Chapter 347: Kendall City — Methods for Processing Melted Iron and Longswords

A few days ago, Jier received a visit from Longsuosi, who had returned to Bingxun Pass. The Church of the God of the Dead at Bingxun Pass learned that those lawless bandits had actually been throwing large quantities of human corpses into a pit in a remote mountain forest, and had been doing so for several years.

These priests mobilized in full force, and soon, guided by the Militia, they found the corpse pit, which was filled with a gloomy, deathly aura.

As the church specifically tasked with managing matters of death in the human world, they naturally had ways to cleanse this filthy place. The bandits had no idea that leaving a large number of human corpses together without treatment would always give rise to some very formidable evil things.

Fortunately, the Thieves of Luodai Cave had only been growing for a few years, and the number of people they had harmed was not too high; before the situation could worsen, this Bandit Group was wiped out by the Militia.

The priests who arrived at the scene first helped the Militia who came with them to salvage the spoils Jier had dropped at the time, namely the weapons and equipment used by the Bandit Leader.

Afterwards, with the help of a Priestess, several Pastors, and other low-tier priests, the priests stood in a circle around the corpse pit. After a long period of prayer and guidance, they activated a ritual, using the Divine Power of the God of the Dead to erase the entire corpse pit that was emitting the power of death.

After the ritual, a semi-circular pit remained there, larger than the original one.

Jier chatted with this Pastor and learned that the church was worried that bandits breeding in the area later would use this place as a dumping ground for corpses again. Therefore, they planned to invite priests of the God of Lakes and Rivers to ask them to divert water, turning this large pit into a small lake in the mountain forest.

If possible, they would also stock it with some ferocious carnivorous fish, so that even if bandits came to dump corpses later, the bodies would be eaten by the fish, and there would be no need to worry about causing other trouble.

Jier found their countermeasure quite interesting: using carnivorous fish to deal with potential human corpses in the wild.

So, Jier curiously asked the Pastor if such corpse pits would also appear in the wild for animals other than humans.

The Pastor shook his head confidently, indicating that only intelligent beings would gather their dead companions, whether for worship or for dumping bodies.

Other natural animals, basically, after death, would be devoured by small scavengers, and events like walking dead deer or wandering dead sheep and pigs would not occur.

Of course, if gregarious animals died on a large scale for some reason, and the scavengers could not handle so many corpses, that kind of situation would indeed occur.

Speaking of this, the Pastor asked Jier that if he discovered similar situations in his future life, whether human or animal, he could provide the information to their church; the church would handle such thorny matters and could also provide some coin rewards.

Jier asked about the price of the reward and found it was not much, so he dismissed the idea of actively searching for them, estimating he would only run over to report it if he happened to encounter one during his future adventures.

Leaving this place, Zhao Ji drove the carriage along the dirt road worn by passing transport teams back to Bingxun Pass.

Interestingly, because he was driving a carriage, he was specifically stopped by the soldiers at the pass gate. After showing that most of the items on the carriage were weapons discarded by the bandits after the Militia defeated them, he was exempted from paying taxes.

Zhao Ji had originally thought these things would be taxed, but he keenly noticed that the gate soldiers seemed unwilling to get involved in the affairs of the Militia, so he immediately stated his identity, causing the soldiers who wanted to collect taxes to back off on their own.

He feigned a serious expression as he entered the pass, then immediately went to the inn room he had rented.

After organizing, Zhao Ji loaded the boxes of broken metal swords and axes into the carriage, while other previous items were locked up in the room.

For the large pieces of new and old animal hides obtained from the bandits, he spent money to give them to the Shop Assistant at the inn, asking him to find a few people to clean these hides. Dirty animal hides are hard to sell for a good price, but after cleaning, one could see that these were high-quality hides; whether used to make fur coats for warmth or for bedding, they were excellent materials.

He also went to the Church of the God of the Dead, which looked like a graveyard. This place was still inside the pass, but it was in a remote area, basically at the corner of the pass. Although the location was remote, the place where the church was located was quite luxurious, especially the various tombstones and small square Stone Coffins for placing ashes and remains in the cemetery, which were all crafted very exquisitely, mostly inlaid with colorful stones, and planted with some frost-resistant flowers and plants that bloomed in winter.

