Dragon Tamer - Chapter 225:
Chapter 225: Chapter 226: Whom to Worship Before Armor Crafting?
Translator: 549690339
Fang Niannian did indeed bring back the Dragon Silkworm Silk and Ice Pattern Skin required by Zhu Minglang, and with such a capable little assistant, Zhu Minglang even considered giving her a raise.
While Dragon Silkworm Silk and Ice Pattern Skin are not extremely rare items, finding those that meet Zhu Minglang’s current crafting needs requires spending a lot of time searching the markets. A slight time-saving method is to offer a reward for their purchase, which often costs several times the original price.
Finding them in such a short period wasn’t easy!
With all materials ready and the blueprint memorized perfectly, what remained was to start working!
The armor Zhu Minglang planned to craft didn’t have high requirements for the furnace or the forging table, so any random casting workshop would suffice.
No sooner said than done, Zhu Minglang first went looking for Mr. Jinli.
Mr. Jinli is the mascot of Zhu Gate, and the elders would mostly invite it over whenever they needed to make some divine armor or holy clothes.
Even though Zhu Minglang was a young man who very much believed in the Heavenly Method, Dao Method, and Human Method, and not in those ignorant mysticisms, he still felt it would be much better to have Mr. Jinli present considering the expensive materials.
After looking around, he didn’t see Mr. Jinli.
This posed a bit of a problem for Zhu Minglang, had the koi been taken away by someone in the kitchen?
At that moment, Zhu Minglang suddenly thought of someone else.
“I must be out of my mind, why believe in such boring stuff? Why not just ask Miss Xinghua for a prophecy?” Zhu Minglang slapped his forehead and quickly went upstairs.
He knocked on the door and greeted politely.
Only then did the door gently open, instantly a fragrance wafted out. Zhu Minglang focused his gaze and saw the Prophet’s younger sister with her wet hair, droplets of water on her pale, smooth skin sliding down from her delicate and beautiful neck to her frail collarbone…
She appeared to have just bathed, and the color of her skin was particularly alluring due to the steamy warm water, exuding a bewitching charm reminiscent of a seductress. This made Zhu Minglang suddenly recall that dim place, those blushing cheeks, moving towards him like a dream.
“Young Master?” Li Xinghua looked at him, asking with a trace of confusion.
“Ahem, well, I was hoping that Miss Xinghua could give me a prediction because I plan to cast a very expensive Dragon Armor, and due to my not so skilled craftsmanship, there’s a higher risk of failure,” Zhu Minglang said, using his cough to cover his lapse of focus.
This was too much to handle.
It was the same person.
Why must the heavens torment me like this!
A double ordeal wasn’t enough, it had to be quadruple, and I’m certainly not one of those still-water monks.
This agony was comparable to lying with a flower-like beauty, yet separated by a veil that could never be torn away.
“Young Master, I’m sorry, but I am not Yunzhi,” Li Xinghua seemed to notice Zhu Minglang’s expression, both revealing her affection and restraining herself in a way that deceived herself.
“The one who should apologize is me,” Zhu Minglang replied awkwardly, turning his cheek aside and avoiding to look at her.
“If you do it during the extreme cold of the autumn night, you should succeed,” Li Xinghua said.
Zhu Minglang calmed down and considered it.
His materials inherently carried some ice attribute, which meant that even a subtle difference in the surrounding temperature could affect the entire process of crafting the armor.
What a great reminder!
It had completely slipped his mind.
“Thank you, Miss, you’ve been a great help,” Zhu Minglang expressed his gratitude joyfully.
“Hmm.”
Zhu Minglang turned and walked away, and after he had gone some distance, he couldn’t help but chuckle bitterly.
What a challenge, truly daunting!
As the prophet auntie advised, wait until the coldest part of an autumn night to forge.
Indeed, the process went very smoothly that night; Zhu Minglang managed to perfectly cut out the outline pattern on the Ice Pattern Skin to fit Little Bai Qi, and successfully stitched together several materials…
There were no flames beside the furnace, but rather an extremely low-temperature blue fire.
Zhu Minglang stood by the blue fire, pouring his spiritual power into each and every millennium feather.
The craft of a casting master can be crudely likened to that of a tailor.
However, the casting art of Zhu Gate was never about sewing and weaving with needle and thread. When spiritual power flowed evenly into each feather, they seemed to come to life, dancing around Zhu Minglang before slowly settling onto the Ice Pattern Skin.
The Dragon Silkworm Silk was also manipulated with spiritual power, moving like fish leaping out of the water’s surface, rising and falling, quickly binding all the millennium feathers and Ice Pattern Skins together.
“The inscription process will be done tomorrow, not sure if it’ll go smoothly,” Zhu Minglang murmured to himself. Lying next to the furnace was Little Ice Morning White Dragon, already nodding off, yet still forcing its eyelids open to keep Zhu Minglang company as he worked.
The next day, at the coldest part of the autumn night again, Zhu Minglang began inscribing the armor with inscriptions.
The inscriptions are the soul core of this Dragon Armor, relating not only to the intrinsic effects of the armor when born but also to the success of the White Misty Feather Armor.
Without inscriptions, the armor at best could only withstand attacks from Lord-level creatures and would be a flaw in the expensive materials, useless to the Ice Morning White Dragon.
Zhu Minglang took deep breaths, once again using his spiritual sense to capture the Inscription Fragments dispersed in the air.
The Inscription Fragments came from the millennium feathers.
The millennium feathers, being an essential part of the Holy Spirits, could change shape at will and swap attributes. As Zhu Minglang extracted the Inscription Fragments, he sensed the elements of thunder, glaring light, flame, and frost around him.
He did not need the other three; he had to extract the Frost Insignia. This step was extremely difficult; if he had not reshaped his spiritual power in Spirit Realm, it would have been very hard for Zhu Minglang to achieve.
While performing this step, Zhu Minglang became even more conscious of how important the prophet auntie’s reminder was; the autumn chill naturally made the millennium feathers appear as solid ice, emphasizing the frost attribute. Zhu Minglang guided them, branding the entire Dragon Armor with them, thus smoothing the process considerably.
“Perfect!”
“The most difficult step is already taken care of.”
“Tomorrow, the final integration can be completed: wings, feathers, claws, body, tail. With five parts, there should be enhancements; it will come out of the furnace tomorrow!” Zhu Minglang said.
Whether the inscriptions were branded on can only be confirmed when the armor comes out of the furnace.
What kind of additional effects will be born in the five parts can only be known once the armor is out of the furnace.
Success or failure will also depend on tomorrow.
Even the finest casting masters find it hard to control all the properties and effects of a full set of armor; they can only guide in one direction. That is probably why the Zhu Gate is so fond of Jinli.
In fact, to craft something of the highest quality, one must prepare ten or twenty sets of materials.
If one attempt doesn’t work, after ten or twenty tries, a masterpiece will emerge.
If this time it doesn’t work out, consider it practice.
A good casting master throws in as much money into the furnace as a mountain is high!
