Commanding Wind and Cloud
chapter-107

“Then use it.” Blake threw the hammer to Qian Jin as he squinted his eyes to carefully observe Qian Jin’s every movement.

Qian Jin bent his back and pulled on the handle of the four hundred pound hammer. He immediately felt the weight, but it wasn’t as heavy as he expected it.

The Wind and Cloud Golden Body had greatly increased the speed of the blood in Qian Jin’s body. Although he didn’t do any long distance running, the training he went through during the last month was a thousand times more painful than running. All of the functions and abilities of Qian Jin’s body had improved without his knowledge. Things like straightening his back while lifting became very easy.

A sense of surprise flashed through Blake’s squinted eyes.

“Wait a second.” Blake turned around as he walked to a hammer rack with his hands at his back. He looked around among all the iron hammers and picked out a hammer that was a clearly lot bigger than the one that Qian Jin had in his hand. “Use this one,” Blake said as he handed it to Qian Jin.

“Ah?” Qian Jin was stunned, but he took the hammer promptly and instantly felt his shoulders being stretched. After his warrior energy flooded into his arms, the hammer that was about six hundred and fifty pounds became light to him again.

Blake who looked very confident in the hammer that he picked was astonished again by what he saw. “Is it still too light?” He thought to himself.

However, a smile appeared on Blake’s old face as he walked up to the forge slowly with the a thousand pound hammer. He placed eight anvils around the forge to surround it and threw eight pieces of pig iron into the forge and heated them up.

After the worn-out bellows let out roars that sounded worse than a series of coughs, Blake quickly threw the eight pieces of red hot pig iron onto the eight anvils with the iron tongs, and the thousand pound hammer shined again as it struck down at the pig iron as if it was a meteor. As soon as the beautiful sparks splashed into the air when the hammer struck on the red iron, Blake had appeared in front of another anvil. The movements of the thousand pound hammer, including the raising, striking, and pulling all seemed natural.

Qian Jin opened his eyes wide open as he stared at Blake’s feet. He wanted to figure out how he moved. However, he wasn’t able to figure out how Blake was moving at all; he naturally put even more focus onto Blake’s feet.

Thunder-like metal colliding noise resonated in the blacksmith shop continuously, and Blake was moving faster and faster.

Gradually, Qian Jin felt like his eyes couldn’t even follow up with Blake’s figure and speed! Just around the small forge, there were eight of Blake’s figure! Every single figure seemed a little vague, and Qian Jin couldn’t tell which figure was the real Blake.

“This can’t be real!” Qian Jin squinted his eyes as he stopped focusing on Blake’s feet and started to focus on Blake as a whole; he wasn’t able to figure how Blake was moving his feet anyway.

One strike… Ten strikes… A hundred strikes…

The eight Blake figures started to reduce in numbers, and Blake’s speed soon returned to his initial speed. A self-mocking smile appeared on Qian Jin’s face; he initially thought that he would understand how Blake was moving by looking at Blake’s feet, but it turned out that he had to look at Blake as a whole to figure it out.

The way that Blake moved was very strange; he didn’t just use his feet. It could be said that every single muscle and joint in his body was moving. It was a very special kind of movement, as if all of the muscles in Blake’s body were twitching rapidly.

Qian Jin inhaled the heat from the forge as he thought about this strange moving technique. “It seems like it could be used in other situations other than forging. If I could use it in battle, then it would add a lot to my fighting ability.”

“Do you understand everything?” Blake threw his hammer onto the ground as he took out his pipe and looked Qian Jin.

“I think I understand a little bit.” Qian Jin looked at Blake curiously. “This elder didn’t even breathe heavily after all those vigorous movements, and there is no way that he sweated. How did he do it?” He thought.

“As a Forge Master, forging few pieces of Purified Iron and then forge a Warrior Weapon out of it is only a very low and ineffective technique.” Blake pointed at the eight pieces of Purified Iron that was still swirling on the eight anvils rapidly as he said, “The temperature at every moment of the day is different, and if the Purified Iron is forged at different times during the day, they will a bit different from each other. Although outsiders can’t tell the difference, masters who in the industry can spot the difference easily.”

A question that bothered Qian Jin for a long time was resolved as he listened to Blake’s words. He had a feeling that the Zhanmadao that he forged was somehow not in unity. So that was why! Purified Iron that was forged at different times were slightly different from each other, but it was just hard to tell since he wasn’t very good yet.

Blake pointed at the Purified Iron on the anvils with his pipe and said, “Although these Purified Iron are not forged at the same time, they were created around the same time. The integration between them will be a lot better compared with other Purified Iron that aren’t forged at around the same time.

Qian Jin nodded as he felt like Blake was opening up another door in his mind.

“Since you understood how I moved a little bit, then you should know what to do.” With his hands at his back like an old farmer who was talking a little walk, Blake walked behind the door and squatted down as he curled up his body.

