Is that a Wisp?

After chatting with Vardin for some time and staring off at the surroundings until he got bored, Krune soon returned to his room, planning to start working. He wasn't someone who liked to waste time.

Krune grabbed the sword, inspecting it once to see that its design was the same as any sword sold in the market. The hilt gleamed a faint green, making it look a bit special, but other than that, it didn't have anything else going for it.

When he went ahead and checked the conditions of the materials used using his divine sense, he noticed that a formation was embedded within the sword. But unlike those carved on the exterior, this seemed to be forged into its interior.

The texture of the blade formed a natural formation wherein Godly Energy could flow and emit the desired effect. Every piece of equipment, when forged, had a circuit in them through which Godly Energy could flow. That was how they were wielded by the cultivators.

This was precisely the reason cultivators couldn't use equipment four minor realms above their cultivation base. The internal circuits would siphon their Godly Energy dry and possibly even damage their cultivation base. This was a special effect of the weapons in the God Realm that Krune learned about once he joined the Blacksmith Guild here.

There had been cases where a cultivator used a powerful weapon—many stages above his cultivation base. Once that cultivator unleashed the attack using it, he instantly turned into a cripple. Then again, in his case, he was able to unleash the attack. But most times, the equipment would fail to activate, rendering the cultivator's sacrifice meaningless.

In the God Realm filled to the brim with dangers and threats to one's life, situations where cultivators were forced into a corner where they had to rely on powerful equipment were just too many. This was also the reason why Krune's cultivation base at the First Stage of Mortal Rejection Realm back then wasn't an oddity. Well, to be honest, others thought he was born with a defect instead of thinking that he came from a lower realm.

First Stage Mortal Rejection Realm. This was the cultivation stage a baby would be in while still being inside their mother's womb. In other words, this was the lowest cultivation stage in the entire God Realm.

Therefore, when one became a cripple, in this case, losing all their cultivation, they would fall back to the First Stage of Mortal Rejection Realm. This was why everyone Krune had met when he had just arrived in the God Realm asked the same things.

"Just what did you do to have your cultivation fall back to the First Stage of Mortal Rejection Realm?"

"First Stage of Mortal Rejection Realm? Holy shit! How did you become so weak?"

Krune recalled the words he had heard during his first encounter with the people from the God Realm. Despite the shock they displayed, they weren't too concerned about it. After all, they might have come across cultivators who had lost their cultivation bases before. Everything was all due to using equipment beyond what they were supposed to wield.

Krune noted how the formation forged within the blade elevated the weapon to a level beyond its stage.

Nevertheless, it wasn't anything out of the ordinary. After all, the field of formation was also vast. A blacksmith who had also dabbled in the field of formations was capable of crafting something like this. Of course, if Krune classified the blades he had witnessed, the normal-looking blade in front of him was the finest of them all.

"I should start awakening this," Krune muttered to himself as he activated his Calamity Laws, watching the dark cloud manifest before him once again. But this time, it was slightly different from before. The dark cloud was more condensed than before, with lightning flashing from time to time while flame tongues swirled within. Krune also detected other elements that he had either comprehended or come into contact with before, present within the dark cloud in a state of chaos.

His comprehension of the Calamity Laws had improved now that he was in the God Foundation Realm. The higher one's cultivation base, the greater they were able to look into the laws of the God Realm and comprehend them.

The chaotic state of the Calamity Laws had created numerous environmental factors in and around the blade. Whenever a condition suitable to awakening its spirit appeared, the blade would absorb it.

But for some reason, it wasn't even five minutes into the awakening process when Krune noticed something off…the blade's spirit had awakened. He wasn't even able to react when the green light covering the hilt had condensed and...destroyed the newly awakened spirit.

"…" Krune looked at it, stupefied. "What the heck just happened?"

His first try succeeded in awakening a spirit. A startling success rate of 100 percent in contrast to his usual one percent. But Krune couldn't even register the thought in his mind before the hilt destroyed the awakened spirit.

"Let me check out what's causing this." Krune tried it once again, condensing his Calamity Laws once more as he added more and more random conditions. While doing so, he could not help but notice that out of all the conditions he created, the blade absorbed more than half of them.

Ten minutes later, it formed a spirit once again. And, without any disturbance, the green light from the hilt destroyed the spirit. "What the hell is wrong with this weapon?"

