Soul of Searing Steel

Moreila Ironborn was currently in deep thought in the laboratory.

He was laying comfortably on the chair right beside the manufacturing station. One of his hands was holding a long tobacco pipe and the other onto a cup. This old man was looking at the ceiling. At times, his face looked like he was frowning at first—occasionally it would relax as he exhaled the smoke up into the air.

He was thinking deeply while smoking. This was the moment Moreila enjoyed the most. Although Joshua requested him to not smoke while the children were around, Ying and Ling seldom visited the experiment room anyway—it shouldn’t be a big problem for him.

After all, both of them were Divine Armaments. Moreila enjoyed his moments while taking in a deep breath of tobacco, and releasing them in perfect circles. As he admired his own production, floating within the air in a perfect circle shape until it reached the ceiling, he thought about both of the Divine Armaments. Despite them looking young in age, they should be more than twenty years old. This leader was definitely judging people only by their looks.

A few weeks ago, this old man had returned to Mount Great Ajax, where he lived. He made sure that his clan was fully geared and set up to defend themselves against another assault from any external threats and returned back to the main city of Moldavia.

The ruling rights for the clan had already been passed down to the younger generation about ten more years back. The rights he currently had was only up to a certain level of decision-making and prestige that he left behind. Most of the decision made internal was none of his business anyway. Moreila’s absence from Joshua’s ruling area did not really impact the operation there as well.

Moreila thought that the ruling right passing down to another generation was an appropriate thing to do. Anyone could manage the clan. However, to build, create and move forward to the next generation, it was something he had to be involved with.

Begin a blacksmith and a designer, Moreila had lived for a very long time. After his fateful meeting with Joshua, his perspective had widened. Now, he felt that manufacturing could be very efficient and building an industry was a very captivating idea for him.

Assembly line manufacturing, the industrial chain, rune plates, magic armor, etc. These were extremely new terms which were raised by Joshua with a calm expression as if it was nothing special. The deep meaning and value of these new terms had induced a rush of adrenaline in the old dwarf. He was now very eager to know the result of these technology introduced by Joshua. He had a gut feeling that these were not impossible tasks to achieve and was very interested to see how the future with these technologies looks like.

His current condition could only be explained by the word ‘awestruck’.

For a few days, both of them hid in the labs experimenting with the technology in front of them. Both of them were like heated blacksmiths, cracking their heads to design and implement the technology they had and trying to figure out the requirements to make the perfect simplified magic armor.

The core essence of a magic armor was the ability to strengthen the capabilities of his user. Other than that, all other attributes could be simplified. Joshua thought that the complex outer appearance was not a necessity. The important factor of the armor was to boost the combat capability, thus simplifying its design would be the optimum way to go.

From Moreila’s point of view, a good armor should not only perform perfectly, it should come together with a presentable appearance to boost the battle presence of the user. A nice-looking armor could give the knights a sense of pride which cannot be brought forth only with power alone. After all, some of the design details did not require too much of an additional effort to manufacture.

Joshua was able to prove that simplicity could also bring forth a form of art to the team. Designs which were too complex could hinder the manufacturing rate of the armor. Being able to produce rapidly was one of the advantages of the magic armor. After Joshua disclosed a few of the formulae related to the manufacturing of the armor, Moreila had to agree with him that his mindset was a little bit outdated. Not every blacksmith had his superior skills in making armor after all. Standardization would be a requirement to ensure smooth production.

During the debate, Ying was accompanying both of them by arranging the tools and serving tea. Occasionally she will wipe off the sweat from Joshua as well as assisting him in handling the tools in the lab. Moreila felt a bit jealous about this as he was all alone by himself.

Divine Armaments were indeed the best assistants one could get. He could only sigh in regret. To be fair, there was a challenge that a contractor had to face while setting up a pact with the Divine Armament. Without a strong mind and body, it was very easy for the contractor to be suppressed by the might of Divine Armament. This would cause the energy circulation within the body to collapse. Every failed pact would severely damage the user’s future potential. Other than the leaders of Radcliffe who could form a pact with the Divine Armament for every generation, ordinary people would not put high hopes in conquering such a powerful weapon under their control.

After all, a Divine Armament was just a strong weapon to most of them. Legendary-tier magic equipment was not inferior to a Divine Armament. Although some might have second-rate abilities, the ease to utilize a legendary-tier equipment was more viable as compared to the trouble needed to use a Divine Armament.

When the old man’s thoughts were getting slowly to the point he would drift off to sleep, a strong form of energy trembling from the center of the city made him wide awake.

The land trembled as if an earthquake had occurred. However, this was different as compared to a natural disaster. It was a very sudden event which disappeared without a trace almost immediately. The whole mansion shook for a moment and all magic-related equipment radiated.

“Magic Pulse?”

Moreila doubted his judgment for a moment. He knew that the magic pulse was a phenomenon only possible if a strong magic item or living being released its energy. For Moreila, he could achieve the same result by releasing his Combat Aura.

However, there was only two Gold-tier personnel in the entire territory of Moldavia. The pulse definitely did not originate from Joshua. If it was not him, then who was it?

He shook his head and stood up. After fixing his outfit, he then decided to go out and have a look at the situation.

Along the path, he saw 03’s hologram. She came from the other world—a magic manufactured intelligent being. She was assessing the situation from afar using magic. When Moreila to ask her a few questions, he suddenly felt a huge tremor.