“Oh, right! You, can’t use any warrior energy.” Blake sucked on his pipe a little and said with his body curled up beside the door. “When you get so tired that you can’t even raise the hammer, then you can use your warrior energy and Forging Breathing Technique.”

Qian Jin smiled bitterly. “The difficulty level has raised a lot!” He thought.

Qian Jin drew back all of his warrior energy and instantly felt the heaviness of the hammer in his hand. He walked to the forge and raised the hammer as he tried to recall how Blake was able to move and twitch all the muscles in his body that rapidly. He tried to do that same and by controlling and twitching all the muscles in his body, but he found out that it wasn’t so easy to do.

Just trying to control his muscles and make all of them move was difficult, let alone moving them at the same high frequency as Blake. At the beginning, when Qian Jin moved one muscle and made it move, he would forget to control another muscle causing it to stop moving.

One minute… Ten minutes… Half an hour… One hour…

Qian Jin just couldn’t control and move all the muscles in his body, so he curled his lips and swore in his mind. “Damn it! If I can’t control my whole body, then I will start with half a body first.”

Half of his body was still not that easy to control! Qian Jin closed his eyes again and carefully thought about the frequency that Blake’s muscles moved, and he gradually analyzed the speed of movement, the proportion, and the effect of each muscle when it was moving rapidly. He end up finding out that there were a few muscles that were more important and were the main sources of the twitching.

“Let me trying using these muscles first…” Qian Jin raised the hammer again and smashed onto the first piece of pig iron on the first anvil. Right after that, his feet coordinated with the muscles that were twitching, and his body moved quickly. As if he learned how to teleport, he instantly got to the second anvil. Bam! Before he was able to swing the hammer in his hand, his body lost the balance and his body smashed onto the ground.

Qian Jin who was lying on the ground at the moment blushed. He recalled all the sensations that he felt when he fell down; he felt like he tripped himself while walking. It was obvious that he made a mistake on the procedure.

“This…” Qian Jin got up and dusted all the dirt off of his body. He scratched his head embarrassedly as he saw Blake sitting at the corner smiling and gloating. “This is harder than the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike,” he said.

“The Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike?” Blake fell into a deep thinking state as he nodded and said, “Okay, just continue moving like this. But when you raise the hammer, use the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike.”

Qian Jin suddenly felt like he was about to faint; he really had the impulse of slapping him in the face. “Why did I have to say that? I haven’t even learned this technique, yet I have to practice the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike as well?”

He still had to learn the skills and he still need to practice forging.

Once there was the first fall, there would be the second fall. Naturally there would be the tenth fall, the one hundredth fall…

After three hours passed, Qian Jin started to questions if he was here to learn how to forge or he was here to learn how to trip himself. He would fall to the ground every time he moved!

Four hours… A smile finally appeared on his face after a long while. Although he wasn’t as smooth and clean as Blake and he wasn’t as fast as his first time where it seemed like he teleported, he didn’t fall to the ground this time after he moved.

“Player Qian Jin learned the very basic of [Innumerable Shadows]”

A system notification sounded in Qian Jin’s ear.

Ten hours… Fourteen hours… Fifteen hours… Sixteen hours…

One hammer… Two hammers… Ten hammers…

Without the help of warrior energy, although the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike had improved greatly with only the use of physical strength, it was still far from the acceptable standard in Blake’s eyes.

Qian Jin believed that if he used his warrior energy, the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike would be a lot better and smoother than now. But since Blake told him to not use it, then he wouldn’t use it!

Once his physical strength ran out… he would use warrior energy! Once his warrior energy was depleted… Forging Breathing Technique…

After sixteen hours, Qian Jin lied on the ground with every single muscle in his body shaking uncontrollably; under the pressure from both the Second Hammering Technique in the Eighteen Blade Elevating Strike and the strange moving technique called Innumerable Shadow, he was extremely tired. Although he wanted to crawl to the hot spring in the backyard, he just didn’t have the strength to do so.

Blake took Qian Jin off of the ground. With Qian Jin on his shoulder, Blake walked into the backyard and threw Qian Jin into the hot spring. The mystic anti-fatigue powder and the water started to insanely devour the weariness in his body.

Qian Jin soaked himself in the hot spring as he thought in his mind, “My body had been stimulated greatly by the training today! My body that had most of its potential developed by the Wind and Cloud Golden Body has actually strengthened again! I really want to know that if I advance to a Demon Fighter with this firm of a foundation, how much would my strength skyrocket after that?”

“Player Qian Jin, your time today is almost used up. Leaving the Endless World…”

Qian Jin sat up from the ground and felt like something was missing from his clothes.

A huge amount of spiritual power surged in the cave and instantly attracted Qian Jin’s attention.

Gloria! She was wearing the blanket that was made out of the feathers, and she was holding onto a piece of black crystal tightly. Streams of spiritual power were extracting magic power from this black crystal-like stone.