The life of an apprentice for several months was hard and boring, and after the time of pulling the bellows every day at the beginning, of course, it was not counted when watching Ouyang Yushui forging.

Now Chen Zhiyuan is now able to participate in some simple forging, including refining various ores, as well as rough processing of various metal ingots, as well as the processing of some materials, these Ouyang Yushui have gradually backhanded Chen Zhiyuan to operate by himself.

And today, it is the time for Ouyang Yushui to let Chen Zhiyuan try to forge the rough embryo of a weapon by himself, and it is also something that has been agreed at the beginning.

Selecting ores, melting them in the furnace, removing impurities, refining, and then baking them, although all this is not as pleasing to the eye as Ouyang Yushui, it can be regarded as a smooth operation.

After the molten iron is kneaded by Ouyang Yushui's hands, it is like pulling dragon whisker candy, but the molten iron will not be pulled into silk like dragon whisker candy, and finally formed an unshaped hundred forged steel.

"Pour it into the mold, just like I usually do, and then carefully observe the order in which it cools, follow the part where it cools, remove the last impurities, pay attention to the rhythm, not too fast, not too slow, don't think that everything will be good with a hammer, you can't get a good piece of equipment without a thousand hammers!"

Chen Zhiyuan was sweating profusely at the moment, not only was his head full, but the sweat that flowed down was even soaked in his pants, and it was still dripping down.

The color of the skin has long since changed, like brass that has been melted down by fire and then carefully sculpted, reflecting a healthy and powerful glow in the light of the furnace.

Chen Zhiyuan held the sledgehammer tightly in his hand, his eyes were fixed on the molten iron that was solidifying, looking at the wave-like lines that gradually appeared on it, and when he saw some discordant places, Chen Zhiyuan knocked it up a few times, and he didn't dare to be too strong, for fear that it would be scrapped if he knocked it too much at once.

Ouyang Yushui was next to him quietly watching Chen Zhiyuan busy with his work, and he didn't make a sound, nodded when he thought it was good, and frowned when he felt a little dissatisfied, but he just tried not to disturb Chen Zhiyuan.

When Chen Zhiyuan finished knocking the last blow and slowly waited for the long knife to cool down, Ouyang Yushui also leaned over, completely unafraid of the heat of the still red long knife, and directly grabbed it with his hand.

Ouyang Yushui slowly rubbed his hand on the long knife, touched the tip of the knife from the handle, and then broke the long knife inch by inch from the tip of the knife, and slowly observed.

About half an hour later, Ouyang Yushui had already crushed the entire long knife.

Patting the residue on his hand, Ouyang then said to Chen Zhiyuan, who had been waiting for a long time next to him:

"Overall, it's okay, but the heat is a little worse when refining, the dark iron is not fully melted, and the performance is not fully stimulated. ”

Saying that, Ouyang Yushui also picked up some fragments on the ground, pointed to some traces in the middle of the fragments, and continued:

"In addition, the strength of the final blow is also a little lacking, resulting in the fusion of the blade is not so perfect, and when the runes are tattooed, the ability of the runes may not be fully exerted, and some runes may not be tattooed. ”

Crushed the fragment of the long knife in his hand, Ouyang Yushui added another sentence:

"The quality is also a little poor, you can see that I will break when I pinch it. Although the lack of runes is also one of the reasons, but if you slash each other during the real battle, the other person's knife just breaks a hole, and yours breaks, how can this be rectified?"

Chen Zhiyuan was as quiet as a chicken next to him, and when Ouyang Yushui said a word, he nodded and remembered everything Ouyang Yushui said.

I really didn't expect that Chen Zhiyuan felt that there was no problem with a forging that could find so many faults in Ouyang Yushui's eyes. Just like Ouyang Yushui said, if you really fight, the knife in your hand will suddenly break, this is not a trivial matter, if you are lucky, you can escape, and if you are unlucky, you will basically not be able to come back.

However, Chen Zhiyuan has also learned a lot in the past few months, just like the properties of various materials, take Xuantie as an example. Although dark iron is the main material for the equipment of low-level monks, it is still very different from ordinary iron.

Dark iron has great hardness when it is still dark iron ore, but when it melts and solidifies into iron ingots, it is much softer than ordinary iron, and it is more brittle.

However, the reason why Xuantie can become the standard equipment on the equipment of low-level cultivators is because its accommodating ability is much stronger than that of ordinary iron.

A weapon made of dark iron can be harder than most mortal soldiers as long as it is added with a layer of strong runes, and due to the characteristics of the dark iron itself, its toughness will also be greatly improved.

And the general blackiron weapons and equipment can draw more than three runes, the most can even reach six, so it is conceivable that when a darkiron weapon is painted with two layers of solid runes, it has become a divine weapon, what about the three layers? What about the fourth layer? And in addition to the solid runes, there are other runes that can be drawn, such as sharp, ice, burning, etc., these common runes abound.

On the other hand, ordinary weapons, due to the lack of affinity for spiritual power, can only be tattooed with two layers of runes at most, and they will face the risk of being scrapped after use.

