Chapter 2999

Have to say, with this high-heat coal, the forging speed is clearly a great deal faster.

Looks like high-heat coal will have to be kept in regular stock from now on.

There are quite a few supplies now kept in regular stock.

Refugee Talismans, three kinds of instruction manuals, Speed-Work Talismans, high-heat coal, and so on.

All of these can be asked of Yao Feng.

Yao Feng gives very readily — as long as Zhao Chi opens his mouth, she provides it quickly.

Pulling his thoughts back, he continued crafting.

At some unknown moment, just as the effect of one Speed-Work Talisman finished, a sudden clamor rose at his ears.

The temperature inside the entire armory factory shot up sharply.

Zhuang Ya wasn't afraid of being burned by fire, much less afraid of heat, but she could still feel the temperature.

Zhao Chi, inside her body, could feel it just the same.

Could the armory factory have caught fire?

Zhao Chi looked up in surprise and found every workbench in the armory factory already packed with female blacksmiths.

The first batch of 500 reborn female blacksmiths had all returned.

Their jubilant mood was plain to see from the upturned corners of their mouths.

Zhao Chi immediately checked their attribute information.

Without exception, all of them had become Warmth Clan.

Eternal Warmth Clan.

All attributes +1, Intelligence attribute extra +1, all attribute caps +1, all gene-level caps +1, and the genes gained two more entries — "Agility" and "Tree Affinity" — exactly as set up back then.

The first thing they did upon returning was work.

In their hearts, they were deeply grateful to Zhao Chi for promoting them.

Every furnace was burning fiercely.

Nearly half the body of every female blacksmith was leaned into the furnace; massive amounts of flame were drawn off by them, and the high-heat coal inside was consumed at an accelerated rate.

They forged with all their might while simultaneously opening their mouths to spit fire.

Not with mouths gaping wide like an evil dragon.

But with each one puckering her lips, in a mouth shape like Tang Ruan asking for a kiss.

It really was a little cute.

After all, these female blacksmiths were already all young women of school-flower caliber.

So in Zhao Chi's eyes, their movements were all very cute.

Cute and lethal.

From those puckered mouths surged high-heat flames.

They were the high-heat flames of Sea of Fire Art.

The kind that could cremate an ordinary person on the spot.

The iron ingots being hammered in their hands never once cooled down under the ravages of the dual flames.

Crafting speed exploded.

Beside every female blacksmith stood a Warmth Clan female soldier; for the time being they served as the blacksmiths' personal instructors, guiding them on how to use and control fire.

The armory factory was practically a sea of fire; every window around it was open, but with 100 high-heat furnaces inside plus 100 flame-wielding female blacksmiths, and 100 Warmth Clan female soldiers who also occasionally spat fire in demonstration, the temperature in here still climbed to over seventy degrees.

The temperature of a dry sauna.

If he weren't inside Zhuang Ya, Zhao Chi could never have endured the temperature here.

Zhuang Ya heard Zhao Chi's inner thoughts.

So she said, 【I had Qi Yue call them here. It cost them half a day of training time to guide their blacksmith sisters in mastering the use of fire. Originally I wanted to teach them personally, but there are too many of them — I alone can't be that thorough.】

Zhao Chi: 【Not bad! Well done.】

Zhuang Ya: 【Haha, rare to hear you praise me.】

Zhao Chi: 【What do you mean? Don't I praise you every day?】

Zhuang Ya: 【You only praise me in the dead of night — usually it's that I'm warm enough, and then you start doing me.】

Zhao Chi: 【……That's not right, is it? Don't I also praise you plenty normally?】

Zhuang Ya: 【Rarely.】

Zhao Chi: 【Really? I think you're remarkably impressive — whatever task I assign you, you carry it out to perfection. I shouldn't be praising you rarely, should I?】

Zhuang Ya: 【Still making excuses — actually, it's not too late for you to praise me now.】

Zhao Chi launched into a round of sweet talk.

Since it was telepathic communication, Zhao Chi praised her for a full five seconds in real time.

He praised Zhuang Ya until she was completely at a loss.

Zhuang Ya: 【Ah? Is that really what you think? Am I really that good?】

Zhao Chi: 【Of course. You're actually one of a kind — beautiful, capable, and I even like your temper……】

Another round of wild praise.

Zhuang Ya couldn't help laughing out loud.

Zhuang Ya: 【Alright, alright, I was only teasing you just now. Come on, shall we keep forging?】

Zhao Chi: 【Mm. Forging together with you really saves me a huge amount of time, and with you by my side, both my success rate and my premium rate have gone up a lot. You're truly my best……】

Another round of wild praise.

Zhuang Ya burst out laughing. 【Enough, enough, you're so mushy. I'm lighting the fire — you hurry up and use a Speed-Work Talisman too.】

Zhao Chi: "Good!"

Forging continued until the early hours of the morning.

Once again, he filled Fu completely to the brim.

Fuyao was also very earnest and diligent, absorbing it rapidly.

This time Zhao Chi didn't leave directly, but instead, following yesterday's idea, picked her up directly.

Fuyao let out a delicate cry; one slippery stream failed to be held back and spilled onto Zhao Chi's knee.

Zhao Chi said in astonishment: "Didn't you say you'd finished absorbing it? Why do I feel like you still have quite a lot left?"

Fuyao gave a soft laugh: "Silly, that part isn't yours... it's mine."

"Oh..."

"What are you doing? Aren't you going to convert the new residents?"

"I'm taking you to the Carefree Spring to clean up. We'll go straight to the Cleansing Spring — the cleaning speed over there is very fast, you won't have to exert much effort at all."

"Oh no, I can't go out looking like this."

"Why not? Gu Qing and the others are the same way — every time they're just like you are now, but they all still go to the hot spring."

Fuyao hesitated: "Having everyone see me like this... oh no, I can't. Let me clean up first on my own."

"No need for that much trouble. Just go straight to the hot spring."

"It'll make a mess all over the ground."

"Hold it tighter."

"There's too much... I can't hold it in."

"Doesn't matter, we can clean up afterward. Let's go!"

"Aiya~"

Zhao Chi laughed as he walked: "I didn't expect that you look so mature, yet you're actually this shy?"

Fuyao said: "It's not shyness, it's just so embarrassing. Especially since I'm this big — if the younger sisters saw me like this, I'd feel like I couldn't face anyone."

Zhao Chi said: "What's there to be embarrassed about? Everyone's the same. Besides, everyone already knows this is because of me, and on top of that, your voice just now carried across the entire territory. It's nothing."

"Aiya, stop talking."

"If you really don't want to, then I'll put you down."

"I'll... give it a try."

"Good, let's go!"

"Aren't you tired holding me? It would be great if my figure could be a bit more petite."

Zhao Chi laughed: "It's fine. I like big ones, and my strength is 11 points — carrying you is a piece of cake. Did you forget how for half an hour just now your feet never touched the ground?"

"Of course I didn't forget... that was so intense..."