Chapter 4: Street Sweeper
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Of all the things he expected could happen while trying to fix his meridians, being poor was the last thing he would have imagined,
and yet here he was, with two silver coins in his pocket and a new problem on his mind.
"Tch, I almost forgot about this problem," he muttered irritably.
He had spent the last centuries of his life forging weapons and basically doing whatever he wanted,
and through all that, money had always been the least of his worries.
In fact, at one point he had reached a certain level of wealth from his weapon making that money had lost importance to him.
Who would have ever thought that the once highly acclaimed blacksmith would find himself without even enough money to buy simple ingredients?
'haa, looks like I'll have to deal with this problem first.'
In his past life, he had lived his fair share of experiences and had tried many professions.
He hadn't focused only on forging, which was also the specialty of his clan,
but also on many other arts, like alchemy, rune engraving, creating arrays, and so on...
At first, he did it out of necessity, but later he discovered that all these secondary professions were much more useful in the blacksmith's trade than one might imagine.
Rune engraving alone was already well known to be widely applied to objects, especially weapons.
Normally, once you commissioned a weapon of a certain level, you could ask master engravers to carve runes on it to add extra effects, which could be of various kinds.
Arrays were particularly useful for preserving materials, as well as creating an environment suitable for forging, which could affect the object being forged itself.
Even his alchemy knowledge proved useful at some point.
At that time he felt as if a new world had opened up before him, with new possibilities that led him to become the best in his profession.
All this knowledge was full of ways to make money, and he had no intention of letting it rot at the back of his mind.
***
Ting! Ting! Ting!
The sound of metal being struck echoed through the blacksmith's workshop, as a tall man with a powerful build and long beard looked confused at the boy in front of him.
"Sorry, can you repeat what you said?" not quite sure he had heard correctly.
"I said I need a job," Zhu Rong told the tall man facing him.
'This place hasn't changed a bit,' he thought, looking at the forge in front of him and the people working there.
Lao Tie's Pu (Old Iron Shop) was one of many forges in the capital Qiyan.
In his past life, he had often come here to do small commissions to earn a steady income and at the same time improve his forging skills.
Since he was at the academy with limited support, he figured he might as well use the rest of his time there to work on forging instead of cultivating, as he could only make so much progress at a time.
He hoped to improve his forging skills here so that when at the end of the year he returned to the clan, he wouldn't come back empty-handed.
Too bad for him that even the progress he made here wasn't very big, and in the end he didn't even have the opportunity to prove his skill.
Of all the places he knew in the city, this area was definitely the best for making quick money.
Still looking at the giant in front of him, he continued:
"Believe me, I'm pretty good with the forge, you can test me if you want," he said confidently.
Bao Dashi, one of the employees of the forge, looked at the skinny boy before him, then shook his head.
At a glance, he could tell the boy had no muscles, just skin and bones,
how the hell could he have even lifted a hammer, let alone forge?
"Good with the forge?" he repeated ironically, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Listen, kid... you look more suited to sweeping the streets than holding a hammer.
See this?" He pointed to his massive bicep.
"To work in here you need strength, experience, and you don't seem to have either."
He laughed and turned to go back to his station, clearly not wanting to waste any more time.
Zhu Rong almost spat a mouthful of blood when he heard the man.
Sweep the streets?
Bastard, you sweep the streets, your whole family sweeps the streets.
He almost jumped on the man but held back, while his eyes shifted to the half-worked piece of metal in the man's hands.
'Tch, kids these days, back in the day no one would have dared to breathe in front of me, let alone call me a street sweeper,' he thought, shaking his head as he examined what the man was forging.
He smiled as he opened his mouth and said,
"A double-edged blade, right? Judging by the furnace temperature and the color of the metal, you're on the third strike."
He spoke suddenly, making Bao Dashi squint as he turned to look at him.
"Oh? And what else did you notice?" he asked, now a bit curious to hear what the boy in front of him had to say.
Identifying the nature of the object being made was not difficult for blacksmiths, but the problem was that the boy before him wasn't one, so he was a little surprised and curious.
"You used a black iron and mountain steel alloy… but you're missing a bit of molten copper to stabilize the edges and give elasticity to the center.
If you keep going like this, you risk making it too rigid and it'll break after a couple of hard hits," he continued, looking around for a moment and connecting the various materials to the object that still had to take shape.
Bao Dashi squinted as he opened his mouth and said,
"Oh? And what makes you think I wouldn't add that later?" he asked.
Zhu Rong glanced toward his workstation before shifting his gaze back to him and smiling.
Bao Dashi understood what he meant with that smile and let out a sigh before saying,
"Okay, kid, you're right. You definitely have a good eye.
This isn't a weapon for real battles, more like a toy for some ignorant kid who decided to take a sword as a showpiece.
That little punk didn't even want to spend some money to get better materials, so here's the result," he said, shaking his head as if he wasn't even satisfied with the product himself.
Seeing the annoyed expression on the man's face, Zhu Rong shook his head too.
Being a blacksmith himself, he could understand how it felt.
He wouldn't want to work on a product like this either, when he could make something nicer and higher quality.
It would be like asking a master chef to grill some meat without any seasoning or anything, just because you don't want to spend a little extra.
He'd had his fair share of experiences like that and understood why a blacksmith like Bao Dashi was forced to make weapons like these.
'Haaa, when rice runs low, even the jeweler beats iron.'
[Just in case you don't know this saying: in desperate times, even a master must resign himself to humble work]