Jier found a Priest who was entertaining the public in the church temple. After showing the letter from Knight Kela, he soon received the heavy double-edged axe and the chainmail armor of the Bandit Leader Delang, whom he had killed.

"Be careful, Warrior, there are still some traces of erosion by dark death energy on them; you had better melt them into molten iron before using them." The Pastor who gave him the items specifically warned him.

Jier nodded to the Pastor: "Of course, for this weight, I just need its metal raw material. This thing is not a weapon or equipment I need to use; I already have an axe."

After returning to the room, Jier violently dismantled the chainmail armor and cleared the rotted wood from the middle of the double-edged axe head.

Afterwards, Jier drove the carriage to take the large quantity of metal materials to a blacksmith shop he had contacted before. It took two days and a considerable amount of coins to melt these different metal weapons and equipment into several Metal Ingots of varying purity.

The high-quality Metal Ingots were naturally used as the main material for making his armor, and the others would not be wasted; Jier had uses for each of them. Even selling them directly would be profitable.

After all, these things were obtained through his own combat.

After finishing the processing, Zhao Ji loaded the cleaned animal hides and the Metal Ingots of various purities into the carriage and drove back to Kendall City.

The team of Hunters under Knight Lanisha had a small house as a Jiedian in Kendall City. Zhao Ji, who had returned to Kendall City, only knew the location but had not yet gone to see it, let alone moved in.

He could move out of the Fox Tail Chamber of Commerce at any time, but he had quite a lot of various things, and he did not want to move some important items into the Hunter Stronghold.

After entering the city, Jier greeted his friends among the city gate guards, chatted about the situation with Knight Kela and the Militia, and mentioned that he had joined under Knight Lanisha.

Having joined under Knight Lanisha, it was naturally not good to have the guards, who were city gate guards, come to the Hunter Stronghold to teach him combat techniques anymore. Jier felt it was a pity, and the guards also felt it was a pity, but they said that this was a good thing for Jier. In any case, at least he had a proper job position and was no longer like before, relying on hanging around the Fox Tail Chamber of Commerce, doing odd jobs all day or wandering outside the city.

Although compared to the small Monsters outside the city, the Hunter team had to deal with more ferocious packs of wild beasts, and the danger was more than a notch higher, they all believed that with the techniques Jier had learned from them and his good set of equipment, he should be able to handle it easily.

Jier actually thought so too. Those Hunters had excellent long-range shooting abilities, but their close-quarters combat level was clearly limited, and they just needed a Warrior like him who was good at both offense and defense in close combat.

After thanking his friends for their praise and blessings, Jier drove the carriage to the armor shop in the Craftsman District.

Inside the shop, Craftsman Ganna and his apprentice were clanging away, forging a new set of armor simplified from the full-coverage Hard Cowhide Armor he had been wearing before.

After Jier greeted them, he circled around the semi-finished armor. Through observation, he found that after a period of skill honing, Craftsman Ganna's technique had improved.

Moreover, compared to the version Jier had finalized, the full set of armor simplified by Craftsman Ganna was designed to be more concise, removing some unnecessary extra protection and focusing only on protecting the vital parts of the body and the main areas subject to attack.

No matter how one looked at it, it seemed even more formidable.

"Really nice, its here, here, and here. You have optimized a lot! It looks much easier to move when doing this," Jier said, pointing to several different places on the armor, praising it.

Craftsman Ganna smiled and accepted Jier's praise, while his new apprentice was even happier, stating that his master had tried many modification schemes before finally coming up with these more excellent modifications.

After Jier finished praising, he pulled Ganna out and took down the best metal blocks from his carriage. "These are all high-quality steel raw materials that I managed to get with great difficulty. I leave them all to you; you must forge the armor in the design!"

Knowing that iron materials were limited in Kendall City recently, Craftsman Ganna did not expect Jier to be able to get so many steel ingots: "So many, how did you get them all?"

"Do you know about the Militia clearing out bandits?" Jier pointed to the southwest of Kendall City and asked.

"Who in the city doesn't know? So, these are all your spoils? There are too many of these! How many people did you defeat?" Craftsman Ganna was clearly surprised by Jier's ability.

