Forging Immortality: The Undying Blacksmith

Chapter 11: Fierce Tiger

There’s a reason martial artists train through the dead of winter and the peak of summer.

Feng Country was now sweltering in the midsummer heat, while the Extreme Night World remained bitterly cold. Shuttling between these two extremes, Li Qing’s martial arts were advancing at an unbelievable pace.

Roughly seven days after Chiliarch Yuan Xiao had led his troops on their expedition, a cascade of sharp cracks, like bamboo splitting, echoed from within Li Qing’s very bones. He stood in his tent, an oppressive space as hot as a furnace.

*Crack!*

“Whew! The Gu Xuan Hammer Technique… finally at the Novice stage!”

He had spent nearly twenty days combined practicing his stances in both worlds. The constant shock of enduring extreme cold and intense heat had tempered his body in unexpected ways, forging a solid foundation for his martial path.

Li Qing relaxed his posture. He felt a new current of power flowing through him. It wasn’t just raw strength; his very understanding of leverage and force had deepened.

*Whoosh!*

He whipped a palm forward. A shockwave of force erupted from the strike, visibly staggering the flames in the roaring stove.

“Not bad,” Li Qing said, a grin spreading across his face as he withdrew his hand. “I could probably take on two of my former selves now.”

Though he was still a long way from becoming an Outer Force expert, he was more than satisfied.

With Chiliarch Yuan Xiao’s expedition underway, a tense quiet had fallen over the border fortress. News of bandit raids had ceased completely. A few days prior, the imperial court’s grain convoy had even arrived without incident, suffering no ambushes along the way.

Ordinarily, this would have been a relief. But Li Qing couldn’t truly relax, not when the court had also decided to dispatch more troops to the border.

Yesterday, a specific and undeniable message had arrived from the capital: the entire Wuli Army, under the command of General Lü Guanghong, would reach the border fortress within days.

To others, this was the best news imaginable. The cook, Wu Chong, had been so overjoyed he’d eaten several extra bowls of rice. With full granaries and a massive army gathering at the border, what was there to worry about?

Li Qing, however, saw things differently. His sharp mind saw past the surface.

The court wouldn’t mobilize the entire Wuli Army unless war was a certainty.

“Still, it’s not all bad,” Li Qing mused, his resolve to maintain a low profile hardening. “The more people, the more chaos. And in the chaos, who would notice a simple blacksmith’s apprentice?”

The Wuli Army was a behemoth, boasting thirteen chiliarchs and over fifteen thousand soldiers. The forces currently stationed at the border were a mere fraction of its total strength. Every chiliarch was a master in their own right, and the supreme commander, General Lü Guanghong, was rumored to be a legendary Transformation Force Grandmaster.

This army, forged in the crucible of combat, was one of the unshakable pillars of Feng Country.

That night, after dinner, Li Qing returned to his tent. The entire border camp felt subdued in Chiliarch Yuan Xiao’s absence. When the silence of the deep night finally settled, Li Qing crossed over into the Extreme Night World.

This time, however, he didn’t practice his stances. Instead, he laid out the three martial arts he had acquired from the Yan family.

“The martial path cautions against biting off more than one can chew,” Li Qing whispered to himself, “but that wisdom is for mortals bound by a single lifespan.” He unfurled the beast-skin scroll first, the one depicting the *Starving Tiger Pounces on Prey*. He began to absorb its intent.

He didn’t lack time. If he had to, he could spend an eternity slowly grinding his skills to perfection.

“But with chaos brewing at the border, a short-term surge in combat power is a high-yield investment.”

His Gu Xuan Hammer Technique had reached the Novice stage. The path forward was clear: endless repetition of hammer forms until, eventually, he could cultivate Outer Force. This was the path for everyone else—a lifetime dedicated to a single primary art, supplemented by one or two others. Each art had a different focus; unless it was a supreme technique, none could develop the body in its entirety.

Gradually, Li Qing sank into the martial intent woven into the beast-skin scroll. It was the creation of a powerful warrior, and the scroll contained not just the art’s essence, but the very will and martial aura of its creator.

A long time passed before Li Qing slowly opened his eyes. He realized that, without conscious thought, his body had already adopted the posture of a starving tiger about to pounce.

“This art focuses on tempering the limbs. Master it, and you’d be an Inner Force expert at the very least,” a slow smile curved Li Qing’s lips. He continued his silent assessment, “The intent in the scroll is potent, but it’s all spirit and no form. Without seeing a real tiger, it would be incredibly difficult to practice, let alone reach the Novice stage.”

The Yan family had likely banked on this. In this world, where would he ever see a living tiger? How could he possibly comprehend its ferocity? They thought they had given him an impossible task.

They couldn’t have known that the image of a tiger was already seared into his mind from a past life. He’d seen them in zoos and watched countless documentaries. He knew *exactly* what kind of ferocious predator it was.

From the scroll, Li Qing perceived three distinct layers to the art: Tiger Form, Tiger Intent, and Tiger Spirit.

Together, they perfectly embodied the savage power of a great tiger.

“There’s no text, but this method of transmitting an art through pure intent has its merits. It will be a huge help when practicing the levels of Tiger Intent and Tiger Spirit.”

As he spoke, Li Qing flexed his left arm. The muscles and veins bulged instantly, his hand contorting into a menacing claw.

“The creator probably never imagined the sun would one day vanish, making it nearly impossible to find a living tiger to observe.”

“It’s a gift, just for me.”

For the rest of the night, Li Qing lost himself in the practice of this ferocious martial art. He moved through the courtyard, completely absorbed. Over time, a palpable aura of savagery began to cling to him, as fierce and untamed as a wild beast.

He moved like a true predator, leaping and pouncing across the courtyard. His fists and palms sliced through the air, creating sharp, whistling cracks.

After six, nearly eight hours, he finally collapsed out of his stance, utterly spent. Every muscle screamed in protest, a deeper exhaustion than he had ever felt before.

“Hah!”

Sweat poured from him in rivers, steaming in the frigid air as heat radiated from his body in visible waves.

In the pitch-black courtyard, his eyes snapped open, gleaming with a faint, predatory green light.

A tidal wave of hunger and fatigue crashed over him, but his spirit soared. A grin split his face. This art was made for him.

Wide, sweeping, and utterly domineering.