Eternal Cultivation of Alchemy

"What are you going to do with this?" he asked.

"Make a cauldron," Alex said.

"What\'s wrong with the rest of the cauldrons?\' the old man asked curiously.

"They\'re quite weak to be useful for when the Pill Cloud forms. Every single one I use is destroyed by the lightning," Alex said.

"And this one will help you? The Pill cloud\'s lightning bolt transcends space and time. No matter how strong your cauldron is, the lightning bolt will strike the pill," the old man said.

"I see," Alex said. "Still, the cauldron I will be making should remain intact even after it is struck by lightning."

"Ughh… do what you want. As long as you make me the pill in 10 years time, I am fine with what you do," the old man said.

Despite being mad and not right in the head, the old man still knew that he couldn\'t hurt Alex. Killing his golden goose was not the right way to go at the moment.

So, he left him alone.

Alex was happy being left alone. He still didn\'t call out his beasts, but he didn\'t feel lonely at all. Cultivating by themselves for years was what cultivators did anyway after all.

In the corner of the room, he set up the forge that he was going to be using. It was going to get very hot, so he made sure to keep anything that could be damaged easily very far away.

Once ready, Alex took out about 2 tons of the Tungsten ore that he was going to have to use.

In the last few days of waiting, he had already done every single preparation required to remove the obvious non-metal part of the ore such as minerals and dirt and had already pulverized it all as well as he could in this place.

So, now he could smelt it directly in the forge.

Alex put the 2 tons of tungsten into the forge and used his True Fire Dao to quickly and easily melt it down. Since there was no other source of fire, it had to all come from him and him alone.

He couldn\'t help but be surprised by just how easy it was with his Dao.

It was so much better than when he simply had the Dao of Heat, as this time he had the Dao of Melting and the Dao of Metal to help him.

As the ore inside began to melt and the different materials in the ore separated themselves, Alex took out a few volcanic ashes and put them into the forge.

The volcanic ashes would react with the various minerals and even a few metals in the molten ore inside, leaving behind pure tungsten that sank to the bottom.

He continued in the heat for a while before it was time to pull out the tungsten. Alex opened the bottom of the forge and let the tungsten flow out.

He quickly use his Qi to pull it away and placed it on top of his anvil. The refined ore resulted in Alex having 800 Kilograms of pure Starforged Tungsten, which to his surprise was large enough for 2 swords.

He had lost 60% of the weight from the ore, and nearly 90% of the volume. But what remained was the best it could be. As the metal started cooling and turning semi-solid, Alex called for help.

"Godslayer, can you help me in making a sword?" he asked. He had asked for the forge to make a cauldron, but since he had never worked with the Starforged Tungsten before, he wanted to learn it.

For that, he decided to start with a sword as it was the easiest of all that he could make.

Godslayer had noticed Alex working with the forge even before he called for him, so he immediately answered. "What do you need help with?" he asked.

"I just want to see if you have any other insights into making a sword. This time around, I have the Dao of Metal, so maybe you got some idea on how I could use it," Alex said.

"Hmm… start with a general shape of the metal first. Turn it into a long rectangular shape, like a ruler," Godslayer said.

Alex nodded and did as he was told. The molten metal transformed into his Dao of Metal until it was the shape he wanted it to be.

"Now, hammer it until it is tempered," Godslayer said.

Alex didn\'t need any more explanation as he started doing exactly what he was told. He enforced both the hammer and anvil with his Qi, made sure to never let heat permeate into them, and started whacking away.

Slow and Steady, that was the way to temper metal, and that was exactly what Alex did. He hit the thin strip of metal with a rhythmic blow and continued for a while.

Godslayer watched his every move to make sure he didn\'t do anything wrong.

After a while, Alex stopped when he heard a ringing sound come from the metal, letting him know it was fully tempered.

"Good," Godslayer spoke. "Now, are you making a longsword? There\'s not enough for a greatsword."

Alex thought of what he wanted and there was only a single choice in his heart. "I know the shape I want to go with, and there\'s double the metal required here."

"Good, then you can just compound the metal," Godslayer said. "Heat up the metal again, and start shaping the sword. Use your Dao of metal."

Alex nodded and began. With the constant supply of his heat, it wasn\'t hard to quickly bring the softened metal into shape. At the same time, he was compounding the metal too, compressing the metal until it had a volume half it\'s current size.

After the volume of the metal was half, Alex finally began putting in Qi lines.

He was still shaping up the metal so there was enough time for him to do so. He formed normal Qi lines as there was not much else he could make.

"Use your Dao of Metal to continue from here," Godslayer said. "You don\'t have any other metal dao, do you?"

"Uhh… Dao of Cutting doesn\'t count right?" Alex asked.

"No, but Sharpness does," Godslayer said. "If you don\'t have anything else, then you will have a slightly tougher time with putting the finishing touches."

Alex nodded. He continued with the finer details of the shaping of the sword and added as sharp an edge as he could without the Dao of Sharpness.

Thankfully, Alex had the Dao of Cutting, so he wouldn\'t have to worry about the sword is not to sharp. Besides, it wasn\'t like this was going to be the sword he was going to use forever.

After a few more minutes of working on it, Alex finally finished. He immediately took away the heat from the blade and looked at it with a surprised look on his face.

"That\'s quite good," he said when he saw the blade.

"It\'s alright," Godslayer said. "You can make better ones with more metals. It will be easier if you have more dao too, and a better facility to work under."

"I\'m a hostage at the moment. Having this much freedom is already heaven-sent for me," Alex said as he looked at the blade in his hand.

The dark-gray metal with a glittering surface made it look like it was embedded with tiny gems all over it. It looked beautiful, but what made Alex happier about the sword was its shape.

It was the exact same sword that he had lost when killing his master\'s murderer. The steel sword had been something he had refined a lot and liked using, and now he had the same shape again.

"How\'s the sharpness?" Godslayer asked.

Alex tried to cut his own skin to try. "Eh, it\'s good, I guess. Could be better, but I can\'t complain," he said. "So, do you think I can make a cauldron now? Am I good enough?"

"Hmm… no," Godslayer said. "You need to learn a lot more before you can make something like a Cauldron with the tools you have."

"Since you seem to have enough metal, the first thing you are going to have to make next are a large hammer and anvil for easier tempering."