Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 360 - 232: Ancient Sword Forging! (8600 words vote for monthly ticket)

Chapter 360: Chapter 232: Ancient Sword Forging! (8600 words vote for monthly ticket)

Upon seeing the new announcement, Li Hongyun immediately returned to the Return Order Space and found the entrance to the new Trial Illusion.

This entrance to the Trial Illusion was consistent in design with the Cavalry one, and was distinctly different from the original four base identity Trial Illusions.

"Divine Machine Trial: Ingeniously Seizing the Heavens"

Upon seeing the name of this new instance, Li Hongyun took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself.

Hmm, it surely won’t be simple.

The name of the previous Cavalry instance was "Taking Something Out of a Bag", but once inside, it turned out the task was for players to play as General Qin Kaiyun, decapitating enemy generals amid thousands of troops.

And this time, since it’s called Ingeniously Seizing the Heavens, it’s probably going to involve quite a challenge.

However, this made Li Hongyun even more anticipatory, eager for the additional talent skills he would gain after obtaining the Divine Machine identity.

Judging by the name, the term "Divine Machine" likely originated from the Divine Machine Camp, but it should not be referring solely to those soldiers who used firearms; if that were the case, the trial, no matter how it was arranged, would probably not be too difficult.

Because those soldiers just needed to shoot guns or fire cannons, and such acts themselves actually don’t contain too much technical content.

Li Hongyun felt that, considering the nature of "Dark Sand", the game, the trial would definitely not be so simple.

If it was about "knowing not just what, but also why"...

Then, might this instance contain challenges that can only be completed with craftsman skills?

That was quite likely.

Li Hongyun thought it over and had some speculation, but ultimately decided to enter the instance first and see what it was like.

If the Divine Machine identity could provide him with a talent for more accurate shooting and greater lethality, then this auxiliary identity would be much more attractive to him than the Cavalry one.

...

After passing through the entrance to the Trial Illusion, Li Hongyun found himself in an open-air large workshop.

Around him were many robust and dark-faced craftsmen.

At this moment, these craftsmen were not working enthusiastically; instead, they stood like a group of tools, quietly waiting for Li Hongyun’s orders.

Li Hongyun first took a cursory glance at his surroundings.

This large workshop contained furnaces, anvils, and other common forging equipment, only on a much larger scale compared to those in his previously seen territory.

Besides that, there were also large quantities of different raw materials such as iron ore, iron sand, charcoal, and lime within the premises.

In the center of the workshop was an extra-large furnace.

This furnace, compared with the one Li Hongyun had seen in his territory, was not on the same scale at all.

It was much, much larger!

Because these two types of furnaces actually had completely different purposes.

The small furnaces seen in his territory were used for melting iron blocks that had already been shaped.

Using these small furnaces to heat the iron blocks until they were white-hot, then continuously forging them on the nearby anvils into bars or sheets, was the "blacksmithing" process familiar to players.

In contrast, the extra-large furnace in the center of the workshop was responsible for a more primitive step: melting iron ore or iron sand into rough iron blocks.

Although players could also use their own furnace and anvil in their territory to craft relatively crude weapons, that was substantially less difficult compared to the real ancient iron smelting.

That was because what they received from the Return Order Fortress were iron blocks already processed by craftsmen. These iron blocks had undergone extensive refining to remove a large amount of impurities and carbon, and thus already had a high degree of purity and performance.

Players only needed to remelt and hammer these iron blocks; with patience, they could forge them into the desired shapes.

Moreover, in "Dark Sand", the game had already reduced the difficulty for players, such as having unlimited stamina during the blacksmithing process, and being able to skip over some monotonous time-consuming actions, and so on.

In ancient times, stamina and time were two thresholds for blacksmithing.

Before the advent of specialized water-powered forging machinery, only the strongest could become blacksmiths because even ordinary iron farm tools required hundreds of hammer strikes. Those lacking in physical strength were simply unfit for the job.

And in the processes of iron refining and forging, a large amount of time was needed.

Blacksmiths couldn’t waste time or attend to other tasks; they had to constantly observe the temperature and control the heat, or else a single lapse could lead to an entire furnace of precious iron ore being wasted.

Therefore, blacksmithing in "Dark Sand" was already a simplified version of the ancient forging method.

However, the difficulty had suddenly increased in this trial instance.

It was not about the minor blacksmithing in the territory anymore, but starting from scratch with sponge iron.

Not far from the workshop, there was a "Sword Testing Stand".

There were three different items on the stand: a solid bone supported by a wooden frame, a suspended dead pig, and a taut piece of leather.

In front of the Sword Testing Stand was a stone stele with the first phase passing conditions of the "Ingeniously Seizing the Heavens" Trial Illusion inscribed on it.

Use a weapon forged by oneself to forcefully strike each of these three items.

The requirement was that after a forceful chop on the solid bone, the blade must not suffer severe bending or breakage; one must be able to cleanly cut the suspended dead pig in half; and easily slice through the taut piece of leather.