmically. Despite the hammer being taller than the girl's height, in her petite hands it moved as smoothly as a toy, operating even faster than some third- or fourth-rank blacksmiths.
Such an unbelievable sight made the eight-star Saint Craftsman Muchen widen his eyes in shock. That scrap iron, which he had all but concluded could never exceed the thousand-refined mark, surpassed a thousand refines in the blink of an eye... How was this possible? What was more, a trace of sentience seemed to emerge from within those metals.
Thousand-refined with sentience? A fourth-rank blacksmith?
"How can this be? Just how old is she?"
Yet, this was not the end of it. Just as Muchen was still reeling from the shock of Herta's identity as a fourth-rank blacksmith, the striking of the hammer grew increasingly rapid.
"She's actually planning to keep going?"
The next stage... was Spirit Forging! Countless people had been stuck at the threshold right before Spirit Forging for years, and there were even those who could never break through it for their entire lives. But this girl...
Was she actually planning to use such a chaotic mess of scrap iron to achieve the Spirit Forging that trapped countless people for a lifetime?