"Master Senior! The construction for the Apprentice Hall Second Branch is finally completed! Please attend the opening ceremony that will commence tomorrow!" one of the people expert in handling the arrangement came forward to report the status and also to make sure their founder attend the opening ceremony.

Next, another person came forward to report the current status in every department. Similar to their Headquarter, they selected seven most beneficial departments to be invested in this particular city according to the allocation of natural resources available.

And as expected by Zhang Wu Ji himself, their arrangement in utilizing all the resources results in the Construction Department erecting six Specialized Gulou for the sake of plantation alone. With the existence of Plateau Plantation Plate is incorporated in their daily life, the improvement in the field of Agriculture exceeds his expectation.

Within their agriculture planning, the Second Branch can easily expect 200,000 Qi Sensing Pills to be produced monthly, especially when Formation Master Department is one of the established department within this city.

As there were some remaining students belonged to the Celestial Designer profession here, Zhang Wu Ji allowed the Teacher and their students to be enrolled into the Apprentice Hall as a guest teacher. Of course, this means that from this moment onwards, Zhang Wu Ji's Apprentice Hall will slowly start to produce some Celestial Designer too.

By arranging a messenger to deliver a message to the Mystic Engineer Establishment, Zhang Wu Ji send them a request for some qualified first-Grade and Second-Grade Celestial Designer to come in as a guest teacher to improve the quality of students his Apprentice Hall can produce.

Of course, after the Construction Department, Medicine, Pill, and Herbalist Department, Formation-Master Department, and Celestial Designer Department, there is three more waiting to report their completion of the task before tomorrow's opening ceremony.

"The Forging Department is prepared. We're ready to bring out the newest series of Seven Leaves Sword into the market along with the Dual-Headed Pickaxes for mining purposes. At this moment, the department is working in their 100% capacity from the day we're transferred here." the representative of the Forging Department reported.

"Our Textile Department is doing very well too. Thanks to the high-quality materials we procured from the forest and some supplies from the Medicine, Pill, and Herbalist Department, we managed to produce a few rolls of Fine Textile for tomorrow's opening ceremony." another representative from Textile Department reported.

"Although our Food, Lodging, and Material Escorting Department are yet to open for business, I can assure Master Senior that our members in the department are all ready for tomorrow. Please be confident at our ability to handle all this matter with utmost attention." last but not least, the final department representative reported.

With all the hearing is done, Zhang Wu Ji returned to his specialized courtyard created with the intention to provide their founder with everything. This is most suitable for him, especially after robbing so many usable materials from different factions.

But after he processed all the materials into their usable form, Zhang Wu Ji smiled with satisfaction. After putting himself in so many matters not long ago, he missed the experience he can get from smelting the materials, forming them into ingots, increasing their quality, and forge something.

With his spatial inventory is lacked a weapon specially made for him, Zhang Wu Ji decided to forge something that can replace his Longfeng Jade Ruler until he found a better ingredient for his Tier-2 Weapon. Pondering with many different choices, Zhang Wu Ji decided to forge multiple weapons to see which one suit him the most.

As for how he's able to do so much without facing the restriction of time is due to one of the manuals in his spatial ring.

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1st-Tier Blacksmithing Compendium +10 (Unique)

-Ability Acquired (1): When used and practiced by the user and blacksmith apprentice it allowed them to have the possibility to forge High-Tier Spirit-Grade Metal in every 1st-Tier. [Possibility of Success: 65% Others | 100% user]

-Ability Acquired (2): Allowed the user to produce 1st-Tier item 50% faster than others. The Compendium lesson includes [Ninety-Nine Hammering Stance], [Nine Layer Fighter Flame], and [Seven Stage Forge-Master Art]

-Limitation: The knowledge recorded within the compendium only able to reach 99% Purity. The remaining 1% is locked by the Nature Cultivator Law. Only the books copied by the user carried the 2nd ability and the three Origin Tier Blacksmithing Art.

-Durability:22/22

-Special (+10): By paying 100,000 kilograms worth of 99% Purity 1st-Tier Ingot as tributes, UPGRADE System will convert them into a 1kg ingot of 1st-Tier Heavenly Iron.

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(...)

Zhang Wu Ji was turned speechless once more, although this was the second time he was rendered speechless. The rate of exchange can be said to be outrageously expensive, where the only quality this book willing to accept is the 99% Purity ingots.

To start with, a 40% High-Grade Iron Ingots cost 100,000 Gold Coins for a Pure Iron, 200,000 Gold Coins for a Sentient Iron, and 500,000 Gold Coins for a Crystal Iron. But this rate changed drastically in Low-Tier Spirit Grade due to the difficulties to obtain such quality products.

Starting with the price of 500,000 Gold Coins for a Pure Iron, 1 Million Gold Coins for a Sentient Iron, and 2.5 Million Gold Coins for a Crystal Iron, their price become unbelievably expensive. And the reason for this is not because of the lack of supply, but because they're lack of skillful blacksmiths.

In this Metal and Crystal Forging profession, Blacksmith Grading is done differently. A Blacksmith is qualified as long they're able to smelt and forge a weapon from the lowest Basic-Grade Metal. From here, they required to possess the ability to obtain their next raise of qualification.

If going through the proper procedure, one will obtain his first promotion as a 1st-Tier Advance Blacksmith the moment he's able to craft and forge out something from the Advance to High-Grade purity metal. Through this qualification and the benefits, the Blacksmith can use them to improve himself before challenging the promotion.

