“You don’t need to concern yourself with all this,” Cha Ming said. “I’ll take care of it, and I’d be liable for this mistake anyhow.”
The man nodded. He bit his finger and sent an infused droplet of blood onto the sheet before signing his name, Li Ning. He then took the spirit stones and gave the ownership documents to Cha Ming, who stored them away in the Clear Sky World.
“Will you be needing anything else?” Li Ning asked.
“I’ll be all right,” Cha Ming said. “Oh, what’s the girl’s name from downstairs?”
“Guo Xiang,” Li Ning replied. “And the blacksmithing inheritance you promised?”
Strangely, the man didn’t seem concerned about Cha Ming possibly backing out. People in the South had an unusual faith in contracts, it seemed.
“Right here,” Cha Ming said. He shot his finger out with lightning speed. The man couldn’t even react before a stream of information poured into his head. His eyes went blank for a moment before he finally regained his wits.
“Thank you,” the man said hoarsely. Though what Cha Ming had given him was worth little in the North, the man was almost tearing up. It seemed simple knowledge like this was worth far more than Cha Ming realized.
“Pleasure doing business,” Cha Ming said. “Remember, you must leave town within three days.”
“I will,” the man promised before walking down the steps. As he did, Sun Wukong appeared beside Cha Ming.
“We could have just stolen his things and changed his memories,” Sun Wukong muttered. “It would have been easier and less time-consuming. More fun too.”
“But that would have made me a thief,” Cha Ming said. “It’s bad enough that I’ll taking on a part of his identity, his memories of this place, and their memories of him as a basis for my identity. Compensating him generously for it was the least I could do.”
“Bah, you’re too soft-hearted,” Sun Wukong said. “Then again, I like a challenge. I refuse to believe you can’t be corrupted.”
“I heard you were quite the trickster in your days,” Cha Ming said.
“If I called myself the second lord of mischief, no one would dare call themselves first,” Sun Wukong said, grinning from ear to ear. “It’ll take me a few weeks to work my magic on these people. Changing memories and rearranging karma is no easy task. As for the paperwork, you’ll need to pay someone to take care of that.”
“You just worry about your end of things, and I’ll take care of mine,” Cha Ming said.
“And what will that be?” Sun Wukong asked.
“Why, forging, of course,” Cha Ming said. “I’ve done so much reading on the subject. If I’m going to pass myself off as a smith with the Wang family, I might as well do a good job of it.”
“It’s your time, so you can waste it however you like,” Sun Wukong said, yawning. He disappeared from the room but didn’t reappear in the Clear Sky World. Given his tremendous workload, he wouldn’t return for quite some time. So, Cha Ming no longer paid attention to the spirit. Instead, he began studying a small gem he’d summoned from the Clear Sky World. It was a transcendent-grade hammer focus.
Though Cha Ming had seen his disciple Ling Dong working with metal, he’d never personally tried to make anything himself. According to all the books he’d read, casting your own hammer was the first step. He poured his transcendent soul into the clear, unaligned gem. He was surprised to see that the gem was, in fact, a soul-based metal inscribed with a formation and a spatial fragment.
By linking the hammer focus to his soul, he could summon and dismiss it at will. In addition, he could imprint the image of a hammer on it. By infusing his soul force into the gem, it could take on any imprinted shape, like a hammer, a chisel, or knife. Not only would the tool be strong, it would also be highly resistant to heat.
If I want to learn, it’s probably not a good idea to start off with a transcendent crafting tool, he thought. Before he could put it away, however, the Clear Sky Brush came rushing out from a gray slit in space and devoured the transcendent hammer focus in a single gulp.
Cha Ming slapped his hand to his face. Of course it wanted to eat it. Unsurprisingly, the Clear Sky Brush had changed forms yet again. It was now a clear smithing hammer with black and white highlights. A faint five-colored light danced inside it, and in the very center, where the gem had once been, was a soft gray mist.
“You’ll need to change your appearance if you want me to use you,” Cha Ming said. The hammer shook in defiance. “I’m serious. I can’t be seen swinging a clear hammer. It’ll give me away.” It shook again, not giving an inch.
“Fine,” Cha Ming said. He banished what he now called the Clear Sky Hammer—that counted as fair use, didn’t it?—and summoned a second gem. This time, it was a mid-grade magic focus. He used his strong soul to fight off the Clear Sky Brush, preventing it from darting out and devouring it as he poured his soul into its runic diagram.
The formation drank in a small stream of his transcendent soul, which caused the gem to balloon in size. He wasn’t surprised, as transcendent force was much more potent than the incandescent force the hammer focus was meant for. Cha Ming squeezed out whatever transcendent force he could until the ball finally shrank down to a manageable size. He shaped it into a smithing hammer and activated a second formation on the gem, locking it in place. A gem of this level could lock in two forms, so for the other form, he chose a carving knife. Though a chisel was better suited
