Lin Feng put one of the strengthening supplements in front of Brent, and the latter looked at the item in the box over and over again in disbelief before asking, confused,
"Master Lin Feng! ...I think I recognize this medicine.
"Isn't it a Strengthening Potion, the kind fighters use to strengthen their bodies? Why did you buy something like this?"
Lin Feng took a bottle of the brand-new Strengthening Potion and put it into Brent's hand, saying,
"Your main problem now is that your body is too weak, so I thought this might help.
"Before you learn forgery from me, you should first strengthen your body to that of a normal Grade-1 fighter. Only then will I be able to teach you all I know."
Forgery sounded crude and simple on the surface, but Lin Feng had done nothing but forging for most of his life, and now he even had his God-level Forgery skill.
That was why he knew very well that to explore the true depths of forgery was just as difficult as a warrior's cultivation of his martial arts.
Forging an item was like a battle between two cultivators. If the forger was stronger, the material would be shaped as desired, becoming a rare and formidable weapon.
However, if the forger could not use their skills to form the ore into a weapon, then their potential path down the way of forgery was extremely limited.
Brent listened to Lin Feng's little lecture for almost two hours before he asked, somewhat muddled,
"In other words, as long as I can strengthen my body to that of Grade-1 before learning the forging techniques from you, I'll be able to improve at twice the speed once I actually start learning the techniques?"
Lin Feng nodded.
Brent picked up the Strengthening Potion and took a deep breath, his eyes shining with determination.
After the boy swallowed the entire potion, Lin Feng nodded, feeling rather reassured.
Over the next few days, Lin Feng itched to make another Grade-3 weapon, but he just did not have any materials that could make such a monumental change in his weapons.
He had no choice but to make another dozen-or-so Grade-2 weapons while he worked on Captain Acht's order.
One day, Lin Feng sent Brent back home to rest early.
Once alone, he put the black iron and forging steel into the forge at the same time. As the Holy Flame increased in temperature, the white-hot heat melted the mix of ingredients into molten metal.
Lin Feng was going to reinforce his body for the fourth time.
After the first three times, Lin Feng realized that each time he reinforced his bones, he would need almost several times as much material as he did before.
Once again, he gritted his teeth through the pain and sliced open his sinew with his palm, using the Holy Flame to then surround his flesh while he poured the molten metal onto his bones.
The pain was so intense that he felt as though he was going to grind his teeth to dust.
After experiencing this three times in the past, though, he managed to tough it through the agony.
By the time he had reinforced all of his bones once more, there was already a pale tint in the sky by the eastern horizon.
"This Centi-forging… is practically inhumane…"
Panting heavily, Lin Feng wiped the sweat off his body. In no time at all, he realized that his movements were much smoother after the fourth round of reinforcements.
He tried to swing his arms around, and that feeling only intensified.
Next, he threw a punch, but he no longer felt that burden and lag between his bones and his muscles.
That little discovery left him rather stunned.
"I just reinforced my bones four times, but they're already almost capable of holding up my Grade-3 muscles. If I can complete all six reinforcements, I'll probably improve by leaps and bounds. I might even be able to take on a regular Grade-3 fighter without many problems."
In truth, Lin Feng had still underestimated his true power.
His body had already reached the power of a Grade-3 weapon. If he managed to bring his bines up to that level, forget a Grade-3 fighter, he might even be able to go toe-to-toe with a Grade-4 one.
Still, it was a little too early to be thinking so far ahead.
Once the joy from the success of his bone reinforcement wore off, Lin Feng soon noticed something.
His reinforcement last night had used up all of his ingredients.
He had spent a whole two hundred gold coins to get those materials from the trade center.
Yet, this was only the fourth time. If he wanted to reinforce his bones a fifth and sixth time, would he not need several times as much money and materials?
The mere thought scared him to the core, so he quickly put it aside. Instead, he took a clean beast-skin towel and wiped his body down, washing his soot-covered face with some clean water.
Once he was done sprucing himself up, Brent walked through the door right on cue.
Over the past three days, Brent had consumed all three Strengthening Potions and digested their effects.
Lin Feng heard that the Strengthening Potions of old caused a bone-deep agony every time they were consumed, but as the formula was constantly improving, the pain caused by low-grade Strengthening Potions gradually became negligible.
He did not know if that was a good or bad thing.
Even so, Lin Feng could see that Brent's scrawny muscles were slowly filling up after just three days, so as the boy's master, he was still rather pleased.
"Master, today's the day of the trade center auction. A few days ago, I heard the defense corp member who brought you materials mention that they're selling a blue crystal at the auction today. Do you want to go?"
Brent's timely reminder immediately rang a bell in Lin Feng's head.
That was right, there was a blue crystal among the auctioned items today.
He could not afford to miss out on it.
Lin Feng nodded and hastily dressed himself.
As he was about to leave the room, however, Brent looked at him hopefully and asked,
"Um… Master, c-can I borrow your forging table?"
As he said that, he lifted the hammer he had not been able to budge with both hands before and swung it around easily with one arm. His eyes were bright with joy.
Lin Feng blinked and then smiled.
"As you like, Brent. You can call the shots in the smithy now."
With that, he strode out of his smithy amidst Brent's whoops of joy.
After three days of non-stop forging, Lin Feng's body was brimming with Flame Energy. He just needed fifty more points to reach the thousand he needed to upgrade his Holy Flame.
He had a feeling that the blue crystal at the auction would be his chance to finally break through and strengthen his Holy Flame.
Lin Feng entered the auction hall together with the crowd, but soon the appraiser he knew pulled him aside.
"Master Lin, your Obsidian Sword is going under the gavel today too, and it's our final pièce de résistance. That's why you can bid however you like on anything worth less than five thousand gold pieces. We'll deduct the costs from the final value of the Obsidian Sword later."