Douluo Continent III Haotian Wulin

In fact, before Mang Tian could speak, Tang Wulin had already walked to the forging platform.

The piece of thousand-times-refined silver lay there quietly. The light shone on it, but instead of reflecting the dazzling brilliance of ordinary metal, it seemed as if something had absorbed it all, leaving only a layer of extremely deep and quiet gray-silver luster. It was much smaller than it had been, with its edges tapering and its outline tight, like a stone that had been washed by the tides for countless years and finally sunk to the deepest part of the seabed.

And those fine, wave-like textures are silently spreading across its surface.

Tang Wulin looked at it, his eyes gradually calming down.

The sound of hammering last night for five hours still seems to echo in my ears.

He raised his hand, his fingertips gently touching the surface.

The moment he touched it, a slight feeling stirred within him.

That feeling was amazing.

It wasn't like touching a cold piece of metal, but rather like touching something that was inherently connected to him. The coolness seeped into his fingertips, yet there was a very faint sense of familiarity in that coolness, as if this piece of heavy silver had not just been forged by him, but had always been buried in his bones and blood, and had only been slowly extracted from its deeper depths last night.

"You felt it?" Mang Tian, ​​standing behind him, suddenly spoke.

Tang Wulin didn't turn around, he just nodded slightly.

"It's like...it was originally mine." He said slowly and earnestly.

A faint smile appeared in Mang Tian's eyes.

"That's right."

"A thousand forgings isn't simply about making the metal harder." He stepped forward, his gaze fixed on the piece of sapphire, his tone low and steady. "A hundred forgings purify it, removing impurities. A thousand forgings refine it, imbuing it with spirit. What you forged last night wasn't just a better piece of sapphire, but a piece of metal that has truly come to accept you."

Tang Ziran stood aside. Although she didn't understand the intricacies of forging, she could still sense the weight of those words and couldn't help but take another look at the piece of dark silver.

Tang Wulin's eyes lit up slightly when he heard the words "I have acknowledged you".

He recalled the last part of last night.

It wasn't that I unilaterally smashed or suppressed it, but rather that the sunken silver was responding to me little by little, eventually handing over the entire silver light.

It turns out that it wasn't just an illusion.

Mang Tian looked at him and continued:

"There's a rule in the forging world: the first truly completed masterpiece must undergo a blood sacrifice."

"Blood sacrifice?" Tang Wulin finally turned his head.

This was the first time he had ever heard those two words.

"Hmm." Mang Tian nodded. "The thousand forging process imbues the metal with a spirit, while the blood sacrifice makes it recognize its master. To put it bluntly, it truly seals the final link between you and the metal. After that, if someone else touches it, it will just be a piece of metal. But in your hands, it will know where to go and how to respond to you."

Upon hearing this, Tang Ziran couldn't help but frown slightly.

"Will there be a lot of blood loss?"

Mang Tian glanced at him sideways.

"It's not about slaughtering a pig."

Tang Ziran: "..."

Mang Tian withdrew his gaze and continued:

"The first item forged a thousand times must be sacrificed with blood; that's the rule. But you're different from others."

Tang Wulin was taken aback.

"I?"

"You've always forged it with your martial spirit." Mang Tian's voice was even lower. "Others, once they've completed their first thousand-fold forging, often keep it as a collection or reforge it into a weapon or hammer. That's because they're wielding an external hammer and forging external objects. But you haven't."

As he said this, his gaze fell on Tang Wulin's palm.

"The hammer in your hand was originally inside your body."

Tang Wulin paused slightly in his breathing.

These words were like an extremely light hammer, landing precisely where they should have struck his heart.

Yes.

From the very beginning until now, he has never used any other hammer. He practiced hammering, felled the hammer, comprehended the metal, and completed the Thousand Refinements, all with the Sinking Star Hammer. It is not a tool, but a martial spirit, the part of him closest to his true self.

If that's the case, why should one forge their first masterpiece into an "external object"?

