Today, like many other days, Cha Ming stepped out of the Clear Sky World in the middle of the morning. The air in the city, which blew through an open window in his chambers, was unusually good today due to a strong wind from the east. He shut the window and walked down the stone steps that led to the reception area. The smiths gave him rushed greetings as he entered the workshop. Their busy workload was due in large part to his growing reputation. With more work came more practice, and with more practice came increased quality. Now, it was difficult to find anyone who didn’t know about Pai Xiao’s smithy.
“Ease up on those blows,” Cha Ming instructed one of the masters, who nodded and did as he was told. The metal he was working on, golden plum iron, was a soft metal that was typically used to craft defensive jewelry. The man, one of the two jewelers in his smithy, was aware of that fact, but unaware of another. “You’ll shape it faster if you pound harder,” Cha Ming continued. “But golden plum iron retains its best internal structure from the first casting and quenching. The more force you use, the more you destroy that structure. It’s the same reason you didn’t heat the metal to more than half its melting point before working with it.”
“Thank you for your instruction,” the master said, grateful for the advice. His blows softened even more as he adjusted his approach to use the least strength possible in forming the leaflike brooch. It would soon be covered in tiny runes and socketed with many rune-covered gems. He would only realize the benefits of his care during the final assembly, when the runes were integrated into the jewelry. The intact structure of the golden plum iron would lead to better energy conductivity and a slightly faster activation—a crucial metric when assessing the value of the brooch.
Satisfied at the man’s progress, Cha Ming continued through the forge. He nodded as he passed some, but to others, he left small pointers. These pointers were all within the bounds of his experience, the epiphanies he’d gained on those three main late-grade weapons and those hundred or so other mid-grade creations.
It seemed like a normal day, but as he walked, he spotted a flash of movement and felt a faint sense of trepidation. “Stop!” he shouted, zipping through the room in a flash, crashing through some workbenches. He arrived just in time to snatch a man’s wrist as he was smacking down on a freshly cast sword. The room grew silent, and Cha Ming breathed out a sigh of relief.
“You stupid, stupid man,” he scolded.
The smith, confused and uncertain, banished his hammer. Cha Ming motioned to all the other smiths to huddle around the man’s workbench. “What do you all see?” he asked the smiths. They looked at each other uncertainly. Was this a test?
“Pyric iron,” one of the older, more experienced smiths said. “I’ve worked with it a few times. Great for forging flame-aligned blades, though it’s a little finicky when you try alloying it with anything.”
“That’s right,” another man said. “If you add too much of anything else, it seems to either weaken the metal to the point that it’s useless or solidify until it’s unworkable and brittle. It’ll sometimes crack when you work on it, even when hot.”
“Very good,” Cha Ming said, nodding. “I’ve worked with the metal a few times too. You can forge weapons up to peak-magic grade with it. It’s best alloyed with fire or metal-based alloys, though earth-based alloys can also be used if you want a little more sturdiness and heft. Limited amounts are fine. If you use water-based alloying metals, any blades you create will crack as you forge, since it hardens so quickly. It’s still doable, but anything you make will have to be cast directly without subsequent hammering. Warhammers will work just fine with that method—they’ll be hard but a bit brittle.”
He tapped on the table near the cast blade, which hadn’t even been knocked out of its mold yet. It had been cooling as Cha Ming spoke. “What do you think he alloyed this with?”
One of the men, who’d answered before, shrugged. “I see flecks of red in the metal. I’d guess it’s a fire-based alloy.”
“I’ll have to agree with him there,” another man said, nodding. “Look at how those red specks are squirming about in the metal, looking for release. I’d have melted them for longer if I were him, but it’s nothing a little hammering won’t fix.”
The first man nodded.
“And what did you actually use?” Cha Ming asked the man, who’d finally recovered from his initial confusion.
“I was in a mood to experiment,” the man said. “Just like you do every day. I decided to see what would happen if I mixed in azure nickel flakes.”
He heard a couple of groans from the audience. One of them was the most senior man among them, but another was one of the youngest smiths, the same one who’d seen him crafting the demon blood steel spear.
“It looks like someone’s been studying,” Cha Ming said with a smile. “Tell me, why is it a bad idea to alloy azure nickel flakes with pyric iron?”
The younger man hesitated, then spoke. “Because pyric metal is mildly pyrophoric.”
“Pyro-what?” another smith said. “Use plain words, friend.”
“It means,” the oldest among them said, “that given enough air, it will catch fire. Burn, as it were.”
“But that makes no sense,” another man said. “We’ve got the pyric iron stored in open air in the shed. If it could catch fire, it would have done so.”
“In most cases, the concentration of oxygen in the air isn’t enough to do anything,” the man said, shrugging. “Even at high heat. But if you add in azure nickel… Well, it’s a wind-based metal, and the wind-element qi in