Rumble—

The sound released this time was way sharper and louder compared to the previous one. For the previous occurrence, it might be considered as a hallucination to the civilians that do not possess any form of magic or Combat Aura. However, this time it was an earthquake that was very apparent to everyone. The chairs and tables were shaking. Water within the cups could be seen rippling vigorously to the extent of almost spilling.

The tremor then stopped just like the previous occurrence.

“Is this the end?” Moreila muttered.

“This is not the end of it yet.”

03 shook her head. There were numerous runes floating in her eyes. “Strong fire elementals are converging within the city center, rapidly breaking through the Silver-tier domain, infinitely closer to achieving Gold Tier.”

“Correction. It has successfully reached Gold Tier.”

As her words were spoken, a strong pulse of power could be felt traversing through the vicinity. According to 03, this pulse spread throughout the city of Moldavia. Other than that, a pressure could be felt from the origin of the pulse. All the rats, bugs, and other small life-forms which were hiding within their sanctuary were startled and was trying to escape from this the source of pressure. Their random escape had caused more issues compared to the earthquake that had happened previously. It caused quite an annoyance to the people living the city.

“I’m going to check it out.”

The old man decided to explore what had happened.

“Bring me with you as well.”

The projection of 03 pointed to the small trolley where her main body was—a violet runic core.

Moreila did not reject her proposal. Together with the runic core, Moreila made his way towards the city center.

As he was rushing towards the center the occurrence, the event was coming into the final phase.

Vigorous fire elementals turning into golden-red radiance was surrounding the body of the warhorse. Lava-like veins formed on the surface of its body, releasing a bright light. The air within the area became very active and distorted, causing the view of the mansion to be blurry.

Joshua was standing in front of his warhorse, holding an empty bottle and the runic box. He was calmly observing Black.

Moreila could see that Black the warhorse had caused quite an impact to the surroundings. It was most likely caused by the awakening of the dragon bloodline.

But what type of bloodline could cause such an uproar?

Moreila’s concern was not answered by anyone at that point. Black was currently standing on top of his stage, neighing loudly. It was unsure whether it was pain or euphoria it was feeling. A strong pressure was released when it neighed. All the fire elements surrounding it seems to understand its command and flowed into its body.

After finishing the Fruit of Life and finishing the bottle of Ancient Dragon blood, a violent energy was produced within its body which released unlimited vitality. This form of energy kept on changing and evolving inside of Black. Other than the lava veins on the surface, the body and life of this warhorse drastically changed and evolved.

The initial change which could be seen was the size of its body.

Although it was not changed to an extremely huge size, it was very apparent that the power of bloodline had assisted in the change of the skeletal structure. Originally, Black still had a body structure resembling a horse. Now, it was all changed. Black looked more like a dragon now.

On top of its body, giant bone spikes were growing. Due to the fact that the power of bloodline was not strong enough, the spikes grew halfway and stopped its progression. It only formed the shape of a pair of wings only.

Other changes included bone spikes on its neck and scales on top of the tail. These were the obvious changes, which could be seen with the naked eye.

“RRROOOOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR”

Black released a roar when it reached the limit of its endurance. It stomped heavily on the ground, causing huge cracks on the floor. The fire elements were further activated and formed a red fog on top of its forehead, increasing the temperature around its vicinity.

All the maids had already hidden within the mansion. Curiosity had made those who wanted to know peek through doors and windows. Wild grass and dried leaves within the backyard had already combusted by themselves. Following the convergence of the fire energies, flames could be seen burning on top of Black’s body, forming pillars of fire.

The fire moving on Black’s body was capable of melting iron, yet it was considered only a norm for Black. It was considered to be half-horse and half-wyervn at this phase. The heat emitting from its body turned the land into scorching hot lava. Joshua had successfully controlled the emission of energy from Black’s body, controlling its spread to avoid the destruction of any properties in the city.

“Great, now work harder! Once you are able to solidify the blood of Smelting Black Dragon within you, you will be a Gold-tier half-dragon with limitless potential!”

Joshua was very excited at this moment. He does not care whether Black could understand what he said, but he kept on encouraging it. “Once you have succeeded evolving, I will bring you to hunt down some fire dragons to strengthen your bloodline!”

Whether it was Black understanding Joshua’s words or just struggling through the process with its own sheer will, when Joshua’s words were spoken, a glimpse of golden light could be seen from the dragon-horse’s eyes. All the fire pillars were rapidly controlled by Black and entered back into its body. This was the sign where it could finally control its own power. On top of its black scales, numerous golden red veins could be seen.

The shining veins then dimmed out and finally gathered on its chest. At this point, a golden-red core was slowly formed and the sound of its heartbeats was even clearer than before.

At least, the sound of its heartbeats was so loud that it could be heard across multiple streets. The core on Black’s chest gradually stabilized and formed its shape.

“Hiss… Hiss!”

Black lifted up its head and neighed loudly. Black moved its hooves in excitement. The blazing flame subsequently vanished into thin air. Currently, Black’s had golden-red dragon irises, filled with the happiness of awakening.

Joshua laughed happily, tossed the bottle and box from his hand then rushed towards Black. He hugged Black on its neck without caring about the heat that it was emitting. He patted its back excitedly.

The expression from both the horse and the man proved one thing that moment.

It was the moment where the bloodline had successfully awoken.