The Urban Dao Child

Yang Dao led the group of disciples silently, using his flying sword to tread the void and explore the planet. They did not change the direction they had decided upon earlier. The group faced a lot of bizarre creatures on their path but they were all solved with combined effort. This planet did not seem to have a sun or a moon, it was hard to tell whether they were traveling under the night sky or the day was covered with gray clouds.

The group would rest when they were running on half of their spiritual energy. Yang Dao had a spiritual essence reserve that was ten times bigger than them, he did not waste his time and utilized it by crafting armors and artifacts.

He was carrying an anvil, a furnace, and a hammer in his space ring. The material he extracted from the monsters they faced on the way was completely capable of helping him craft artifacts. While everyone sat around in a circle he placed his anvil between them on the ground, with the furnace beside the anvil.

The first material he choose to process was the stony skin from the first monster they faced. He placed a piece of the skin inside the furnace to watch how it reacts to the fire. This furnace was given to him by Elder Tao and it had a fire spirit inside of it, so he did not need to do much, and the furnace spirit will manage everything on its own.

Yang Dao simply waited as he inspected the material with his spirit sense spread inside the furnace. To much surprise, the material did not crumble, but it melted like rocks do when they meet high temperatures in a volcano. The piece of skin passed the test, so Yang Dao bravely put a bigger batch of the skin inside the furnace.

He was using a big bucket with a space formation cast over it. It may look small as if a mug, but the material contained inside was enough to shame a bucket. After ten minutes, when the space bucket was completely refined, he pulled it out of the furnace and poured the boiling mixture over the anvil.

He used his spirit energy to control the melted blend from spilling down, he placed the mug on the ground, and using his hammer he began to shape the melted mix. His blows were strong, but they were even and well-controlled. He was not in a hurry from any angle. The other disciples might seem like they were sitting in cultivation, but they were all monitoring the boy partially.

Yang Dao acted like he did not know, but he was able to sense their spirit senses covering him. His hammer did not stop and it kept on beating the material and shaping it up like armor. This was not going to be a simple armor artifact, Yang Dao was going to make it a mid-level spirit armor.

Artifacts were divided into three levels, low, mid, and high. Artifacts capable to serve a purpose for cultivators of body refining, spirit gathering, and spiritual formation were classified as low-level spirit artifacts. They were quite common.

The mid-level spirit artifacts were used by the cultivators from the Golden core to the Ascended mortal realm. The difficulty to forge a better artifact was even higher than ascending in the higher realm of cultivations. Not every mid-level spirit artifact was suitable enough to be used by anyone.

As for the high-level spirit artifacts, they all needed to be forged on custom order and only a saint-level refiner was capable of doing that as they were needed to blend the spirit of a beast with the artifact to give it an extra something.

Yang Dao did not reach that level, but he was proficient enough to cast a basic mid-level spirit artifact. His hammer raised and fell on the solidifying skin material creating loud clangs. The rhythm from the clangs made the disciples around Yang Dao get a better focus on breathing, and their circulation of spirit energy increased because of this.

Every hammer strike needed to be backed up with a specific breathing rhythm, this rhythm made the artifact stronger. The disciples seemed to have understood what a good rhythm can do for them and they all began to focus on it, they all had different bodies, they all practiced different cultivation sutras, so they needed different rhythms.

Yang Dao finished shaping one armor and took out some beast pelt he has collected over time in the sect. He did not hunt spirit beasts but he did not mind collecting the material from shops. Cultivators killed spirit beasts, and vice versa, so he was fine with some indulgence. The purpose of these pelts was to refine a cloth armor before he was allowed near a forge.

He did that with just five pelts and these were stored in his space ring. Yang Dao took out an inscribing knife and engraved a few symbols on both the inside of the armor and the pelt. Then he looked around to find which one of the disciples was a good catch. He set his gaze upon Amil, this guy was being too haughty earlier, time to teach him.

He walked over and squatted in front of the boy, his gaze focused on Amil's visage as if he was the only thing left in the world. Amil was cultivating but he could sense that someone was gazing at him with an intensity like never before. Thinking that Shakti wanted to do something naughty he opened his eyes and was surprised.

He almost yelled when Yang Dao shook his head and pointed at Shakti who was sitting next to Amil. She hated being disturbed from her cultivation and half the time she bruised him black and blue was because of this. Amil strangled the emerging yell and took deep breaths to calm down as he asked, "What is it, Dao? You scared me to death."

Yang Dao beckoned him to come closer and when Amil leaned in closer he whispered to the latter, "I need your blood to merge the two parts of the armor and you can be the first person to try this on. Would you like to try?"

Amil's eyes lit up and asked, "What do you mean?"

Yang Dao said, "Let us go over to the forge I set up and talk about this in detail."

Amile nodded and the two came to the center of the circle. Yang Dao showed him the armor and the tailored pelts placed on a wooden table. He also explained the symbols he had engraved upon the surface of the pelts and on the inside of the armor. Amil understood why his blood was needed.

Yang Dao had cast inscription symbols that would provide the artifact with a few extra features, such as lightweight, temperature control, and also, shape adjustment like if you wear the armor, it will fit your body shape perfectly by some minor adjustments. This was an attractive offer and Amil decided to try.

Yang Dao took out a knife and asked Amil to extend his hand, the youngster did so with gusto. What happened next did not stop his yell from alerting everyone. Yang Dao made a slash on his vein along with the arm's length. Amil did not think he would do something like this.

He thought only a few drops of blood were needed, but here was this boy, who had already filled two bowls of blood before crushing a low-level wound healing pill on the wound. The yell from earlier alerted them all and when they woke up they found Yang Dao applying a healing pill on the wound.

Shakti asked, "What happened?"

Amil replied, "Dao wants to kill me, he took two bowls of my blood."

Everyone was surprised to hear this and Yang Dao said, "Were you not the person who agreed to let me take your blood, and then you wanted to be the first to get a hold of my newly crafted Mid-level spirit artifact? Swear in the name of your martial Dao and tell them I am lying."

His words were calm and his focus was dedicated to mixing the blood with a few dried herbs and creating ink. Shakti found Amil standing silently and realized that the younger boy had tricked him. She asked, "Dao, why did you take his blood though?"

The Dao Child said, "He has the strongest Yang energy flow other than me. You do not expect me to cut myself for this right, Senior sister?"

His words made the males look at him with black lines on their faces, while the girls cast them a gaze brimming with disgust and shame. Amil on the other hand popped out his chest and said, "Hmph, you men are the reason why women dislike us all."

Yang Dao said, "You know, I am ten years old, only? Shame on you, having such a beautiful fiancee yet celibate, Senior Sister, you should check if this guy is having second thoughts about you."

Shakti glared at Amil and the boy screamed internally, "Black-bellied monster."