The second day began like the first, with the silent, intense work of mending his own spiritual foundation. The Foundation Stabilization Meditation was becoming familiar, the pathways of his own Qi less like tangled threads and more like a schematic he was slowly learning to read and repair. The System's report of [Spiritual Core Integrity: +0.6%] was a welcome confirmation. He was getting stronger.
With his cultivation complete, he turned his focus to the day's main task: construction. Today, the architect would become a blacksmith and a tailor.
His first job was to craft the Forge-Quenched Obsidian talons. He selected a large, flat slab of granite as his workbench. Unfurling his new tool roll, he selected a fine-tipped engraving chisel. The tool felt perfectly balanced in his hand, a world apart from the crude, sharp stones he had been using. With it, he began to carve the diagram for his micro-forge array directly into the granite slab. The steel cut into the stone with a crisp, satisfying scrape, leaving behind a clean, precise line. This was control. This was a craftsman's work.
Once the array was carved, he placed a Hearthstone fragment in the center. Channeling his Qi, the array flared to life, but instead of a diffuse glow, the energy was focused by the carved channels into a single, brilliant point of white-hot light at the array's nexus.
Using the salvaged forging tongs, he picked up his first obsidian shard and held it in the focal point of the heat. The shard, black as night, began to glow, turning a dull red, then a cherry-red, then a shimmering orange-white. He held it there until the System confirmed it had reached the optimal temperature.
Then, with a swift, practiced motion, he plunged the glowing shard into the quenching bath—the tub of cold water saturated with metallic dust.
TSSSSSSSSSS!
A violent hiss erupted as a plume of steam exploded from the bath. The water churned, and for a moment, the shard glowed even underwater before darkness reclaimed it. He pulled it out with the tongs. The obsidian was transformed. Its glossy sheen was gone, replaced by a hard, matte, gunmetal-grey finish. Its surface was covered in a network of faint, crystalline patterns, a result of the super-heated structure being force-cooled and infused with metal.
[Analysis Complete: Forge-Quenched Obsidian shard created. Hardness increased by 312%. Brittleness reduced by 87%. Properties are now comparable to low-grade spiritual steel.]
A grim smile touched Li Chen's lips. It was a success. He spent the next several hours patiently repeating the process, forging a small pile of deadly, super-hardened talons.
Next came the gauntlets and boots. He cut the base shapes from a large piece of tough, yet pliable, basilisk hide he scavenged from a discarded suit of armor. Then began the painstaking task of weaving. Using a sharpened piece of wire as a needle, he threaded the tough Ironwood fibers through the hide, creating the cross-hatched reinforcing mesh he had designed.
With the base constructed, he prepared the adhesive polymer. He mixed the Silverwood sap with charcoal dust ground from burnt Ironwood, creating a thick, black, sticky paste. He carefully applied it to the palms, fingers, and soles of the hide gear. Using a gentler, more diffuse version of his forge array, he baked the paste until it cured into a tough, black, rubber-like material that was incredibly tacky to the touch.
The final step was assembly. He meticulously attached the Forge-Quenched Obsidian talons to the fingertips and toes, setting them in place with a final, powerful application of the polymer, which he cured until it was as hard as the stone itself.
After nearly a full day of non-stop work, he was finished. He held up a gauntlet. It was a brutal, purely functional piece of equipment, a far cry from the elegant artifacts master craftsmen might create. But it was his. Every part of it was born from his intellect, his will, and the ashes of his fallen sect.
It was time for a test.
He slipped on the gauntlets and boots. They fit snugly. He walked to one of the remaining sheer stone walls inside the ruins of the Grand Archive. He took a breath, reached up, and pressed the fingertips of one gauntlet against the vertical surface. The polymer pads seemed to suction themselves to the stone, and the obsidian talons bit into microscopic imperfections. He put a little weight on it, then a little more. He placed his other hand, then his feet.
Slowly, incredulously, he began to climb. He was scaling a perfectly smooth, vertical wall. He stopped, five meters off the ground, holding his entire body weight on the grip of his hands and feet. The gauntlets held firm.
He hung there for a long moment, a lone figure clinging to the ruins of his past, suspended by the creations of his future. He had the tools. The path to the Heart of the Mountain was no longer impossible. It was just a climb.
[End of Day 2 of 3.]
[Body Integrity: 55%.]
[Status: Equipped for ascent.]