The rat struggled a bit, even tried acting pitiful. When it saw that it was useless, it finally nodded very humanely. Lingyun smiled at this – the second option was never an option. Over the years, at least a thousand kilograms was eaten by this little rat!
He bit his finger and made a rune out of blood and spiritual power in the air, then he pressed it towards the rat's forehead. It entered and the rat made a humming sound, causing the little red light around it to disappear.
Lingyun looked at it at this moment and could feel the mood of the rat – it was helpless yet also a bit excited. Lingyun just smiled at it. For beasts, this contact was as much binding as it was beneficial. Now that the beast felt the contract, it actually understood the benefit.
This benefit is that their spirituality will be enhanced over time, while Lingyun will also subtly gain something, most likely a weak version of the innate ability of that beast. The innate abilities of the iron eating rat are usually earth escape and ore sensing.
It was too early to test things out, so Lingyun just kept it in his mind and freed the rat, taking it into his arms. He petted the small rat, it was only the size of two fists, which was a bit small.
He patted it as he walked back towards the tower, moving the container back with his thoughts. He entered the tower and looked at the small rat in his hands, before conveying a thought "how much do you eat usually?"
The rat answered with a subtle image. Lingyun understood quickly that it would eat the containers' worth for a month. This container was around 10kilograms.
He was a bit surprised but not truly. The expense was high but still in an acceptable range. A kilogram of black iron ore was basically worth a single spirit stone, while black iron was worth two. The sword created from one kilogram of black iron can be sold for about eight to ten spirit stones. From this one can see that regardless of the creation art, as long as one had talent, one could do well.
Unfortunately, many rogue cultivators either lack talent, resources or inheritance. Among the four important things one needs on the path of cultivation, which are wealth, dharma, land and companion, wealth and dharma are the first two.
As for land, it refers to a fitting cultivation environment with the best situation at every time. Companion refers to all those taoist friends and companions one meets along the way, parents, friends, life partners all count in this category.
Lingyun thought for a bit about how to pay the iron ore – although he was wealthy, he couldn't just feed the rat the black iron he was about to use. Ten kilograms was also only the resource to feed it, to enhance it, double would be better.
Right then, an idea came into his mind and he took out a sword. He put the sword on the ground and conveyed a meaning "Try eating this."
The rat complied and jumped down. At first, it sniffed at it, until it felt that this was a good thing. It bit the sharp yet weak side first. With just one bit, a small piece broke loose.
Lingyun was shocked – although this sword was low-grade, it should still be able to withstand the rat!
Then he realised – in a real fight, the rat wouldn't have the chance to freely bite the sword. Now, he was in a peaceful environment and could fully eat the sword.
He waited for a bit until he saw that the sword was fully devoured. About to say something, he was stunned when a little light was emitted by the rat. He raised it and looked at it, until he found the solution "Weapon runes?!"
There was nothing that told him a metal eating rat devouring a sword would have such results! Then again, the inheritance he had was very weak.
Lingyun nodded and said "From now on, you will be called Jiantie, the sword devourer!"
…
The days passed, and soon it was a year since Lingyun started refining swords. He had already perfected the refining of the first-stage early-grade sword a few months ago, but he insisted on continuing on, this time, changing the runes to the other twelve that would come.
"This doesn't work…" Lingyun said, as he looked at the two sword plates that couldn't be smelted again.
"How… how else do you connect two metal plates if not through smelting? Let me think…
No! Why did I always try to align with the current inheritance I have! How about modern crafting… screws!" Lingyun considered this idea several times before he laughed into the sky.
"Hahaha! It was right in front of me the whole time! Screws, obviously you use screws!"
Then, he wrote down the idea that came into his mind.
"Well, let's take the normal idea, make a hole into the correct position and pull the screws over, then close it up on the other side. Here comes the question though, how many screws and which runes to use to connect them!"
He knew that if he just used screws, then it would be like two separate swords connected together, the power wouldn't be superimposed but instead fight against each other, and the three basic runes are called this way because they have to exist to make it orderly – if the runes don't connect, then the two separate swords would have to have the three exact same runes.
In that case, why would one buy this construct of two runes put together? Although it's cheaper, the quality is too low.
"Well, let's first make a prototype."
Lingyun heated up the stove and carried two hundred grams of black iron into it. He understood after such a long time that using the full version would be too much of a waste. So, instead, he crafted a sword that was only a tenth as large.
Although this required a lot more control than the normal sword, it was a way to train and save resources, so he did it this way.
After he refined the sword plate, he got another one, then also made screws and nuts.
In the end, he made a total of three varieties – swords with ten holes for ten screws, which was the most stable amount, a sword with one hole as a core, and one with three screws which focused on the key points.
He inscribed the same runes, the first sword at the bottom had the three basic runes, the sword above had the runes such as Gliding and others that strengthened the sword. Gliding would reduce the air resistance towards the sword.
Lingyun was proud to have mastered the rune knowledge and inscription so fast – in fact, for most, the artistic conception and other parts are extremely difficult. Inscribing only one point might be fine, but once different runes have to connect, one has to imagine reliant artistic conceptions and always change things.
After all, a refiner is not a machine, they don't only focus on refining one item, they have to have a lot more knowledge and be flexible.
The last step of inscribing was inscribing the screws.