Chapter 1253

In Penglai Village, there is a tailor shop and blacksmith shop exclusive to Zhao Chi.

Inside are his bed, piles of Gu Qing silk, and... Tang Ruan armor.

The blacksmith shop is much simpler.

It's all metal ingots.

The vast majority are iron ingots.

After yesterday's battle victory, some damaged steel and fine-iron equipment were seized, and Shen Lian's smelting team is hurrying to melt them down.

Now more than half of all the steel ingots have been smelted, neatly placed to the side.

Touch them — still hot.

Adding the seized steel ingots and those not yet smelted, the total is expected to be about 603 ingots.

Making a two-handed Phoenix Cry Blade requires 4 ingots each; for a Moon-Chasing Spear, 3 ingots each.

Still not enough to equip everyone.

But the 3rd-tier female guards of the army corps can be equipped first; the other female soldiers can be equipped with fine-iron weapons.

Quite a lot of fine-iron equipment is still waiting to be smelted; it's estimated all of it can be finished by the day after tomorrow.

It's estimated 1,500 fine-iron ingots can be smelted out.

Adding the seized fine-iron ingots, there will be over 2,100 in total.

These will be enough to cover the weapon consumption of all the female soldiers.

But... forging takes a very long time.

The metal blanks need to be constantly heated and constantly hammered.

Layer upon layer folded together.

Extremely time-consuming.

Weapons don't take a short time to make, and armor takes even longer.

If he wants to craft weapons for all the female soldiers, plus a set of Mystic Maiden Battle Armor for each, it'll probably take a month?

And that's a month on top of using Speed-Work Talismans.

Actually, this time is already very fast, considering he's making them alone.

But of course, it would be even better if it could be faster.

Forging and sewing are different.

Sewing mainly relies on craftsmanship.

Extremely complex weaving techniques.

While forging relies on fire and hammer.

First heat the metal ingot until it glows orange-red, then hammer with force.

Then keep heating, keep hammering.

This process must be repeated many times.

Especially when performing improvements and super-improvements, most of the time is basically spent on this step.

The subsequent quenching, tempering, grinding, and fine-tuning actually don't take up much time.

Qi Yue has 4 arms working together.

If it's making fashion, sewing and weaving, the efficiency is extremely high.

But for forging, the usefulness is much smaller.

At least during heating, she can only wait.

Only after heating is complete can the forging speed be increased somewhat.

However, the actual time that needs to be spent hammering is very short.

The most time-consuming part is heating.

During heating, one can only wait.

Can't do anything.

At most pull the bellows.

Even though Qi Yue has 4 arms, it's useless — she's not like Zhuang Ya who can breathe fire.

Huh?

Zhuang Ya can breathe fire...

Then...

Can he let her do the forging?

If he lets her do it... she can use one hand to breathe fire and continuously heat the iron ingots and blanks, while the other hand hammers nonstop.

This way, a huge amount of heating time can be saved!

Seems like it could work!

Qi Yue 【Seems like that's really the case, my lord, you can give it a try】

Zhao Chi's inner thoughts were heard clearly by Qi Yue.

He has made many pieces of equipment together with Zhao Chi and is very clear on what the forging process is like.

Hearing Zhao Chi's idea, he also felt it was feasible.

Zhao Chi 【There's some truth to it, right?】

Qi Yue 【Right, although Sister Zhuang Ya only has two arms, if she can combine the heating and forging steps into one, and even continuously heat and continuously hammer, the time should be greatly shortened】

Zhao Chi 【Then, I'll find her to try】

Qi Yue 【Mm, alright my lord, I'll go train in the Phantom Martial Room first; if you need sewing, come find me again】

Zhao Chi: "Alright, no problem!"

Leaving Qi Yue, Zhao Chi headed to the prison.

Zhuang Ya was still inside, enthusiastically roasting the prisoners over a fire.

She had no interest in prisoners with a submission level of 3 points, and specifically picked those with 1 point to burn.

And they had to be burned until they reached 4 points.

So far, not a single prisoner had truly been stubborn enough to die from the burning rather than submit.

Zhuang Ya's results were remarkable.

Over at Chaoge Village, a large number of slaves were already clearing and cultivating the land.

Zhuang Ya's laughter remained as pleasant as ever.

Her expression was also extremely excited.

Her whole state was intensely exhilarated.

Seeing Zhao Chi, she became even happier.

"Zhao Chi, come look — the cells over here are all empty, everyone's already been sent to Chaoge Village to till the fields."

Zhao Chi gave a thumbs-up: "Impressive, but now there's a new task for you — you might not be this happy about it."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Come with me to forge."

Zhao Chi explained the matter to her in detail.

Zhuang Ya asked: "So, you'll be inside me the whole time?"

"That's right, the two of us together."

"What's there to be unhappy about? Being with you is even happier than burning them. Come on in, let's go forge right now!"

Unexpectedly, she agreed quite readily.

That was perfect — during this period, he could raise Zhuang Ya's control level to 100%.

Zhao Chi handed the task of torturing the prisoners to a few female soldiers.

Then he took Zhuang Ya into the smithy.

Zhuang Ya looked around curiously; this was her first time in Zhao Chi's personal smithy.

Facing the high heat of the furnace fire and the heavy iron hammer, Zhuang Ya seemed quite interested.

Perhaps she thought hammering iron billets counted as a form of sadism?

Probably not…

Zhao Chi didn't wait long and immediately began his attempt.

Facts proved that Zhao Chi's idea was correct.