Jier rubbed his nose and said hesitantly: "They aren't all spoils obtained from defeating bandits; some are raw materials I bought at Bingxun Pass with all the money I had saved. Of course, there are some whose sources are not so easy to explain, anyway, don't worry about it. The things are handed over to you; hurry up and count them, and give me a list first."

"Fine, fine, fine, whatever you say. Anyway, I just need to forge according to the blueprints you designed, right? Actually, you could discuss more armor parts with me; if you change it more, there is actually room for improvement." Ganna called the apprentice, and the three of them moved these heavy steel ingots into the workshop together.

Jier clapped his hands to dust off the dirt: "How should I put it, you had better get the new armor out sooner; I really need it here. The previous set of Hard Cowhide Armor, although the protection is okay, can only handle small scenes. Have you heard? Knight Lanisha led people to defeat a Magic Beast."

"I heard, I heard. Everyone says that Magic Beast was as big as a whole house and ate quite a few people, but in the end, it was still defeated by the Knight!" Ganna's apprentice said excitedly, and Ganna also shrugged, indicating that he had heard about it too.

"That's it. Actually, I was also in the team dealing with the Magic Beast at that time. I joined Knight Lanisha's Hunter team not long ago and followed them to deal with that Magic Beast." As soon as Jier finished speaking, both of them were shocked, not expecting to hear this news.

Seeing the look on their faces, Jier knew what they were going to ask: "Alright, alright, no time today. Tomorrow, tomorrow I will come over and tell you about the situation at that time; anyway, it was very dangerous."

Ganna nodded, took out paper and pen, and wrote down the quantity of raw materials he received from Jier on a piece of paper, noting that it was for forging new metal armor for Jier.

Ganna's apprentice wanted to ask more, but Jier pressed his head with one hand and took the list written by Ganna with the other. After checking that there was no problem, Jier put it into his clothes and then said goodbye to the two.

But he didn't go far, just pulled the horse to the weapon workshop next door.

The weapon workshop was bustling with activity. The burly Craftsman and the apprentices were all clanging away, hammering hard with the hammers and anvils in their hands, forging the weapons clamped by the tongs on the anvils into shape.

When Jier arrived at the door of the workshop, he would naturally be received. After all, no workshop would complain about having too much work; the more work, the more income it could bring. Even if they had to pay taxes to the Lord and be skimmed by the Craftsman God Church, the income left in the workshop afterwards was not small.

Inside the workshop, the apprentices could get a fixed wage every month, but as long as they worked with their respective masters, they could get extra wages from the masters, although it was not much.

The Craftsmen distribute the workshop's entire income according to the work completed by their respective teams; whoever leads their people to do more naturally gets to take home more. If one is lazy, sick, or injured, they naturally receive less each quarter.

Because there were still items on the wagon, Jier did not enter the workshop. He handed two pieces of decent iron material to an Apprentice who was attending to him, explaining that he wanted to have a Metal Spear shaft forged. The length was, naturally, to be the same as the other spear shafts.

This burly weapon-forging Apprentice looked at Jier's arms; although he did not think Jier could handle such a weapon, he still accepted the raw materials, took out a wooden tag to give to Jier, and told Jier that because the item was not complex, it should be ready by tomorrow afternoon, and he could come to pick it up then.

After Jier took the wooden tag, he called out to the Apprentice, asking him to summon his master; Jier had another job here that required a weapon-forging Craftsman to complete.

"Master! Someone here says they have a job for you!" The Apprentice shouted loudly toward the inside of the workshop. He had to shout, as the workshop was filled with the clanging sounds of metal striking metal; if the voice were too soft, it would be impossible to hear.

Hearing his Apprentice's shout, a tall Craftsman with thick arms put down the hammer in his hand and walked over, wiping his hands with a coarse cloth.

"Young man, what is it you need?"

Having called the master over, the Apprentice walked back into the workshop. Jier then explained the situation regarding his Long Sword to this weapon-forging Craftsman.

"I thought it was some great trouble; this is easy to handle. I often receive swords and weapons damaged in this way, and they aren't very troublesome to process. Only..."

