Devouring the Heavens (ATG)

Chapter 31: The Elemental Forge (Part-1)

A/N: Hey guys! I have been on a bit of a roll with writing these last few days and I promised if I wrote more than 4 chapters in a week I would post more, so here is the next chapter a day early.

The next chapter will be tomorrow and the bonus one will be the day after that. You get me?

To anyone concerned about the slow pace of the story... It is a slow story yah. I mean we are 30 chapters in and you only realised now?

To anyone concerned about the romance with Qingyue. Fuck you, she deserves every single letter of fluff I type for her!

In regards to the story pacing, The stuff that is going on at the minute and the skills that he is developing will set up things for the rest of the novel. Meaning that I won't have to pause in the middle of smashing apart canon to explain how the forge works or why the maid is so loyal to them or when Coral became a big bird etc.

I am trying my best for it not to be boring but if it does get that way, constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Anyways, I am a bit of a science guy myself, hence Shane's University background, so I am trying to go with a scientific... ish approach to the elemental laws in this fic. More will come to light on that later, however.

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After taking much longer in the shower than anticipated, obviously thanks to Qingyue's early morning energy, they ate a hearty breakfast and Shane was finally ready to forge some weapons.

He and Qingyue collected the two little chibi beasts in their arms and left the courtyard, heading towards the back mountain where the forge had been set up.

'Xiao Clan really is too kind to provide me with all this space and resources hehe.' Shane thought to himself when they arrived at the hidden clearing

The kids had done a good job making it to his specifications and what stood there was a simple, cylindrical forge with a small chimney, made of stone bricks, and coated in clay. There was also an intake pipe fixed to the side so that he and Dusty could push wind energy through it to increase the temperature.

Shane had given Xiao Che and Lingxi the day off from training, and so they were technically alone but that wasn't good enough for him. He didn't want to take the chance of somebody witnessing what was going to happen here.

He decided to set up the first of the preventative measures and walked in a large circle around the forge, leaving a few meters gap, pouring his energy into the ground and syncing with the earth element in the soil.

After completing a lap, Shane returned to the forge and closed his eyes. Feeling his connection to the Earth below he held out a hand, and slowly lifted it as he called. "Rise!". *Rumble* All around the forge, 3m tall and half a meter thick Earth walls rose up and completely concealed them from view.

The walls themselves were created with his profound energy so, in theory, they would block the profound senses of anyone weaker than him. The forge was deep in the back mountains and Xiao Lie was also keeping a lookout for them, so anyone with a higher cultivation realm was unlikely to pass by.

Even though everything in this world had profound before it, Shane had started to shorten the perfect mixing of his profound energy and an element as just Wind Energy etc. Instead of saying Wind Elemental Profound Energy to himself which was extremely long and annoying to say every time.

Just like before when he mixed his Profound Energy into the ground to take control over the earth element, he would refer to the finished product that allowed him to manipulate the ground as Earth Energy.

Oh, what he wouldn't give for there to be Qi in this universe instead of Profound Energy...

Turning back to his wife who had a rather curious look on her peerless face, Shane took a chair and a small table from his storage for her to sit down on. He placed them against the wall facing the forge and warned. "It's going to get very hot in here soon my dear. Are you sure you want to stay inside?"

Qingyue smiled brightly at his concern and tiptoed to kiss him on the nose. "Naturally as your wife Qingyue will stay and keep you company."

"Where do you think you're going? Hmm," He said as she turned around, reaching out and pulling her back into his embrace before pinching her chin and kissing her deeply. Her arms naturally looped around his neck and his hand slid down her back and onto her delicious buttocks giving it a firm squeeze.

Shane broke the kiss after a few seconds and Qingyue, not realising, continued to chase his lips with a flushed face and hazy eyes. He backed up a little further and pecked her forehead causing her to open her eyes properly, only to see her husband's teasing grin.

Deciding to get in a little payback of her own, she let her arms drop and squeezed her chest against him until those fleshy globes were deforming against his sturdy frame and the little cherries were poking against his skin.

Shane swallowed a mouthful of saliva and his throat went dry, he barely even noticed what Qingyue was doing until she reached around and squeezed his own buttocks. She licked her lips, turned around and slowly sashayed back towards her chair with a slight sway of her hips.

When Qingyue finally sat down, she feigned a stretch in the chair, arching her back and pushing her towering breasts forward while facing him, the whole time her face was sporting a smirk of her own.

