The smith woman, who introduced herself as Kaela, pointed a thick finger toward a jagged ridge of black rock in the distance.

"Iron Hammer City," she said, her voice a low rumble. "Built in the belly of Old Smokey, a volcano that’s been sleeping for a thousand years. If you want real answers about the Sea, you start there. The elders keep the old maps."

She and her crew hoisted their wounded companion, gave Lin Tian’s group a final, appraising nod, and began trudging back the way they’d come, following a nearly invisible path through the fissures.

Lin Tian watched them go, then turned his gaze to the ridge. From here, it just looked like a broken wall of stone under a hazy, orange sky.

Doesn’t look like much of a city.

"Lead on," he said to Lu Cang, who had taken point.

The path Kaela had indicated was less a road and more a series of heat-resistant stepping stones across a river of slow-moving magma. Yue Chan’s silks wove a cooling path ahead of them, the delicate threads hissing where they touched the superheated air.

As they climbed the final slope toward the ridge, the scale of the place began to reveal itself.

The "ridge" was actually the outer rim of a colossal caldera. The city wasn’t on the mountain, it was inside it.

They reached the edge and looked down.

The basin was vast, easily several miles across. The walls were sheer, black glass and hardened basalt, carved with terraces and thousands of openings that glowed with a warm, welcoming light—forge-fire orange, not hellfire red. Massive chains, each link the size of a house, crisscrossed the open space, supporting platforms and entire buildings that hung in the air over the city floor far below. The air here was still hot, but it was a dry, clean heat, scented of metal, ozone, and burning coal.

At the very bottom, in the center of the caldera, a gigantic anvil of pure, dark iron sat upon a dais. Even from this height, Lin Tian could feel the spiritual weight of it, a dense, anchoring presence.

"Now that’s a forge," Lu Cang muttered, his eyes wide.

A single, wide road switchbacked down the inner wall. It was guarded at the top by a gatehouse hewn directly from the volcanic rock. And standing before the gate was the guard.

She was easily eight feet tall, her broad frame corded with muscle that looked carved from the same stone as the city. She wore simple, heavy plates of dull gray metal over leathers darkened by soot and heat. In her hands, resting casually on her shoulder, was a hammer.

Its head wasn’t metal. It was a solid block of slowly churning, semi-molten rock, magma held in a permanent state of fury by some incredible art. It gleamed with a deep, inner light, and the air around it shimmered with heat distortion.

The Gatekeeper’s eyes, sharp and assessing under a heavy brow, tracked them as they approached.

Lin Tian felt the scrutiny like a physical pressure. It wasn’t hostile, just immensely heavy. It was the weight of the mountain itself, judging what sought to enter.

He kept his own aura coiled tight, the balanced chaos of his Ice Flame Qi resting quietly within his Earth Spirit Realm core. He didn’t suppress it, not exactly. He just let it be what it was—dense, deep, and utterly stable.

The giant woman’s gaze lingered on him the longest. She tilted her head, a slight, curious movement.

"Travelers," she said. Her voice was deeper than Kaela’s, a vibration that Lin Tian felt in his chest. "The Burning Plains spit you out, or did you walk through?"

"We walked," Lin Tian answered, his own voice calm in the face of her presence.

"Hm." The Gatekeeper’s eyes flicked over Xueya’s glacial poise, Su Lan’s contained fire, Yue Chan’s intricate silks, and Lu Cang’s battered but unwavering stance. "A strange convoy. Cold and heat, silk and steel. And you."

She focused back on Lin Tian. "You carry your mountain inside you. I can feel it. Not like our forges. Something... else. Older."

She wasn’t asking. She was stating a fact she’d perceived through senses attuned to density and weight. Lin Tian simply nodded, acknowledging the truth of it.

The Gatekeeper grunted, a sound like grinding stones. "That aura. It’s not loud. It’s just... heavy. Solid. You’d make a good foundation for a pillar, or an anvil."

Around them, other smiths and city dwellers were beginning to notice. They were a rugged people, men and women with soot-stained skin and arms thick from a lifetime of hammering. They paused in their work, leaning on tools or wiping brows, their eyes narrowing as they sensed the unfamiliar spiritual pressure.