After the promotion into 1st-Tier Advance Blacksmith, one will have to qualify themselves past 1st-Tier Early Spirit Blacksmith, Advance Spirit Blacksmith, and Peak Spirit Blacksmith before qualified for the 2nd-Tier Advance Blacksmith option.

With each promotion they obtained, it increases their fame in this Ping An Continent as a master Blacksmith. In every tier, three different Major Materials exist to endure the cultivator's destructive force, starting from Pure Iron, Sentient Iron, and Crystal Iron in the 1st-Tier.

In the 2nd-Tier, Silver was chosen by this world to withstand the destructive force caused by the power of an Inner Qi Warrior cultivator. They were differentiated into Tomb Silver, Moon Silver, and Fool Silver according to their different properties.

For the conversion to obtain a single ingot of the 1st-Tier Heavenly Iron, which was a mythical 1st-tier metal, their exchange rate is a little over the limit he can accept! A total of a hundred thousand kilograms of 99% High-Tier Spirit-Grade Iron to be exchanged into a kilogram not only will kill him in his process, but he might also become the mortal enemy for the whole county due to his expenses!

"A hundred thousand kilograms... With the weight of each piece of 99% Purity Ingots I smelted, it weighs 20 kilograms. This means I need 5,000 ingots to convert them into a Heavenly Iron. Still, I wonder what is so wondrous about this Heavenly Iron because they're not even recorded in any of the manuals related to Iron products."

"And, from all these stuff I robbed from them, it was actually made from lousy military-Grade Iron, and it was so impure that I need to waste my time to process them once again. Still, even with their quantities I only managed to collect 300 kilograms of High-Tier Spirit-Grade Iron..." Zhang Wu Ji complained.

His complaint is actually accurately hit the painful part of the suffering side every blacksmith faced. In this Realm, the Natural Law is different from how it was in his previous world. When the fact related to smeltable jade, it shocked him for the first time.

But as his research and capability on blacksmithing increases, he noticed that no matter how precise is the amount of one kind of iron within the ingot he smelted, even a 40% Purity ingot he made will contain impurities. And this impurities is not something his UPGRADE System can detect them in a precise manner.

Of course, this does not mean that the UPGRADE System is lacking, but it was due the measurement of the amount of Purity inside the ingot caused it. As the composition of Pure Iron is denser on a 99% High-Tier Spirit-Grade Ingot, their size is smaller than the 40% High-Grade Ingot with too many impurities inside.

This is also why he complained during his smelting progress. With only 10% of Purity inside their weapon, it was 10 parts into one parts conversion. After a night of work, the originally 3,000 Kilograms of Iron products only yield him 300 Kilograms of 99% High-Tier Spirit-Grade Iron.

But he cannot complain too much either. It was out of his own need that he required so much High-Tier Spirit-Grade Iron to be exchanged into a piece of Heavenly Iron. According to his situation now, what he needs is not keeping the material all to himself, but to strengthen the name of his apprentice hall!

Because it may cause his some loose ends of he pushes out the 99% High-Tier Spirit-Grade Iron, Zhang Wu Jo purposely lowered the quality of his ingots to Low-Tier Spirit-Grade to attract more buyers to visit the establishment. In his mind, pushing out wares in their 60% and below purity is a great way to increase the fame of his Apprentice Hall.

At the end of the night, Zhang Wu Ji did not get himself a rest. Although the forging time is shortened by 50%, it was still a great effort for him to roll out five High-Tier Spirit-Grade weapons for sale in the opening a few hours later. But luckily, he did the impossible.

A sword, a spear, a twin-dagger, a staff, and a halberd. After the ceremony to start the business ended, the five weapons of the highest-quality within the whole Forging Department caused the department to become the busiest one for their first day of business.

But that wasn't all. After what happened in the Forging Department, the Medicine, Pill, and Herbalist Department came up next. Solely by preparing a few sets of ingredient for their founder to concoct a few pills, their move gained the confidence from the spectators and customers to purchase their products.

As for the three sets of ingredients, Zhang Wu Ji forged a set of Yin Essence Pill, Complete Taixia Qi Pill, and Ten Layered Recovery Pills for them to be sold to the most generous buyer. After their first day of business, Zhang Wu Ji finally understands what means good business.

Every department is crowded with customers, where because of a lack of attendants, they almost escalate to demolishing the department due to dissatisfaction. But luckily, the name 'Apprentice Hall' stopped them from acting recklessly.

Reason?

Because there is not a single person dare to offend the founder of this Apprentice Hall. As one of the most prominent figures with fame above his own master, Zhang Wu Ji is not a simple person for them to try and mess with.

In this three days of sales, Zhang Wu Ji accumulated six hundred million Gold Coins. By leaving half of them to be invested back to improve the Wen Qing City and the second branch, Zhang Wu Ji left the Wen Qing City together with Meng Ran by his side.

Reason again?

He doesn't want to lose his direction on his way towards Wen Yang City. Only by controlling this city can the Apprentice Hall begin their conquest and eliminate the useless grass and weed growing inside of the Seven Star Sect.

And it was due to this reason, Zhang Wu Ji cannot spend his time lost in his direction any longer. Before the end of this year, he must reclaim the Seven Star Sect and their land before he can control the whole Seven Star County to do his bidding!

"When the whole county belonged to me, I will get them to collect all available Iron Metal for my exchange!"

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[Author's Note]