Jier immediately asked: "Only what?"

The Craftsman reached out his hand and gestured: "Only that after a weapon is eroded by those evil things, no matter how it is heated and treated, it will still suffer a certain amount of loss. Even if it undergoes re-quenching, the previously eroded material will turn to ash. If your weapon is relatively thick, it's fine; losing a little doesn't matter. But if it is a relatively thin sword-type weapon, the re-quenched weapon will not only have less strength and toughness because of the missing eroded material, but its weight balance will also have a slight shift."

Speaking to this point, the Craftsman looked at Jier and said: "However, you are so young, a slight difference in feel shouldn't matter much, right?"

Jier's expression turned serious: "It still has some impact; actually, my technique is fine. You said so much, so you must have a way, right? After all, you said yourself that you often handle these damaged swords."

The Craftsman touched his beard, which was slightly scorched at the edges, and said in a somewhat smug tone: "True. My method is: since the weapon is thin and it affects its use, then add some material to it to make up for the missing parts."

"Then this isn't just heating and re-quenching; it's basically forging a new sword from scratch!" Jier widened his eyes, staring straight at the Craftsman.

"Of course! Don't be too surprised. You don't think a weapon that can be eroded by evil power would be a newly acquired one, do you? They have mostly gone through many battles and harsh tests before finally falling into the hands of evil power. Even if they aren't eroded by evil power, as long as you break a sword blade to observe it, you can see many internal cracks and hidden injuries. Just like people, although they look fine, everything they experienced in their youth will show when they get old, making it hard for you."

Jier fell silent. He felt that what this Craftsman said made some sense. Although he hadn't used the Hunting Longsword for long, he had faced many opponents. According to what this Craftsman said, after fighting to this point, his Hunting Longsword had likely accumulated many hidden injuries and wear. Now that it had been eroded by evil power, it might be better to follow what this person said—break it to build it anew. Not only could he rely on high-heat flames to eliminate the eroding evil power, but he could also add new materials and have the Craftsman forge it again to drive out the cracks and hidden injuries in the blade.

Besides, Jier didn't really like the shallow grooves on the surface of the Hunting Longsword. Although they reflected light like fish scales when the surface was clean, which looked quite nice, it was very troublesome to clean once it saw blood in battle!

If the surface were smooth, there wouldn't be so many issues.

Seeing Jier looking convinced, the tall, burly Craftsman patted Jier on the shoulder, leaving a gray-black handprint: "Young man, it seems you have already made your judgment. If you want to handle it, do it sooner rather than later. Once you have made up your mind, come find me; I am free these next few days. However, the cost will increase quite a bit. Of course, the re-forged weapon will feel better than the original. They are still the same weapons, but reborn through fire; they might even be better than before. At least, that's what the Warriors who come to me say."

Jier was persuaded by him, so he carefully asked the Craftsman about some things to pay attention to and preparations that needed to be made, then took his leave.

Returning to the Fox Tail Chamber of Commerce, the Shop Assistants were quite interested in Jier bringing back a horse and a cargo wagon. Jier found Jamula and Old Fox Tail and spoke about his joining the Hunter team of Knight Lanisha.

Jamula patted Jier's head, congratulating Jier on finally gaining a firm foothold in Kendall City. From an injured, amnesiac outsider to a somewhat famous warrior who joined under a Knight, Jier had only spent less than a year; to be precise, excluding the time spent recovering from his injuries, he had done it in only half a year.

"Jier, you must work hard in the future. Find a girl you like soon, borrow some money to buy a small house, and then you will become a true Kendall citizen."

Facing Jamula's encouragement and expectations, Jier looked awkward and could only perfunctorily hug him, which served as their farewell.

Old Fox Tail, however, was sullen, muttering that he had originally wanted Jier to get him more Monster skulls as unique, strange decorations to surprise some of his other friends.

Now, with Jier joining under the Knight, he would likely rarely go to remote places to deal with those Monsters that could only hide in the corners of uncultivated areas. His great collection project had to be cut short just as it had begun.

Although he could spend money to find traveling Merchants at Bingxun Pass to purchase them, for an old Merchant like Old Fox Tail, how could he let those young Merchants earn large amounts of coins from him?