The Rat Cultivator

Chapter 80: The Art of Brutality

Wu Yuan stood motionless in the depths of the mining cavern, his obsidian eyes locked on the stockpile before him.

Spirit Copper. Ant Crystals. Bamboo Charcoal.

In the dim, flickering light of the tunnel, the raw materials gleamed with potential. He took a deep breath, suppressing the rising tide of excitement in his chest. With a sharp exhale, he turned to Big Old Black.

“Let’s begin.”

Big Old Black nodded, his expression solemn. He knew the gravity of this moment. This wasn’t just digging holes; this was high-level cultivation engineering.

The massive black rat moved with surprising delicacy. He arranged the charcoal made from ordinary spirit bamboo, stacking the logs in a precise geometric pattern to form a makeshift kiln. While this bamboo wasn’t graded, it was saturated with Spiritual Qi and burned with incredible endurance—perfect fuel for the forge.

Phoo.

Big Old Black spat a small fireball, igniting the stack.

The charcoal caught instantly. Flames roared to life, filling the cavern with a low, hungry rumble. Because Wu Yuan had carved “High Temperature” Spirit Patterns into each log beforehand, the fire burned with a brilliant, blinding orange hue, illuminating every crack in the rock walls.

Big Old Black gritted his teeth. He flared his Demon Power, compressing the flames and forcing them toward the center of the structure.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. The radiant heat was already curling the tips of his fur, but his gaze remained rock-steady. He stabilized the thermal output, then stepped back, ceding control to his boss.

“Good hold,” Wu Yuan murmured.

Sensing the temperature was critical, Wu Yuan reached into his storage and withdrew several sticks of premium charcoal.

These were purple-black, forged from the mutated Purple Bamboo. Glowing violet veins pulsed along their surface. Wu Yuan had modified the plant’s natural nutrient-transport channels into amplification arrays.

He telekinetically parted the orange flames and dropped the purple charcoal into the heart of the inferno.

“Now!”

Big Old Black channeled his energy, igniting the core.

The fire transformed. The orange blaze deepened into a spectral, roaring violet. The cavern flooded with dense Fire-attribute Spiritual Qi, the heat rising so sharply that Wu Yuan’s sleek fur began to singe at the edges.

But Wu Yuan didn’t care. His eyes shone with fanatical delight.

True Spiritual Fire, he thought. Only the flames birthed from Spirit Bamboo have the purity required for this.

Wu Yuan raised a hand. A cloud of Spirit Copper dust—painstakingly pulverized by his own fists—drifted over the furnace.

Time blurred.

An hour later, the copper powder, which had laughed at ordinary fire, finally surrendered. It collapsed into a shimmering pool of golden liquid, suspended within the violet heat. Impurities burned away, rising as wisps of acrid green smoke.

Wu Yuan tossed more powder in. And more. Until a globule of molten copper the size of a rat-man hovered in the furnace.

“We have plenty of copper,” Wu Yuan muttered, his logic undeniably rodent-like. “Use it all. If the artifact fails, I’ll just eat the scrap metal. Might even taste better cooked.”

Big Old Black, however, was not having a good time.

He was the bellows and the stoker. He frantically swapped out spent charcoal logs to maintain the kiln’s structure, his movements a blur. The heat had stripped him; patches of his fur were scorched away, leaving him looking like a patchy, sweating bald rat.

THUD!

A dull, heavy sound shattered the silence.

Wu Yuan had stepped forward. He clenched his fist, channeling every ounce of his Blood Qi and Demon Power into his knuckles.

Then, he punched the molten metal.

BOOM!

The cavern shook. The golden liquid rippled violently under the impact.

Wu Yuan pulled his hand back. His skin was cracked, the fur incinerated, and the scent of cooked meat—his meat—filled the air. But he didn’t even blink.

He struck again.

THUD!

“Body Tempering Artifact Refining!”

This was the barbaric, brilliant method outlined in Bibo’s manuals. It was the Demon Race’s style incarnate: Rough, direct, and domineering.

No furnace? Build a pile of charcoal and use Spiritual Qi to hold it together. No hammer? Use your own body.

Demon Beasts were blessed with physiques far superior to humans. By punching the metal directly, Wu Yuan could feel every impurity, every temperature shift, and every realignment of the grain.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Wu Yuan hammered the metal like a possessed machine. Molten copper splashed, sizzling against the rocks. Smoke rose from his fists as flesh burned away to reveal white bone, only to regenerate seconds later under the surge of his vitality.

A day and a night passed.

When Wu Yuan finally stopped, the golden liquid had vanished. In its place hovered a cooling, viscous shape.

It was a mace—specifically, a Gu Duo.

The weapon was the thickness of an arm. It featured a long copper handle topped with a massive, melon-shaped head, ridged with crushing flanges. The pommel tapered into a cruel, armor-piercing spike.

Wu Yuan flexed his claws, watching the last of his skin knit back together over his knuckles.

“Too much material,” he wheezed, wiping sweat from his brow. “If I didn’t have this level of regeneration, my hands would be ash right now.”

He didn’t rest.

“Engraving time.”

He tossed an Ant Crystal into the dying embers. As it melted, releasing a pungent acidic vapor, Wu Yuan manipulated the liquid crystal, weaving it into the cooling copper.

Three complex arrays took shape on the mace’s surface.

[Armor-Piercing] [Thousand Jun] (Heavy Weight) [Mind-Meld]

As the final rune settled, Big Old Black, now almost completely bald, excitedly dragged over a stone trough filled with liquid.

This was no ordinary water. It was Spirit Water laced with First-Grade [Earth Spirit Marrow].

HISS—!

Wu Yuan plunged the mace into the trough. Steam exploded outward. The bright, gaudy gold of the copper instantly darkened, settling into a matte, heavy bronze. The aggressive aura of the metal was tempered, hidden beneath a layer of restraint.

Big Old Black’s eyes sparkled. “Boss! Congratulations! Is that a Middle Grade Magical Artifact?”

Wu Yuan lifted the weapon. It was heavy. Wonderfully heavy.

“No,” Wu Yuan said, shaking his head with a satisfied grin. “Not Middle Grade.”

“But for a Low Grade Artifact… it’s a masterpiece.”