Cave of Muni Naga...
Kent marked another line on the wall to keep track of the ti for Golden Heir tournant. He then moved close to the furnace.
The furnace was a massive thing — shaped like an open-mouthed dragon biting into the ground, its ridges lined with ancient scales, each carved with old spell chains. It hadn’t been used in centuries, and yet, with Kent’s care over the past weeks, it had beco more alive than ever.
Kent laid out three Molten Sun Crystals, crushed Wind-Quartz, and a jar of Naga Bone Ash — the fuel formula Muni Naga had passed him the day before.
He whispered the first chant:
"Breath of the Deep Fla, rise with rhythm."
The furnace groaned. The air around it twisted.
Kent pressed his palm to the core array and injected pure Storm Qi.
The sound of the fire awakening was like the first heartbeat of a beast long caged — thud, thud, ROAR!
Flas surged upward, licking the runes on the ceiling. The temperature skyrocketed, and yet the fire didn’t go wild. It followed Kent’s rhythm — pulsing to the beat of his breathing.
Muni Naga watched in silence, nodding once.
"The bow must be alive," he muttered. "Not cast like a sword... but breathed into form. A weapon with will.
With the flas burning stable, Muni Naga moved — and even Kent had to step back.
For the first ti since their eting, the old forgemaster revealed the elegance of his legendary craft.
Now he hovered above the forge, his long arms extending in four directions, spirit tools floating around him — tongs made of jade wind, chisels humming with heat, hamrs carved from ancient beast bone. His bare chest bore twelve soul seals, each glowing one by one as he entered a state of Pure Crafting Harmony.
He summoned a floating block of tal — no ordinary tal, but a Heaven-Iron Star Core, dark as night with veins of shimring light that blinked like constellations.
"This will be the skeleton of your bow," he said.
He began to shave it.
Not with strength.
But with precision so refined, even wind would hesitate to cut that clean.
Each shaving peeled away as if the star core wanted to beco sothing more.
Kent stood in silent awe.
"What technique is this?" he whispered.
"The Silent Breath Tempering," Muni Naga answered without turning. "A skill taught only to eight beings in history — and I outlived the other seven."
The tools danced around him, responding to the movent of his fingers, his tail, even his heartbeat. It was like watching a symphony of fla and steel — and Muni Naga was the composer.
He asured the curve of the bow fra by tracing celestial arcs in the air.
He infused the softened core with Dragon Vein Lines, binding its form to the soul of the beast tals Kent had gathered from the abyss.
"Your bow must not only be strong," he said, eyes glowing, "it must grow with you. It must absorb your wrath, your patience, your victories. Only then will it obey you."
The furnace roared again.
Kent poured more fuel into it. The Naga Bone Ash cracked and released violet embers, enriching the fla with spirit-resonance.
The tools spun faster.
Runes ignited in the air.
tal humd as if singing back to its forger.
Hours passed.
Kent never moved far. He maintained the fla with precision, balancing its heat, pressure, and flow just as he’d been trained. But his eyes never left Muni Naga’s hands.
He watched how the master folded storm essence into the bow’s core. How he spun liquid qi threads into tension lines. How he did not strike the tal — he persuaded it to beco sothing more.
"We will not cast the bow," Muni Naga said, as his tools gently pressed the tal into the first gentle curve.
"We will invite it to be born."
Kent’s chest filled with awe.
The process was only beginning — the foundation not even complete — yet the presence in the air already felt divine.
And as Muni Naga raised the unfinished fra, steam and sparks rising around it, even the abyss seed to quiet for a mont... as if watching, too.
The furnace blazed, spitting tongues of white-hot fire that made the very air shimr. The deeper chambers of the Ancestral Naga Forge felt less like a workshop now and more like the belly of a divine beast, alive with heat, sparks, and rhythmic breath. The Eternal Forge had awakened — and so had Kent.
The ti for shaping had co.
The Shaftof the Divine Bow
Laid across a wide stone anvil was the Heaven-Iron Star Core, now refined into a long, dark bar of dense tal glowing faintly at the edges. Lightning veins crackled across its body — silent, hungry, alive. The shaft was only partially tempered, still resistant, still raw. It needed force now — not to break it, but to discipline it.
Kent walked to it, hands already wrapped in black-forged leather grips, and reached out.
He placed a hand on the shaft — it pulsed under his palm like a wild spirit.
"Still too proud..." he muttered.
He turned toward the hamr stand, where a single weapon awaited him — an enormous Soulbound-Hamr, twice the size of a human torso, forged by Muni Naga himself centuries ago for shaping spiritual cores.
Its handle was wrapped in crimson hide from a Fla Whale, its head etched with thunder inscriptions. It weighed nine hundred jin, yet Kent lifted it with steady-breath, the way a king lifts his sword — not easily, but rightfully.
"Start shaping the body," Muni Naga said from his runeslab, not looking up. His voice was sharp, clear. "I want the bow’s curvature to match a crescent moon in the Third Heaven layer. You have five strikes per inch. No more."
Kent nodded, eyes narrowed. He inhaled deeply, then raised the hamr.
THUD!
The sound echoed like a drum across the abyss chamber.
The shaft groaned, bending slightly, sparks flying like angry fireflies.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Sweat burst across Kent’s brow. He didn’t pause. Each swing was deliberate — tid with his exhale, angled by instinct, strength layered with storm qi channeled through the hamr’s grip.
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