Chapter 1128 — Forging Iron Paints a Beauty's Portrait

" Shen Mu attuned himself to the properties of the treasures stolen from Zhaoyang Hall. In the Silent Smith's words, every material had its own attributes and even its own personality; once you understood the attributes and the personality, blending different materials together could greatly raise a divine weapon's toughness, hardness, and self-healing. At this moment Shen Mu was sensing the attributes and personalities of the various treasures.

A successful smith must above all have a soft heart. In appearance the Silent Smith was a rough old fellow, yet his heart was the softest in all of Hidden Remnant Village. And it was precisely for this reason that he was also the one most often deceived; unwilling to open his heart, he would sooner remain a silent smith.

Shen Mu had sought out so many celestial artisans of the White Tiger God Clan for him, all maidens lovely as flowers, yet the Silent Smith had looked favorably on not one of them, all because the wounds of his early years had struck too deep. Shen Mu sensed them minutely, and in his eyes the different treasures seemed to become different beauties: some of a temper fierce as fire, some tender as water, some cold and aloof as an iceberg, some unfathomable as drifting clouds.

"No wonder Grandpa Silent Smith turns his nose up at those women. In his eyes, these materials must be peerless beauties.

" Having understood the attributes of the different materials, he began to blend them in different proportions. "This piece of beauty-jade, add a fraction and it is too long, take away a fraction and it is too short. It must be matched with this maiden like drifting clouds and quicksand, then a light dusting of powder, a touch of vermilion.

. .

" Shen Mu, like a man adorning a beautiful girl, bustled to and fro and murmured softly: "Add this pearl from the Ancestral Court, skin white as snow; and this silk makes just the right sash for a beauty, a waist to be spanned by one hand, worth a thousand in gold.

. .

" After he had prepared the materials, he could not help but grow excited; all at once he roused the Heaven-Fire divine ability and melted down the "beauty" he had just so carefully adorned. The vertical eye at the center of Shen Mu's brow opened; he roused the Mystic Body Three-Dantian Art, taking vital qi and divine consciousness as his hammer, and forged his own divine weapon. The Silent Smith and the Blind Elder hurried over to watch.

They claimed not to worry, but in truth they were much afraid that Shen Mu would ruin the treasures. Shen Mu's essence, qi, and spirit grew stronger and stronger; steeped in the forging, the resonance of Dao-rhyme that radiated from him made it seem not like forging at all, but like communing with the Dao.