Rise Of The Worm Sovereign

~CLANG~ CLANG~ CLANG~

"HAAA~ finally…" Feng placed down the hammer and tossed a flattened piece of metal into the pile next to him.

One could already see over a hundred similar pieces of metal in the pile, all hammered in the same way. Some of them even had faint cracks in them, showing the power with which they had been hammered.

If one looked around, one would see that there were several other such piles in the hall, with many people hammering metal like Feng. The only difference was… Feng's pile was easily three times the size of the average pile here.

His performance was good enough to catch the attention of a few workers.

"Is that really a newbie?" One of the workers wondered.

"Yeah… the way he hammers is like he's a professional blacksmith and not a mere pounder." The worker next to him answered.

A Pounder was basically a crude term for a forge servant. These people weren't exactly blacksmiths since they didn't have the skills of one. Their only job was to hammer crude metal ore and turn them into somewhat flat pieces.

This kind of metal was the most common Grey Iron ore and was used for making both normal and spirit weapons. Pounders basically turned them into flat pieces so that the blacksmiths would save time and could work longer on perfecting the weapon.

Being a pounder was a job that needed no skill, and many people would try their hand at it for money when they had nothing else to do. It was a job with no requirement other than the fact that one needed some strength.

There was always a demand for more Grey iron ore sheets, as it was the most common metal for weapons and thus there was never a lack for the jobs.

But there was also the fact that this was a tough and tiring job. Flattening one piece of the Grey Iron ore gave one 50 copper coins, but it took a long time. An average warrior at the fifth stage of the body tempering realm would take at least an hour to do this.

And if they worked for eight hours, they would make 400 copper coins or 4 silver coins. This amount was enough for one to feed themselves for a week if they ate cheap food. Of course stronger warriors would be able to work more and make more too.

And there was no restriction on how long they could work. If they could, they were welcome to do it for a 100 hours nonstop.

Of course, there wasn't really anyone crazy enough to do that.

It wasn't that there wasn't anyone with that kind of strength and stamina, as cultivators could easily achieve that. But it was the fact that the effort and outcome were not proportionate.

A cultivator who had the strength to work for 100 hours like that may very well do some other job fitting and make 10 times more than that with 10 times less effort.

But for Feng, who had no reputation or identity that could be used here, it was the best job he could do.

The workers and the owner of the Black Sheep Blacksmith didn't care for the identities of who worked as pounders. It was an entry level job and there wasn't much to it.

Though today was the day that they got to see an outlier like Feng.

He was working in robes and had even covered his face with a mask unlike many others who either worked in light clothes or were even shirtless in these hot conditions.

Not to mention, even after having worked for over fifteen hours, the boy didn't seem tired n the one bit while others already had their clothes drenched with sweat.

"You're done?" A buff man saw Feng approaching him with a sack on his back.

"Yes, here's all of them." Feng said before putting the sack down.

~CLANG~

The buff man raised his brows upon seeing the sack and the loud sound it made. He opened its mouth and poured them all out before counting them.

"197… 198… 199… 200… 251.. 252…" The Buff man was a bit surprised. "You really did all this on your own?" he couldn't help but ask.

The man didn't doubt Feng or think that he had stolen these from others, as something like that would have already caused an uproar.

"Yup. Can I get the payment?" Feng replied.

"Yeah, come with me." The buff man said talking Feng to the upper floor through a different staircase this time.

~Creak~

The wooden door opened, and a cool breeze blew from it making Feng feel comfortable.

'I forgot just how hot it was down there… this new body is amazing!' Feng was amazed.

When he had just entered the forging hall, he was a little uncomfortable from the heat, but  in just a few minutes he had adapted to it, forgetting he was in a hot place.

It was a strange thing that he would have never imagined in the past.

"This pounder needs to be paid." The buff man spoke to a clerk sitting at a desk.

The clerk was reading something and furrowed his brows upon hearing the man's words.

"And why would you come to me for that? Aren't pounders supposed to be paid by you?" The clerk said with an irritated expression.

"Yes, but I'm only allowed to do transactions lower than 1 gold coin." The buff man said, not minding the clerk's irritated face.

"What? Do you mean to say some pounder made more than that?" The clerk asked.

"Yes, he did. About 252 pieces." The buff man replied. "And I counted it twice." The man added before the clerk would rebuke.

"Hmm… fine then." The clerk didn't ask anymore and took out several coins from the desk.

"1 gold and twenty six silver coins. Count them." The clerk said before handing it to Feng.

Feng counted all of them at a glance and stored them away in a pouch before leaving without a word.