Krune stopped using his Calamity Laws, allowing his divine sense to peer into the hilt, only to find that it was blocked. He then used his Mental Energy, noticing that it was also blocked to a certain extent. All he was able to perceive from both cases was a Law in the purest form, contained within the hilt.

It seemed to have been chained to the material, preventing it from being awakened. But before Krune could probe deeper, his Mental Energy was expelled from it. After a few more attempts, despite his efforts, even his Mental Energy failed to penetrate its defenses.

"Why would it even do something like this?" Krune was unable to determine the cause. He wondered why the hilt destroyed the spirit that formed on the blade and why any condition was suitable to awaken the blade's spirit.

"Just what were they expecting when they sent this to me?" Krune frowned, having a strange feeling that he was getting himself involved in the murky waters of the God Realm. He then recalled the shenanigan Little Cally had pulled before, sighing as he massaged his forehead.

"This is definitely going to go south very quickly." Krune decisively set the sword aside and took out the brooch he had obtained from Yulian. Instead of wasting his time butting heads with the sword, it was better to safeguard himself first.

The Calamity Laws manifested as the dark cloud once more, immediately throwing numerous conditions at the brooch. The brooch occasionally came across the right conditions to awaken its spirit, instinctively absorbing them.

After spending 10 hours, a spirit showed signs of awakening inside the equipment. Krune inspected it, determining that it would die soon after, prompting him to retract his Calamity Laws. He planned to wait until the brooch returned to its original state before trying it once more.

The materials making it up were of supreme quality, probably the ones used to forge equipment at the peak of God Core Realm and beyond. But for this brooch, they had been haphazardly used just to make sure that the result was something Krune would be able to use without danger.

Nevertheless, the materials forming it was of the highest quality Krune had ever come across in the God Realm, excluding those forming the hilt—that he couldn't determine the materials of. With that, Krune realized that he would need a lot of time before he could awaken its spirit.

"Forging could actually be done in this manner, despite its waste of materials," Krune nodded as he committed this realization to memory. His perspective was widened once more, realizing just how vast and complex things in the God Realm truly were.

Usually, when a blacksmith forged a piece of equipment, they tried their best to bring out the properties of the materials used to great prominence. They always delved into techniques that allowed the materials to interact with one another, forming a synergy between them. The resulting harmony would then elevate the equipment's power to a staggering level that the base materials couldn't ever hope to achieve.

This was how it usually went.

But here, it was the reverse. They used superior materials to craft a piece of inferior equipment while keeping in mind that it had to be used by someone at the First Stage of the God Foundation Realm. That was why it would shatter once the damage it received had reached the equivalent of a Semi-God Realm cultivator's full-powered attack.

If it was properly forged using the usual smithing techniques, the brooch would have become a shield capable of defending against a Semi-God Realm cultivator's attacks without worries. One could undoubtedly say that it was a waste of materials, but it did have its uses.

If it was adequately produced, only a Semi-God Realm cultivator would have been able to use it, rendering it useless to everyone below. If they tried to use it despite that, their cultivation would be crippled as a result.

In retrospect, the defensive strength of any shields in the First Stage God Foundation Realm couldn't ever hope to defend against a cultivator in the God Core Realm, not to mention someone in the Semi-God Realm.

This was probably why such a smithing technique was invented in the first place. Krune felt his comprehension of blacksmithing improve once again thanks to his probing of the brooch.

"I guess I better start cultivating and comprehend my laws." Krune sighed, taking out a few Rank Two God Stones. Payment for his work on the sword would only arrive when they reached the next city. So, he had to wait until then without expending his reserve of God Stones.

He had to save some for emergencies.

Krune soon started to cultivate after that, taking breaks every once in a while where he used his Calamity Laws on the sword and the brooch. While doing so, his comprehension of the law increased at a slow but steady pace. He was also gaining more insight into the world of blacksmithing thanks to the ingenious crafting process of the two pieces of equipment.

After all, the hilt contained the essence of a law. That was undoubtedly the peak of blacksmithing. After all, laws existed in the God Realm, a massive piece of land that extended without end. Containing a law within an item was a first.

Moreover, if he didn't have his Mental Energy, he wouldn't have ever come to know of such an item. "Maybe even the Sunkan City Lord is unaware of this."