Mang Tian looked at him and slowly said:

"Therefore, you don't need to forge this piece of sunken silver into a new hammer."

"What you should do is feed it into your martial soul."

After those words were spoken, the forging room fell silent.

Tang Ziran was taken aback at first, then her expression changed.

Even he, an outsider, could tell that this was not the usual approach.

Tang Wulin stood there, feeling his heart suddenly pounding heavily.

It's not fear.

It is an almost instinctive identification.

It's like there's something that should have been done this way all along, but it's only now that it's finally been made clear.

"Feed it..." he repeated softly, his gaze already returning to the piece of dark silver.

For some reason, the more he looked at it, the more he felt that this method was right.

The Star-Sinking Hammer is black, heavy, blunt, and restrained. The thousand-refined silver before him is gray, still, with patterns like waves. Their auras are clearly completely different, yet when they fall into his eyes, they seem to fit together in an inexplicable way.

Just like the last moment last night, when the silver light and the hammer shadow overlapped deep within his mind.

"Teacher," Tang Wulin looked up, "What should I do?"

Mang Tian didn't answer immediately, but glanced at him instead.

"Think it through first," he said. "Once you take this step, there's no turning back. This piece of sunken silver has entered your martial soul and will never come out again. You won't be able to use it to exchange for money, materials, or anything else in the future."

Tang Wulin didn't even hesitate for long.

"I don't want to change."

He said.

This statement was made too quickly, yet it was also too true.

It was so fast that it seemed like the answer wasn't the result of thought, but rather that the conclusion had already been reached in one's mind.

The faint smile in Mang Tian's eyes deepened even further.

"That's good."

As he spoke, he took a very thin knife from the side and placed it on the edge of the forging table.

"A blood sacrifice requires blood first. What you did last night was merely to stabilize the last breath of Shenyin; it wasn't a true recognition of its master. This strike today is the final step between you and it."

Tang Wulin nodded.

He placed his right hand on the forging table, palm up, fingers slightly spread. His movements were steady; not even the tendons on the back of his hand trembled.

Mang Tian glanced at him, said nothing more, and with a flash of his blade, made a shallow cut on the lower part of his palm.

The moment the blood gushed out, Tang Wulin's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he did not dodge.

Bright red blood dripped onto the forging table, trickling down the lines of his palm and finally settling onto the surface of the dark silver.

"laugh--"

A very soft sound.

Unlike last night, when it was enveloped in white smoke, this time, the blood, once it touched the surface, didn't immediately evaporate. Instead, it seemed to be absorbed little by little by the grayish-silver surface. The feeling was extremely strange, as if the silver wasn't an inanimate object, but a truly awake, silent living thing drinking blood.

Tang Wulin's breathing also became shallow.

"Summon your martial spirit," Mang Tian said.

A flash of dark light.

The Sinking Star Hammer fell silently into his hand.

This time, the moment it appeared, the few strands of dark gold patterns deep within the hammer surfaced even faster than usual. There was no soul ring pulsation, no soul skill activation, yet it was responding, watching, waiting for something.

And the piece of dark silver on the forging table began to glow softly.

It wasn't the blinding silver light of last night, but a restrained glow, like the gentle undulation of the tide under the moon. The layers of texture on the surface seemed to come alive, flowing very lightly.

Tang Wulin's heart skipped a beat.

Without the teacher even needing to remind him, he subconsciously moved the hammer forward an inch.

The hammerhead hangs above the sunken silver.

One hammer blow, one silver coin.

One black, one gray.

There was only a very thin layer of air separating them.

But at that very moment, the piece of thousand-refined silver suddenly trembled on its own.

The next moment, under the watchful eyes of Mang Tian and Tang Ziran, the entire piece of metal began to "melt" away little by little.

It's not melting.

It wasn't broken either.

Like a tide under the moon, suddenly losing its solid boundaries, it slowly and quietly surges upwards along the flowing silvery ripples.