Each one of her movements were alluring to the extreme and Shane's eyes shamelessly followed her the entire way. Although she was wearing just a simple blue robe, it didn't detract from her beauty or curves in the least.

She was so captivating, that even after fighting a pair of rounds in the bathroom, he still had to stop himself from taking her right here, right now and the little vixen knew it.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he filled the forge with 'Profound Coal'. Yep, it turns out that if you saturate something with your profound energy, every day for nearly a week, even things as mundane as coal will be classified by the system as 'profound'.

Taking out the skin and fur he removed from the Spirit Profound Panther all those weeks ago, he absorbed half of it into Organic Constructs and used it to form a new pair of shorts, ones that should keep his 'not so little anymore' friend safe from the heat.

*Gulp* As he Stored away all his clothes except for the shorts, exposing his rugged body with its perfect musculature, he heard a loud swallowing sound from behind. Looking down at himself, he nodded and flexed in a way that would perfectly outline the definition of his back muscles against his olive coloured skin.

A sharp intake of breath this time was all he needed to know. 'Heh, who said women are the only ones who can seduce with their bodies!'

Deciding it was time to stop messing around before things got out of hand, Shane called out for his partners. Dusty turned full size, her body and tail taking up most of the space between the back of the forge and the Earth wall, while her head was hovering near the intake pipe.

Coral did the opposite and shrunk down into the size of a little chick. She looked quite proud of herself but Shane didn't care and picked her up into his chest giving her a hundred little kisses. She was just too cute!

Of course, Coral didn't mind the attention and just nuzzled his face while purring contentedly. *Ahem!* His body stiffened as his wife loudly cleared her throat and a few little ice chips bounced off his shoulders.

Coral quickly jumped out of his arms and disappeared inside the forge.

Shane tried really hard to carry on as if nothing had happened, but there was absolutely no way he could unhear Qingyue's jealous mumblings. "I won't let a stupid chicken get ahead of me!"

In the background, Dusty who also heard everything just started her little *hihihihi* sounds of amusement.

Shane facepalmed. 'My life has become a circus.' *Sigh* "Ready girls? Dusty, remember to only manipulate the wind without too much profound energy. We don't want to hurt the little chick now do we." *Phi Phi*

Without warning, an orange glow started spreading outwards from the inside of the forge as it began to ignite. After a few seconds, bright crimson flames took over from the orange and erupted out from within.

Dusty took this as her cue and breathed a huge gust of wind energy into the intake pipe. The temperature increased instantly and Shane, being right in front of the forge, felt it the most.

It couldn't really hurt him but it was still relatively uncomfortable.

A huge chunk of carved and hardened silvery and metallic-looking wood appeared in his hand and Shane unhesitantly began to channel profound energy into his new forging technique.

Gripping the head of his old Warhammer and feeding it into the forge handle first, he was able to melt most of the six-foot shaft within the first 15 minutes. The head of the Hammer itself, took him almost an hour to melt down but by the end of it, he had a large ball of molten silver essence.

Pulling out the Spirit Profound Spear, he pushed it into the forge while motioning for Dusty to increase her wind output. Within minutes, The spear had melted enough for Shane to remove its core and he stored it away.

Now was when the real deviation from the standard forging methods began...

Taking a deep breath and channelling his new technique to the fullest, Shane took control of the raging inferno within the forge and using his Will, he pulled it towards the ball of essence hovering between his hands.

The fire, now infused with a large amount of his Profound Energy, acted as if alive. It wrapped around the molten sphere like a miniature sun

The wind followed shortly after forming a small cyclone around the sphere of fire. A thin stream of Earth Energy rose up from the ground and created a snug barrier around the swirling mass of green energy, containing the heat and projecting Shane's profound pressure inwards.

Lastly, Ice Energy coated Shane's hands as he gently pressed them against the solid outside of the Earth Energy barrier and with a bit of 'Profound Energy shenanigans', allowed it to permeate through.

This was it, his masterpiece! The only technique or skill he could truly say existed due to his own personal hard work and virtue. This was his greatest achievement since coming to this world, bar Qingyue, a self-sustaining forge made from only the elements and held together by his Will!

The only thing it required past the initial expenditure, was a small amount of Profound energy to keep it running, extreme control and a tremendous force of Will.

He called it ...Elemental Forge!

As the cyclone of Wind spun not only did it carry the heat of the flames, evaporating the ice that formed on the inside of the Earth Energy Barrier but also built up static charge due to the friction between the specks of dust carried by itself and the barrier.

