Chapter 64: Soft Armor, Horizontal Training Talent
Chapter 64: Soft Armor, Horizontal Training Talent
It is much more difficult to create soft armor than swords, spears, swords and halberds. The black silver needs to be forged and tempered many times, and finally liquefied, poured into a mold, and finally pulled into silk thread.
At this point, the creation of soft armor has just begun.
"Okay, now that's more like it!"
Zhang Ben then relaxed his frown and came over to instruct Li Yuan on how to make the armor. The making of the soft armor was quite delicate, and there were requirements for the toughness and hardness of each silver thread. If one of them was missing, it would not be a top-quality product.
The master and the apprentice were discussing the forging steps and were about to start when the sound of blacksmithing in the forge room suddenly stopped.
"Masters, please stop for a moment."
Yu Zhen arrived at the door of the forging room without knowing when. Seeing everyone's eyes on him, he coughed lightly and said:
"I guess you all know why I came here, right?"
Inside the house, there was the sound of a hammer hitting the ground, and the faces of the blacksmiths and helpers all looked unhappy.
After years of blacksmithing, they were much stronger and more robust than the inner courtyard apprentices, and their hammering skills were not bad either, but they had no experience in fighting with others.
Not to mention the fight with bandits outside the city.
"Manager Yu, there are only 32 people in the forge, and it's not enough to forge iron every day. If you withdraw more, I'm afraid there won't be enough weapons to transport to the capital!"
Zhang Ben bowed slightly, his face not looking good.
The forging room is under his management, but nominally, the person in charge of the inner courtyard is Yu Zhen.
"What are you talking about, Master Zhang? You are a well-known forging master. With you here, are you still worried that you won't be able to forge enough weapons?"
Yu Zhen half leaned against the door frame, his eyes slightly cold.
In the days after Qin Xiong's death, he had been looking for hammer masters from Gaoliu County over the years, and at the same time, he had also been paying attention to the weapon forging shop.
Apart from the old apprentices who graduated from the inner courtyard, the people with the highest forging skills and the greatest strength are in the forging room.
If there were really a few of them who had hidden tricks, they might be able to kill Qin Xiong with a surprise attack and hammer.
Moreover, he thought of Nian Jiu who was smashed to pieces in the dense forest...
"I will go find the chief shopkeeper now!"
Zhang Ben's eyelids twitched, and he spoke in a cold voice, but did not move.
Yu Zhen dared to come to the forge to transfer people. Whose idea was it? How could he not know it?
Li Yuan held the forging hammer, alert in his heart.
He remembered how skilled this man was in using poison. Moreover, he could figure out something from the fact that the White Ape Fundamental Map that should have been in his hands appeared in Qin Xiong's hands.
This ghostwriter must have some other intentions for staying in the weapon forging shop...
"Why doesn't Mr. Zhang go?"
Yu Zhen sneered, looked at everyone in the room, and began to point without paying any attention to Zhang Ben's gloomy face.
"You, the two of you, and the three over there, yes, the young one..."
Finally, he turned his eyes and looked at Li Yuan.
"Yu Zhen!"
Zhang Ben grabbed the hammer on the forging table, but Li Yuan was quick to stop him.
"Mr. Zhang misunderstood."
Yu Zhen smiled. He looked at the apprentice in the corner and felt that he looked familiar, but he didn't think much about it.
"This little brother is Master Zhang's favorite disciple, the most talented apprentice in my weapon forging shop, Li Yuan?"
"What do you want to do?"
Zhang Ben stood in front of Li Yuan with a cold look in his eyes.
"The head shopkeeper specifically told him that he is Mr. Zhang's favorite disciple and he doesn't need to get involved in this mess. I was very curious, so I came to take a look."
Yu Zhen smiled gently, not as aggressive as before:
"I wonder how is your Qi and blood cultivation, little brother?"
Li Yuan bowed his head slightly and said: "My dear shopkeeper, thanks to Master's care, I have relied on the elixir to push my blood energy to a small level of success..."
"Xiaocheng?"
Yu Zhen nodded and asked no more questions. He just waved his hand and left the forging room with a group of people who were named, looking like they had lost their parents.
"This person is hateful!"
Zhang Ben was so angry that he was shaking all over.
"It's a poisonous snake!"
Li Yuan held the forging hammer.
Yu Zhen seemed gentle, but he was actually very dangerous. His words changed the way the blacksmiths in the forge looked at him and Zhang Ben.
There are a room full of disciples, but you only protect Li Yuan?
Only half of the blacksmiths were working silently, but Li Yuan could sense their emotions and felt a chill in his heart.
"Hateful, hateful!"
Li Yuan calmed down after pulling the trembling old Zhang:
"Master, let's forge the armor first!"
"Please prepare first..."
Zhang Ben paused for a moment, gritted his teeth and said, "I'll go find the chief shopkeeper!"
There's no point looking for it!
Feeling the gazes of his fellow disciples, Li Yuan hammered the iron hard, making a clanging sound.
……
Cao Yan is vigorous and decisive.
That morning, he and Lin Qingfa from the Changyuan Escort Agency led hundreds of people out of the city in a mighty procession.
Li Yuan went to take a look and saw that the scene was quite grand, and there were also many familiar faces among them from the last time he went to Fajiu Mountain, such as Yue Yunjin and Wu Ming.
"The Viper Gang..."
When Li Yuan turned to leave, he glanced inadvertently and saw Lu Bailing and others watching from afar on the top of the city wall, and the woman with a sword on her back was also there.
"I'm afraid this woman is not a guard. Could she be Miss Lu's aunt who joined the inner sect of the Divine Weapon Valley? But she seems too young..."
Li Yuan muttered to himself.
But this time he didn't look at it for long, just glanced and hurried back. When he came out, he found a tailor shop to measure the size.