It has a hammered surface.

First came a very thin layer of silver, then a second, then a third. It wasn't a covering, but rather something sealed deep within, finally finding its true frame to cling to, attaching itself inch by inch, seeping in inch by inch.

Tang Wulin's hand trembled slightly.

He could clearly sense that it wasn't just a simple metallic adhesion, but something was truly entering the interior of the Starfall Hammer. Like the tides of the deep sea, it was gradually seeping into the deepest part of this black hammer, pressing its already calm texture down even further.

It's very cold.

But after the coolness subsided, a profound and subtle warmth emerged.

It was as if the blood of this piece of sunken silver and the bones of this hammer had finally come together at this moment.

"Don't resist," Mang Tian whispered. "Let it in."

Tang Wulin immediately calmed himself down, slightly tightened his grip on the hammer handle.

He ignored the blood still dripping from his palm, and the stinging pain, and simply let his heart sink down to accept the dampness seeping into the hammer.

Then, he "heard" it.

It's very light.

Like the sea turning over in its deepest, stillest place.

The silver light vanished in an instant.

The entire piece of thousand-times-forged, heavy silver completely vanished into the hammer.

Only a few drops of undried blood remained on the forging table.

At this moment, the Sinking Star Hammer in Tang Wulin's hand completely changed.

It is still black.

It remains short and heavy, and at first glance, it doesn't seem particularly flamboyant.

But with just one more look, one can see that deep within the hammerhead, between those faint dark gold patterns that were originally barely visible, a very faint layer of silver-gray tide-like patterns has appeared.

The texture was neither bright nor superficial, but rather as if it had been washed into iron by the tide and sunk to the deepest depths, only occasionally flashing under the firelight or moonlight, revealing a trace of the tranquility belonging to the sea.

more importantly--

This hammer is heavier now.

It wasn't just an increase in weight; rather, the aura itself seemed to have "fallen" even further. It was like a star that had merely been pressing down on the shadow of a mountain, now having its tail dragged down from the bottom of the deep sea by the tides, making even the stillness of its descent heavier.

Tang Wulin looked down at it, momentarily speechless.

Mang Tian stood aside, watching for a long time, before finally speaking slowly:

"It's done."

"From now on, it will not only be your martial soul."

"This is also your first masterpiece forged a thousand times."

Although Tang Ziran couldn't fully grasp the intricacies of the situation, he could tell that this was something no ordinary blacksmith would experience. He looked at the black hammer in his son's hand, his eyes filled with surprise and a complex mix of emotions he couldn't suppress.

This child's path is becoming increasingly different from that of ordinary people.

Tang Wulin stood still, his hands slightly clenched.

He could sense it.

There was an extra layer inside the Sinking Star Hammer.

It wasn't simple power, weight, or some easily explained amplification of soul power. It felt more like—from this moment on, his hammer truly possessed "bones."

It was already heavy, but now it's even heavier and more firmly rooted.

It was already stable, but now it's as stable as a reef pressed down in the deep sea.

If last night's thousand-refined silver was a piece of metal that he had brought to life, then at this moment, the "life" that had just been brought to life had already firmly embedded itself into this hammer through the blood sacrifice.

"Teacher," Tang Wulin suddenly spoke, his voice a little lower than usual.

"Um?"

"I think... I like it even more now."

That sounds a bit childish.

But after listening, Mang Tian only gave a very soft hum.

"nonsense."

"Your own blood, your own hammer, your first piece of Thousand-Refined Stone—it's all in there. If you don't like it, who will?"

Tang Wulin then smiled.

It wasn't a flamboyant laugh, but rather a lowered head, looking at the hammer in his palm, the corners of his lips slowly curving upwards. A place in his heart that had always been empty was finally filled perfectly.

Mang Tian looked at him, and after a moment added casually:

"From today onwards, you can forget about forging hammers."

"What you really need to forge in the future is not the external hammer."

"It's your own hammer."