This static charge built frighteningly fast and acted as a form of electrolysis to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms from the water vapour created by the evaporated ice.

As a matter of fact, ever since he had first gained the ability to manipulate Wind Energy and felt the flows in the air, Shane had theorised that similar elements existed here as on his earth.

This belief had only strengthened as his Profound strength and connection to the Wind had increased. He could now even slightly feel the weights of different atoms and molecules in the air, allowing him to be sure that the elements were at least similar, meaning Water was still made of Hydrogen and Oxygen.

These two elements, separated from each other out of the water vapour, were then drawn inward, fuelling the central inferno while the cyclone itself stabilised the shape and the Earth Energy held it all in place.

It did look incredibly impressive and remarkably similar to a miniature sun, and with all of the refining he had done over this technique, it was actually extremely stable with little to no outside fluctuations of heat or energy.

For the moment, it was just incredibly hot and only looked the part but perhaps in the future, he would even be able to perfect it to the extent of creating a portable hydrogen fusion reactor as a forge core.

It was a nice dream but one for later, however, as he would at least need to be a high-level Divine Realm practitioner to have the cultivation pressure rivalling the core of a star.

"Amazing" Well, at least Qingyue was impressed. Getting her interested in anything that wasn't cultivation, training or him, was an achievement in itself.

With the Elemental forge stabilised and feeling ready to proceed with the next step, Shane used his profound energy to draw some letters in the air.

A much larger and more unstable version of the Profound Gathering formation used in the bracelet took shape directly in front of him and then attached itself onto the floor below the Forge. It wouldn't last for long but it would hopefully be enough to prevent anything from escaping.

The remains of the spear along with the Spirit Profound core from the Panther momentarily appeared above the Elemental Forge before being sucked into the centre. He could feel the spear melt first and join the essence while the beast core was gradually being purified.

What followed it was a veritable mountain of steel weapons from the bandits and other mineral ores that he dug up in the mountains. They were all refined into essence form and compressed into the molten centre while their impurities burned away to nothing.

As everything melted and merged together and surrounding the purified beast core, the mental pressure increased causing sweat to start running off his body in waves.

Suddenly, Shane's eyes snapped open. "It's time!"

Using a single hand, a pulse of profound energy was sent into the rudimentary formation below and 5kg of Purple veined Divine Crystals appeared on top of it.

That too was sucked into the Elemental Forge, melting almost instantly and turning into a veritable tsunami of Profound Energy that rapidly infused itself into the molten metallic core.

Although lasting just a few seconds, controlling this huge spike in energy drained Shane's mental strength at an extremely frightening pace and his complexion turned a little pale.

After the crystal had been absorbed, the Profound Gathering Formation overloaded almost instantly, shining brightly before bursting into a million motes of light that were also not spared.

Shane let out a breath of relief, in the end, he had still managed to prevent any leakage of aura to the surroundings and therefore any wastage of the crystals.

Feeling as if he could lose control of the Elemental Forge at any moment, he cleared his thoughts, took a few deep breaths and gathered his Will.

In his mind, he began to form a clear image and a single concept. 'Growth'.

Feeling the image firmly, Shane used his full strength to enforce it upon the forge and surprisingly felt it easily take hold, enthusiastically responding to him as if he were a long lost friend.

Excitement bubbled up from within as the connection between himself and what was once a part of him, began to once again grow stronger with each passing second.

Shane stopped supplying Ice Energy to the forge and the fires died down. The cyclone stopped spinning and the Earth barrier crumbled away, leaving a huge chunk of glowing liquid with a black and grey metallic lustre, floating in the air.

Image still clear in his mind, he began shaping the molten substance to his whims. Feeling a lot of his mental strength returned with the demise of the forge, Shane pressed his Will upon the still forming weapon and imbued it with another, lesser, concept. 'Expansion'.

The newly birthed weapon, as if knowing Shane had done all he was capable of, eagerly responded and the forming process sped up. It wasn't long before a huge hunk of brackish looking metal attached to a 2m long Handle had taken shape in the air before him.

It had a large rectangular-shaped head, with two, flat, protruding sides joined to a thick shaft covered in a scaled pattern. The flat sides of the hammer were adorned with an intricate panther head motif that held an obsidian black coloured core in its mouth.

It was a Goddess damned majestic monster of a Warhammer!

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