"The blade and the handle were forged as one. The mark was engraved when the tal was still cooling. Whoever forged this put both the dwarven mark and the Jing Clan character onto it. They were made together."
Little Shrubby looked genuinely confused. "Then it must be soone from the Jing Clan who learned dwarven forging?"
Lin Mu nodded. "That is the most likely possibility."
And that was when the faintest ripple traveled across his ring.
The Sheath trembled gently.
Not enough for the beasts to notice.
But Lin Mu felt it clearly. It was calling to him. Asking him to try sothing.
Lin Mu took a slow breath.
The Sheath had nurtured his very first sword ever since it co to him. It was nurturing that blade. It had mories it could look into. It might know things even Lin Mu did not.
He brought the plain sword close to the Sheath.
The Sheath trembled again. Stronger.
Lin Mu understood.
"You want to place it inside?"
A pulse of affirmation spread through his palm.
Lin Mu slid the plain sword into the Sheath.
There was no sound.
No glow.
No dramatic reaction.
But the Sheath suddenly grew cold. Then warm. Then cold again. It vibrated faintly against Lin Mu's hand. His sword heart stirred, as if feeling the stirrings of a long slumbering mory.
Then the Sheath spoke to him.
Not with words. But with certainty.
And Lin Mu froze in place.
The Sheath told him:
This sword was forged by the sa hands that forged your first sword.
Lin Mu felt his breath leave his lungs for a mont.
His eyes widened. His fingers tightened around the Sheath.
Because there was only one person who had forged that first blade. Jing Wei.
Jing Wei.The blacksmith genius of the Jing Clan.The man who once stood beside Lin Mu before the great upheavals.The man who taught Lin Mu the basics of forging with patience and kindness.The man who had already stood at the threshold of ascension before he left the Xiaofan World.
Lin Mu whispered under his breath.
"Jing Wei... is in the Immortal Realm?"
The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
He stood frozen, the sword half inside the Sheath, the alley completely silent.
And for the first ti in a long while, Lin Mu felt a spark of sothing he rarely allowed himself in excess.
Hope.
Lin Mu stood in the narrow alley for a long mont, staring at the sword that the Sheath had declared as Jing Wei's work.
Jing Wei. In the Immortal Realm. Alive. Forging.
Lin Mu could not stop the faint smile that tugged at his lips. A warmth spread through his chest. More than sixty years had passed since he left the Xiaofan World, but the mory of that gentle, steady but sotis fierce blacksmith had never faded.
Jing Wei had been one of the first people who had believed in him, one of the first to stand beside him as he walked toward the path of cultivation. He had been a ntor, a friend, and soone Lin Mu genuinely respected.
The thought of eting him again was almost surreal.
Little Shrubby pawed his arm lightly. "Master, are you happy?"
Lin Mu nodded. "More than I expected."
He briefly considered going back to the stall and interrogating the cultivator, but he imdiately dismissed the idea. The man had been lying even when he did not need to. He would know nothing about the sword other than where he bought it and perhaps not even that. Street traders bought from middlen who bought from other middlen. The trail would be cold.
But there was a better way.
The Dwarves.
The sword was a Dwarven Initiation blade. Perhaps Jing Wei had sohow learned dwarven forging or at least forged alongside dwarves. The only place nearby where that was possible was the Runweld Barren World.
Lin Mu's eyes narrowed with determination.
"I will ask the dwarves directly. They will know."
Little Shrubby wagged his tails happily. "So we will find the dwarf city sooner."
Lin Mu nodded. "Maybe my path and Jing Wei's path have crossed without
knowing."
His heart felt oddly lighter. As if destiny had pulled back a curtain, revealing an old friend waiting just beyond the next step.
He sheathed the sword and placed it carefully inside his ring before leaving the
alley.
He walked back to the inn, thoughts lingering on mories of the past: Jing Wei's calm voice, the ringing of tal, the advice he gave on strength and patience. The Xiaofan world felt so far away, like a distant dream. Yet holding
that sword made it feel close again.
When Lin Mu arrived at the inn, he imdiately noticed that none of the others had returned yet.
"Perfect ti to cultivate," Lin Mu whispered.
He sat cross legged in his room and brought out the various materials he had bought earlier. Elental fruits, herbs, ores, and refined essences of all kinds. Even before he absorbed them, the cores within his body began to hum with
anticipation.
Hours passed as he refined them one by one. Every ti he absorbed another material, he felt faint pulses of elental energy flow into his cores.
Water core rose by a single percentage point. Now at ninety seven percent.Fire and earth cores rose a few percent reaching sixty nine percent each.tal core increased slightly to sixty five.Wind and lightning cores barely budged reaching nine and five percent each..The wood core grew the most, finally reaching seventy five percent.
Lin Mu had to chuckle to himself. The poisons from the two captains had actually been good for him. In fact they had been better than most materials he
had bought in the last year.
"I might just buy more poison tomorrow," Lin Mu muttered with a wry smile. "This is becoming a strange habit."
Eventually he finished refining everything and entered a ditative trance. By the ti dawn approached, his mind was calm and his dantian steady.
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