The size of the soft armor will naturally depend on his body shape.
……
"The Viper Gang has gone too far. They dared to rob and commit crimes when Commander Qiu was not here. They really deserve to be killed!"
On the city wall, Lu Yunqing snorted coldly.
Glancing at the mob that was going away, Fang Yunxiu didn't care much, just stared at Lu Yunqing: "Brother-in-law, Senior Brother Qiu was killed, are you really not aware of it at all?"
"On the day when Commander Qiu got into trouble, I was sitting and discussing Taoism with Master Kongding. Who would have known that such a tragic event would happen? If I had known earlier, I would have gone with Commander Qiu!" Lu Yunqing straightened his expression and sighed again:
"After that day, I ordered the yamen runners to search day and night, but there is still no clue. On the contrary, Captain Qiu Da was also arrested and his whereabouts are still unknown..."
"I hope it has nothing to do with you."
Fang Yunxiu said nothing and turned away.
"Auntie?"
Lu Bailing stood aside and only dared to speak at this time.
"It's nothing."
Lu Yunqing shook his head and smiled:
"Your aunt only suspected that your father's 'god worship method' had gone astray and that he had worshiped an evil god... But the Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva was a legitimate god canonized by the imperial court a thousand years ago."
Lu Bailing nodded without any doubt:
"The Thousand-Eyed Bodhisattva is indeed a true god."
……
……
Six days later.
Wow!
The red inner armor was immersed in the freezing water, causing a large amount of smoke and water vapor to rise.
"Is it done?"
Just hearing the sound of quenching, Zhang Ben became nervous.
Although there are still quenching and polishing processes afterwards, the grade of the soft armor has been determined at this stage.
"It's done!"
Compared to Zhang Ben's anxiety, Li Yuan was more certain in his heart as he had already seen the light on the soft armor.
[Black Silver Jade Water Inner Armor (Level 2)]
[Using black silver as the base, supplemented by green fine sand, white secret mud... as auxiliary, the commander of the army personally forged it, pouring a lot of effort and expectations into the first inner armor]
[Conditions for control: Proficient in horizontal training]
[Control effect: Light soldiers are hard to hurt, horizontal training talent]
Barely the second level!
Li Yuan heaved a sigh of relief. It was his first time making top-grade soft armor, and he was really unsure.
The forging steps are too many and too complicated. Any mistake in any step will affect the final quality. Fortunately, it has reached the second level and is not inferior to the one in the warehouse.
and……
"The control requirements have been greatly reduced!"
Li Yuan was delighted to have made a piece of inner armor by himself. After taking the inner armor out of the ice water and carefully examining it, he could not help but feel delighted:
"Good boy, you have already produced the most difficult top-grade inner armor!"
"It was the master who guided me throughout the whole process, otherwise I would not have been able to succeed in the first attempt."
Li Yuan was grateful from the bottom of his heart.
Zhang Ben was involved in all the steps of making the soft armor, and taught them almost step by step.
"Stop talking nonsense, just keep praising you!"
Zhang Ben cursed with a smile, looking at the soft armor that had not yet been tempered and polished, and he liked it more and more.
Except for a slight difference in material selection and firing temperature, this piece of soft armor truly looks like it was made by him himself; even the details of the edges and corners bear his shadow.
"It's rare that you're so happy, what's the price of this soft armor?"
"Happiness is happiness, and business is business."
Before Li Yuan could finish, Zhang Ben cursed with a smile and threw the soft armor back:
“Tempering and polishing only take two days, but soaking takes at least a year and a half, and it’s still far from being a finished product!”
Something worth two or three hundred taels of silver cannot be made in ten days or half a month.
However, Li Yuan didn't care. He just needed to control it. The semi-finished product and the finished product had no effect on him. After soaking for a month or two, the only difference would be the appearance.
If you don't mind, it's okay to use it even if there's a dark spot under your eyes.
But of course I can't say this to Zhang Ben, otherwise I will definitely get scolded.
"It takes time to master horizontal training..."
After tempering skillfully, Li Yuan looked at the iron sand used for sharpening knives in the corner. If an ordinary person rubbed it, the leather would be rotten, right?
……
Li Yuan was reluctant to let go of the half-finished inner armor, so he carried it out of the weapon forging shop and placed it on the already crowded gray stone platform.
Although there was a rule in the shop that the first weapon of any quality made by hand could be sold at half price, he was still not at ease.
If this rare item worth two or three hundred taels were to be snatched away by someone, he would be so scared that he would vomit blood.
"Everything should be done in a safe way."
Li Yuan felt at ease following the rules, as it was not like he was not paying.
In the forging room, there were many people who secretly took some scrap iron, pig iron and the like to sell. Li Yuan was more convenient than them, but he also paid silver for carrying a bag of iron sand.
It's not worth it to give others a handle for such a small thing.
"Why are you here?"
Li Yuan planned to take the iron sand home first and then go to his second brother's house for dinner. However, when he pushed the door open, he saw Fatty Sun.
And a table full of food and wine.
"Fatty Zhong is doing a great job in the Central Courtyard. I have nothing to do, so I'll stay at your place for a few days."
Fatty Sun was pouring wine.
"How many days will you stay?"
Li Yuan glanced into the room and saw that bedding had been brought in for three beds.
"Oh, I'm scared."
Fatty Sun looked worried.
Ever since he returned to the city, he dared not sleep alone. In his dreams, he either dreamed of his brother-in-law and sister being killed, or of himself being captured by bandits again.
After ten days of holding on, I couldn't take it anymore.
"It's good that you came."
Li Yuan pulled out a chicken leg and ate it, and agreed to let Fatty Sun stay.
It is difficult for one person to rub iron sand evenly on the body.
(End of this chapter)