Inside the Heavy Foundry Yard on the western edge of Silver-Fork Port, the heat from twenty blast furnaces turned the midnight sky glowing orange.
Two men with the surname Huo were sweating buckets beside the main forging pit, though their jobs were very different.
Standing on the master platform holding a sixty-pound sledgehammer was Iron-Hammer Huo, the chief mortal blacksmith of Dry-Well Territory who had recently broken through to Rank 3 Peak using the Furnace-Blood Scripture. Down in the pit below him, wearing a bright yellow Debtor Vest smeared with coal soot, was Branch Elder Huo—the former Rank 4 Peak elder of the Crimson Cloud Immortal Sect whostill owed Pei Xuan 180,000 Spirit Stones for damaging public property.
“Pump faster, Old Huo!” Iron-Hammer Huo barked, tapping his iron tongs against the side of the furnace. “The Lord’s iron plates need another two hundred degrees! Don’t stingy with your Qi!”
Down in the pit, Branch Elder Huo wiped the sweat from his white eyebrows, grumbled under his breath, and slapped both palms against the giant leather bellows. WHOOSH! A jet of pure Rank 4 fire-Qi surged out of his dantian into the coal chamber, turning the molten black-iron inside the crucible dazzling white.