Lin Tian felt their attention. It wasn’t the fearful suspicion of the Azure Snow Sect, or the calculating greed of rivals. This was a more practical assessment. They valued substance over flash, durability over delicate technique. His "Sovereign" aura, born from the Chaos-Harmony Vessel and the balanced might of two realms, projected exactly that—an unshakeable, foundational strength.

"He’s not leaking heat or cold," a burly man with a braided beard muttered to a companion. "Just... weight. Like he swallowed a piece of the core."

"Foundational density," the companion replied, squinting. "Never felt it from a traveler before. Only from the Elders at the Great Anvil."

The Gatekeeper heard them. She gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod of agreement.

"You have business in Iron Hammer City?" she asked Lin Tian, her tone now carrying a thread of respect.

"We seek knowledge," Lin Tian said. "About the Sea of Eternal Embers."

A ripple went through the gathering crowd at the name. The Gatekeeper’s expression grew more serious.

"That is not a journey for the unprepared. The paths are lost, or hidden. The only maps that matter are kept by the City Lord, and he does not give them to sightseers."

She shifted her magma-mallet to her other shoulder, the motion fluid despite the incredible mass of the weapon.

"But your timing is interesting. The Forging Festival begins at next moon’s rise. One week from now."

Lin Tian kept his face neutral. A festival. Good. "What happens at this festival?"

"The greatest smiths of the clans compete," the Gatekeeper said, a hint of pride entering her resonant voice. "They test their skill, their endurance, and the purity of their spirit against the Heartfire of the city. They forge wonders from the living stone and the singing metal. It is our highest tradition."

She leaned forward slightly, the heat from her hammer washing over them. Su Lan absorbed it effortlessly, a slight, satisfied smile on her lips.

"The grand prize for the champion," the Gatekeeper continued, her eyes locked on Lin Tian’s, "is not a weapon or a treasure. It is a chart. A map inscribed on a slate of star-iron. It shows the only safe passage through the firestorms to the heart of the Sea. To what our ancestors called the ’Center of the World.’ Some say it is the Progenitor Forge itself, where the first metal of creation was shaped."

Lin Tian’s heart beat a little faster. The Progenitor Forge. That had to be connected to the Fragments, to the System’s purpose. A map was exactly what they needed.

So it’s a tournament. A trial of crafting, not combat. He glanced at his own hands. He was no blacksmith.

"The competition," he asked. "Is it only for smiths of your clans?"

The Gatekeeper let out a short, sharp laugh that echoed off the stone. "Anyone may enter, outsider. If you can lift a hammer. If you can withstand the Heartfire’s gaze. If your spirit is strong enough to impress the metal and shape the flame."

Her gaze swept over his group again. "Your... mountain... might be interesting to see under the hammer. The Festival grounds are in the lower basin, near the Great Anvil. Find lodging on the third terrace. The air is cooler there for your frost-wielder."

She stepped aside, a clear dismissal and permission to enter all at once. "The city is open to you. Do not disturb the forges. And remember—strength here is measured in what you can make, not just what you can break."

Lin Tian nodded his thanks and led his team past her, through the monumental arch of the gatehouse and onto the wide road descending into the city.

The sounds of Iron Hammer City rose to meet them—the distant, rhythmic clang of a thousand hammers, the roar of bellows, the hiss of quenching, and the low, constant hum of powerful earth-qi running through the stone like blood.

As they walked, the locals continued to watch, their expressions now more curious than wary. Lin Tian could feel the weight of their expectations, the unspoken challenge in the air.

They value density. Stability. Foundational power. He felt the three bonds at his core—Xueya’s ice, Su Lan’s fire, Yue Chan’s resilient silk—interwoven with his own chaos. It was the most stable, dense foundation imaginable.

He might not know the first thing about forging a sword.

But he knew how to endure. He knew how to harmonize opposing forces. And he knew how to win.

The Forging Festival was in one week. The map to the Progenitor Forge was the prize.

It was time to learn how to be a smith.

End of Chapter 165