But having said that, the price of the dark iron is here, just like when Chen Zhiyuan was digging the dark iron in the Han Silkworm Cave, a hundred catties of dark iron ore can have a gold wage, and the price of the black iron ore itself is naturally much more than this, so when it is smelted into iron ingots, the price will definitely increase several times, and it will be made into a weapon, not to mention.

Chen Zhiyuan cleaned up the fragments of Ouyang Yushui's long knife that had been crushed to the ground, sat next to him and followed Ouyang Yushui's example, observing the traces of the fractures in different parts little by little, carefully looking for the differences between them, hoping to find something from them.

When the long knife was still a whole, it may indeed ignore its flaws for various reasons, but now it is a short fragment, and it is natural to carefully find these problematic places.

Chen Zhiyuan looked carefully, and naturally found some not very good places to build.

First of all, there are some places inside the long knife that have some things that are the same as grains of sand, which is probably the impurities left behind by not being smelted clean enough.

Secondly, as Ouyang Yushui said, the inside of the long knife he created was indeed not so perfect, the lines in some places were a little skewed, and the lines in some places would be curved like snakes.

Ouyang Yushui's refining room naturally has fragments of well-made weapons, which Ouyang Yushui specially broke and placed there for the apprentices to compare and observe, Chen Zhiyuan has observed more than once, and naturally knows his own problems.

After summarizing and reflecting for a while, Chen Zhiyuan cleaned up the residue and threw it back into the furnace, after all, these materials are still raw materials, and they can be rebuilt in the furnace.

"Oh yes, after a while, you can build weapons on your own, as long as you pass my assessment, you can get a refiner's brand, which can be regarded as an official teacher, so you may have to learn a little more during this time. ”

"Okay, got it, master. ”

Chen Zhiyuan turned around and responded, and continued to work on the things in his hands, after all, he would do more work now, and naturally there would be more work to be arranged.

Learning inscriptions is not too difficult for Chen Zhiyuan, after all, Chen Zhiyuan has the skills of drawing talismans, and it is naturally not so difficult to learn.

The inscription is engraved on the equipment, and the tools used are naturally different, and the inscription is engraved with a special small carving knife, with only a grip and no tip.

At first, Chen Zhiyuan was still strange, how could he carve without the tip of the knife, but soon Chen Zhiyuan knew the answer, that is, the spiritual power was the tip of the knife, and the place where it was engraved was not the surface of the equipment, but its interior.

Because you can't see, you have to use your divine sense to feel how you are depicting, and it is precisely because of this that the failure rate of novices when compiling inscriptions is scary, because what you think in your head is not necessarily the same as what you actually draw, and it is possible to think about drawing a tiger first, and in the end it may not even be a cat.

In addition, the inscription also involves a success rate, that is, the first inscription is often the highest success rate, and in the future, it will become more and more difficult, and once it fails, the inscription of the failed part is permanently occupied by this part, and can no longer be erased, of course, the next time it is engraved again, because the space left by the last failure will be more, and the natural success rate will increase.

This is not the most difficult point, the most difficult thing is that since the inscription needs to be injected into the equipment, when the inscription is engraved to a certain level, once it fails, it is not just a matter of losing an inscription bit, but your equipment may be lost permanently.

Although he practiced with the equipment he had created, it was not actually equipment, it was an iron ingot, or an ordinary iron ingot, after all, Nanshanmen was not a good person, and there were so many dark iron ores for the apprentices to waste.

Chen Zhiyuan was holding a standard 20-kilogram iron ingot, and according to Ouyang Yushui's requirements, Chen Zhiyuan needed to engrave two layers of solid inscriptions on this iron ingot, and then engrave a third layer to make it burst.

At present, Chen Zhiyuan can only engrave one layer, and the success rate remains ninety, but the second layer of inscriptions has a success rate of only sixty percent, and as for the third layer, Chen Zhiyuan has no idea for the time being, because two layers are currently his limit.

The carved iron ingot will become extremely strong, but if a little bit of spiritual power is injected into it, this iron ingot will directly collapse and shatter into pieces like weathered stones, Chen Zhiyuan is really difficult to find the appearance of iron from it, as if it has become another substance.

While Chen Zhiyuan was practicing day and night to compile and engrave inscriptions, Chen Zhiyuan also slowly learned some other basic knowledge about refining weapons from Ouyang Yushui, including how to knead molten iron.

It seems to be a very fancy action, in fact, it is really similar to kneading dough, as long as you can withstand this high temperature, you can knead how you want, but some specific ways to knead the molten iron will have a different effect, such as constantly stretching and folding, this is the kneading method of 100 forging steel, and the toughness of the weapon created will be greatly improved.

In order not to break Chen Zhiyuan's beautiful fantasy, Ouyang Yushui also specially performed for Chen Zhiyuan what it means to be honest and honest, after all, this is the place where the refiner can be handsome, and there is basically no difference in the work done at other times.